Mark Bell's Power Project - The Ultimate Approach To Losing Fat and Keeping It Off

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

In this Podcast Supercut, Mike Israetel, Spencer Nadolsky, Brad Kearns, Anthony Chafee, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about all the things you need to do in order to lose weight and keep it off.   Check out the full episodes:   https://youtu.be/qhXiMJ639EU   https://youtu.be/2xgu9-bAutI   https://youtu.be/o2IKCax1tZk   https://youtu.be/NRRO3PFMOqQ   https://youtu.be/WdxmBYjhUdg   The Ultimate Approach To Losing Fat and Keeping It Off   0:00 Trailer 0:32 Why Processed Foods Make You Keep Weight On 13:44 How Mike Israetel Trains For Weight Loss 24:00 The Power Of Diet And Lifestyle For Better Health 33:13 Which Protein Is Best For Weight Loss? 40:32 Nadolsky's Tips For Maintaining Weight Loss 49:22 The Biggest Case Against Processed Foods   New Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep!   ➢ https://marekhealth.com Use code POWERPROJECT10 for 10% off ALL LABS at Marek Health! Also check out the Power Project Panel: https://marekhealth.com/powerproject Use code POWERPROJECT for $101 off!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Let me tell you how insidious these like processed foods are. When you eat that processed food, you produce endotoxins. It's internally manufactured toxins that interfere with your ability to burn fat. I've yet to see an autoimmune condition not benefit dramatically from this sort of elimination diet. And you can think of it as even without 100% adherence. Yes. They tend to be able to overeat protein, have a potentially same or slightly increased caloric amount, but they continue to trend down as far as fat loss is concerned. When people say a calorie is not a calorie,

what they should probably be saying is a macronutrient, not a macronutrient. Let me tell you how insidious these like processed foods are, like Oreos, etc. Because I packed all that stuff up and I took it home in a plastic bag and it was just sitting on the dining table and i was there and and because it was in the house i was just like let me just let me see how insidious this can be i need to test this out so i can try to relate to people who eat a lot of this food and i tried an oreo and then i had the whole thing and i was like damn that's rough and then i had to take a nap and this is the thing i'm someone who doesn't, number one, I don't buy that stuff. I bought it for the video, but the fact that it was even there,

it called to me, you know, I, like I, I wasn't fucking with you guys when I said I can eat a lot of food. So I ate that whole fucking thing. I'm just like, God, yeah, this is why I don't keep this type of shit in the house because I will 100% eat that shit. You can see how shit slides downhill, right? Like you can, you can, uh, some days you're like, okay, I'm going to go to jujitsu or for me, I'm going to go run. I'm going to run it. Like I'm going to run it like two 30 and then I'll pick up Quinn cause I've been super dad this week cause my wife's out of town.

What the fuck time is it by the way? Oh no. Oh shit. Pick up one 15. Oh, we're good. Okay, good. I can't forget my daughter. Yeah.

Whoops. Forgot her again. Forgot that I have children. Well, it's just real easy to talk yourself out of it, and especially with that influence of like shitty food. Like if I was to eat something that's just a little bit off, that doesn't kind of fall in line with what I'm about to do next, which would be exercise, then I would be like, ah, I'll just stay here and then I'll go pick her up.

And then I pick her up and then it's time for dinner and so on. And then it's like, well, I didn't have any time to get to the gym. And it's like, well, you sabotaged yourself. You have some junk food in the house. That's temptation. It's going to be easier to side up with that temptation. And what we're trying to communicate to you guys in general all the time on this podcast is how do we set up the habits that you're going to fall into and be stuck in?

How do we make those more difficult when it comes to eating candy and eating sugary things and eating things that we can all get excited about? How do we make that more difficult? And how do we make all the inverse of about. How do we make that more difficult? And how do we make all the inverse of that? How do we make that stuff easier? And that's actually why I mean, that's why I do like these. Because number one, towards my goals, it's packed with protein. It doesn't have excessive calories.

And these are actually very hard to overeat. Although they taste really fucking good, I can't put five of these down comfortably. I can do two to three. What is that? 60 grams of protein and 15 grams of net carbs? It seems very reasonable to eat two of them because maybe you have two different flavors. So you're like, I'll try this one. I'll try that one.

That's good. But past that, it doesn't feel comfortable eating more. But with Oreos, with Pringles, with Doritos, with any of these, they're made to chomp, chomp, melt in your mouth, put more in your mouth. You want to eat more and more and more. That's why we don't fuck with this. That's why I don't even tempt myself with it because I know this is going to be really easy

for me to overeat. And that's why you need to figure out in your house right now, what are those foods? Whether it's granola cereal, whether it's anything that you tend to be like, oh, when you eat a lot or when you binge, those are the things you binge on. Those are the things that you need to get out of your house so they're not easy. You can't just easily get it. I know that you can go to the grocery store and purchase this and bring it home, but that takes a level of foresight. That takes a level of, okay,

I'm going to make the decision to go out of my way to go to the store to get this this and bring it home. But that takes a level of foresight. That takes a level of, okay, I'm going to make the decision to go out of my way, to go to the store, to get this food and bring it back. That's a bit harder. And typically, if you have the right foods in your house, if you have good amounts of protein, if you have some, if you want potatoes or whatever, these types of real whole foods that we talk about all the time,

if you keep these foods in the house, chances are that you'll be like, okay, let me just try to make this or make this food instead of going out and making a bad decision. You actually need to think yourself through it. I think something that I observed in just like, I don't know, this exploration of like eating and nutrition and stuff over the years is that I agree with you heavily on the meals at meals type thing. And we should utilize snacks sparingly. I also think there's moments to just enjoy stuff. You go to a picnic, you go to a party, and you have equated for this scenario. And you're like, you know what, I'm going to have some chips. I'm going to, like my favorite part of going to a

party, I love eating, you know, the potato chips, then go ahead. That totally sounds reasonable. And you can still utilize some of the information that we share, which is protein leveraging, intermittent fasting, or you can completely say fuck it for the day or two, but hopefully those other disciplines will come back in of walking and lifting and so on. But what I've noticed when it comes to a snack, I think it's a good rule of thumb. If it doesn't have approximately 10 calories per 100 – I'm sorry. It doesn't have approximately 10 grams of protein per 100 calories. I just noticed everything kind of working in these numbers of 10.

So per every 100 calories, it has approximately 10 grams of protein. That's a good rule of thumb. And I say approximately because you could have like a cheese stick and a cheese stick could be like 80 calories and like seven grams of protein or whatever, right? I think it's a good rule. So if you want to just snack and eat like an apple, there's absolutely nothing wrong with eating an apple, but maybe you have like yogurt with it or you have something with it that has some protein in it. And even an apple by itself is satiating and functional because an apple has fiber in it. So you could potentially even just eat the apple by itself. And when it comes to like fruit and those kinds of things, you don't need to get too stuck on those things because these are natural foods. And if you're doing a good job sticking with natural foods, again, you're not going to end up overeating.

But something like these legendary Pop-Tarts, there's a lot of fake health products out there. And what I would consider to be like – I hate to say it that way, fake health, because I don't want to like make fun of or point the finger at particular companies that make products because I think there's room for all these products. And I think it's great that people are trying to make things healthier. However, you can still end up overeating. And again, with these Pop-Tarts, these legendary tasty pastries, it's just more difficult to overeat them. They have a low, they're fairly low calorie. So in the options and in the things that you want to try to surround yourself with, if you are going to occasionally have a snack,

because I think something like a Tastery Pastry at work at, you know, one o'clock in the afternoon or 1230 when you start to kind of feel like you're taking a nosedive and you get a little tired, would probably serve you really well, would probably be fantastic. Then maybe at three o'clock you have an apple and then maybe at five you lift weights. And then maybe that's your day and you go home and you eat dinner and you repeat. Like that sounds fucking awesome. That sounds like a healthy plan. So try to stick to that 10 grams of protein per about 100 calories. And I think that you'll find that your snacking will

also be something that is helping to add to your total protein for the day. Like I think most of what you eat in the day, a good percentage of it should be fairly functional. Like what is something you can kind of throw out the window and it can be a little bit of, there's probably not a lot of wiggle room for that if you're already heavy at the moment what's your um what's your guys stance on like some alternatives um so one my like go-to you know i like fizzy drinks so it's either gonna be uh like club soda or whatever the fuck it's called uh soda water or like a zero calorie soda um i think those are fine but then you can kind of get lost into the other things where like, again, Mark, you were just saying like some of these other companies, they make fake health. Just because a label says like, oh, it's keto friendly doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be low calorie and stuff like that.

But I was watching my boy Nick Exercise for Cheats YouTube channel and he was doing a review on a company called nix i don't know if you guys have heard of it n-i-x ice cream yeah it's like n-n-i-c-k but it's exclamation point i'm familiar with it it's delicious i haven't even tried it but i did go get some because we're grocery shopping they make like ice cream sandwiches and the whole sandwich is only like 300 calories or something it looks phenomenal i got, but I was just looking at it. I'm just like, man, like, yes, it's, if I was even going to eat ice cream, it would be better to go with this ice cream. But I ended up making yogurt with within you protein and threw some blackberries in there. It's fucking phenomenal. I highly recommend it because in my opinion, if, if you are like, if you have a lot of weight to lose,

making those alternatives, I think is just like a no brainer. Like if you have to have it, you should go for it. If you're in a position like me where it's like, well, shit, summer's coming up. I would like to see a little bit more ab definition.

Swapping those things out is going to kind of get me there. Getting rid of them completely will get me there a little bit quicker, if that makes sense. But in general. It also might derail you though, right? If you're trying to be too strict, right?

Right, yeah. Remember our guy Bruce that came on? And he's actually been in the Discord on the accountability side. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Bruce Bruce. And Bruce is like, he's moving forward right now. He's back on it. But he said he managed to lose a hundred pounds actually was it a hundred pounds he lost a lot he went from like two 330 to 230 then 230 to 380 yeah

right and then before i keep forgetting dude but shout out to uh jordy shoals uh he dropped us a super chat on an episode now at this point like a couple episodes ago so sincerely appreciate that and this is what he said he said uh mark you are one of the reasons I got into lifting years ago. Now I'm starting my own personal training business. Thank you again, brother. So that's pretty fucking cool. Awesome. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Sorry, I keep forgetting and I just wanted to throw that in there now. But I want to mention Bruce, right? He lost the weight. But the thing is, is like he had a lot of like it was too restrictive. And I get the aspect of wanting to stay away from certain things so you don't open the floodgates. But there's also a level of allowing your Nick's ice cream.

Can you responsibly allow this ice cream in without it going too hard? Is it good enough to give you that taste that you're looking for but you're not going to end up having three barrels? Because a Ben & Jerry's pint is like 1,000 calories or 800 to a thousand calories i can put that down so that's that's definitely not good right but this nick's stuff yeah it's a healthier option yeah on the high end for the the peanut butter cup because you know i'm gonna get the peanut butter cup flavor it was 370 calories for the whole thing and so i'm like even if i lose my shit and i eat the whole thing i'm still gonna'm still going to be okay. It's two of these in terms of caloric amount.

Yeah, and those have way more protein. Way more protein. These, I mean, moderate protein. It was a more calorie thing. But yeah, I was just curious for people listening, what's your guys' stance on those sort of things? Better is better. So whatever way you got to figure that out. Sometimes from a financial standpoint, it might be difficult because there's – They are expensive.

A lot of these things can be pricey. That's another good thing though. But it's a positive in a way. It's almost like a tax. It's like a chubby guy tax. You can look at it that way and it's a little bit harder to have access to it all the time. Something that I like to do and I like to practice is I like to have some stuff in my house that allows me to occasionally eat a lot more calories than normal. Could be something as minor as like cheese and it could be something as, or it could be something that's loaded with even more calories like heavy

cream. I'll buy some of these things here and there, but it's pretty sporadically. I'll go through it, then I won't have it for a bit. So I'll, I'll go through time periods where I eat a lot more calories just because of my food choices. These are still things that play into my diet though. Um, I was thinking like even just a couple of days, like every once in a while, I just get hungry. I'm like, I'm fucking hungry. I don't know if it's like bored. I don't know if it's real hungry, hunger or fake hunger or what it is, but you guys see me like, you know, I went from three 30 down to like two 70 and down to like two 50. And then now I've been like two 40 to 30. Now I'm like getting, pushing into these like two 20 numbers. Like these are

not, this is not, um, it's not uncomfortable for me, but it's new territory for me as an adult. So it's like it's a little weird to navigate. So I'm like, just fucking relax. If you're hungry, fucking eat. Don't be crazy person about it. Fucking eat. And don't even worry. Like if for a couple days, like you puff up a little bit, you get a little bigger, you're a little stronger, you're a little this or that. Who gives a fuck?

You're still on course. you're still following the plan and uh allow it to have a little play allow to have a little bit of wiggle room but i think it's really important for individuals to understand two things one is can you be a person that plays in the gray area or are you very black and white about what it is that you do? Beef. Power Project family, it is grilling season. Now, I really don't know much about grilling since I use an air fryer at home. My boy Andrew does though. So since it's grilling season, it's time to get your hands on some P. Monty's beef. We love those glizzies. We love that beef. Andrew, tell them more about it. Yeah, guys. So like you mentioned, they do have those glizzies. Hey, yo!

For those that don't know, that's just a hot dog, but it's an all-beef hot dog, and it's amazing. My favorite thing to smoke is their prime rib, though. And, you know, it's grilling season, so dust off those grills, dust off those smokers, and head over to cpbeef.com. And at checkout, enter promo code POWER to save 25% off your order. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. Get your glizzy goblet on. This is a wild thing. You're 250 pounds. I was curious. Drug free.

For today? Before we got on the mic. Last five minutes. Before we got on the mic, I was curious what your weight would be if you weren't. You mentioned that you were 270 before anything. Yeah, yeah.

How? Whole milk and a willingness to tell your digestive system that while it does get a say in what happens, it doesn't get all the say. Oh, I'm not hungry. Shut up, body. More food, lifting weights, watching cartoons in the morning,

just like any American kid. God dang. American. Yeah, no, it sucked, but like basically, when did I, fuck it, I'll just talk about it, whatever. I was 27 when I hopped on. And before then I had gotten up to, well, so my freshman year of high school, I was, I wrestled 103.

I was like 5'2 or something. I was huge. People feared me when they could spot me in a crowd. And then I started lifting weights more or less the summer of my freshman to sophomore year. And I was, I wrestled 119 my sophomore year. Then I wrestled 135 junior year. And then I wrestled9 my sophomore year. Then I wrestled 135 junior year. And then I wrestled 160 my senior year. And I kept lifting weights.

And then my freshman year of college, I was 180. Sophomore year of college, I was 200. Junior year, I was a significantly fatter, but I felt still pretty sexy, 220. Did you wrestle in college too? I didn't. I just power lifted in college. Okay. Yep.

Wrestled, but it wasn't what you would call competitive wrestling. More like cooperative wrestling on camera. I didn't mean to look at you for a very long time when I said that. Or did I? Apartment wrestling, right? Yeah, you know, like a barn, apartment, alley. That used to be frowning. Back of a van.

Now you got OnlyFans. You can make a lot of money. Well, also, if you have a van properly rigged up with 3D cameras, little mattress, stinky mattress

in the bottom of an unmarked van. That was much earlier in my childhood. Yeah. I didn't mean to

get into that so fast. But in any case, let me finish the actual story. Not a lot of windows. What the hell

are we talking about? Zero windows. Are you kidding me? Only God can. Not a lot of windows. What the hell are we talking about? Zero windows. Are you kidding me? Yeah, only God can see in there. Also Satan. Anyway, 220, drug-free, junior year, pretty fat. I got up to, early in grad school, I got up to 255, very drug-free and very fat. And I was like, blah.

I felt like shit. so I got a little lighter and then over the course of my PhD program I worked back up to 270 I remember weighing in at 280 in the evening drug free fat but strong and I had muscle it was probably like 30% body fat

which is a lot but it's not like untrained and then I decided that I was going to make a nice relationship with chemical substances that we started our romance and I was 27 and then I never got to 270 again, but I was a leaner version of every single body weight. So I came back down and then up, down and up. And right now I'm like 250. And, you know, it looks pretty cool.

Much, much leaner 250 than I have ever been. And you can breathe while talking behind a mic. That's one, like you see a lot of guys like 250. And you're not that sweaty yet. Yeah. Well, this is California, so you guys don't have humidity. I may never sweat here. Yeah. In Michigan, I just sweat all the fucking time. Damn. It don't have humidity. I may never sweat here in Michigan. I just sweat

all the fucking time. Damn. It's a great place. Um, so when you, you made that switch and you got on some stuff, you were, were you attempting to get leaner or did it just kind of just part of the process? Um, the only reason I got onto stuff was to see how far my body could go. And I began to attempt to get leaner very shortly after getting on. And it worked. And I was like, holy shit. Except I didn't really know anything about managing like more or less estrogen side effect and androgen side effect body water. So I was bloated as all hell and messed up my first several bodybuilding shows, just have no idea about body water. Then I got with Broderickavez, farm coach, basically.

And after some trials and tribulations, we solved that problem. And then voila, striated glutes. And then I post them on Instagram. They fucking banned me for that shit. So that's why you made that new account? Your glutes look great. Of course you can swear. I don't know.

This is a family podcast. PG-13. You folks look nice, you know. Glutes. How much did you weigh there? Don't post PG-13. You folks look nice, you know. Glutes. Ah! How much did you weigh there? Don't post that, bro. We're going to get fucking canceled.

You want your YouTube canceled? No, we're good. How much did I weigh? The fuck if I know? What does it say? Anything? And Tima has good... I like the first comment.

Gay. Oh, somebody commented that? Yeah. That's nice. You know, I'm not going to repeat that word. Let me see here. Real fast. So if that was from earlier, late last year, I must have weighed about 230 there.

Wow. Anywhere between 225 and 230. And you got on stage at that point too? So I got on stage. I weighed in at 225.4. And then I actually got on stage at 217. Because my body stores a ton of water. Holy shit.

222. What the hell happened to his glutes? Wow. And are those your underwear? Yes. Digital rendering. Do you guys want to know a really crazy secret? I was naked in that picture.

Oh, my goodness. Don't tell anybody. And it is actually really funny how many people on Instagram will draw attention to that. I always go with them to see how far they'll keep taking it. But it turns out there was just one awkward remark. They're like, Dr. Mike, are you really naked? I'm like, yes. Do you want to know more?

Like, no, not really. I was like, why'd you ask? You could have answered that question for yourself. God damn it. Can't you see it's digital underwear? Yeah. Zoom in. Do you guys do a lot of this on Instagram?

You scroll, scroll, and then you're like. Yes. No. Yes. I didn't even know you could do that. My eyes just aren't that great. No, it's an eye thing. It's not a pervert thing.

No, of course not. That's what I tell myself. Yeah. Zoom in and check it out a little further. Investigation. Investigation. I like,

yes, I'm like a law enforcement officer in some sense in my own head, but the law is people's butt cracks. I want to see on Instagram. I'm enforcing it. I don't know. Yeah. I had nothing after that.

So having this doctor sciencey background stuff um how much of the science are you able to utilize in your own training and in in assisting other people uh because like studies on uh like biomechanics and studies on like stuff related to squats and deadlifts and these various things can sometimes be hard to extract information from from time to time due to the way the study is done and due to the fact that people are just so different. So how do you, I guess, rely on some of that science to incorporate into the way that you might help people or even help yourself?

Yeah, great question. So there are different levels to science. There is basically a spectrum in science of basic all the way to applied. Like basic science kind of tells you how chemicals work and how structures work, how physics works. And all the way to super applied science is like glute ham raise technique, two different ways. We study two subjects and figure out which one quote-unquote works best.

And I think that applied stuff is what most people sort of resonates with them as oh this is science for training they read one you know pubmed article that's like answers a very very specific question about an exercise or something like that but most of the science that we use at rp is a more basic maybe intermediate science of like, well, how do joints work? How do muscles work? How does muscle growth happen? Taking a look at all the training studies or as many of them as we can find altogether, what can we tease apart as far as like generally what is good technique? Like is it a good idea to go for the deep stretch? We look that up and there's like a dozen studies that say tension under deep stretch for the muscle is more muscle growth promoting than just going through a partial range.

So we look at that and we go, okay, it's probably a good idea. But we also know that there are pretty decent proxies in the gym that you can feel yourself that have been scientifically validated at least some extent to correlate to growth so you can be your own guide. So you just, like, read science and go do shit. You're like, I hope science works this time. You go, okay, like what are the downstream effects of training really hard? Well, for example, if you're training your quads, if the muscle itself feels weak after training, if the muscle itself gets crampy or strained, you know, like when you really like overdo your quads, you're like, I can't, I don't know what's going on.

Am I, is my knee locked out or not? Soreness, pump, those are all pretty well mechanistically tied to muscle growth, either as causes of it or as kind of symptoms of the process that made muscle grow. So if someone, you know, if you see, if you derive a good exercise technique from science, you think, ah, this should work. If you try it and it feels like, fuck, I'll happen to your quads, for example, you're like, eh, I guess science, you you know zig when it should have zagged or something but if you try it and you're like holy shit my quads then you're probably onto something you do that process enough and then you develop a set of

general principles from technique general principles for training frequency exercise selection etc etc and all of a sudden you have the drumroll scientific principles of hypertrophy training available on amazon it's a book i wrote a little book you know a lot of selfies of my genitals in there but if you can get through that part you'll learn a lot they're blurred um that's what the lawyers say we should say good they're not always blurred there's a printer issue that's what it was it was difficult to blur them we can get caught up in the science and things like that, and we can talk about evolution and all these different things. But what have you personally been seeing?

Because I know you actually work with a lot of people. You are suggesting this diet to a lot of people. Are you actually coaching people with this diet and stuff like that too? And what have you seen the diet do, in your opinion, that it's actually doing for people? Yeah, well, so I do have a practice outside. So I'm a neurosurgical resident, and so that takes up a lot of my time.

But when I do have a free sort of day, weekend, or what have you, I work in a private practice in a functional medicine metabolic health clinic. And so we have a lot of lifestyle interventions as part of our treatment. We're trying to get people off of medications. We're trying to get them well so they don't need all the interventions and surgeries and medications and things like that.

And we're quite successful at that. And diet is a major, major part of that, diet and lifestyle exercise, things like that. Fasting sometimes for dependent on the situation. But I found that getting people obviously on a whole foods diet is going to improve things a lot. I find that getting people onto, when we can get them onto a carnivore diet, they help their health dramatically. We have a lot of obese patients that come in and need help with that. And this is very helpful for weight control

and reducing excess body fat, feeling better in general. And then we have a lot of people that just come in because they're just not feeling great. They know something's off, but they don't have, they're not bad enough to have just a diagnosis, like this person has this disease. And so generally, endocrinologists, you either have

absolutely you know no cortisol and you have addisons or you have way too much and you have cushings anything between is norm whatever i don't want to deal with it and so obviously you can be very unwell and not feeling great if that's slightly off and so those are those are people that we end up catching up because they're like look something's wrong my doctor's telling me i'm fine but i know I'm not fine. And then they'll come to us and we'll see, actually, like this is a little off and this is a little off and this is a little off. And you're sort of borderline on all these sorts of things. And we try to help them out and optimize their health in those sorts of ways. And it does help.

And I find that just a carnivore diet or at least a meat-heavy diet where we're sort of eliminating out a lot of other things it's certainly eliminating out processed foods and a lot of carbs like even just trying to do a ketogenic meat-based diet is very helpful we have a lot of patients with autoimmune diseases i have yet to see an autoimmune condition not uh benefit dramatically from from this sort of elimination diet and you you can think of it as even without a hundred percent adherence. Yes. Like if someone's like 80, 90,

it will help. Um, a lot of the, a lot of the autoimmune patients though, they need to be a little more strict. And so, you know, I mean,

I think, um, you know, you guys are all familiar with like Michaela Peterson, how she really has to be very strict. She can't even have some meats like pork will set her off and give her a flare up. And I think it probably has a lot to do with what the animal is being fed

more than the meat itself. But for whatever reason, they have a problem with that. So people with autoimmune issues, certainly getting rid of all the processed stuff and a lot of the carbs and even a lot of the plants, and certainly for people with gut issues like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, getting rid of the fiber is actually very helpful.

There actually are studies in the current literature showing that. There was a study looking at people with Crohn's disease, which is, if people don't know, it's very, very, very difficult to deal with. You get a lot of inflammation in your gut from your mouth to your anus and it can affect you anywhere. And you get these bleeding sores and blisters inside and it's painful. And so people have bloody diarrhea 15, 20 times a day, and it's very harmful. And so you put them on corticosteroids like prednisone or prednisolone, and that has to calm it down.

You have all these big, heavy biological medications that will keep them in suppression, like immune-suppressant sort of drugs. And they're very expensive, and they're quite toxic in very real ways. They have a lot of side effects. But that's the only sort of way these guys can function sometimes. Right now, I know you're looking in the mirror. You're getting ready for your nephew's quinceañera. You have a long sleeve on that looks horrible, and your pants don't fit right.

That's why we partnered. I don't know why you're laughing. That's why we partnered with Viore clothing. You see, this is the boulevard shirt jacket. Fits great, stretchy, feels amazing. It's the best long sleeve in my closet. And one of the biggest things that we love about Viore is that they have clothes that you can wear to parties. They have clothes that you can wear in the gym. Like I said, your nephews can see it. You can look great wherever you go. If you step your

fashion game up, plus this stuff feels like baby skin on your skin, which is kind of creepy, but at the same time, it's kind of nice. nice and you know it andrew where can they get it yes you guys gotta head over to viore.com slash power project that's v-u-o-r-i.com slash power project to automatically receive 20 off your order links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes but there was a study looking at well there, there's two studies. One was looking at an elemental diet, which is like a pure elimination diet, gets you down to this. It's very highly processed, these elemental things.

It's just in a can, and it just has all the macro and micronutrients that you might need. It has nothing else, right? And they found that putting people on that elimination diet, that elemental diet, and just removing all the other stuff is a better treatment to get people out of an acute flare-up of Crohn's than the steroids like prednisone, right? And that's like, I mean, that's the best treatment is putting them on prednisone. It just really stops it pretty quick. Just not eating that stuff was better than taking the steroids. It had all the side effects.

There's another study that compared two groups looking at ketogenic no-fiber, no-carb group and comparing that with people who just ate whatever. They ate carbs and fiber. The group that eliminated carbohydrates and fiber, this is again for Crohn's disease, found that they kept people in remission on average 51 months. Okay, so for years, right? Compare that to the group that was eating carbs and fiber.

They stayed in remission on average zero months, right? So it's a very big contrast. And so what does that tell me? That tells me that there's something in the food that we're eating that is triggering these diseases. And that's sort of my thesis here is that a lot of these chronic diseases that we're treating these days, like autoimmune diseases, like Crohn's, rheumatoid arthritis, that these are not diseases per se. It's not something you can catch from somebody. But this is an exposure relationship, right? We're being exposed to something that's causing an effect, right? So you have lead pipes, you get lead poisoning.

You know, in ancient Rome, they had this problem. People were getting sick. They didn't realize what was going on. So you had generations of people just being a little off and then they figured it out, right? And so I think we're living in our period with lead pipes. We're getting exposed to a lot of things that our bodies aren't used to or not capable of dealing with in such volume. And we're getting the effects of that. So I really think that these chronic diseases are not diseases per se, but toxicities and malnutrition, toxic buildup of a species-inappropriate diet,

eating things that we're not biologically adapted for and can't process properly. And so we get these problems. And also a lack of species-specific nutrition. We're not getting enough of what we need. Namely, we're eating a lot of plants that we don't actually have the proper mechanisms to break down safely in the volume that we're eating them. And we're not getting enough meat because I think that's where we get all of our primary nutrition. And so I think of a steak as that elemental diet that has all the nutrients you need. I don't think that it has anything that you don't need or don't want. I don't believe that saturated fat and cholesterol are bad for you. In fact, I think

that they're quite good for you, and I think that's what the literature shows. And so if you're eating just a steak, an unadulterated steak, that is that elemental diet. You're just getting the core nutrients that you need and nothing else. And so, and that's exactly what I see in practice is that you see these people come in and they have all these problems. You eliminate out all of these other things. They're just eating meat, and generally red meat and water is what they work best on. And they just go away. All of my patients, with Crohn's specifically, will improve significantly symptomatically within a couple weeks. And they'll just keep getting better everything every single one so far after about three months they'll get a biopsy on colonoscopy I have yet to see someone not have complete remission of Crohn's or ulcer of colitis by three months can people just kind of smash lean protein and and fill themselves up

a bit and maybe dampen some hunger signals and things like that do you feel that that's anything that you've seen work for people? Yeah. So if they're not, I mean, of course, if they're going the drug route, they're able to start eating the lean protein and that type of stuff. But if we're trying to use without medicine, it's hard to overeat a lean protein, right? Like, you know, I always get into it with the keto people on online it's just fun i don't get into the vegans the vegans are vicious they'll just like so i don't mess around they're like oh you want to kill innocent animals i'm like okay i don't want to just please leave me alone so i stick with just messing with the keto people so i could overeat

ribeyes like put some butter on it put a ribeye i mean it's pretty good yeah take a take like a top sirloin you know without butter on it a little salt on it of course but like it's hard to overeat that it's not as not as pleasurable but it's filling you know you get to a point where like fuck yeah or the probably the best the best one like it's really hard for me to overeat salmon or some sort of fish. It's not as palatable as like a beef or maybe even chicken. But yeah, these types of things are filling. You know, there's actually – there's controversy. You know, I see the scientists go back and forth about these studies looking at different macronutrients.

I'm sure you guys have talked about this before. But whether protein is the most satiating. But like I tell you what, you know, of course you're drinking whey protein. You're not going to have much of a difference compared to maybe some other types of, you know, smoothies. That's mostly carbs from like fruit or something like that. In fact, the fruit might be more filling cause it's more fiber, but lean like meat animal based protein. Um. I don't know. I think they need to do more studies on that and compare because for me and for patients, it's really hard to overeat that stuff. I have a question because, you know, we had Alan Aragon on a while ago and he's,

multiple people, including even Lane, some of them have mentioned how protein, even if one tends to overeat protein, and you also see this oddly enough in bodybuilders when they're kind of getting staged. I don't want to bring bodybuilders into this because it's a very different population, but when bodybuilders are starting to get leaner, they start to really drive up their protein intake to could be 250, 300, 350 grams. But for some reason, there doesn't seem to be fat gain or weight gain, especially when it's like in the absence of extra fat. So very lean sources of protein.

They tend to be able to overeat protein, have a potentially same or slightly increased caloric amount, but they continue to trend down as far as fat loss is concerned. And there have been certain things that we've said like, oh, maybe protein doesn't count like all the other macronutrients. Is that a safe statement to make?

Or is that just like blasphemer? It's calories in, calories out. Yeah, yeah. No, it's a good, it's, so when people are saying, you know, a calorie is a calorie. Well, okay, it's a unit of energy. But when people say a calorie is a calorie, well, okay, it's a unit of energy. But when people say a calorie is not a calorie, what they should probably be saying is a macronutrient is not a macronutrient. These things are metabolized and utilized just differently in our body. And it's hard to take protein and convert it into triglyceride or adipose.

It's really hard to do that. you know, triglyceride or adipose. It's, it's, it's, it's really hard to do that. So hypothetically, when you, when you start looking at these overfeeding studies, when people, people start overeating protein and they gain, they can gain weight, but it's like lean mass, you know? So it's, it's, it's hard. They've, they've tried to look at it. It's, it doesn't easily convert to adipose. Now I think probably Alan, he's a good buddy of mine so is lane so i'm sure they described though like but if you're kind of like alcohol if you're it's actually hard to store alcohol as as fat but like it will it will cause you to store other things that you eat with it as fat so it's possible eating more protein if you're if you just start eating more protein

along with the fat that you already have in your diet, it's possible then that you'd store more of that fat as fat. These are kind of like hypothetical things. But as a general rule of thumb, it's hard to store protein as adipose. That's the idea. It kind of seems like if you were to eat like 30 or 40 grams of protein from a fairly lean source, like a chicken breast, or maybe even like a chicken thigh, get a little more fat in there and eat something like an apple that it would really, again, calm your hunger. And that's something that we promote and talk about quite a bit on the show is like for people that are heavy, we like fasting and stuff like that too, but that's

we, we enjoy it for us, you know, and we, and we'll promote it out to people that have already had some success in their diet. They're already familiar with the correct foods to eat. I think for some other people, it might not be the greatest place to start. But I think for most people that are heavy, the best thing for them to do is to really concentrate on not allowing themselves to get too hungry. Because when you get hungry, you get to be out of control. And we've all been grocery shopping before when you're starving and you look at that shopping cart on the way out and you're like, Jesus, I bought a lot of bullshit today. Yeah. I actually like chicken thighs more than chicken breasts. So I'm kind of with you.

Yeah, the chicken breasts are tough. Yeah, the chicken thighs, they're not that fatty. I mean, if you get the ones that are relatively skin off and everything, and they just taste so much better. So it's like, just get the chicken thighs, unless you're just like prepping for a bodybuilding contest and you need to be like extremely lean, which is, you know, most of my patients, they're not needing to do that. Some people might actually like the chicken breast more.

I don't. I like chicken thighs. But anyway, yeah, I think focusing on foods that are absolutely filling and more satiating is a great place to start. So just, you know, it's hard to over, you know, people are like, well, fruit has fructose in it, know it's hard to over you know people are like well fruit fruit has fructose in it so it's gonna make you fat it's like nobody nobody's gaining weight from from eating fruit unless i did have one patient say they couldn't stop eating frozen grapes i suppose that that might count if you can i was just thinking too watermelon is really good I love eating like a giant like we get

watermelon all the time I eat like a fucking giant bowl of it I've done that the past two nights it's so nice when it's like in season and everything yeah a carton of like strawberries is like 150 calories I mean just eat the carton I mean whatever it's a lot of

fiber a lot of good stuff there so yeah I think you know being in this environment and – sure, you know you should probably eat this fruit-filling foods. Sometimes it's just hard. So I agree. Like if you can make sure that you have it – make it tasty enough to where you want it a little bit. We know it's not going to be as good as a donut per se, but if you can focus and try to eat that first and then say, do I want that donut now? That's probably a better bet than just waiting until you're super hungry and then choosing the other foods over the donut. We've known people who have lost 100, 200 pounds and have gained literally all the way back, then lost it again, then gained some of it back, right?

So if you get to the other side, if you get, you've dropped that weight or you've dropped a substantial amount of weight and you're like, I want to stay the course. I want to maintain this. What are the key things that you need to make sure you just do so that you don't end up going back and gaining weight? Because some people think that like, you know, your, your metabolism is always the way it is. So like, you're gonna, you're going to be at that weight, then you're just going to start eating the same amount of food that you used to eat. So what should people do? Yeah, good, good question. So there are a lot of people that use whatever techniques to get down

to that weight and then they get, it's almost like they get bored with not seeing the scale change. Like it's, it was almost dopamine releasing to wake up, you know, every week or whatever. And, or whenever, how often they got on the scale and just, yes,

I lost another pound or lost another couple of pounds or whatever it was. So some, sometimes it's teaching people to like appreciate maintenance, appreciate this plateau, appreciate where you're going to likely hopefully maintain and then say like look at this weight you had to eat so many this much to get there but you can actually you can actually eat more to still maintain this this weight well so you know you go in the calorie deficit and then maintenance is actually a little bit higher than that. So allowing people to eat more.

The other thing is if we can get people to really get into physical activity, then you don't need to eat so few of calories for the long run. And I'm actually going on a debate about what's better, aerobic training versus resistance training for long-term obesity management. My hypothesis is this. I honestly, there's no data to support this, but I'm going to be using hypotheticals and storytelling to try to win this debate because I don't have the data on my side. But, you know, let's say you get people like to just completely starving themselves and they get down that 100 pounds or whatever it is. If we're able to get them to strength train, aerobic is great i'm not gonna poopoo aerobic training it's awesome yeah it helps you burn it helps you burn more calories uh and there's cardiorespiratory

fitness involved and whatever but what if you're able to start weight training and you build some of that muscle and then you start eating more and more so that you don't feel so like deprived and then you're partitioning that energy that you're starting to eat back more and more into muscle and using it as substrate with your muscle anyway this is my idea there's there's lots of anecdotes out there i wish i wish i had a long-term study that the one thing is is that people just it's just hard to adhere to exercise regardless. So this is all hypothetical. But I think that in terms of weight loss, maintenance, getting people to be physically active, whether it's a lot more walking or whatever, but getting people strength training

would also help to allow people to eat more. Of course, I use medicines and whatever to keep the weight off in some of these people that are just so hungry. I use medicines and whatever to keep the weight off on some of these people that are just so hungry. But I think in terms of lifestyle habits, ensuring they know they can eat more. If they start seeing the scale go up a little bit, that's fine. Understanding it's a little bit water, it goes back to the all or nothing mentality that like, oh, I'm starting to see the scale go up. I guess I'm going back to what I was before. It's like, no, no, no.

Just have these little alarms that like, Oh, I regained, you know, 3% of my weight or 10 pounds or whatever that is. All right. I got to refocus, think about what I'm doing, not overly obsess over it and that type of thing. So that's, these are kind of the skills we go over, but I, I'm kind of a shill for resistance training, of course, like, like y'all are. So I do think that getting into that and really building some muscle and being able to eat more overall so you don't have to stay on this depriving diet of egg whites and spinach. No, just kidding. But that's the gist. And of course, focusing on these really satiating, filling foods as much as possible. What are some things that frustrate you?

Because you seem frustrated when it comes to... Sexually or is this... Yeah, yeah. Sexual frustration. Yeah. Let's get that out. Now, just with some of your posts, sometimes it seems like you're frustrated with some of what's communicated in the fitness industry. So what are some of the main frustrations of maybe some other people that are sharing information

from a nutrition standpoint where you're like, man, these, some of these guys just don't know what the fuck they're talking about. Cause again, I think when you're talking to the community that you're speaking to, it's just a whole different thing. And you're actually a doctor and you're actually like servicing these people, communicating with them and getting them results. It's just a whole different thing. And you're actually a doctor and you're actually like servicing these people, communicating with them and getting them results. It's way different than say like even me, for example, just saying, hey, like try this and I think you're going to be able to lose some weight. And of course, there's people that get excited and they drop 20 pounds and stuff like that. But you're actually in the trenches. Yeah, yeah.

I think, you know, some of the big frustrations of course like i always pick on the keto people like some of these people that just come up with silly mechanisms to promote their style of of weight loss or or eating because it the biggest frustration is just the pseudoscience and the stuff that confuses people because i think that's what makes people just wait i thought eating after 6 p.m i would automatically gain weight wait i thought eating breakfast was good wait i thought you know skipping breast breakfast was was the best so just like when people make up stuff just to push their narrative that's the most that's the most frustrating thing because like in the end people lose and you know some people like well what's the most frustrating thing because in the end, people lose. And some people are like, well, what's the harm?

Such and such doctor said that fasting and keto is the best and there are a lot of people that did it and lost weight. Well, the harm is that you don't see the people that didn't lose weight and now think that certain food is harmful based on some silly mechanistic property that somebody made up. on some silly mechanistic property that somebody made up so i i i'd say the biggest frustration is just simply just making things up without having like a the the evidence to back it up and like being very like authoritative about it in terms of like hey this might help like you said hey this this this strategy might help do this as opposed to like this strategy is the way because of this xyz mechanism if you do it this other way you're going to fail and it's very um i just don't like that authoritative speak in terms of like things that are just like you don't know that obviously number one number two it's just it's just wrong so um i take the confusion stuff is is my biggest no biggest issue

we you you mentioned kind of plateaus earlier um and i'm curious because there's some people who they've structured their own diet they've been a caloric deficit they've increased their energy expenditure they're working out but they've gotten to a point where they're like i don't want to take away any more calories i can't do any more fucking cardio. And I'm doing resistance training six times a week, but I'm not dropping weight. Right? So for individuals in that particular conundrum, what should they think about doing? These are the people that I'm like, screw the scale weight.

Let's just forget about it for now. These are the people that I'm like, screw the scale weight. Let's just forget about it for now. Why don't we focus on other non-scale victories or whatever you want to say, behaviors. Let's focus on fitness. Let's focus on getting stronger. Let's focus on shaping your body composition. Screw the scale.

Not in this whole healthy at every size type of way, but on a a very like purposeful, like understanding that the scale weight isn't everything. There are other factors in your habits that can be very healthful. And so that in those people like embrace the plateaus, let's not even look at the scale anymore other than, you know, make sure you're not gaining weight, of course, but let's, let's start focusing on, on other things that can get you going. Let's get you eating more so you're not feeling so miserable and make sure that you're maintaining the weight. And then see where you go from there. Because, like, when people start obsessing over their weight, that's worth, you know, and I get it all the time.

Patients are just, we've just been ingrained to obsess over the scale. I don't, I wish I could get people not to, and I try to help them, but this is where, hey, let's focus on, let's get your squat up or your deadlift or whatever. Let's focus on, you know, your waist circumference is shrinking, but your, your scale is not changing. I think that's a good thing. You look different in your clothes. That's probably all you really cared about. Do you really care about the number on the scale? That type of thing. Power Project family, we talk about eating meat all the time on this podcast. Pause. Pause. But sometimes you might want to eat some different meat. Pause. You might want to eat duck, chicken, Japanese A5 Wagyu. You might want

to change things up. That's why we've partnered with Good Life Proteins, which also has certified Piedmontese beef on their website. Now, all you have to do is head to goodlifeproteins.com and you can select build a box with all of the proteins that you want. Then you'll select subscribe and save to save money on all of your meat. Enter code powerproject to save an extra 5% on any subscription you select. So if you want to get your beef every two weeks, you'll be able to save 25% on all of your meat. Again, that's goodlifeproteins.com. Links are in the description along with the podcast show notes. I like how Dr. Robert Lustig, author of Metabolical and many other good books, one of the leading anti-sugar crusaders in the world, he contends that if you just eliminate processed foods from your diet, you can't get fat and you won't get sick. You won't get metabolic disease patterns.

And it's as simple as that. And so that's some common ground. I can get fat. You can get fat. It's harder. It's harder to get fat, but you can definitely get fat. Tell me when. Trust me. Right away. I'll show you the bell jeans. You'll be shocked.

The bell jeans. Mr. Bojangles bell jeans. Yeah. I mean, you go fatten yourself up on steaks and eggs. You went from six eggs to 12 eggs a day, and then you went from three steaks to four. There's a certain point where you're probably going to level off, and it might be above our performance weights if we all do this experiment, but it's not going to be disaster.

And there's a lot of, you know, this talk about endotoxins, which you hear a lot of people talking about now. When you eat that processed food, you produce endotoxins. It's internally manufactured toxins that interfere with your ability to burn fat or to function mitochondria effectively. And so you start to get bad at burning energy internally. And so therefore, where do you trend to? You're reaching for more and more processed foods and sugary beverages just to get energy because you can't burn fat internally and everything's all screwed up because you have these processed foods in your diet.

And so that sends you down a slippery slope. And that's why I think zero tolerance is probably a good recommendation for a lot of people that are stuck in this processed food, sugar burning pattern is you got to walk away from that stuff and get good, you know, get your body back in gear. Yeah, you got to break yourself away from that stuff. Yeah. Like Jay Feldman says, hey, if you say that you feel better from fasting versus eating breakfast, we got to go take a look at your breakfast because if you have a nice nutritious breakfast, you're probably going to feel pretty good. And you might feel good fasting too

because you've built those capabilities. But that's a good quote also. It's like, you know, get the shit food out of your diet. You're going to start feeling better. But then what if you, back to my personal example, because I have good blood work, I have good body composition. Where's my optimization?

I'm looking at, I've been on a three-month experiment now to eat more food. See what happens. And I think you're bringing up a really excellent point. A lot of people in fitness, like if Andy Galpin was here right now and he was observing us talking about, even, even, uh, all of us here talking about fasting, he would be like, this is a ridiculous conversation. Why are any of you guys fasting? Um, and that's just because again, like we're already in good shape. I think one thing that's interesting is that somebody that is unhealthy and very overweight, what I've noticed is that they got to get

themselves to a healthy point before they can start to really lose weight. Now they might lose some bloat and they might lose some weight and they might knock off 10, 20 pounds. I've seen people do that before. Like I tried keto and bam, you know, this weight came right off. But there's like a little extra piece of the puzzle that after some of that initial weight comes off, they have to try to figure out how to get themselves healthy. And that is really hard because you're thinking that it would work the opposite way around. You're thinking, if I lose this fat, this is my road to success. I'm going to be healthier. But it's a little bit like being successful, or it's a little bit like attracting a woman. It's

a little bit like attracting success, where you have to first become a successful person. You need successful attributes to then be worthy of success. You need to – we had a Russian lifter years ago explain to us how to deadlift. explained to us how to deadlift. And he took the, uh, uh, he took the rings, the, uh, uh, the Olympic, the Olympic rings that you use for gymnastics. And he said, he said, this is how you deadlift. And he, um, he said, deadlift is like pretty woman. And he, he pushed, he pushed the ring away from him and then he let it go. And the ring swung towards him. And he's like, but most of you are trying to reach for the pretty woman, you know? And then he showed how it, like when you reach for it and grab it, it goes away from you. And I think that a lot of the stuff

like this, when it comes to the diet and, and when it comes to success, you have to first have the habits ingrained first. You have to start to accumulate some of those habits. How do you ingrain some of those habits? Sometimes you're going to have to go to like a bootcamp almost. Sometimes you're going to have to really go to war with it. Make these black and white rules to where you're like, I'm doing this for 60 days. I'm doing this for 90 days. Andy Frisella has 75 hard that he does and it's a challenge and he gets rid of drinking and he tries to have people really commit to, uh,

something that they would consider to be hard for 75 days. But again, when you get healthy, none of it's hard because you leveled up and you're used to it. So it's, it's, uh, it's a complicated thing to kind of get when you're on the outside and you're

trying, you're, you're very upset and frustrated with where you're at at the moment. But it's those little tiny steps, that 10-minute walk that you force yourself to do. You pushing off a meal that you know that you shouldn't have. Like those are the harder things to do. The decision to eat the good food isn't really that hard usually for a lot of people. It's the saying no in the circumstances and situations that you're always in where you know the food's going to be compromised, watching a football game or going to the birthday party or

whatever social thing it is, right? Yeah. So we just gave you guys a masterclass on how to lose fat and keep it off. But do you know why you're not gaining muscle? Well, here, check this out. This video will tell you why you're not gaining muscle and how you can change that situation. So in the next few seconds, you should click right here. You shouldn't be listening to me anymore. You should be here. This video. Hi. Click here. Click it. Click it.