Mark Bell's Power Project - Why One-Size-Fits-All Diets Fail - Joel Green || MBPP Ep. 1077

Episode Date: June 19, 2024

In episode 1077, Joel Green, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about why extreme elimination diets, such as the carnivore diet, fail due to the fact that they do not include enough variety. Follow Joel on IG: https://www.instagram.com/realjoelgreene/   Official Power Project Website: https://powerproject.live Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below!   🍆  Natural Sexual Performance Booster 🍆 ➢https://usejoymode.com/discount/POWERPROJECT Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!   🚨 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!   👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶 ➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject   🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   🩸 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!   Sleep Better and TAPE YOUR MOUTH (Comfortable Mouth Tape) 🤐 ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject to receive a year supply of Hostage Tape and Nose Strips for less than $1 a night!   🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained:      ➢ 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/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 ➢ Become a Stronger Human - https://thestrongerhuman.store ➢ UNTAPPED Program - https://shor.by/JoinUNTAPPED ➢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 ➢ Podcast Courses and Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/ ➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Half the diet books that were ever written were written by first timers or people that they were doing something else, they had an issue, they went on a diet, they created a narrative and a story. And it's like, oh, here's my story. I did this and I did this diet and it worked and I got to write a book and now you all need to do it.

Everybody goes through this phase. I call it the benefits phase. And that's where like you're just getting all these benefits. The negatives phase is where the thing that was once beneficial is actually detrimental. Go to Reddit, type in any diet and you'll see pages and pages and pages of people that said, yeah, well, it worked great at first, but then.

When you actually study the real evidence on ancestral diets, 100% driven by scarcity. Scarcity keeps you from eating too much of anything. We live in this age where these food tribes have a formula, which is the good foods, bad foods, and they all use the exact same formula. They just swap the foods. The hero food of each group

can provably be shown to be toxic in large quantities. Let's say your hero food's plant. I could provably show you that too provably be shown to be toxic in large quantities. Let's say your hero foods plant. I could provably show you that too much of that is going to be toxic. I could provably show you meat can be toxic. We want simple, predictable, eat the same thing every day. That's probably one of the worst things you can do. So I believe we left off with a really interesting topic last time you were here. Do you remember?

That's right. Our boy cracking three bills. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, that's right Seema getting up to 300 pounds. Yeah, that's right. Yeah Okay, there we go Yeah, no still won't do it that'll never happen. I care too much about my health that would be compromised But what if you were that like six months? Six months, it would take you a month to get there. It wouldn't take me a month to get it

Take you a month. It would take me like, to get there. It wouldn't take me a month to get there. It would take you a month. It would take me like, I don't know, if I ate how I wanted to eat, it would take me like five months. Five to six months. But that's too much fat, bro. 290. Still too much fat.

Not gonna do it ever. You can do it again though. You've been over 300, so why don't you just revisit that? I could probably get there quick. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of snoring, a lot of sleep apnea. Well, the curiosity would be like, because it's like, if you know this stuff,

like we know this stuff, he's not on anything, you know? Like a legitimate not on anything guy, legit. He's not like cruising on some small amount. No, like you can tell, it's just the look in the muscle bellies and it's just a lot of giveaways. So just to see like the hyper response, like just the sheer like, you know, damn. There's also a chance that there won't be much of a response because you know some guys,

you know, they hopped on after not being on anything and they didn't, well anyway. That's funny. Just move over that way just a little bit so the microphone is like, catches you as you're talking to us over here. Well, anyway. That's funny. Just move over that way just a little bit so the microphone is like- Catches you. Yeah, catches you as you're talking to us over here. Awesome. Let's kind of dive in on some stuff. I found it super fascinating, you know,

getting to know you over the years and some of the information that you have. And then, I don't know, a little time goes by and I'm like, Joel Green. A little time goes by again, I'm like, that's Joel Green. A little time goes by again, I'm like, damn it, that's Joel Green, a little time goes by again, I'm like, that's Joel Green. A little time goes by again, I'm like, damn it, that's Joel Green. What do you think has helped you

to kind of be ahead of the curve when it comes to diet and nutrition? Well, probably just hindsight. Probably just, same as you, just doing it a long time and then making a lot of mistakes, and then, you know, figuring out, well, that's what they didn't tell me upfront, you know? And so you get a long way down the road,

and then you have a collection of anecdotes that are like, that sounds great, but let me say this, you know, I liken it to the, if we had had someone coaching us when we first started bench pressing about how to avoid the rotator this, you know, it's, yeah, I liken it to the, if we had had someone coaching us when we first started bench pressing about how to avoid the rotator injury, you know, like what a difference. So that would have been great.

Yeah, yeah. So I think it's just that factor of lots of time and lots of mistakes, probably. A lot of it has to do with, you've actually done these diets before. You've actually tried these routines. You've done keto, you've done fasting. I remember you telling me years ago,

I was like right in the middle of getting into my own version of like over fasting. And you were kind of sharing your experience. You're like, that messed me up. And not only did it mess me up, but it messed me up for a handful of years. So there's a natural kind of honeymoon period that happens with a lot of diets.

It doesn't matter what diet someone adheres to if they are going from nothing and then now they're going to something, they're probably gonna be touting that particular diet. And that might last for six weeks, it might last for three months, but over time it gets to be difficult to count the calories and to do all the steps.

Yeah. Yeah, so there's one of the reasons, well, maybe the main reason I wrote the new book was this that we're talking about, which is that the best way to put it is to say that if someone had coached you 30 plus years ago, right as you started benching, if you could coach you 30 years ago,

you would have said, okay, so do this, use this, use this strap, do this, you know? And all of that is one thing, which is for lack of a better word, reality. That there's a reality that you're not gonna experience until you hit it. And it's really one thing and that's time. So it's really, in a way I'm kind of embarrassed

for like our industry in a way, because like we think this stuff's advanced and it's literally decades behind. It really is like, and I'm not talking about anything fancy and complex. I'm talking about the most simple basic forehead slap in your face stuff that once it gets pointed out, you're like, yeah, what, why, why are we doing that? And that's so what you're speaking to is time and the reality of time and how time impacts things.

And when you see, when it comes to diet, there's a missing framework that I believe this is a turning point right now. Just talking about it here, just this podcast here, you're going to see major changes. And that framework is inserting an understanding of mechanisms that exist that no one's talking about that are provable, repeatable, verifiable, like anybody can see this as it works. So basically when we're talking about anything, it doesn't matter what it is. It could be, you know, a supplement, it could be a steroid, it could be a food, it could be a diet.

Over time, there are phases and there are mechanisms that are at work. So typically what you see is like someone will go on like, it doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't matter diet, you know, keto, carnivore, low carb on like, it doesn't matter what it is, it doesn't matter diet, keto, carnivore, low carb, high carb, it doesn't matter what it is. In fact, in the new book, I call it first timer syndrome. So basically it's half the diet books that were ever written

were written by first timers or people that like they were doing something else, they had an issue, they went on a diet, they created a narrative and a story. And it's like, oh, here's my story. I did this and I did this diet and it worked and I got to write a book and now you all need to do it. And then you have kind of,

you have what's known as emergence, which is in large groups of people, people doing dumb stuff in bigger numbers. Okay. And so what you see is everybody goes through this phase. I call it the benefits phase. And that's where like, you're just getting all these benefits.

And you see this all the time. I just saw this on Twitter. There's an influencer who just went on a carnivore diet. And she's like like you're just getting all these benefits and you see this all the time. I just saw this on On Twitter. There's a there's a an influencer who just went on a carnivore diet and she's like, oh my gosh I'm getting all these benefits of the laws anybody know what's going on and I'm like, that's the benefits phase but then there's what they don't tell you is there's other phases, so the Adaption phase is kind of in the middle now that could be six months It could be three years down the line But there's a phase where the attenuation happens and it's not really working like it used to,

but it's not bad either. Then there's the tail. The tail is the negatives phase. And the negatives phase is where the thing that was once beneficial, the thing that once was transformative is actually detrimental in many respects. And this is like, go to Reddit, type in any diet

and type in, messed me up or something along with the diet. And you'll see pages and pages and pages of people that said, yeah, well, it worked great at first, but then. Okay. And but then is a code word for dose and duration. How long did you do that for? Okay. What's never been talked about is

there are actually mechanisms that can be inventoried and quantified That we can actually just list what they are and again like this. This isn't rocket science stuff. This isn't like, oh my gosh You're so smart. You made this like wow, this is like stupid forehead slapping in your face So the first mechanism is attenuation over time Everything just tends to attenuate it doesn't work as well. Okay. That's true of peptides. I've never done steroids, but it's true of steroids. I've heard it's true of supplements. It's true of maybe a food really works for you. Maybe a, maybe your

eyes, maybe your wiener, something. Yeah. Everything. And there's mechanisms involved with attenuation. Insulin is a good example. So you go on whatever, pick it, high carb, low carb, doesn't matter. You go on a diet and there's an improvement in insulin sensitivity. But over time, depending on what you're doing, the insulin receptor can attenuate, it can down regulate. Okay. So that's a mechanism. It's a real thing. And we can say, yeah, there's that things definitely attenuate over time. That's real. We don't, you don't need to be like, you know, an astrophysicist to see that that's real. The next is degradation. So over time, something can degrade if you do too much of something. An example would be, there's several examples, an easy one

is the gut lining. So if you do too much fasting, in the benefits phase, you make more of the bacteria acrimansia. So acrimansia is a gut symbiont, it eats the mucus layer. And in moderate doses, that's good because it stimulates genes to make more mucin to thicken the gut layer. And so it's good. Quick question about that. When you say fasting, do you mean like two, three days or do you mean like shorter term fasting?

What do you mean when you say that? So that's a good question, it ties into this. Basically, we're talking about a dose level that is different for everybody, but what we could say is that you're getting closer and closer to what we call starvation. So at some high level, starvation and fasting are the same thing.

In fact, when you look at the studies on starvation, one-to-one gut dysbiosis for starvation, one-to-one. So when you look at extended periods of fasting where it's becoming closer and closer to mimicking starvation, one to one. Okay, so when you look at extended periods of fasting where it's becoming closer and closer to mimicking starvation, what do you see? You see gut dysbiosis, why? Because you're getting an accumulation of acrimency, you're getting too much, too much acrimency,

too much eating the gut lining, okay? So accumulation is another force of time and not difficult to verify, that's a real thing, okay? The next is degradation, okay? So if you do something too long, wait, that was accumulation, degradation. Yeah, degradation. So degradation means that something's just degrading

over time, so the gut lining, you can get an accumulation of acrimancia and a degradation of the gut lining. Make sense? And I'm just not cherry picking an example here. Iansia and a degradation of the gut lining. Make sense? I'm just not cherry picking an example here. I mean, we can go down the line. Another example would be over time in the vasculature, you can get an accumulation of

oxysterols, okay? And then a degradation of the vasculature. And then that changes the whole equation, changes everything. So saturated fats never used to be an issue. You can eat until the cows come home. I ate this one diet. I did it for years and years and years. And now something's different.

I don't know what it is. Well, it's called accumulation and degradation. You accumulated a lot of oxysterols. Those influence the vasculature. And there's a degradation of the gut lining. And now you can't handle saturated fats. You can get insulin resistance from any macronutrient I heard you say.

Yeah. So you can get it from protein. You can get it from fats. You can get it from carbs. Yeah, that's a shocker. That's okay. So when I said I'm kind of embarrassed for the industry, this is the reason why. Okay.

There literally are people today that believe that there are certain things you can't get too much of. I mean, people listening to this right now would be like, no, dude, that's not true protein, bro. You can't get too much protein or saturated fat. No, dude, no, you can't get too much saturated fat. We know that. Well, so- Or omega-3 fats.

Right. Pick whatever. Yeah, so this brings us to something again, that's a reality that we're disconnected from. The reality is homeostasis. And the disconnection is that too much of anything can break homeostasis. So, and it's, again, you don't have to take my word for it.

There's tons of research on anything. We can prove it right now. We could just decide to kill ourselves right now on this podcast by drinking too much water. And by the time the podcast ends, we'd all be dead. Just from water. So water's healthy. But what it brings us to is this notion that's missing,

which is the inherent health of a thing, a food or a diet, it's not solely defined by the food. It's defined equally by the dose and the duration. So that inherently healthy things can actually be detrimental when done in doses that are either too big or for too long. That's again, like we're slapping our foreheads here, right? It's like, didn't need to be a genius to see this. That's missing.

That's missing from diet today. So the idea here is that diet today is kind of stuck in the stone age is because these basic realities, time being the most obvious, are not in the discussion. So it's like, hey, is, you think carnivore diet's good? And the answer, the best answer is at what point in time? At what point in time? I think it's fantastic up front. Depends on the dose and the duration.

Is keto good? At what point in time? You know? Is, here's, this will really inflame people is spinach good. Is spinach good? You know, it's a dose duration question. Yeah, spinach is healthy. There's all kinds of health properties in spinach. It's got nitrates in it. We need nitrates in the diet. The issue becomes dose and duration, too much dose duration. Then you can have oxalate issues, right? But by itself, it's not inherently unhealthy.

It's the dose and the duration that are the problem. And what we see today is there are entire food silos, food tribes that have sprung up around a switcheroo. So the switcheroo, we call that conflation, to use big words. The switcheroo is they are conflating the inherent health of a thing with the dose and the duration.

So we have these whole schools of thought. Like one side is like, oh yeah, bro, no, no, you don't want to eat green plants, man. They're bad, bro. They're bad. They got, they got oxalates, they got phytates, they have all these things that are bad. Don't eat those foods. Okay. Which is easy to debunk, but that notwithstanding, the issue is not the food, it's the dose and the duration.

And then the other side, you have the same argument. You just swap the foods. So the whole, the whole industry today is insert food, insert pathology, and then build a following. So no, no, no, no, you don't get it. No, meat's bad. Insert meat, insert pathology, colon cancer. No, you have too much meat. You're going to have iron in the gut. You're going to have all these issues, fermentation, blah, blah, blah, cancer, meat, don't eat meat, meat's bad. But again, that's a dose duration issue. Like too much meat, like nothing but lean meat, 100% lean meat, that'll kill you in two weeks, you'll be dead.

But we need meat in the diet. Why would that kill you? It's called protein toxicity. So basically too much protein is toxic. Like, when I say too much protein, I mean a diet of 100% protein, no fats, no carbs, nothing, just 100% protein. Yeah, that'll kill you.

In fact, there's some really interesting science papers that talk about... Is that referred to as rabbit starvation as well? Is that a similar category, right? Yeah, same thing. Salmon starvation, rabbit starvation. Yeah. Yeah.

There's these really interesting science papers I've read that talk about the flux point where civilization overcame. The major constraint to growing civilization was protein toxicity. So that you couldn't build a civilization until you went to farming. And then that alleviated the protein toxicity problem and then because you Downregulated the dose of protein in the diet. You could scale civilization. I mean, it's there's there's stuff on this. Oh, yeah, I

Want to know about this before we continue on? You mentioned that there was a point where you did too much fasting where it actually like it was so what type of fasting did You do because for example, I still use some time restricted feeding, I'll do like maybe a two or three day fast every quarter, just once a quarter. Some days I'll do one meal, some days, most days, it's like two meals, right? I haven't felt anything because it's not every single day

that I do any type of crazy fasting. But was this intense fasting you were doing or was it just like a little bit of time restricted feeding? Mr. N of one. You experiencing anything is the falling point in the bell curve. But I mean, I still need enough. You know what I mean? That's why I'm just wondering like at what point does this at what point does this have like diminishing returns? It's different for everybody. But what I would say is that if you're in that camp of like, I'm gonna do OMAD and, or I'm doing like three, four day fasts every week, you are in a probability quadrant of over beyond six months

a year having much more likelihood of issues. That's intense, yeah. Yeah, so for me, what happened was about 2011 and I was, I kinda got into the fasting autophagy thing and I was taking a lot of like stuff. I was taking a lot of like autophagy accentuators like berberine and physotin and you know, all this stuff. And I just, first of all, I was always sore

and I got really small and I couldn't recover. And I just had too much autophagy really, which kind of one of our outcomes from fasting is it slows mTOR and you get more autophagy and too much autophagy is not good. And I just had way too much going on. And I just, one day I just really noticed it and I was like, what's going on?

Man, I'm like, yeah. It felt frail. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And then when it comes to too much protein, just for people that are listening, they can put some context to it. Is this somebody that's doing one gram per pound of body

weight and they're doing it for the last 10, 20 years? Or are we talking about larger dosages of it? Well, the best answer is at what point in time. So one thing to consider is you're losing kidney function 1% per year over like 50, 55. So your kidney function's going down significantly. And so the question becomes a lot more relevant later in life.

Earlier in life, there doesn't seem to be a lot of constraint because everything's working. Later in life, it does become much more of a consideration. But generally speaking, what's interesting is in the research, high protein is defined as 30 to 35% of diet. Well, that's like, that's nothing. I mean, like I know lots of people on 70, 80% protein in the diet, you know, very, very

high protein loads. Are you going to die from that? Probably not. Is it optimal for health long term? Probably not. You know, and in terms of grams per day, again, at what point in time. So there are periods when a really good run at hypertrophy

really is necessary, makes a lot of sense. And so you need a lot, you need like 3.5 grams, you know, you need over three grams, you need a lot of protein. Three grams per pound? Per kilogram. Per kilogram, okay. Per kilogram, yeah.

That's quite a bit. Yeah, yeah, well, I think that the research has shown the maximum hypertrophy is above three. per pound? Per kilogram. Per kilogram. Okay. Per kilogram. Yeah. That's quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that the research has shown the maximum hypertrophy is above three. That's where you're going to get the maximum yield.

But other points in life, there's other things to think about. So at this point in my life, I have days that are more foraging foods, very little protein, and I have days that are very high protein, very much feasting foods. And the long term of that, there's a lot of other considerations going on. So with the lower protein days, there's a couple other considerations. One is just thinking about how much growth I'm driving in terms of cellular growth pathways like mTOR, how much of that I'm driving versus not. And at this point in my life, it works really well for me. So at what point in time, at this point in time, it works really well.

If I was in my 20s, I'd probably be doing a lot more protein. So when you say low protein days, what is it? Cause I know there's a bunch of things you're probably thinking about, but when somebody hears that, they're probably like, wait, why? I've heard I should always be eating a good amount of protein for my appetite, to build muscle, et etc. Why would I have a low protein day?

Right. So a simple answer would be to just something we talked about earlier is if we if we kind of agree that nature's rhythms naturally optimize the body naturally. So we have all these movements about realigning with nature. Okay, like biohacking. It's all about realigning with nature. So I'm going to realign with my natural diurnal rhythm of light and dark and I'm wearing blue blockers at night because that's not natural at night. And then heat and cold, you know, we should have cold because people were cold naturally, you know, and And well, part of nature's rhythm is a pattern of eating that is not just provable, it's repeatable

for anybody that wants to do it. Anybody can take a survival course, anybody can watch alone or naked and afraid. And what you're gonna see, everybody, and I don't care if you're a vegan, I don't care what you are, everybody falls into this pattern of like, when you're in that hunter gatherer scenario, your preference is energy dense protein.

So you want fish, you want meat, but it's very hard to get. And so what you do is two things. You starve and you forage for less preferential foods. Okay. So the less preferential foods are things like roots, things like berries, things like mushrooms, things like leafy greens. They're not my first pick.

I mean, come on, they're not anybody's first pick. You put a 16 ounce ribeye in front of me and then you put, you know, I'm having the ribeye. Every time. But in nature, there's a natural rhythm that's completely been missed. And it's this, it's you're going to, and again, I just, anybody that doubts this, I just challenge you, go take a survival course. And I've talked to people like every single person who goes, yep, that's exactly what

happens. You are going to start out searching for fish or game and along the way, you're going to be really hungry and you're going to forage. You know, Hey, that's the, that plant has a root. We can pull that up and eat that or, Oh, I found some berries or here's some mushrooms. Oh, great. You know, we've got to eat these leaves. Well, so what's interesting, nature seems to have these natural protections in place that have been completely missed when it comes to diet. And so here, again, this isn't, you don't have to be a genius to see this.

Nature has these interesting protections found in its natural meal plan, which is number one, scarcity is the driving force. Okay, we don't have scarcity, we have refrigerators. And what refrigerators do is they eliminate nature's constraint, which is, refrigerators make sure you have an endless supply of something, okay? But when you actually study the real evidence on ancestral diets, 100% driven by scarcity.

And there's, what scarcity does, the minute you introduce scarcity, scarcity introduces variety into the diet every time, every time. And it may not be, the interesting thing is it's not your preference. It's not your first pick. Like, I don't really wanna boil these roots,

but okay, you know, whatever. And this has been proven with the Hasda. What they did is they went to the Hasda and they had them rank their preferential foods. The foods that came in, number one was honey, number two was meat, and last was like roots and berries and all that stuff. Well, here's what's interesting.

Scarcity producing variety seems to offer a lot of benefits. So the first benefit is you, scarcity keeps you from eating too much of anything. So a massive error in this age we're in, which I call the era of imbalance, a massive error is that, well, we don't need to worry about scarcity because I have a refrigerator,

so, you know, I'm just gonna eat whatever around the clock. Okay, but you can't do that in nature. And we live in this age where these food tribes have a formula, which is the good foods, bad foods, and they all use the exact same formula. They just swap the foods, but it's the same story. So it's like, yeah, no, meat's bad, and we know that meat's bad, and don't eat meat,

but eat the plants, and then that's how you get health. And the reverse, no, no, no, no, dude, you got it wrong. The plants are bad, eat the meat, and then you'll get get health. And the reverse, no, no, no, no, dude, you got it wrong. The plants are bad, eat the meat and then you'll get health. That's the way, bro. You can see where the title of the new book came from. All right, the way. Well, here's what's interesting. The hero food of each group can provably be shown to be toxic in large quantities.

So let's say your hero foods plant. I can provably show you that too much of that is going to be toxic in large quantities. So let's say your hero foods plant. I can provably show you that too much of that is gonna be toxic, provably. And the reverse is true. I could provably show you meat can be toxic in amounts that are too big, provably. Well, here's the irony that this whole era has missed. The villain foods are what protect you

from the toxicities of the hero foods. It's provable. So in other words, like you can, like, and I do it in the new book, I make this argument. I argue both ways. I argue meat's good, meat's bad. I argue oats are good, oats are bad. And I just did that just to show you that,

you know, we have this whole generation where massive followings are following people, giving these skewed arguments based on things that are lesser truths. I'm not saying that we have the absolute truth, but we can always find the greater truth. We're getting maybe towards the absolute truth. We can find the middle truth, which is the greater truth.

So the greater truth is this, like all foods can be toxic in excess amounts. So if I wanted to argue against meat, I'd go, well, no, no, no, no. Here's what nobody's told you. Meat, ferments, toxic bacteria, fusibacteria, nucleatum, cancer promoter, fusibacteria adheres to the lining of the gut. It's an immune attractor, drives all kinds of autoimmune issues, ferments, toxic metabolites, known cancer promoter directly from meat. You know, and

I could just spend hours on this. And I even did a podcast recently where one lady who likes meat, she was like, I thought about getting off meat after reading your thing. But then I go and I argue the reverse. No, no, no, no. Here's what you've missed. Meat is essential for the brain. You need, you need a key sugar protein in meat.

You need new five AC and you get it from meat and without it, the brain doesn't develop. And you know, all these different things. So here's the interesting thing. If I'm in the meat tribe and I'm telling you, no, no, don't eat those plants, man. Plants don't wanna be eaten. Those plants are bad.

Well, what happens is nature has provided this mechanism where if we add in the foods you're telling me to avoid, down checkbox, every single issue you brought up with me are negated by variety. Now, I'm not doing that just because I thought it was a nifty book. I'm doing it because it's this easy thing to see. There are these natural protections built in a meal pattern you'll naturally engage in in nature where you go through periods where protein is scarce. You're not getting the protein you would like.

You're having to eat things you probably wouldn't necessarily want to eat, but it seems to offer benefits. So that's the first benefit is it keeps you from getting too much of anything. The next benefit is that the synergies between opposing foods are kind of shocking. Like they work better together than they do alone. So for example, with meat and muscle synthesis, there's research now showing that if you add in

for every thousand calories, 50 grams of grains, you increase muscle synthesis at a rate superior to just meat alone. There are peptides in potatoes, for example, decapeptide and other peptides that help muscle synthesis. All we heard is there's deca in potatoes. The old school meat and potatoes diet, right? The Trenbolone sandwich is a proven thing.

That's Greg's thing, right? Yeah. Greg's great. So what happens when we eat meat and potatoes? They're synergistic. But I mean, what we call potatoes, potatoes, potatoes are roots. Okay.

That's what they are. And the two foods, like again, guys, I'm not appealing to, oh, I'm so smart. I'm appealing to sense. And I'm just appealing to, you know, if you'll just rely a little bit more on sense here, you can, you don't need anybody. Just rely on sense a little bit more on sense here, you can you don't need anybody just rely on sense a little

Bit more so there's two foods proven all humans have always eaten I don't care where you're out in the world roots and meat all humans have eaten roots and meat So just that alone makes us think well, maybe there's some synergy there and it turns out there is there's significant synergies between The plant side of the equation and the meat side of the equation for muscle synthesis. And it keeps going down the list. We could look at like, you know, you can ferment butyrate from amino acids in meat, but it's not ideal. It's not optimal.

It's very different. What you're going to get is like you ferment butyrate from sacrolytic fermentation, meaning from starches, you're going get your end products are gonna be antioxidants and then you're gonna get the optimal ratios of the short chain fatty acids, the optimal ratios of butyrate to PN8 acetate, okay? Because there's an acetate salvage pathway in the production of butyrate that goes back

and adds on a little bit more butyrate, completely changes. When you start fermenting amino acids from bacteria that ferment aminos, it changes the whole equation. So instead of getting those same ratios, you're going to get propionate, acetate, and butyrate in different ratios. You don't get the same concentration of antioxidants and you get ammonia. Okay. So, so in other words, your, your, your goal is to bake a chocolate cake. And if you use these goal is to bake a chocolate cake. And if you use these ingredients, you get the chocolate cake.

But if you use these sugar substitutes and these other ingredients and this gluten-free thing, it's not the same. It's very different. And so fermenting butyrate from these plant types of fibers is the optimal form. And what that does is It complements the aminos that feed the intestines so the intestines need

Amino acids they need meat and so you get the perfect balance so The cool like a really cool thing right now Like if anybody does get your book is that you program all these things into it. It's like the diet, right? There are certain days where someone is going to be eating less calories on purpose, and then there's other days where they're going to fast until five, and then there's other days where they're eating through the day. And the thing you mentioned about scarcity makes a lot of sense, which is why when I started using fasting

back in like 2017 and started learning about it, I also had a period where I went a little bit too deep down the fasting rabbit hole and I started feeling frail. I was like, I need to start eating. But I also realized that doesn't mean I need to be eating six meals per day every single day. I still found that there's a benefit to not eating all the time. And it's really cool kind of how you mentioned that

because it's weird to be eating all day long, like six, seven meals a day, every single day, not giving yourself a break from just digestion in general. So it's awesome how you've managed to have that all in here. Yeah, thank you. Humans were probably not meant to eat every single day, all day, the same things. And something I talk about in the new book is that

there's evidence that any diet works. Any diet can work. And it's not even so much the diet, it's the fact you changed the diet. It's the fact you changed the diet up. And if you draw the analog to nature, what happens in nature? In fact, I call it nature's meal plan. But it's interesting to just think about this. If you had to actually write down what you, what you ate and everything

about what you did in nature, you had to keep a list. So, okay, yeah, it's morning. There was nothing to eat. I walked five miles. Okay. Write it down. Now what? I found a patch of berries. Okay. Write down what you ate. Okay, then I went to the river and I fished and I didn't get anything I was really hungry and I didn't feel like it but there was there was like some mushrooms and I and I Cut all the mushrooms. I took them back and I made a mushroom soup and I ate that. Okay, so write down the amount of time between Your last meal and this and the amount of distance you walked and then write down dinner. Oh, and then I lucked out after dinner

and I found like, you know, a cassava melon on the ground or an apple or whatever, it was great. Okay, write that down. And then just continue to do that for a month. It would be the most complex meal plan you've ever seen in your life. It would be so complex, it wouldn't make any sense. Like, I can't follow this, just make it simple, dude.

Nature's not simple. And so nature, by its very force of scarcity, forces this unpredictability into the diet. We've eliminated that. We want simple, predictable, we eat the same thing every day, and that's probably one of the worst things you can do. Too much energy comes too much body fat. Yeah.

A constant thing that's been beneficial for all of our health has been intaking enough protein, but also intaking quality protein. And that's why we've been partnering with Good Life Proteins for years now. Good Life not only sells Piedmontese beef, which is our favorite beef. And the main reason why it's our favorite is because they have cuts of meat that have higher fat content, like their rib eyes and their chuck eyes. But they also have cuts of meat like have higher fat content like their rib eyes and their chuck eyes.

But they also have cuts of meat like their flat iron. Andrew, what's the macros on the flat iron? Yeah, dude. So the flat iron has 23 grams of protein, only two grams of fat. But check this out. Their grass fed sirloin essentially has no fat and 27 grams of protein. There we go. So whether you're dieting and you want lower fat cuts or higher fat cuts, that's there. But you can also get yourself chicken, you can get yourself fish, you can get yourself scallops, you can get yourself all types of different meats. And I really suggest going a good life and venturing in and maybe playing around with your proteins. I mean, going back to the red meat, there's Picanha, there's chorizo sausage, there's

maple bacon. That stuff's incredibleizo sausage, there's maple bacon. That stuff's incredible. The maple bacon is so good. The maple bacon is really good. Yo, my girl put those in these bell peppers with a steak and chicken and oh my God, it was so good. But either way guys, protein is essential and the good life is the place where you can get all of your high quality proteins.

So Andrew, how can they get it? Yes, you can head over to goodlifeproteins.com and enter promo code power project to save 20% off your entire order. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. And the anecdote a lot of times is the poison, right? So sometimes with some of these things, even saying like that spinach has oxalates, I'm sure that spinach and or a lot of the other foods

that we have, and if you are healthy, it probably has little to no impact on you. It's probably not really a main spot to focus on. Oh, blasphemy. Oh, you just hit a religion here. They're gonna be coming at you for that. This is one of the food tribes and it's based on, you can use this as the template

for all the other food tribes and how they work. And it's basically, here's a bad guy, we need a villain, we need a Saddam Hussein or we need a boogie man. And don't try and tell us the boogie man's good and the boogie man's bad and here's the reasons why. So I talk about reconnecting to missing realities. So here's the belief and this is a complete myth. The myth is consume oxalate containing foods, absorb the oxalates.

That is not true. That is 100% provably not true. The reality is this. Consume oxalate-containing foods in moderate nature type doses, not excessive doses, moderate doses. Oxalate-containing foods must pass through microbiome filter, okay? Constituents of microbiome filter either detoxify oxalates or allow them to pass through, okay? So this variable is the microbiome filter either detoxify oxalates or allow them to pass through. Okay, so this variable is the microbiome. There is a whole ton of new research on this. Basically the net of it is that there's something like 1,500 species, 78 lactobacillus, 38

mifidobacteria that have the power to degrade oxalates. So an optimized gut can detoxify oxalates, oxalate containing foods, so that you get the benefit of the food. Now this is where the switcheroo comes in, which is conflating the food with the dose. So the problem you get into is people are mega dosing, their diets that they think are healthy, are mega dosing too much of the wrong kinds of things, and there's not enough variety in the diet, so they're overwhelming.

So in the book, I pull out a bell curve, and just to say this, it is not true to say 100% of people eating oxalate-containing foods will develop pathology. That is not true. It's provably not true, okay? It's equally not true to say optimized microbiome will prevent 100% of people from absorbing 100% of oxalates.

That's not true either. There's a bell curve and there's a curve, okay? That's true of anything. So bringing us back into the missing reality of how things work, any protocol that we institute, you're gonna have a range, okay, and you're gonna have kind of a thick middle, roughly 94% of people are gonna have some experience to some degree like this.

Then you're gonna have the outliers, okay, and if we have a population of millions of people, you're gonna have thousands of outliers. So you're gonna have thousands of outliers. So you have thousands of outliers going, no, no, absolutely wrong, because I did the healthy diet for years, and now I have all kinds of issues with oxalates, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

Well, again, coming back to dosing duration and the bell curve, the mistake is to think that this food has oxalates, therefore don't eat it, it's bad. That's a mistake. It's not accurate. The optimized microbiome will filter the oxalate issue and then when you get to the benefits of the food

you're supposed to avoid, they're insane. So like we're supposed to not eat spinach because it has oxalates. Well, let's up the ante a bit. So as you get into my age range, the most important- You're almost 60, right? They'll be 60 in six months, yeah.

There you go. Yeah. The most important thing is going to become your cardiovascular system. It's the single most important thing, okay? Because every day your body has a quota. It has to manufacture proteins, and these proteins are what keep the thing going. And if you don't meet your quota, that's aging, okay? Well, the way that the quota is met is through energy. And what happens with age is the system tasked

with transporting the energy, meaning oxygen and glucose into cells, goes downhill. It goes downhill. So in other words, think of a Tesla plant and the Tesla plant can make X amount of cars and it's done by these powered robots. But one day we decide to cut the power by 50%. So we don't have the energy to power the robots to make the cars.

That's the analogy of aging. And so what's happening with age is the cardiovascular system is undergoing massive transformations. Number one, you're having an over activation of probably the most important enzymes in the body. The NADPH oxidases are the NOx enzymes, okay? They're gonna turn up and these are free radical producers. The only enzymes we know of that make free radicals. So when they turn up, it disrupts everything.

It disrupts insulin function. It disrupts the actual vasculature. So it opens the vasculature up. And then all these changes happen. You become much more sensitive to saturated fats. At the same time, you're losing the fur that lines the vasculature. It's called the glycocalyx.

So you're losing that. When you lose that, it opens up the vasculature. And then on top of all that, nitric oxide production goes down and nitric oxide bioav by availability goes down. Okay. This is like the issue. I mean, really, like if you, if you look at like, what's the issue, how can we stay young? Oh, no problem. I, I've got a patent on a thing that takes pluripotent stem cells and makes them, you know, so now you're going to regenerate. Not until you

regenerate the vasculature, not happening. Okay. So it turns out one of the best defenses is nitrate containing foods, your green leafy vegetables, because they feed the nitrate reducing bacteria in the mouth. And these bacteria are as essential as acrimonci and bifidotas to the gut because we lack the enzyme that we need to convert nitrate into nitrite. Well, these bacteria, they're responsible for converting 80, 90% of the nitrate that we take in into nitrate, nitrite. And so we can say, we can look at these green leafies that are so evil and go, oh my gosh,

we shouldn't have them because oxides. So you have the other side of the equation is they're one of our best sources of things that are going to stimulate nitric oxide and keep it bioavailable. And so they have a place in the diet. Do they have a place where we're eating too much? No, absolutely. There's a dose duration equation. And if you have pathology, like you've been sick for years

and overdosed on oxalates, yeah, you need to lay off and you need to heal yourself and stay away for a while. But generally speaking, the way nature set things up is that if you were in nature, it's gonna force you to get small amounts of just a lot of things. And the cumulative benefit is kind of what we need. You said that if we have a healthy gut microbiome,

then we shouldn't worry about these oxalates, but what if, I don't know know we're feeling a little sick. So again dose and duration becomes important so as long as you are not overdosing Oxalate containing foods to massive amounts and you have a tuned microbiome. It's really not an issue In fact, there have been science papers talking about, well, how did cavemen and ancestors, they had so much oxalate in their diet. How come they weren't sick?

And what they come back with is, well, they had the microbiome that degrades them, but we don't have that anymore. And then when you look at that issue, it's like, well, that's actually not true. You can actually spin that microbiome up. Okay. That's actually not true. You can actually spin that microbiome up. So a sane, reasonable discussion that plugs us back into reality is variety in the diet, including these types of foods that have all these benefits. Another one is phytic acid. You better have that in the diet.

You know, you get that from green leafies. Done in moderation is incredibly beneficial. Done like to extremes for too long, yeah, it could be detrimental, but that's true of anything. And then does it matter like if it's cooked or something? Does that like, because you hear about like, oh, don't cook the nutrients out of the green leafy, whatever it is, does that even matter?

Yeah, it does. So you can actually degrade oxalates by cooking. That helps, and then the microbiome helps. And so there's a lot of additive factors that can factor into the equation. But I think really the main takeaway from this is just that I think Ben Peklowski puts it really well. He calls it looking at the world through a straw.

So as long as you're not looking at the world through a straw, there's other issues. Like it isn't just, it's also the cardiovascular system. It's also this it's also that so there's a there's a big picture But if you want to make it simple again, you'll find the perfect diet go do a survival course It'll teach it to you really fast. So okay. This one's really cool And I'm really excited to talk to you about this one, but we can control immune cells with sugars You're talking about honey not being just sugar. Please elaborate on that. I've been really loving local honey and I've been

having it like every day and I have been feeling really good. It's allergy season right now and I'm no longer taking allergy medicine for the first time in like, I don't know, like 10 years. Yeah, honey is amazing stuff. It really is. The closer to nature it's incredible. So, I mean, it's the hazardous first pick, you know, for foods. Yeah. You can get sick on it though. You can, you can do too much honey and, and, and get sugars, you know, essentially just sugar toxicity from it, but in moderate doses. Yeah. So to your question though, what I call the immune-centric approach is understanding that every issue that we

actually want the outcome on turns on immune cells. Like if you want, let's say you want muscle. If you break that down and go, what's involved here? It's actually an immune cascade. So post-workout, you're going to start the recruitment process for inflammation. So you have interleukin 1B is up, interleukin 6 is up, and you want maximum recruitment of the right kinds of immune cells, okay, to recover. But then 24 hours later, you want the resolution phase to begin.

And so you want maximum clearance of certain types of immune cells. And when you begin to look at things this way, you walk away with really simple like, oh, you mean all I gotta do is get hot at the end of my workout? All I gotta do is take this sugar the day after? Like simple things, but you're actually leveling up to a greater understanding of how things work,

which not to get too far sideways here, but an interesting thing, I was just thinking the other day, oh gosh, now 2012, I did this engagement with a major hospital chain for my nutrition system. And I'll never forget, it was January of 2020, it was in Pennsylvania and it was like literally a blizzard. We showed up like, and one of our guys was fishing

in the trunk for something, I don't know we were just sitting there like Was so cold but As soon as I got there they parked me in front of the the PhD and then and like all the super smart people and Like how's it work? And I was like, yeah. Yeah, really good question. So um, well one of the ways we do this is through targeting the Inchartons and we use a GLP one and GIP and they were just like, what? They're just looking at me like, what? What are you talking about?

And now today that's like, everybody listening is like, yeah, yeah, yeah, GLP, yeah, I know, get to the hard stuff. So what we've seen happen is this PhD trickle-down has happened so fast where before like with DNA, it took 50 years and now in 10 years, we've had this like, these were PhDs, they didn't know what I was talking about.

And now today it's just a common term, like, oh yeah, yeah, I know, I know what that is. We're familiar with that. So on that line of thinking, the notion of like targeting immune cells, it's not really that far out. Like, what's next? Yeah, okay, great.

So pulling back the curtains a little bit more, if you want any outcome, like you want to get thin, and we begin to unpack that, and we look at obese people go, what's going on here? Ah, the fat's inflamed. And they've got all these inflammatory immune cells in their fat. And these inflammatory immune cells are spreading all this signal smog, and they can't get lean until you clear up the smog.

So, okay, well, how do we do that? Well, one good tool is sugars, very specific types of sugars. So D-mannose, for example. And so when you look at immune cells, what's interesting about them is they have the same metabolism as cancer cells.

So when an injury happens, what T cells need to do is proliferate. Okay. And so in order to do that, they need immediate energy. They need, it's like, it's like they have to do a sprint. So the way the T cells do a sprint is they go into a Warburg metabolism, they go into glycolysis and they proliferate like crazy. Okay. And that's the recruitment phase.

And then at some point, you need the resolution phase. And so what T cells do is they use up tons of sugar initially, you know, to proliferate. But then we need to kind of turn the rudder, so to speak. And one of the ways to do that is to deprive them of their food. And certain types of sugars can steer the ship either positive or negative. So sucrose, like sugar steers the ship towards inflammation because they're like, oh, great. This is exactly what we needed more sugar. Yay. Okay. Yeah. Oddly cancer feeds on that because they have the same type of metabolism, but different types of sugars, specifically like sugars found in honey, seem to have the opposite effect.

So honey has all these what's called rare sugars. There's turinose, there's trellis, there's isomaltugulose, all these really specific, what are called rare sugars, that we really can't find anything negative about these. Like what they seem to be like incredibly beneficial to human health, sugar. But, and when you break them down, it doesn't even make sense.

It's like, well, this is just fructose and sucrose bound together. How is this healthy? And it just is. So one of the things they do is certain types of immune cells, they'll pick up and feed on these sugars and it switches them off from their inflammatory state, particularly in body fat.

So coming back to that convo of like, Hey, the PhD convo has rapidly come down to the mainstream. This is just the next level, which is understanding a few simple tricks to steer immune cells and tools that we can do that with. So food tools, one of the reasons that honey, like if you look up the research on honey, it's like actually anti-inflammatory sugar, but it's anti-inflammatory. Oh, how is that? It's because it's got all these sugars in it that spin down inflammatory immune cells. That's incredible. I mean, other than like inflammatory response, like is there anything

else that is like a lesser known fact about honey? Oh, tons. Yeah, tons. My gosh. I guess one or two that jump out at you. Well, so honey, one of the things about honey is it's a great prebiotic. It's really great for the gut. And it has to do with the way that certain bacteria can metabolize the different types of sugars

that are in honey. For example, Bifidobacteria is a family and that family has different food preferences. It's kind of like, you know, we've got a, we have a Rottweiler, he likes meat, but then, you know, our Yorkie, he won't eat anything except, you know, what's on the table. So there are certain species of bathytobacteria

that will metabolize these special sugars like Turinose. And when they proliferate, they do these really amazing things. Example would be, there is a species of the Bifidobacteria called Pseudocanelatum. And this species works with the gut immune axis. And what it does is it takes wonky ratios of T cells and normalizes them.

So T cells, there's different types. With So T cells, there's different types. You know, like with helper T cells, there's different categories. Like you have Th1 T cells, you have Th17s. The Th1s are primarily like, they're like team recon. So their job is just to call it in. That's their job. But then the Th17, they're like the Marines. Their job is just to land and just destroy. That's their job. So what can happen in autoimmune issues is you get too many of the TH17s, too many of the destroyers, you know, and then they just wreck havoc, but not enough of the, of the, of the signal callers. And so some of these strains that are fed by the specific sugars and honey can proliferate.

And then what they do is they seem to recruit more of like the signal callers which helps to normalize out Excess th-17 to th-1 and so your some of your autoimmune issues arthritis things like that You know seem to be helped and you can go look this up like honey and you know arthritis and all these types of cool things There's people that seem to maybe Have a different like metabolism. All right There's some people that seem like maybe have a different metabolism. There's some people that seem like they really struggle to lose weight legitimately. I know people are like, well, they just got to keep bringing their calories down. But there might be a case where some people have to bring their calories down so low that

they're just perpetually really, really hungry. Would you agree with that? If so, what's happening there? Yeah, boy, that, really hungry. Would you agree with that? And if so, what's happening there? Yeah, boy, that's a topic. And that touches on a lot of things. So calories are a crucial part of a very complex equation. You cannot say that they are not important. Sometimes they're the only thing that matters, but they are a variable in an equation

where other things can be out of whack and then the calories don't matter at all. It doesn't matter how low you take the calories, they're not gonna drop weight. I didn't- Did you say that to be true even if somebody didn't eat? Yeah, absolutely.

They'll still hold their weight? Well, if you mean like starvation, like they just didn't eat for six months, no. I mean, they're gonna- Okay. Yeah, no, I don't mean to say that. But one thing that you'll, so a problem you run into, I think with fitness

is that you always deal with fit people. And so you never. That was just well said. Or freaks of nature. I'm human, bro. We died on now. It works the same with me. The super soldier serum got in there somewhere.

I don't think. It was a... Did we just teach you? I got you bro. No, what you... So I didn't get this until 2012 and I started in these corporate wellness engagements and then we would do like 2000 people at a time,

room filled with 500 people, the next flight of 500 in another two hours. And I saw people all in their 50s, they were all just heavy and, you know, and working full time jobs. And to a person, you go talk to them, they're like, I just, I mean, it doesn't matter how low the calories go, I can't lose weight, you know. So there are categories of people where other mechanisms begin to kick in and what you see is that calories sort of are a subset of the equation.

So like if this issue is not there, the calories are all that matters. It works perfectly. But example would be if the cardiovascular system is on the wane and you've got you've got cardiovascular issues, the endothelium, you have over activation of the enzymes I talked about. Well then insulin function is just going to be completely wrecked and they just don't move the needle when you drop calories. And so there can be other variables. This is this is kind of a thing, like,

it's interesting there's resistance on this. Like if you deal in fitness circles, people will tell you, no, no, no, it's just calories, dude, it's just calories. I used to think that until I got in these population groups and I was like, oh, whoa, whoa, oh, I get it now. And there are population groups where there's so many other things going on.

The proof of this, and it's very, very interesting, I think it's going to bubble up a lot in the next few years, is that there's research out now showing that the mitochondria have the ability to decouple energy production from energy input. And this makes perfect sense if you think about it like if the mitochondria needed one-for-one energy input to produce energy We'd all be dead, you know, because there are fluctuations in energy input But the mitochondria seem to work kind of like they have gears or they the engine works at different levels Where the my the mitochondria can throttle ATP independent of increased energy inputs.

So in other words, oh yeah, we need to keep a steady energy output. That's a mandatory for the body, but we don't have the energy available right now. No problem. We'll throw it. We'll go into this mode to throttle ATP. So this is just a me thing. I don't know if this is correct. I think it might bear out in the next few years. My suspicion is that when we are young, the mitochondria,

their ability to throttle ATP output is much more robust. And when we get older, it's like you lose that gear. You can't you can't down you can't kick down into that gear anymore. And so they lose the ability to essentially throttle energy production. And I think that, again, it's just me, but I think it's going to be a thing. You and your lady just had an awesome night. You got dinner or you just came back from the gym and it's time for that fun time. But you look down at your willy and well, it's not working the way it should. Where's that blood flow? Well, that's where Joy Mode comes in.

And I can read you these ingredients right off the bat because they're all natural ingredients, L-citrulline, arginine nitrate, panic skinsing root, and vitamin C. The thing about Joy Mode is you just slip this baby into a little bit of water, drink it in 45 minutes later, when you're getting ready to go to the pound town, you will be ready to rock.

And you know what I mean by rock. Joy mode's really awesome because there's a lot of things that people promote as far as sexual wellness tools, but there's a lot of weird ingredients in there. These are all natural ingredients that's going to help your own production of blood flow. Stick it in some water. 60 minutes later, you're going to be able to stick it into something else. Joy mode's your way to go. Andrew, how can they get it?

Yes, that's over at usejoymode.com slash power project. In that checkout, enter promo code power project to save 20% off your entire order. Again, usejoymode.com slash power project, promo code power project, links in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. Do you, cause I know probably with the practices you have for people in terms of sleep, you actually have practices for cold in this book. All these things have an effect on mitochondria, but you know, what are some things that you think can, maybe that weren't included in the book or things that you'd suggest people do to improve their mitochondrial health, just general concepts?

I'm just trying to think of like a few simple big things apart. So, okay, the most important thing I think is a 48 hour cycle. That's what I think it is, okay. And it's that you're going from that foraging, fasting cycle into a feasted cycle. And in that process, you have a fast that is augmented by technology.

So there's two variables. One is the foods you're taking in mimic foraging foods, which are synergistic with, with AMPK, with all these fasting mitochondrial growth pathways. And then you're using modern technology like supplementation and cold and all these other things to kick fasting up a level. And I just think that repeated practice

over years and years and years and years is probably the core thing that I would do. I don't think it's a supplement. I don't think it's, you know, obviously red light's helpful, but the sheer weight of inputs is gonna be the thing at the end of the day. So like, you know, it's like reps,

like some people just have more reps in, you know, and. The sunlight? Yeah, sunlight's huge. Yeah, the light light's huge. But I don't think that... Here's the interesting thing. Some of the strongest populations in the world have very little sunlight.

True. You look at the Nordics, you look at the Scotch, these people that are always just blowing out these strength contests, freaky strong people, they live in, they get two months of sunlight a year. But they're some of the strongest people in the world. Because they have so much darkness on the inside, being depressed because they don't have the sun.

We're both scotch, so they can draw a drop on that. But you would assume that cold has quite a bit to do with that? Cold and probably the diet over there. What are your thoughts there? Yeah, so it's not any one thing. It's the combination of things. So if you look at what nature's doing, then nature's rhythms are bringing together several things all at once.

So in nature, what you're doing is, let's just go down the list. You're expending energy to get food, so you're exercising. You're going through periods, eating less preferential foods that spin up these bacteria that help the mitochondrial and help all this stuff. Then on top of that, you're getting cold.

Then on top of that, you're getting sun. Then on top of that, you're having periods where you feast and sleep really, really well. And so I think it's the cycle itself, not any one thing. And so it's this pattern that nature seems to put on us. And that, to me, I would say is the cycle, the pattern. Yeah, I believe the circadian rhythm too. I think we have a tendency of thinking like when the sun goes up and when the sun goes down,

but I think the circadian rhythm is in reference to anything consumed in a day, whether you're going outside or whether you're eating food or it's inclusive of all things. That's such a great topic. What we have not really adequately factored in is how food drives circadian rhythm. So we figured out light drives it, you know, and then there's sort of all these pejoratives like,

you food gurus don't get it. But the other side of that is that food, and you can verify this, just go feed, if you have a little nephew, a baby, go feed them and watch what happens. Just out, right? Instantly. So food entrains the circadian cycles. Like if you want to, if you can't,

if you have a problem going to sleep, the number one cure, have a giant breakfast. You'll reset your clock. It's provable. Just go have a giant, I have a client who we've tried to do fast and can't do it because he needs that big breakfast and he sleeps like a baby. But if we take that breakfast out, he doesn't sleep. So food and train, sleep,

breakfast helps your sleep. Uh, what the, the, that night pretty much. Yeah. And then you're trying to maybe avoid having too much food before you go to bed or you don't have restrictions on that. Uh, it would depend on what you need. So the first part of the equation is if you're having an issue with sleep onset, increase your breakfast, get in a big breakfast. In the morning?

Yeah, in the morning. Yeah, that'll entrain the circadian clocks. Then if at bedtime you need a little extra oomph, grilled cheese, baby. Yeah. Then if at bedtime you need a little extra oomph, grilled cheese, baby. Yeah. Yeah. That's what that comes in. I love the grilled cheese sandwich.

It always comes back into play. Yeah. No, it's, it works. Yeah, years ago when I did my bodybuilding show, Joel helped coach me after the show because I didn't want to blow up and gain like 50 pounds. And he's like, hey, you know, do these grilled cheese sandwiches for a couple of days.

And I think he meant like two, three days. And I basically ended up doing it for like a week because I got so excited about how good the grilled cheese sandwiches were. But it worked well. I have like a line of testimonials, like three pages thick on that. Like, hey dude, it worked, man.

Like I slept better, yeah. Did you guys try the mac and cheese yet in the new book? Not yet. You gotta give that one a try. It's even better. But like, what is this about the grilled cheese that makes a difference? Because like, when some people, like for example,

if I have a big meal before bed, obviously my sleep quality is not great. Heart rate's always a little bit higher, all those things, right? So what is it about a grilled cheese that makes a difference for people's sleep quality? One's the size, so it's not a big meal. That's a, and there's some interesting research on this.

What it talks about is a small high glycemic meal at bedtime. Not a big meal, but a small meal can help. Yeah. The other thing has to do with insulin, signaling, and leptin. So basically like getting a nice little pop of insulin will drive leptin that'll drive, that help you go to sleep, that'll drive serotonin. The other thing is just dairy in and of itself has all these really like unique sleep peptides.

So dairy has some of the most powerful sleep peptides. And I can't recall the name right now. They're like a combination of alphabet letters, but dairy is fantastic for sleep onset. Just milk? Yeah. Well, the old, you know, warm glass of fantastic for sleep onset. Just milk? Yeah, well the old, you know, warm glass of milk and boom, out. Yeah. Yeah, dairy is amazing stuff.

I mean, dairy, like when you, I've had a lot of people come at me and like, oh, you're just a paid show for the dairy industry. And I wish I was, I mean, but no, dairy, dairy, gosh, it was about 2006. I had been one of the, you know, oh, no, you gotta avoid dairy, you know, oh no, you gotta avoid dairy, you know, and then I started doing the research on it and it's like, after

a while the arguments, oh, it's just a dairy industry paying for it. It's like, no, it's not, man. Like when you begin to break dairy down and look at the peptides in dairy, like there's two peptides, there's IPP and PVV. These are some of the best cardiovascular peptides you can get. So they directly suppress angiotensin too. Angiotensin is a vasoconstrictor and they help the vasculature. They help all kinds of things.

There's an enzyme that basically disintegrates GLP-1. Dairy blocks that enzyme. So that's one of the reasons cheese makes you so full is it helps GLP-1 stay around longer. I mean, it's just, you can go on and on. Dairy has what are called bovine mediated exosomes. So exosomes are vesicles in food that contain little bits of programming. So the BMVs, the bovine mediated exosomes,

they actually accumulate. And unlike a lot of things, the accumulation of these is beneficial. It's actually beneficial. So as you accumulate BMVs over time they have all these amazing effects. One of them is preventing cognitive decline and Alzheimer's and things like that. So the issue that we've had with dairy that I talk about a lot in the book is just a food grade issue. So that and this is pretty fascinating stuff when you trace the history of this back and I give

credit to a guy I hung out with a little while back who's doing some cool things with dairy and long story short, it turns out that when you look at the history of dairy, prior to about the 18th century, raw milk was the go-to. It was the go-to. So everybody had a cow because in the worst case scenario, you'd get some raw milk and they'll keep you going. Like 100%, 100% nutritious, like everything's great. Then what happened is the Holstein explosion happened. And so basically two things happened. One is the refrigerated rail car changed everything. So the refrigerated rail car changed the whole thing

of like your food was 15 minutes from you. And now with the refrigerated rail car, you could ship stuff. Okay. And then when that happened, the emphasis on the Holstein cows happened and there was a selective breeding effort on quantity over quality. So if you look kind of pre

or you look at different types of cows other than the Holsteins, what you find is like, oh wow, we don't need to add vitamin D. Vitamin D levels are through the roof in this milk, and we don't need to add calcium. Calcium's through the roof. I think what you're referring to

is a little bit of long lines of like A2 milk, right? Yeah. That's supposedly from our original cows, supposed to be easier to digest and maybe full of more vitamins and nutrients. Definitely is. So what happened with the Holsteins was that if you look at like kind of a native cow,

it's not making 20 gallons of milk a day, and you can maybe get a gallon a day, but it's very high quality stuff. But when you take a look at like what you can do with a cow now, you're getting, you know, I mean, here in Davis, you guys know better than me, but you get way more than a gallon a day out of a cow. And so this breeding effort to get cows

to produce more quantity diluted the quality of a cow. And so this breeding effort to get cows to produce more quantity diluted the quality of the milk. Then at the same time, what happened was there came this effort with regard to raw milk to make kind of changes in the way that it was produced. That's when the milk sickness started. Okay. Like probably if you look at Abraham Lincoln's wife, she had the milk sickness. It didn't happen prior to that.

And so there were changes in the way that raw milk was delivered that created. So nowadays, don't eat raw milk, it's dangerous and blah, blah, blah. But if you look at the history of that, it's more a processing issue than anything else. And like you go talk to native populations around the world who don't have a lot of food.

They have goats and they might have cows and if they don't have food, they've got milk. So It's good news. I like milk a lot. Yeah, same the raw milk gets really really expensive. It's like 20 bucks a gallon over here That's crazy. Yeah, but but what I wanted to ask you So, um people are just they're tired throughout the day and you mentioned a big breakfast to help get a good night's sleep Is there anything else that you can recommend that people do with their diet to help like sustain energy throughout the day? Well, the number one thing is your insulin sensitivity. It's like the number one thing. And your insulin sensitivity is going to kind of, so we all have that, you know, that person, that Brad Pitt guy, like that guy eats anything, you know, and he

never gains a pound of fat. You're talking about insulin sensitivity. That's what you're talking about. And then when you're talking about somebody who's like, ah, just no matter what I do, I can't lose fat. Oh, that's usually insulin sensitivity. So when your insulin sensitivity goes, you have all kinds of issues related to it. Number one is your body composition.

You can't get it where you wanna go. But the other thing is your energy levels just tank. And then, you know, big meals tank you. And so really, I mean, this is a whole thing, we could do another podcast on it. But it's really like, if you want real health and lasting health, you got to put insulin at the center of that. And you have to put a long term plan in place to optimize insulin. And once you begin to think like that, it changes the whole landscape of diet because well, okay, that's adiponectin, glucagon, GLP-1, GIP, and the microbiome all need to be optimized all at

once along with insulin. And then that changes the equation of diet. It was like, well, no problem. I'll just do low carb. Nah, yeah, it's not going to work long term because you're going to actually lose the number of Glut 4 receptors. You'll down regulate that. You'll probably gain peripheral insulin resistance. I mean, it becomes a different conversation once you really take insulin serious and begin to understand all of the hormones.

And in the short term, it might be really effective to utilize some low carb. And then as your body composition starts to change, if you lose weight, get momentum with some walking and or some lifting, then you can reintroduce some carbohydrates. And I think that that's a really great way for a lot of people to go because I think there's some people

that are, they're just so addicted to the foods that they're eating, you know, and to sometimes eliminate a food group might not be a bad idea just for a period of time. Yeah, it brings up a really important thing, I think another missing reality, which is titration. And it's when people typically what you see a lot of is, well, I tried changing my diet, I tried this, I tried that, and it didn't work. I just felt like a lethargy and I felt foggy and all that. The issue wasn't the foods.

The issue was that you did too much too fast and that you can actually, when you're introducing new foods in the diet, this is just missing and it needs to be present, which is the idea that you slow titrate in everything. If you haven't been eating it, like if you've been on a low carb diet and you want to reduce carbs back in, start with a pea sized amount of food for a week every day and then go to

two peas and then three and then four. That's how slow you slowly introduce carbs into the diet. And then as you acquire the bacteria to digest those carbs, you mitigate the issues and you get the benefits. But like I said, upfront, I mean, this isn't rocket science. It's just stupid stuff that's been missing, which is just slow titrate in. It's not the foods.

It's your insulin sensitivity has been down-regulated and it's gonna take some time to build it back up and your digestive ability. I was finding there's some videos that I sent to Andrew because there's diet tribes that I sent to Andrew because we, you know, there's diet tribes, as you mentioned, and there's, there's this one problem about who we had her on the podcast, she shared a lot of great information, but it's just, I think this is where people are like, oh shit, what the fuck, what do I do?

Because you're talking about like the benefits of you have an oatmeal meal here, you have to talk about the benefits of like potatoes. But she's somebody who thinks that like oatmeal is for poor people and potatoes were fucking Great Depression food. And there's some videos that we'll play through, but I'm curious on your thoughts about some of this stuff. So we'll play this one right here first. This is Cooking with Clara. Clara is now. The video's not showing. Insulin is a fat storing hormone. So whenever we're producing insulin,

we're storing fat, it's sitting on our fat cells, it's locking the fat down, we can't access it. And when you don't stir your insulin up in your blood by just getting your blood moving, your body produces more insulin. And when you produce more insulin, two things happen. One, you become more resistant to it. And two, you just store more fat.

Insulin is a fat storing hormone. So, when she's talking about that, what are your thoughts there on that video? Okay. Okay. I like this. I like this a lot. Yeah. And so, to give you some context too.

She, I believe she's carnivore, right? Yeah. Promotes a carnivorous based diet for herself and the people she works with. She's had a transformation with it herself. So first timer. So first of all, you cannot... So understand this. White adipose tissue for the most part relies on glycolysis.

Glycolysis requires this thing called insulin. You have to move sugar into cells. White adipose tissue lacks mitochondria for the most part. So how are you going to run the cell without insulin? Some of the functions of the sauce, it's, the sauce store fat has to release fat. Okay. In the process of any action, insulin is required to do either or. Okay. So you need insulin. White adipocytes need insulin to transport glucose into the cell to have the power to run the cell to do things like liberate free fatty acids. Now, so there's levels to this.

There's sort of like the cell needs a certain amount to function on. It needs an adequate amount. In fact, what you see is these very complex things happen with insulin resistant white adipocytes. On the one hand, they release more free fatty acids. That's a problem with them. But on the other hand, they release more free fatty acids. That's a problem with them. But on the other hand, they store more free fatty acids. And so insulin resistance in adipocytes

is kind of like almost a crux problem of everything else that you find. But so the idea that insulin's a fat storage hormone stems from the action of glycerol phosphate. So basically you have to release glycerol from free fatty acids. Okay. And that typically insulin will increase that process. Excuse me. I have it backwards to store fat. You need basically to, um, you need glycerol bound to free fatty acids and

that requires insulin to do that. So insulin increases that activity. It turns that up. But all that to say that technically without insulin doing its thing, the adipocyte is dysfunctional. It's not going to function. Okay, so the adipocyte must take in insulin to power itself and operate. And if it's insulin resistant, which is a very common problem, then you're going to find all kinds of weight related issues. So adipocytes need insulin sensitivity in order for you to be lean. Without without insulin sensitivity in adipocytes, you're not going to be lean. Mechanically speaking, yeah, you can you can go through and show show like fat storage and you can show that insulin sort of helps that thing down that road. But the funny thing is you'll see some of the leanest people on what you would call

large amounts of carbohydrates, you know, large amounts of like, you know, different types of, in fact, I've done it. I've done put people on green bean diets and they're running three millimoles of ketones. Yeah, it's crazy. Like you can get a ketogenic diet off carbohydrates. Okay. How much carbs that end up being? Massive, massive, massive. Like 45 minutes of chewing, massive.

So all that to say is these simplistic sort of like, oh, this is good, this is bad. When you dive into like lipolysis, forget it. It's so complex. It is so ridiculous. Like, I won't spend much time on this. I'll spend 30 seconds on this, but like we don't even completely understand lipolysis.

Okay, so it happens in the gut outside the cell, but then inside the cell, there are different types of lipolysis that take place. There's acidic lipolysis, there's neutral lipolysis, there's types of lipolysis that are powered by exosomes. So the way we liberate fat droplets is through vesicles and containers, but then there's enzymatically driven.

All that to say it's incredibly complex and it's just not that simple. A better explanation here would be to say if you have insulin resistance, yeah, you're going to have issues with carbohydrates. You're going to have issues and insulin resistance in adipocytes is not a function necessarily of carbohydrates. It's a function of inflammation first. So what happens is, someday we'll do another podcast and we'll go through glucose transport,

but just for now to make it quick. Basically, adipocytes must transport glucose into the cell in order to power the cell. When they're inflamed, the first kinase in the chains called IRS-1 breaks and it breaks from inflammation. So there's an inflammatory mediator, TNF-alpha, breaks that chain. So the adipocyte can no longer function.

It can't bring glucose in. Now you get insulin resistant adipocytes and then what happens is, number one, they don't, they don't, they grow too big, they store too much fat and then they also release a lot of fat and you get this weird thing of releasing lots of free fatty acids, but storing lots of fats in old adipocytes, super complex. I would just sum this up by saying it's more a case of insulin resistance than anything else, so.

And a goal would be to try over time, you know, not just to drop body fat, but to try to become more insulin sensitive rather than getting rid of a whole food group because it's bad. Yeah. So, yes, your insulin sensitivity is the thing that you really need to be thinking about. And that will take you into optimizing the microbiome, foods that stimulate adiponectin, and a really interesting thing that goes in line with what we've been talking about here. Two of the key players are insulin and glucagon. They're completely

opposed. Okay. You need both. You need to stimulate insulin on a regular basis to make it sharp. Like, like someone messaged me today about, Hey, you know, the rice only diet seems to work. It seems to restore insulin sensitivity. You know, why is that blah, blah, blah. And it's because you need to stimulate insulin for it to be sharp. Conversely, you need periods where glucagon is stimulated for insulin to be sharp and they are completely opposed. So where does this tell us? This is a smoking gun reverse engineering. The body isn't meant to have either every single day.

Like in other words, you weren't meant to have days that are just all glucagon stimulation. You weren't meant to have days that were just completely insulin stimulation. Coming back to what does nature do in that meal plan in nature. all glucagon stimulation. You weren't meant to have days that were just completely insulin stimulation. Coming back to what does nature do in that meal plan in nature? One day you're basically just getting moderate insulin stimulation, a little bit foraging, and then you're going to take a large protein meal, you maybe even throw some carbs with

that, you're going to get more insulin stimulation. So there's this yin yang between insulin and glucagon, and that seems to optimize insulin function. And what that points to is some days are more protein, fat, some days are more specific types of carbohydrates. So I'm flexing on the whole family of insulin hormones. Gotcha. Yeah, I'd also say that, you know, for some people, eating some carbohydrates can help them with better output.

And if you can have better workouts, I mean, some issues some people have is that if they're dieting their workouts might be flat. And if they are bringing in some carbohydrates, maybe the workouts will be better. I think we undersell the value of output and the value of having all the material inside you to go out and do the thing, to go out and do the sprints, to be motivated enough to go and do the thing. If you don't have the energy in your system and you're really lethargic, I'm not saying you can't do stuff without carbs because I've done low carb diets for a long time and I

really enjoy them and I think they're effective. But I also have learned, especially trying to go through keto and peeing on the sticks and pricking my finger and all that stuff over the years, that the best thing was for me to really avoid ketosis on a ketogenic diet. So it was still like low carb, but once I kind of saw those ketones go up, it was actually time for something new and something different, you know Reintroduce the carbohydrates. Yeah, there's some research that just came out saying oh you don't need carbs necessarily to fuel workouts, you know I've never found that to be true. I just I just and

Everyone I know that like I think what I think is just me I don't know if this is you know something that'll be bare out, but I think what I think is just, man, I don't know if this is, you know, something that'll be bare out, but I think what I've noticed is that when you initially kind of go low carb, you know, kind of trying to drive ketosis more, the workouts are amazing, but then there's a rapid steep drop off and then they suck. But then when you reintroduce carbs consistently, consistently you get your best lifts, you

get your best pumps, you get your best everything. So I think that the missing variable in that new equation was just at what point in time. Like yeah, I think upfront you probably, in fact, there was a PDF I authored to Ron Pena in 2013 called Fasted and Blasted. And it was when I was in the early stages of that. Oh yeah, train fasteded Look at the pump, you know, but then I kind of hit that wall and kind of Didn't you know? Yeah, so I prefer to be fed. I think the three of us recently stopped drinking coffee, right? It was significantly less. Yeah, yeah and

definitely reduced caffeine consumption and you did something similar, but you Have some espresso beans here and there? Yeah, I went off coffee completely. Why did you go off coffee completely? I'm really sensitive to it. Really sensitive, yeah. I don't do well with it.

I have low grade Tourette's. Shit! Scared the shit out of me. Can I have that big ass hand come towards your face? He told me the first time he was on the show before we went on air and he's like, I might like blink and move around or I might yell or something. I was like, okay. No, it's true.

Yeah, no, you see this with people that, there's a lot of low grade Tourette's that I see. Like I just see it now in people that will be like, kind of like that. And so I'm controllably asymptomatic, but if I have coffee, it's much harder for me to do that. So, but I noticed is that espresso beans don't seem to trigger that stuff. So kind of funny. What do you do with the espresso beans?

Just, I just eat them. You just chew on them or something? Yeah. How many, like how many espresso beans? Uh, I'll use like 17, 18, something like that. That's kind of a lot. In a day? You ever tried that before?

I've never done that before. I just like put them in my mouth before just to like try it. Like I know some people get like a little small amount of caffeine from it. It's a little rough. Yeah, it's weird. Yeah, but I mean, it's just a regular coffee bean though, right, like espresso just, I mean, it's less oily, but it's just a regular coffee bean, isn't it?

I don't know, man, I'm not like, Okay, just making sure. I'm not a coffeeology, I don't. Yeah, I think so, but you're fine. But that's interesting, okay. And it's not like a chocolate covered one? I'll do those too, yeah. Okay, those are really good.

Those are great, yeah. But it's like half of a bean, you know, it's like a little crunchy bit in the middle. Yeah are really good. Those are great. Yeah. But it's like half of a bean, you know, it's like a little like crunchy bit in the middle. Yeah. Either or. Yeah. We shot some YouTube content with you today talking about old body, young body.

I just think it's a great topic and I've been getting more into doing some sprinting. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? Yeah. So in my first book I wrote about, you know, there's all kinds of tests for your real age, you know, all that. And I just think there's really one test and that's can you go from zero to a sprint? Because it just separates the crowd. I mean, that's like the, you know, that's like the parting of the ocean where if you can just go from zero to a sprint, your body's pretty young. And when you were a kid, you could do it.

When you were a teenager, you could do it. Even early 20s and then somewhere along the line, you just, you passed a line. It's like, oh, I'm not doing that now. So that, for me, it came out of, my first book I wrote about this concept called the integrated interval, which really was in the first draft

called the integrated minute. And where that came from was running track. When you got injured, what we used to do was it's the volume of training that'll, that'll re-injure you. So when you're coming back from an injury, just a single all out quarter, that was your workout for the day. Okay. And, and you would just do that and come back the next day. You want all out quarter, one all out quarter, one, you know for the day. Okay. And, and you would just do that

and come back the next day. You want all our quarter, one, all quarter, one, you know, you're talking like guys are really fast running sub 50 quarters. So basically in like 48 seconds, that's your workout. And that always, that always stayed with me the idea that wow, in 48 seconds, I'm done for the day. Like that's incredible if you think about it. Like, and in fact, I've always wondered like, if you could just track someone who did one quarter a day every day for 20 years, you know, probably be pretty freaking fit, you know,

and that's all they do. So that stuck with me and when I was working a real job and I had these 16 hour days and there was a necessity there which was I needed to just take a minute or two and that's been purloined a lot from the book. I hear exercise snacks, microdosing exercise. I mean, it's definitely caught on but it came out of working full time

and needing to do something in a minute or two. And so sprinting kind of fits into that because it takes a long time to build up for if you're not doing it. Like you really need to take a good 90 days and just slowly, slowly train it in. I have a course on it. It's free and just, you know, get the mechanics right, do it in place and then, and then, you know, strengthening the Achilles everything.

But eventually if you just hit it every day for a minute or two, you'll reach this point where suddenly, like, you can just kind of go out and take off, and it's kind of amazing. Yeah. And then if you just listen to your body and maintain that, you really maintain the athletic range of the body. Nothing taxes the body more than a full out sprint. And so it's been something that's part of what I do,

been part of me for a long, long time. And, you know, I'll have periods where I, my wang-out when I should have tang-out, I'll get an injury and I gotta go back to the, back of the line and start over. And it takes a long time. But being in that tune, it's hard to describe when your body's in that tune.

It just feels amazing. Amazing. Like you feel amazing all the time. What about baby talk? Oh, that's a yeah. So yeah, I think it's just, that was a term I coined in my first book that just really was an attempt to just get us out of like

this stupid, like there's a whole lot of stupid going on, which is, you know, the, oh, phytates are bad. Don't eat them. It's like, really? Let me, we talk about this one, phytates? After. Potatoes. Phytates. Phytates are, they're a form of inocidal, like it's a B vitamin. All cells contain inocidal. It's, they contain it in the form of phosphatidyl inocidal. Okay. Well, so here's the thing. If phytates are bad, when you look at how glucose works in the cell, there's these different layers to get the job done. There's the cannical layer, which is these kinases.

It's PIK3, IRS1, AKT. And then there's another layer supporting that called RAKPAK, and that layer helps the glut for to translocate. Then there's another layer under that, and that's the second messenger system. The backbone of the second messenger system is inocidal. And what it

does is it triggers all these enzymes we need for things like pyruvate and all this stuff. So our body makes inocidal, you make about four grams a day, but it's really important to get it in the diet. And we get it principally through phytates. Not a bad reason. Not like, wow, we should probably not think these are bad if it's that important. But then they do all these other things. They keep the pineal from calcifying. They keep the bones from phytate, keeps the bones from demineralizing, protects against breast cancer, stimulates adiponectin, does all these things. So it's like, wow, there's a lot of benefits to this phytate stuff. Why are we supposed to avoid it? Oh, because it binds minerals in the gut.

Well, no, reality, the microbiome cloud, if you have the right microbiome, it prevents the minerals from being binded and then you get the benefits. So that's an example of baby talk. Like fight it's bad, but it's much more nuanced than that. So for years on this podcast, we've been talking about the benefit of barefoot shoes. And these are the shoes I used to use back in like 2017, 2018, my old Metcons, they are flat, but they're not very wide, and they're very stiff and they don't move. That's why we've been partnering with and we've been using Vivo Barefoot shoes.

These are the Modest Strength shoe, because not only are they wide, I have wide ass feet, and so do we here on the podcast, especially as our feet have gotten stronger, but they're flexible. So when you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping, or you're doing split squats, or you're doing certain movements, like let's say you're doing jumping, or you're doing split squats,

or you're doing movements where your toes need to flex and move, your feet are able to do that and perform in the shoe, allowing them to get stronger over time. And obviously they're flexible. So your foot's allowed to be a foot. And when you're doing all types of exercise, your feet will get stronger,

improving your ability to move. Andrew, how can they get the hands on these? Yes, head to vivobarefoot.com slash power project and enter the code that you see on screen to save 20% off your entire order. Again, that's at vivobarefoot.com slash power project. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. There's a second video I wanted Andrew to pull up and it's on potatoes. And this is the one this is what I'm also curious about because again, I think that we had Primal Bot on the show.

Oh, there was a lot of amazing things in that podcast, but it's again, one of those things where it's great to get some context on certain things because people start to believe that these foods are just bad to eat or these like they're unhealthy. And maybe they might not be for you right now, but they could be something you could eat at some point. So let's let this video play.

This is Cooking with Clara. Clara is now since passed away, but she does have a YouTube channel. She would cook with the Great Depression foods. And she would teach people how cooking was during the Great Depression because she went through the Great Depression. And she says, we ate potatoes

and we all got fat from eating the potatoes. We were all fat. We're eating potatoes. Potatoes are a survival food. So that is what humans will eat when there's no meat around. They eat roots. And so they ate a lot of potatoes.

They ate a lot of oatmeal during the Great Depression. They ate cheap food that they could get easily. And what does she say? They all got fat from eating all the starchy, sugary potatoes. This is cooking. All right, so. First timer.

Okay. Maybe some baby talk going on there. Yeah, this is first timer syndrome here. This is, okay. So. You also have a great oatmeal thing in your book, which I can't actually wait to try. It looks fucking good, but oatmeal and potatoes,

depression food. So well, she accurately says that potatoes are roots. Roots are a less preferential food. They're food of last resort. I go through in the book and I actually make this. So let me just, I'll just quickly blurt through my argument on both sides just to show you like how ridiculous this is. Here we go. Okay. So I'm just going to blurt through this. So what I did in the book to break

this kind of stuff was to just argue both sides. So I'm going to argue both sides and then you, the audience can just decide, okay, like who's more convincing, anti potato me or pro potato me. Okay. So by the time I get to the first pot, I'm going to go anti potato first. You're going to swear off potatoes. You'll never eat another potato again. And By the time I get to the first putt, I'm going to go anti potato first. You're going to swore off potatoes. You'll never eat another potato again. And then by the time I get to the finish line on that, you'll be like, I'm so confused. Yeah, thanks Joel. You do that all the time to us. Yeah, but we're going to make it simple. Okay. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Potatoes are toxic. They harbor a major plant defense mechanism. Nightshade, vegetables, glycoacrylates.

These toxins are... they destabilize cholesterol in cell walls. They impair a critical neurotransmitter that, without this enzyme, acetylcholine will build up in the neurons. They lead to itchiness, vomiting, nausea. Solanine directly disrupts the gut barrier, contributes to IBD. IBD is highest in countries with potato consumption. Eat that. Nightshades.

Potatoes and solanine contribute to rheumatoid arthritis. In addition to containing these toxins, potatoes have been linked to greater waist circumference. And three different North American studies showed eating potatoes was associated with a 33% higher risk of type two diabetes. Do I need to go on? No, no.

Fuck potatoes. No, no. No eating potatoes ever again. Let's go again. Okay. Potato consumption has been linked to higher blood pressure, higher levels of triglycerides, higher HDLs, less optimal HDL to triglyceride ratio. Other studies have shown potato consumption is linked to higher risk of hypertension.

Let's get some of that. Finally, a massive long-term all-cause mortality study with 24,856 participants found potato consumption was linked to an increase in death from stroke and cancer. And there are a source of harmful things like acrylamide. So you guys ready to cut out potatoes? Yeah. Yeah. That acrylamide. So you guys ready to cut out potatoes? Yeah. Acrylamide gets me every time. All right. Let's go the other direction now.

So not so fast. So the first issue with toxins in solamine is the dose. It turns out in low doses, solanine is beneficial in high doses. Like with what you get with eating a potato in low doses, like with what you get eating a potato, it's most likely highly beneficial. Studies have shown low dose solanine and chocoinine act as powerful anti-inflammatories. They inhibit nuclear factor kappa beta,

and they even have the potential to prevent cancer metastasis. Yeah, wow. The problem is green or sprouted potatoes. You would need to eat 10 to 20 russet potatoes to get what's considered a toxic dose, which is interestingly the potato diet. Penn Teller made that one popular involves eating nothing but potatoes with no ill effects. So the data is misleading. So contrary to the empirical data saying potatoes are associated with poor cardiovascular health, here's the real data. A Swedish study with 68,313 people over 13 years found no link

between potato intake and cardiovascular mortality. A meta-review with, get this, 170,400 subjects found no conclusive evidence linking potatoes with risk for type 2 diabetes or obesity. Research on the longest-lived people in the world, sanitarians, has found they consume potatoes more often than non-sanitarians. In other words, the longest longest lived people in the world, sanitarians has found they consume potatoes more often than non-sanitarians. In other words, the longest lived people in the world eat potatoes. And much of the research on potatoes

does not differentiate from form factors. So they don't differentiate if you're heating, if you're cooling, if they're organic. And those things have a vastly different impact. Some studies count French fries as potatoes. And now let's get to the really good stuff. That was the warmup. Okay. Potatoes are loaded with phenols. The most important is chlorogenic acid. It's been shown to reduce fat storage, increase insulin

sensitivity, increased brown fat activation. Potatoes contain enzymes called protease inhibitors. They suppress appetite by increasing cholestic kinin. The next most abundant is Caffeic acid. Same thing in coffee. These phenols demonstrate antioxidant effects. And now the best stuff, which is how they stimulate the gut. So rheumatoid arthritis, we talked about T cell ratios. It turns out potatoes directly feed Bifidoceudocatalatum, which normalizes TH1 to TH17 ratios. Another form is acrylamide.

Well, it turns out Bifidobacteria has the ability to remove acrylamide during digestion. Who do you like more? Anti-potato me or pro-potato me? Pro-potato me. I think potatoes are back on the menu. I love potatoes. Yeah. So let's now, let's bring this home.

And the trick here is forget Guru ology. Forget, you got a head full of stuff. Forget it. Let's just use, because the way home is just common sense. That's the way home here. Okay. All people, all societies, all history have eaten roots and meat. Everybody's always eating roots and meat. Okay. Potatoes, meats and tubers, people have always eaten them. And what we can say here is that nature will force you to eat potato like foods. Okay. Force you. So they can't be as bad as they're making out. The real issue you find is a grades of food argument. So you could have like a GMO potato, low grade potato, you know, but you saw that within that's true of any food. okay? So nature's meal plan would include roots,

which are things like potatoes, and in moderate doses, there's lots of benefits. In fact, they're highly synergistic with building muscle and lots of other things. So all that to say, common sense solves this argument. This thing, I really dig what you're saying here, because again, I'm excited to go kind of through the immunity code

and like add certain things to my diet, but there have been periods in the past where like I've tried a carnivore diet, but I always end up coming back to an omnivorous diet. I always come back to having different foods in because it just, it's never made sense for me personally to just totally remove a total food group. Again, you know, if you're maybe trying to lose

a lot of weight or if you have certain things, maybe that's okay for you for a certain period of time, but it just makes sense to try to get to a point where your body can handle eating anything. For the most part, whole food. You should be able to eat berries and meat and fucking potatoes without blowing up and getting fat. You know?

Yeah. That is how we should, so the thing to keep in mind here is that the horsepower fight for digestion is really not in the human genome, it's in the microbiome. Nature will naturally optimize your microbiome. Okay, so eating roots and all these sort of lesser preference foods in combination with meat

optimizes perfectly the microbiome. That's your best microbiome is from that. And that is where you get the digestive horsepower to handle all these things. So in this age that we're in, there's all these variables like prescription drugs and foods loaded with probiotics and SIBO and all these other things that wreck people's guts.

So it's a process to restore the gut. It's a long process sometimes but if you just take baby steps and slowly titrate in keywords just time like if you if you take your time and go slow and Let nature's meal plan work for you Then if you're into aligning with nature's rhythms You might as well consider the dietary rhythms and I would just suggest go prove it to yourself first. Go do, you know, or go watch, go watch survival shows. You'll see that pattern emerge. So. I know you're really big on prebiotic fibers. How can people get prebiotic fibers into their diet

and what do they do? Well, it's just, it's just diet. So one is just looking at classes of foods. So resistant starch is one. I have some resistant starch in the diet. I do foraging days, foraging food days, and there's variations on that. So one variation I call the ancestral pattern. The ancestral pattern of foraging days is leaning less on protein, a little more on resistant starch, a little more on nitrate veggies, a little more on berries and stuff.

And it's like, it's really shocking. Like I'll do breakfast, I'll do a couple handfuls of berries, some walnuts. And then lunch, I'll do like a purple sweet potato and I'll do that cold. I'm not hungry. It's really weird. I'm like, I'm really undercalorized. I'm not even hungry. It's weird.

And then right around dinner, I'll have, you know, like a snack, like an apple before dinner. And then I just play it by ear. Like if I'm starting to get hungry, I'll have protein with dinner. But it's just classes of food. So phenol fruits, resistant starches, legumes, and leafy greens, things like that. Just making sure that there's some place for them in the diet, which takes us back to this crazy concept called a balanced diet. Like blasphemous, ridiculous thing.

So. And how big of a difference, heated and cooled. this crazy concept called a balanced diet. Like blasphemous, ridiculous thing. And how big of a difference heated and cooled? Is that anything we should really worry about or focus on? Yeah, it is. Yeah, it definitely is. I mean, I notice it for sure. Like if I have starches cold, you know, I definitely, they're actually very energetic cold.

So like, in fact, I kind of warn people, don't do that too close to bedtime because what happens is you start to feed these bacteria that make B vitamins and you're just, you know, really pegged. I... I never... Pegged. You're pegged.

Like when your revs are pegged, you're like... That was good. Why that get me so... Because pegging, of course, right before bed. Oh, you're thinking of... Oh gosh, I didn't even think about that. You didn't think about that? No!

I guess it's just me. I'm just a church boy. I don't know. Dude, every day I'm like looking stuff up. I'm like, cuffed. What does that mean? Oh, I got cuffed years ago. Wait up. Is there something about cuffed? Yeah.

You're getting married or is that? Oh, okay. Okay. I thought there was something else. Yeah. You got cuffed up a couple of years ago too. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. You're fucking with me right now, aren't you? No.

Are you serious? You and Sam? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Oh. What's the other one I heard the other day? Touch grass? I didn't know that. Oh, okay. Touch grass. Touch grass? I didn't know that. Oh, okay. Touch grass.

Touch grass, man. When something's heated and cooled, can you heat it back up again? I gotta remember not to use pegs. Yeah, don't use pegs. Well, maybe use pegs. It depends on the context. True.

Yeah, if you're around adults, you're okay. So this is like probably well deserved. Someone on Amazon, like I've had a couple competitors that sell the same stuff. I do have people go write crappy reviews on my book. Oh yeah. And one of them wrote, is this written in Boomer? Oh. But I kind of get it.

I'm like, I wouldn't even think like, oh, you meant pegged, pegged. Oh, I meant like a tachometer pegged. Like, yeah, exactly. Pegged all the way. Yeah. That's before EVs, I guess. No, I got it right away because I'm a car guy. But yeah.

Oh, so that's really something y'all say. OK. Yo. It's like... Don't say that around 2030 something, dog. That is true. We're not ready for that shit. No, I know.

But this is like a real thing. I'm like discovering like every day how far the gap is now. And I'm like, wow, what is, I don't understand that. We're okay. Oh, I gotta look at urban, I'm in urban dictionary five times a day. That's good. Urban dictionary has got the stuff.

But the warming and heating of food again, you gotta be careful with that. I think I put that in the book too. Hahahaha! Pegged. You're like contacting your team. Let's get rid of that word. Who let this get through? How dare you? You're gonna feel really pegged guys.

This guy throws all these sexual innuendos in his butt. Sick bastard. But I didn't even know that word until like a month ago. Oh really? Yeah. So I'd have been like, why is he laughing at me? Learn something new all the time.

That's terrible. Can't be up on everything. Right? No. Especially in this day. Oh my gosh. Haven't you guys sort of felt like the, you know, the are we at the end of the world or not of this era and everybody's so deep down some rabbit hole

that we're all like, can we just hang out? Let's talk about this. It's awful. Well, yeah, if you go on like to Twitter and you find like, this is the craziest thing I've ever seen that all the comments, there's like a whole community that's been there for like 20 years. And you're like, what?

Like, I just discovered this and this is like your thing. It's really weird. Yeah. You can find any community you want on Reddit. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. It's... Yeah. What can people find it? Wait, wait, wait, Right, yeah. Right, yeah. It's, yeah. What can people find it doing? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Before we go, before we go, first off, I'm actually curious what Mark asked in terms of, is it safe to warm and heat up foods again? Yeah, well, for resistance starch, yeah. Yeah, the heating and cooling definitely makes a difference. I heat it, you cool it, but can you heat it back up a little bit? You want to re-cool it. Or do you want to keep it cold? You want to. I hate it, you cool it, but can you heat it back up a little bit? Or do you want to keep it cold?

You want to re-cool it after you heat it. I see. Yeah, anyways. And then, I was curious, because you have a red supplement, and I don't know if there's another supplement you have too, but what is the importance of those? Because I think those are like, you did mention others, but you were talking about spinach

earlier, right? And some people are like, well, can I just take a supplement for spinach or for those greens? So what should people think about when it comes to that? And what do the reds do for people? So the reds are very specific in that the phenols in there are one of the best food sources for the two bacteria we really want to target. And so the goal with that was to take a bunch of things and reduce them down to...

So the problem I was trying to solve was what an average person working a 12 hour day would run into where you don't have any time. And so like, you know, the driving equation was what can we insert that takes the minimum amount of time yields the maximum benefit. And so the red phenols taken two, three times a week are one of the best food sources to maintain those levels of bacteria and they feed the heck out. But they also do quite a few other things. They're quite synergistic.

So one of the things in my reds is what's called a purple corn extract. And that stuff's unbelievable. Like you could go look that stuff up. I mean, it steers immune cells and body fat and it's so good for the vasculature and a bunch of other things. So yeah, that product is one of three products I have,

which I don't do a product unless I think it solves a problem. So I don't, you know, there's just things I won't do. I don't, to me a pre-workout doesn't solve problems. I don't need to have that. I want to mention something quickly. The reds are actually amazing. I don't know if you guys tried it this way,

but I've mixed the reds in a bowl with fruit. Oh, I did not do that. And it's unbelievable. Or if you mix it in a bowl with fruit and like yogurt or something like that, it just all like, it just blends together. It makes everything sweeter. It's awesome.

I'm going to try that tonight. All you guys have a product upcoming by the way. Oh, sick. Yeah, thank you. But guys have a product upcoming by the way. Oh, sick. Yeah. Thank you. But yeah, so that's, that's, that's the reds. That's why. And then you also have your, your fiber supplement that helps people get their, their prebiotic fibers without having to forage for it.

Right. That stuff's amazing. That stuff is absolutely amazing. That stuff. So all this came from, I had my little Down syndrome brother passed away a couple of years ago. He was really, really sick back in 2019. And none of this stuff existed. So I had to cobble a bunch of things together. And one of the things was baby formula,

which had these human milk oligosaccharides in it. And so when my book came out, I didn't wanna be that dude who's just trying to capitalize on a book, you know, so it took me a couple years. I did other things first. One was courses, which would subsidize the stuff. But when I finally did come out with one, what really made it was there's a resistant starch in there. And this stuff is freaking amazing. There's research on this stuff showing just that resistance starch will increase

acrimansia 300%, just that. And so the combination of the resistance starch and the HMOs in that product, like there's very few products like I notice immediately. That product immediate impact on bowel movements. Like I just noticed they're just much smoother and it just it's like immediate with that product. So and I don't the crazy thing is I only recommend once you've once you've done the gut reset, take it once a week, take it twice a week just to maintain.

So can you get supplements will get you pegged. Can you get your stuff on Amazon or do you have to get it from your website? We're just putting it on Amazon even as we speak. Everybody listening, go to people's websites as much as you can. Amazon is evil. Evil people. Yeah, awful. But no, it's just a better way to support anything.

Sometimes you go to some people's, he has a good website, but some people's websites are kind of trash and then you're kind of forced to go to Amazon to utilize it. So I learned a hard lesson just real quick in 2009 and I built this. I built my original website just based on content, which was fitness content. And I at one point was ranked number two in Google for weight loss. Like I was only only WebMD was above me. And then one day they came and made this change and like literally hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of work went away. And from that I kind of learned like I'm never going to rely on these platforms.

Like I'll build my business outside of that. And then when it's nice and stable, I'll add the platforms. I'm never going to depend on these platforms because they can just they can just take your life away in a day. And you have there's nothing you can do. Absolutely nothing you can do. Yeah, they can take your YouTube channel. Oh my gosh, that's right. You guys made it through there.

They shut us down, but we're back. You guys are a one in a million. You gotta get it back? Yeah. Thank you, Jorge. Yeah, for reals. Yeah, I had other people try to get theirs back and what Jorge said was, he goes, just tell them they're not Mark Bell.

Like I should be able to get mine back, you know, you got yours back. And he said, tell them you're not Mark Bell. I was really grateful for Jorge helping us out. But no, he actually did help a couple other people out, but there's a few he wasn't able to help. That was impressive. Strength is never weak. This week, this is never strength. Catch you guys later. Get packed. Bye. a couple other people out, but there's a few he wasn't able to help. That was impressive. Strength is never weak, this weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.

Get packed. Bye. I didn't even think of that. I'm so surprised that you did it. I thought for a second when you said you didn't think about it, I thought you were joking, but the fact that you were serious is the least. Oh my gosh.