Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1097: Which Diet is Best for You?

Episode Date: August 15, 2019

With so many popular diets, how do you choose the best one for you? In this episode, Sal, Adam and Justin review four of the most popular and who should do which.   The many ways to approach nutrition + how to determine what diet is best for you? (2:08) #1 - The Paleo Diet: The origins, science behind it, pros and cons & MORE. (4:32) #2 – The Ketogenic Diet: The origins, science behind it, pros and cons & MORE. (14:45) #3 – The Carnivore Diet: How did it become popular, pros and cons & MORE. (29:55) #4 – The Vegan Diet: The origins, pros, and cons & MORE. (40:00) Who should do these diets and who should avoid them? (48:15)   People Mentioned Robb Wolf (@dasrobbwolf)  Instagram Chris Kresser M.S., L.Ac. (@chriskresser)  Instagram Walter L. Voegtlin Dominic D'Agostino (@DominicDAgosti2)  Twitter Joe Rogan (@joerogan)  Instagram Mikhaila Peterson (@mikhailapeterson)  Instagram Jordan Peterson (@jordan.b.peterson)  Instagram Terry Wahls MD (@drterrywahls)  Instagram   Related Links/Products Mentioned August Promotion: MAPS Prime/Prime Pro ½ off!! **Code “PRIME50” at checkout** Mind Pump 482: Robb Wolf on Ancestral Health, Evolutionary Biology & MORE Mind Pump 613: Robb Wolf on Keto, What the Health, Wired to Eat & MORE The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet - Book by Robb Wolf The Pioneers of Paleo Ketogenic diet: Old treatment, new beginning KETOSIS EXPLAINED by Dave Palumbo! Deep Dive: ONR-Supported Research Combats Oxygen Toxicity in Navy Divers The Warburg Effect: How Does it Benefit Cancer Cells? Weighing The Pros And Cons Of A Ketogenic Diet Why Diet Alone Is Not Enough to Treat SIBO Mind Pump 712: Dr. Shawn Baker- Carnivore Diet Advocate Joe Rogan Experience #1050 - Dr. Shawn Baker Mind Pump 725: Mikhaila Peterson’s Personal Account of Treating Debilitating Disease Through Diet The Carnivore Diet: Is Eating ONLY Meat Healthy or Totally F%#*ing Crazy?? (QUAH #15) | MIND PUMP Alone Full Episodes, Video & More | HISTORY Mind Pump 385: Dr. Terry Wahls on New Dietary Research Mind Pump Free Resources 

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mite, op, mite, op with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. Alright, so in this episode of Mind Pump, we thought we would tackle a subject that is, gosh, it's super common. One of the most common questions that we get in our DMs every single day and that we used to get as personal trainers. And that is what diet is best for me.

It seems like every other month there's a new book coming out with a new type of diet. There's diet trends that are out of, you know, paleo diet, real popular, the ketogenic diet, veganism's real popular. The carnivore diet, you know, even has been real popular, the ketogenic diet, veganism, real popular, carnivore diet, even has been real popular lately. So we covered four of the most popular

current diets that are out there right now. And we talked all about the pros, the cons, how they came to be, where they originated from, who should do them, and who shouldn't do them. And we hope by the end of this episode, you'll have a better idea of where you should go on your nutrition and health journey. Now, before the episode starts,

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IME50, no space for the discount. Make sure you do it now. This promotion won't be back till late next year. I think we need to do an episode. I think you have great ideas all about. I'm back you on that. Okay, for the record, this was Adam's idea. I keep you feeling better.

It was, but I think it's a smart idea. I think we need to, this is great. Well, I get a lot of DMs about this. So this is a common, you know, something I'm trying to get better at is when I see similar questions keep popping up is trying to take notes, remember, if that, hey, let's do a full episode around a topic

like this because so many people have asked a similar type of question. And we talk a lot about all types of different diets. We've talked, I think we've covered almost every popular diet that's out there on this show at one point. And even though we've covered all those things, I get the basic question of what diet is best for me or what diet should I do.

Right, because there are a lot of different ways to approach nutrition. There are a lot of different ways. Now, forget about weight loss and weight gain for a second. There's just a lot of ways to approach nutrition even from a cultural standpoint. You know, you go to different cultures, different cultures of eating, different ways people eat, different foods that are eaten in the morning or the afternoon or the evening. There's context. There's foods you eat at the you know, at the movies and at birthday parties, whatever. So this is an important conversation.

And at the end of the day, the type of diet that you eat will work best for your body. And there are ones that have kind of stood the test of time. And what I mean by that is there's popular ones that are out there, some are better than others. So it's a good idea that we kind of dive into the most popular ones that are popular now, dive into them, popular ones that are popular now, dive into them, what's good about them, what's bad about them, maybe talk about how they started, and then eventually give people enough information to where maybe they'll be able to pick the one that's best for them.

Yeah, you make a more of an educated decision about it. The irony of the ones that are most popular today have actually, most of my, that I think I've all thought of my head right now, have been around for a long time. A lot of them have been around for a long time. They've been rebranded and repaid for a long time. It's beyond it. It's been a lot of strategies and instructions. In fact, we've been waiting since the beginning of the year.

As soon as we were on Earth, we started eating. No, but that's actually a very good point. A lot of these diets that seem new and cool are rehashes of diets that have been tried in the past. And so I think the most, the most popular ones, let's talk about one of the more popular ones. And this particular diet we're going to cover next is one that really took the fitness and health industry by storm.

It feels like it came out of nowhere and then it just exploded. Part of its popularity was because it was adopted by a fitness movement that was also happening that kind of at one point was married to it almost. Now they're separate now, but at one point they went and hand in hand and that's paleo, the paleo diet. And it was adopted by the CrossFit community really, really early on. Our good friend was part of that, right? Rob Wolf was a big part of the reason why. He was in the middle of doing a lot of his research and writing his book and he was also getting involved in CrossFit.

So I think it kind of just naturally happened because of him. I think because he was respected in that circle, it was a very small circle back then and he was one of the most respected doctors in that arena and he was researching and the most respected doctors in that arena. And he was researching and talking about a lot of the health benefits behind paleo. I think it just kind of naturally happened.

Absolutely. Now, paleo has been around a lot longer than we think. When did you guys first hear about it? When do you remember it? When do you remember it coming on the radar? I'm pretty sure it was Rob Wolfe. I don't think it was Chris Cresser, but yeah, I think Rob Wolfe, just because of his involvement with CrossFit and that it was basically like, if you were doing CrossFit, you ate this

way. And then there was people that were starting to challenge. This probably isn't even the best strategy of dieting for this type of training because of the intensity in the cardiovascular output that you're going through. It was different. I remember. It was his book, but I didn't know who robbed me before.

I didn't, yeah. I didn't know who he was though. And that's when you first kind of really heard about it. Yeah, because that's, I mean, I'd have clients that would, you know, I've always had this and clients that are up and up on the latest diet trend that's out there, they tend to bring me in a book. They'll bring in a book and be like,

oh, they always, you know, clients would suggest, you should read this, this is really good, you know, and it was one of those books, and I didn't read it cover to cover, but I did grab it and kind of skim through it, and like for the most part, I remember thinking like, okay, this is pretty solid information, and I remember telling my client, like, no, I like this.

I like the information that's being presented here. I think it's a pretty good balanced diet in comparison to a lot of diets right there. I like the tie back to ancestral type eating. They're trying to look a bit further back to see what ancient people were doing to eat. And I think it's a good way to kind of look at patterns of how, how like certain ways of eating have, have, has staying power. Yeah. So it's funny you like that. I didn't like that.

So I didn't like that, because this is what I feel like we do with all diets. I feel like we, you know, try and make a case for why it's superior. And I think that that, that's their angle is, this is how we evolve to eat. I'll go dates back all the way to the beginning of time and this is exactly how they would have ate

and therefore it's a superior diet. And I think that every diet will probably cover in this conversation when it did come in existence, the way they market it and way it blows up is they make a case for it being superior to other diets. So I definitely saw through that just like I do in most diets when they get promoted because I think let's be honest diet is a fucking it's like made it's a made up thing like it's it's it's a good point. I mean humans are opportunists. We eat

with the Evers in front of us. But I you know I first heard about paleo I would say in the early 2000s. This is when I started to really look at the wellness world for information on improving gut health. And this is when I first started hearing about this. Now, the paleo diet was really first started to be talked about. In the 1970s, there was a gastroenterologist, Dr. Walter Vogtelan, I don't know if I'm pronouncing his last name right, who talked about the way that humans ate prior to the agricultural revolution. Now, the agricultural revolution is when humans discovered that they could plant crops. They no longer had to roam and find food.

They could stay in the same place, grow their food, raise crops, raise livestock, and now they could specialize their skills. It's what led to massive civilizations, because now you could build societies and towns and cities, because you didn't have to move around so much. But before that, which is most human history, most of modern human history, I should say, or modern in terms of ways our bodies built, we ate what we could hunt and what we could find, which limited us, right? We could eat meat, fish, of course insects. Nobody talks about that,

but I guarantee humans ate a lot of insects. Nuts seeds, berries. Nuts seeds, berries, and fruits. And those were quite rare. Like if you're going around in your natural environment, you're not finding a whole lot of edible plants, at least in terms of calories. You're just not getting enough.

So they probably ate a lot of meat and stuff like that. So the idea is humans evolved their bodies, the physical bodies that we carry now, evolved eating this way for most of human history. Therefore these are the foods that are most suitable for our bodies. They then got popularized later on by other people, Dr. Boyd, Eaton is one person and then of course the CrossFit community and all that. So the diet basically, and there's some tenants in the paleo diet, because now you have people in paleo who say eating sweet potatoes,

and even eating regular potatoes is fine. Now, the original paleo, you know, dieters said, no, tubers were part of the agricultural revolution. No grains, including no tubers, no starchy vegetables. It's all meat, fish, edible vegetables that you don't have to cook, berries, nuts, seeds, and those types of things. So there's a little bit of a division there.

But nonetheless, when I look at the diet overall, if you eat a paleo diet, you're gonna eat relatively healthy. I would consider it a pretty healthy diet, generally speaking, in terms of one of its pros. Now, what do you think about this, though, because what we saw, and I remember our first experience, the paleo convention was what, three years ago, or so, somewhere around there.

And one of the things that I noticed, that was my first experience in that world. And up into this point, I've probably said nothing but incredible things about the paleo diet and I think it was a great option for a lot of my clients. And when I got there, what I noticed was something that I noticed in the bodybuilding community that I used to kind of scrutinize a little bit, right, which is the, you know, very dogmatic, a little pretentious, and almost extreme version of this diet, right? And what I mean by that is, you know, we're inside this big warehouse place, and, you know, you've got, you know, these families walking around

with their blue blocker glasses on the middle of the day, and you their grounding sandals. Yeah, they get their grounding sandals and bracelets on Oh, broth everywhere. And yeah, like every booth was like, you know, Paleo something and and it was just it was pro it was processed foods that were being made to fit the paleo What a great what a great point because one of the benefits of going real paleo is just either eating whole natural foods. And that gives you a more appropriate relationship to food because it doesn't promote overeating. Process foods are engineered to be hyper-palatable. They make you eat more.

It's very difficult. Studies now show that that's probably the reason why people are so overweight. It's food so hyper-palatable that we just we end up overeating. Well, now paleo gets popular, commercialized. So of course what they do is they take paleo ingredients and they process them in a way to make them hyper-palatable.

Because if you want to make a food and you want to sell a lot of that food, the main thing you should focus on, this is from a business perspective, is to make it taste really damn good. That's number one. If it doesn't taste really good, you're not going to sell very many of them.

And so I see a lot of that in the Paleo world is a lot of these kind of pros. Explain a paleo margarita. Explain that. I've seen that. Yeah. Explain it. Is there a real thing? Yeah, there is.

Here's the other thing. When it comes to training and performing at high performance levels, starches just do a damn good job. Like, in order to eat a traditional paleo diet that doesn't include the long chain, you know, starchy carbohydrates that you find in things like potatoes and sweet potatoes or even rice. I'm not even talking about wheat. I'm talking about things that are still easily digestible like white rice and potato and buckwheat and stuff like that. The performance benefits you get from those is awesome. Well, this is how it fell out of favor with CrossFit.

That's right. Yeah. I mean, it started or it really started to explode with them and what Rob Wolf was teaching and talking about back then. But it really fell out of favor when more and more people started to dive into it and go wait a second. I mean, this is really high intense training and wouldn't it be more beneficial

if you're eating more high glycemic carbohydrates, fast-acting carbs, carbs get into your system really quick and produce energy because you need it on demand at such a high level doing something like CrossFit. And I think more and more people started to realize that and then it fell out of shape. Well, athletes started experimenting.

They would throw in sweet potato, potato, rice into their paleo diet. And then they were, maybe not about that. No, that became a very popular thing. Yeah, don't mention deadlifts. Well, they started kicking ass. I noticed this. I noticed when that, to maximize my strength,

my performance, and if I want to build muscle, it's easier when I have some complex carbohydrates and some starches in them. It's just harder to do without those foods. So paleo, although it's less restrictive than other diets, it's a bit restrictive in the sense that you can't eat any grains, you can't eat any foods, post-agricultural revolution.

That includes dairy. Traditional paleo means you can't have dairy. Would you, a macro breakdown, if we were explaining it, would you say it's a lower carb high protein moderate fat? I would say so. Yeah, I would say it's moderate, moderate fat, maybe moderate high protein, and then lower carbohydrate because you're eating fruit.

So there's only so much you can eat. So that's one of the more popular ones. There's some of your pros and cons. Well, what's another diet? What's another big one that we've been keeping? Keto's a huge one. Keto's a huge egg diet. Keto's a huge egg diet.

It's been around a long time. The first studied or observed effects from being in ketosis was, at least that we have in writing, where the ancient Greeks, Hippocrates wrote about fasting people with epilepsy at the time they didn't know what was epilepsy. They just knew people had seizures. They didn't know what was going on.

And he would not have the meat and find that many of them stopped having seizures. Now he didn't know it was ketosis, but it was the first kind of written observed effect of being in ketosis. Now later on, studies were being done done in 1911, I believe in France. They were doing studies on fasting and epilepsy. And then doctors, doctors started saying, look, we, we want to be able to give the benefits of fasting because at the time

they had no treatments for epilepsy. And it's a terrible disorder, especially when you see it among children. So how can we get these kids to benefit from what happens to them when they fast, but we can't have them fast all the time because obviously they need to eat. And so they started experimenting with high fat, low carbohydrate diets, Dr. Wilder at the Mayo Clinic started experimenting in particular. And they started to find that if they put these kids on like a 80% fat diet with some protein, essential protein and zero carbohydrates that it was actually quite effective

for many of these kids with epilepsy. So that's how the ketogenic diet first started. It didn't become a diet for the mainstream until much later. So the bomb. Well, in the 70s, there were some high protein, low carbohydrate diet books that came out, but then you had the low fat movement. That really exploded, kind of shut all that down for a while. Then we were exposed to the low fat diet for a long time

that was promoted by our government and by other governments. And that kind of opened up the doors or at least at the stage for someone to come out and counter that message, which is when Atkins came out. And although Atkins is not a traditional keto diet, it's close to a keto diet, right? It was a no-carb high protein, higher fat. That's the only real adjustment that they made, right? What the keto genetic diet is they, what they found later on is people were consuming too much meat and too high of protein on the Atkins diet that they were having adverse effects to it, right? Well, it was just, it was, first off, it was counter.

So we've been fed low fat for so long. No, I mean, what was so different between keto and Atkins. It's just more protein. Right. That's the only real difference. And Dr. Adkins really commercialized the fuck out. And it blew up. A lot of people listening right now in your 20s, and you don't know this, but when I was a trainer early on,

Adkins came onto the scene and blew up. Yeah, because process bars and protein powders and all that that went with it. So it wasn't just like promotion of, you know, quality meat sauce and all that kind of stuff. I was only making a shoot. I even believe it came back about a decade later, because that was in the first, what, the 70s, 80s.

And it was 70s. And then the 90s is when Akins really blew up. Yeah. He even did a second version of it. Yeah. Where I believe they adjusted the protein because there was a little bit of a backlash, like what I was saying, the people that were eating too much

and then were getting cardiovascular issues going on. And then it kind of went away for a little bit and then key to genic came back. And that was in the, I would say the mid-2005, 2010s we started hearing about people going keto and stop using the word atkins And it kind of became popular again and you had people you know social media, you know It was this because of the bodybuilding community kind of adopted it for their like the cutting phaser like how did that? You know in bodybuilding there was one bodybuilder who was pro keto that was Dave Pulumbo

But nobody else really talked about keto bodybuilders had talked about low carb and cycling low carb for a long time, but there were always bodybuilders that had higher carbs when they dieted as well. So it wasn't like a, it was never a strict bodybuilding thing. I think bodybuilders noticed for sure that going to low carb was not good for performance. Yeah. Most bodybuilders like, no, I need it for pumps and I need it for strength instead of all sports. It's a for like some benefit in endurance training Yeah, but then it got real popular again through social media and podcasts people talking about how it made them feel sharper

I remember I spree came out blew it up right? I was well who blew it up for me was dumb when the research came out with the seals when they were doing the research with them And that he was doing it was when it like peed my interest and that was when I remember kind of bringing it to all of us. I mean like we should try this and do this and then we all each took our turn going through it and did it and then talked about it which was when we first started the podcast. Now Dom Diagostino, the research you're talking about is when you know Navy seals have to

use what are called rebreaters when they're under water and trying to be stealthy but the reb re-breathers increase the amount of oxygen in the brain and it can become toxic and cause them to have seizures. And so DOM theorized, well, I wonder if the anti-epileptic diet, ketogenic diet would help them, ensure enough it did, the presence of ketones, allowed them to stay under water

with re-breathers for a long period of time. And then they found some other benefits. Like ketogenic diet has some neuroprotective qualities. I think that the way that the brain operates in a low carbohydrate high fat kind of environment, it tends to burn energy a little cleaner and easier. So if you have someone with like dementia or Alzheimer's, studies show that a ketogenic diet tends to improve their outcomes,

tends to reduce their symptoms. It's a very interesting, like the science is very compelling and to be preventative in terms of if you have Alzheimer's, if you have like dementia and your family and things like that, like just experiencing ketosis is something that I think is, you know, could be very beneficial. You go ahead. You always like to bring in like the evolutionary argument.

And this is one of those things that I think makes the case for that also. It's like, there's probably been times when you back way back thousands of years ago, where you ate keto. Everybody, right? It's winter time. You know what you're gonna eat when you're, it's a winter, you're gonna eat animals. There's nothing else that's around. Nothing else growing. Yeah, and our bodies go into ketosis as a operating system because we evolved

With it otherwise we would have evolved with it right otherwise we wouldn't have this operating system that creates ketones and allows us to continue to to function So it's definitely part of our makeup. I think you should explain that a little bit for somebody who's listening right now That may not know that. Like that's the real benefits of it and break that down. The science of like, how our body runs to the different fuel system. Yeah, right?

How it normally runs off of glucose, what makes it switch over to ketones and why that's so beneficial? Carbohydrates are the preferred source of energy in the sense that if carbohydrates are present, your body will use carbohydrates to create most of the energy that you'll use and burn. When carbohydrates are not present, your body will create the essential amounts

of carbohydrates and needs by taking proteins and converting it, because your brain still uses some glucose, but then the other amounts of energy that it needs, it starts to derive from fat, and it makes what are called ketones. And ketones burn pretty cleanly in the cells. They don't give us the same high intensity energy and strength, but they're great at low intensity endurance type energy. Like, if you're in ketone, let me put it this way.

Even if you're a fully fed athlete, we'll store maybe six or seven thousand calories worth of carbohydrate energy in their body. And once that's gone, they're out. They'd have to eat more carbohydrates. What do they store? It's in their liver and it's in their muscles largely. Once that's gone, it's gone.

Now, a lean, even a lean athlete, a relatively lean athlete, will have at least 20 to 30,000 calories worth of stored fat that they can use for energy. So in terms of a long term type of energy, if you're like going on a long hike or a long, long, long distance run, it may be beneficial to being ketosis. You don't have to refeed your body constantly. Well, and this is how people survive when you fast, people fast for two weeks. What do you think? You're in ketosis. You don't have to refeed your body constantly. Well, and this is how people survive when you fast, people fast for two weeks. You're in ketosis.

Yeah, you switch over to ketosis and how do you continue to survive if you're not getting any fuel constantly? Well, you have to your point, you have a ton of it on your body already. And it does, it burns at a slower rate. And so then it does allow you to now have somebody who's been on a seven day fast, expecting to go do something like a CrossFit routine. And they'll probably pass out trying to do something. Well, they're just not gonna perform as strongly or as effectively. They don't have the strength and the power.

They'll have this stamina, maybe, they'll be able to continue moving or whatnot, but they want to have the same athletic performance. Also, going keto long term is probably can cause muscle wasting in some people. You continue on a long term, and people will find it's hard to build muscle and maintain muscle doing that long-term.

It is anti-cancer in some cases. There's something called the Warburg Effect. Cancer cells, when they don't have glucose or glycogen present, they tend to kill themselves. Not all of them. Some of them will actually transfer and start using ketones. So it's not a cure, but in some cases, it can weaken cancer. And in some cases, it may cure some types of cancer.

It also kills your appetite. Here's why I think keto got so popular. You eat a diet that's really high in fat, moderate protein, no carbohydrates. You're satiated in your low calorie. I don't know about you guys, man, but for me, it's like, I just don't eat that much. Yeah, I have an appetite.

That was one of my experiences with it. So I remember when we did it, and I remember the reason why I personally did it was because on the show, I was like totally anti-it and I remember listening to the ep, back then I used to listen to all of our episodes, and I remember hearing myself and I go, you know what? that's totally the opposite of what I say I'm like. I'm the type of person where if I say, oh, it's lame or this or that, or I wouldn't do it, I should do it just for that reason, just to challenge my own way of thinking.

So that was really the motivation behind me going keto, because I originally thought this is not something I would want to be half the stick to, because it's pretty restrictive. So when you look at, when we're comparing the last one to Paleo that I think there's a little bit more flexibility. Cito's way more restrictive. Yeah, Cito is very restrictive.

You're avoiding all carbohydrates. Yes. So I was really, it was not excited to try it, but then I thought, Heart, I wanted to challenge myself and it was really unique because I was coming off of competing where I was eating 400 to 600 grams of carbohydrates. It was a major switch in transition. And the number one thing that I noticed,

that I'm glad that I did it so I could speak to it to clients and other people that go through this was, boy, did I completely eliminate the cravings that I used to have? Being somebody who had trained their body to be able to eat four to 600 grams of carbs every single day, my body wanted that every single day. And so, man, if it come noon or one, and I'd only had 50 grams of carbs, man, I was starving. I wanted, I needed to eat. I felt like I'm like, I got to get fuel with me. I got to

get fuel with me. I felt like that all the time during my competitive days. When I switched over to keto, what I found really early is, man, I'd have a breakfast of whole eggs and some bacon, maybe even a little cheese on there in avocado. You're done. Man, I wasn't hungry till four in the afternoon. And that's what I noticed, and I was at that wall, okay, now this, I could see why this is so beneficial

is somebody who struggles with cravings and they have a hard time with snacking and wanting chips and things like that. You follow a diet like this and what you see ends up happening when you switch over to ketosis and you eliminate all the carbohydrates. What comes with that also comes with a lot of the cravings that you probably have from eating all those carbs. And after you've been keto for a while, those start to suppress.

It kills them. It's easy for me to stay lean when I'm eating keto. Yeah, it's not hard. It's hard to bulk. Very hard. It's hard to gain muscle and strength. My performance declines, but it's easy to stay lean. But that doesn't mean it's a good diet

to work on a relationship with your craving. Because let me tell you what happens when you come out of keto. You, it's like a boomerang. You come out of keto, you start eating some carbohydrates and they kick into high gear and the appetite goes through the roof.

So I don't think, you know, oh, I have all these cravings. I'm gonna go keto so I can solve this problem. It's a food relationship issue that you need to, you know, really work with. Because you come out of keto, I've seen people come out of keto and rebound, rebound, really, really hard.

You're good. It did the opposite for me though. But you're so much more self-aware. Right, what it made me aware of was, wow, my car addiction. Yeah. I realize, my justification of that, and I remember saying this on the show,

like wow, and everyone go Keto, right now I can keep myself at 7% body fat. I can have almost anything in my diet. I could have a bag of chips one day and it won't hurt me. I can have a bunch of pizza one day and it won't hurt me because I built my caloric into it. Maintain it so high and I ton of carbohydrates

my body would burn right through that. So my attitude was like, why would I do that the way I eat right now allows all this flexibility? And so again, I challenged myself. When I did, I realized, whoa, like how addicted I was to all those carbohydrates.

So now, after I came out of keto, I've never gone back to somebody who eats more than maybe 250, maybe a high days, 300 grams of carbs. It's changed your relationship to carbs. Totally. For sure. Yeah. But it is a restrictive diet.

And you end up eating the same foods. I ended up eating a lot of bacon. That's what I did not like. A lot of butter, a lot of coconut oil, a lot of avocado. There wasn't too many. It makes you a social pariah. It really does. You're going out with your friends or you want to go hang out. You're eating keto. You are very limited as to what you can do and what you can't do. I don't see it as a long-term approach. For some people, here's a pro. For some people, it controls the bad gut issues, like especially if CBO. Now, it's not a cure. You can't starve the small

bacteria overgrowth in your small intestine. So, you can't starve it out. A lot of people think, oh, if I eat keto long enough for fast, it'll kill it. No. You control the symptoms. You might not feed those bacteria so much. So when you eat keto, you're not getting horrible diet, especially for the type of SIBO that causes diarrhea, it could help in gas and bloating. It can help a lot of people, so it can be a diet that helps with those things.

I can be one of those people. If my gut is really off, eating keto tends to help with the symptoms and help me get control over some of my issues and then I go back to eating carbohydrates. But for performance, for social life, long-term, I would give it a negative, for appetite, suppressant, I would say it's probably, that's probably what, oh, mental clarity, how about that one? I noticed a big time, mental clarity. Super sharp. Yeah, when I eat, when I'm eating keto, I just feel very, I have like this almost low level energy buzz that's just straight all day long.

When I ate a lot of carbohydrates, I noticed the ups and downs for meeting those. All right, so there's a red, this one's the next one's a relatively new one on to the scene. I'd never really heard anybody talk about a carnivore diet up until relatively recently. Well, last like two years maybe? Maybe two or three years.

Yeah, and I really, you can't really pinpoint it to like one individual. I know there was like forums talking about this and ways the strategies they're applying to do sort of an elimination style diet that would they were getting a lot of success because of of you know There's I don't immune issues people were suffering from and so this was an answer for them and then became like this big movement and then Doctor Baker was one of the ones doing on Joe Rogan. I was gonna say I would think talking about it Joe Rogan is a responsible for us I mean because even if it wasn't him who was promoting the diet

He was the platform that gave Because even if it wasn't him who was promoting the diet, he was the platform that gave Dr. Baker and Michaela Peterson a platform to speak to millions of people about the benefits of this. And, you know, something that was never even talked about for sure in my training career, I never had a client ask me about what would have happened if I just ate rib eyes every day, Adam. Yeah. I've never even thought of it.

Yeah. I was like, wow. Okay. No, it's actually a diet that at some point, I'm sure most civilizations, most peoples, especially when we're talking about thousands of years ago, ate carnivore at some point. Same reason why I said this for keto. At some point, I'm sure there were months when we couldn't find vegetables.

100% this, it makes me, I can't help, but think about that show alone that I brought up for the day on the show. Like, you know, most people back then, they were in a hunger state, 90% of the time, and a fed state, 10% of the time. And so when you killed something, you got a deer at a note like, oh, it's a massive celebration.

Yeah, you finally got one. And there's your food for the week. Yeah, it's your food for week. Not only that you only get rations of that and that's all you're eating possibly for an entire week. So there's definitely, I think, times where we spent probably eating just like the witches, why similar to the keto thing, why we probably see these health benefits,

our bodies probably evolved for bouts and times. Well, one of the arguments too that I thought was interesting was, is the fact that a lot of plants do have these allergens and have these things that people don't agree with, whereas, you know, with animal meat, it's like they've processed all this and then, when you eat the meat itself, it tends to have a lot less allergens. Now, here's why this, that's a bullshit argument. It reminds me of a lot of the arguments people make with diets where they're taking some

science and they're twisting it to fit their narrative. Here's why that's bullshit. Okay. Yes, plants have, you know, defense mechanisms to prevent themselves from being eaten by insects and whatnot. But humans are smart and we figure out that if we want to get around the defense mechanisms of a potato, we boil it in hot water for a long time and we cook it. Okay. Now meat, does meat come with a defense mechanism? Yeah, you better fucking believe it. Walk up to a buffalo and try to eat it. It's defense

mechanism is called horns, fucking hooves, teeth. Yes, it's the same fucking thing. So what they're trying to do is they're trying to compare meat that's been killed to plants that are still alive. No, we process everything that we, I don't know any humans that jump on an animal and just start eating it all the animals in their own. That doesn't work. That's really, I love it. It's a terrible argument.

No, but here's the thing. Historically speaking, we don't know of any civilization that lived entirely purely on meat. There are civilizations like the Inuits, the nomads of Mongolia, for example, that did eat a lot of meat, primarily meat, but even they had some plants, some fermented berries. They ate, whenever they could find it,

they would eat it and put it into their diet. They were not restrictive. Here's the thing that people need to understand. Ancient humans weren't restrictive. Do you know what they restricted? If something killed you, that would have need it. Otherwise, if it was edible, hey look what we have.

We have food, fucking eat it. You know, they would, they would, opportunistic. Exactly. So, so that argument kind of falls on its face. Now the pros are this It's the ultimate elimination diet of all the foods you can have intolerances to The food that tends to have the least

intolerances is or meets now that doesn't mean that it's free of intolerances I personally know people who have red meat allergies or chicken know people who have red meat allergies or chicken intolerances. So they can exist. But when you look at all the intolerances, gluten, dairy, legumes, FODMAP, high FODMAP, whatever, meat is super, super low. Most people can eat meat. So if you're somebody that's very reactive with nutrition, you have autoimmune issues, you eat a food like Michaela Peterson, you know, she would eat something

and have a terrible autoimmune reaction that would cause anxiety and depression. It was like the systemic, you know, kind of reaction. Her dad, Jordan Peterson talks about having swollen gums and floaters in his vision and had terrible fatigue and depression. So those are all, those all could potentially be a side effect of inflammation from an autoimmune issue.

The ultimate elimination diet is take all of it out and just eat meat. And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten-

And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten-

And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a whiten- And you can get a wh dense food that you can find. This is where you can organ me. This is where I see the most value in it actually. It was the only real value in my opinion because to me it's not a very sustainable diet. Gosh, no. You know, I just, it's just not a realistic long term. But I mean, I've got a client right now that is a friend that I'm talking to

and I'm trying to help her through. And she's being, she's been diagnosed 10 different things. She's the IBS and something going on with Leaky God. Like, doesn't know what it is. Everyone's telling her different things and she seems to watch certain foods and it seems like that flares it up, then it doesn't.

So she's having a real hard time pinpointing what is bothering her. And so this is an example of someone I'd say, hey, if this is something, and it's really causing major issues to the point where it's causing her to get depressed and frustrated and to break her, breaking down into tears over and it's so bad. So someone who's like that desperate, like to get to the root cause of what is bothering

me. Here's a good example of someone like I would say, listen, you know, I know it's going to suck and it's not going to be fun to do this, but you know, eating just straight meat for the next 30 to 60 days and slowly, and then slowly, and then slowly introduce one or two things at a time and then let's pay attention. And then we could really get to the bottom of what are the things that are really starting to. And that's the way I think this kind of an extreme, this is the most extreme diet that I can think of.

That that's out there is this, although, although I'll make an argument that it's as extreme as another diet we're going to talk about a little later. I would make that argument all day. Now, meat is extremely nutrient dense. If only if you only ever eat meat, will you ever have nutrient deficiencies? Maybe. It's actually less likely than if you went pure vegan.

So it's from that perspective, okay, it's fine, but it's extremely restrictive. You have no fiber in your diet. There's tons and tons of tons of Tons of Tons of Tons of Tons of Tons of Studies that show the benefits of fibers, imprebiotic fibers that you consume that feed the beneficial bacteria in your gut. So there's lots of studies that show that fibers, probably something that humans need to have in their diet, although carnivore diet,

advocates will debate me on that. It's not great for athletic performance. Yes, there are people that can perform well on any diet. That's not evidence, that's anecdote. I had a training that worked for me that only ate McDonald's in pop tarts back in the day, and this guy could bench press and deadlift more than anybody I knew. That doesn't mean a McDonald's and pop tart diet would work great either.

That's the other thing too. Just because you can do it doesn't mean it's great. And it's awesome for it. Can humans survive eating just meat? Yes. Is that ideal? I 100% say no. I don't think it's, I don't think it's a great diet for people.

Short term maybe. I mean, I did it for a bit and was definitely noticed effect. I could not consume enough calories. That was a really tough thing to do to just focus on meat because of the satiation. Like we talked about with keto. It had the same effect where you just, I mean, you weren't motivated to eat.

You really had it. How did fatigue? Yeah, it was like a chore to eat all the time. And then, I mean, you could get through like the first week, it was like, okay, I can make this work, but then it was after that, it was just like, I mean, life is way more interesting than that. This is not gonna work out.

How was your athletic performance when you were just saying, dog shit. My lifts were terrible. I just, I knew right away, I was like, okay, this is something that I am doing just very temporarily. I noticed that even on keto. Yep. You know, I noticed even,

that was one of the drawbacks of keto. And now again, to your point, Sal, some people have shown great performance on it, no problem, but for me personally, my body wants more carbohydrates with the way I train and the way my body type, like most people. And by the way, we're talking about

every normal, every day healthy people. Let's say you're one of those people that's hyper reactive to food. That food causes autoimmune issues with you. Plants cause autoimmune issues. You get this inflammatory effect, you get depressed, you feel terrible. Your performance may improve with carnivore.

Do you see what I'm saying? So like, Michaela Peterson, I guarantee you, it's stronger, faster, more endurance, and just healthier on carnivore, but that's not because carnivore is a superior diet. It's because she's so reactive to everything else that this option's better for her. So same thing with keto.

If you're somebody that's hyper reactive to carbohydrates, let's say you have really bad seabot symptoms, so you eat keto, your performance will be better on keto. But the average person, if we did a wide-ranging study and tested 1,000 people, the vast majority of people would benefit and have better performance for meeting carbohydrates and not from going carnivore. Most people have terrible performance, like Justin suffered from when he did the carnivore diet.

Okay, so last diet, this one has been around on and off here and there and it recently seems like it's had a surge in At least chatter. I've seen in social I don't know if it's popularity or what but I feel like more people for celebrities are always touting veganism veganism now veganism was you know, it was philosophized by Pythagoras I think was some of the first earliest you know writings on Avoiding eating animals for the moral implications.

He did no observations on eating vegan. I could tell you this much, there probably was no ancient human civilization that was vegan. There probably was no hunter-gatherers that were entirely vegan. I'm sure they went through periods of veganism. Like, again, if you're hunter-gatherer and you encounter a field of edible plants, you're gonna sit there and eat the plants rather than because even immediately you think of like India and like some of the culture there where it was vegetarianism though. It wasn't veganism, so they actually had dairy, they had eggs, so it wasn't

like completely devoid of that type of protein. It takes me back again to this alone show that I'm watching. I'm enjoying so much as this island. They actually put all these contestants on different parts. And some parts of it flourish with fish and animals, like rabbits and stuff like that. And then other parts have none of that. And then you've got these contestants

that are having to live off of berries and boil moss. And they're doing eatin' tree bark. And they're like, they're doing eating tree bark. And they're like doing things that they don't have that option because it's not that on that part where they're at. So I'm sure there's definitely examples of times where people had nothing but these types of foods. No, vegetables, we actually had to breed vegetables to make them more and more energy dense.

Like if you look at corn, for example, is one of the most energy dense vegetables that's out there. It's like an energy dance. Like if you look at corn, for example, is one of the most energy dance vegetables that's out there. It's like an energy bomb. It's a starchy energy bomb, right? The original corn was like one skinny stalk with like four little kernels on it or whatever. We've turned it into this carbohydrate stick

and that's through lots of breeding. For sure, humans, same thing goes for fruit like that too. Fruit used to be mostly a seed with a little bit of meat or whatever. We've bred them to be much more energy dense. And even then, they're not as nutrient dense and energy dense as animals. Now in modern times, you can be vegan because in modern times, you can go to the grocery store and have a wide variety of vegetable or non-animal food products. A wide variety.

I can have fruits and vegetables from all over the world. I can combine things, make sure I get the nutrients. I'm not missing, I can get the proteins that I want. But in nature, veganism probably wouldn't exist for very long. You probably not survive. You'd probably die from nutrient deficiency. So what are your thoughts on it as far as the pros of it today?

Well, the pros today are this. If you value some animals, and I say some animals, because some people will make the argument that insects and all that stuff should count, but if you value some animals very, very highly, and you believe that they should be treated at the levels of how we treat each other, how we treat humans, don't kill them,

don't exploit them for their fur or their milk, don't contain them in cages and all that stuff, then that's a lot of pros for somebody. If you really believe that in your core and you have that moral compass, then veganism is the only way. I mean, if I considered animals like humans, I would be a vegan as well,

because you wouldn't want to eat them. It's interesting going down that rabbit hole though, because if you, to that point you made the life is a life, and what point is the animal now a, what about a rabbit? Where's a rabbit falling there? And if you were, if you were tilling up a fill where there's rabbit holes and you kill a rabbit

to make all this, all this cornfields. Vegan's will consider all what we call animals part of the protected and bees. Many of them will consider bees as well for their honey, but then they kind of draw the line there. I don't know of any vegans that are like anti-killing insects. I'm sure they're out there, but there's not a whole lot of them. I mean, look, at the end of the day,

if we try to rationalize it, it's hard for it to make sense. I mean, I guess here's the argument. There's a hierarchy of animals. We need to acknowledge this. Like dogs. She's listed out. Yeah, like dogs are higher on the list than rats. They just are.

Now, some, you know, animal, you know, people who are pro animals will say, no, they're all equal, but then it's impossible. How the hell can you, what about insects? What about plants? They're allowed to. Yeah, there's a hierarchy and I get that. So that might kind of make sense.

But for me, it's like at the end of the day, the top of the hierarchy is you, you're the animal you should take care of first. You should. Because circle of life. Did you guys forget? is you, you're the animal you should take care of first, you should be kind to suffer. It's the circle of life. Did you guys forget? We all have to survive.

That's right. But anyway, if you do believe animals, you believe that you have that moral imperative or whatever, then those are pros, right? That's the biggest pro right there. As far as health is concerned, there's no compelling evidence to show that eating a vegan diet is healthier,

they're needing a good, healthy, omnivore diet. In fact, the evidence is the contrary, a healthy, omnivore diet is going to give you more of the nutrients that you need, more of the essential nutrients. It's probably going to give you, provide a better diet. Is it good to lower your protein intake occasionally? And I think that's something that we definitely would advocate. There's a good time to kind of step away from certain macronutrients. I also think that a pro is this and what I noticed when I had, I've never ran a

true vegan diet for a long period of time, although I've had vegan days. And one of the things that I noticed, and I remember when we had Dr. Terry Walls on the show and she was talking about the amount of vegetables that we should be consuming. And I had already considered myself somebody who eats vegetables. I eat vegetables, and most meals have vegetables. But when she was talking about the health benefits behind and the amount that we would be wanting to consume to get the maximum health benefits from all these vegetables, I was like, holy shit, I'm nowhere close to that. I'm not even scratching the surface.

So one of the pros that I think about, and this is something that I always would have to try and convey to my clients, that drank the Kool-A, the vegan Kool-Aid and was told that it's a superior diet, and then they tried it, and it was superior for them. It was really hard for me to try and get them to understand what it was. And the best way that I could explain it to a lot of people is two things. One, a lot of times what

ends up happening when they when they transitioned from whatever the however they're eating to vegan, it's a lot of one, the foods that they eliminated that they were having that probably were in flammatory or didn't agree with them very well or weren't serving their body very well that they've now eliminated. And it's the uptake and the uptake of more vegetables that most all people probably could use more of that most even someone like a fitness professional like myself who tries to target that still don't get enough. And when you're limited to mostly vegetables and you don't and you can't have meat products. You tend to kick up and I'm talking, when I'm on a vegan day, I'm eating 4X, the amount of vegetables that I normally would because you want to fill up on something and you can have pretty much as much of that as you want on a vegan diet.

And because you're not, it's one of the best ways for you to do that. Well, and here's the other thing that we need to consider is that any well planned diet, I don't want to say any, but most well planned diets are better than the typical American diet. So you get somebody who's just been eating the typical American diet and they're like, I'm going to become a vegan. But now what are they actually doing? They're actually paying attention to what I'm eating.

I'm focused. This is my, I'm not going to eat out or whatever. And it just, it's just a healthier diet than what they were doing before, but it's not because necessarily it's vegan. Now, of course, you can eat a very high-processed food vegan diet. And I've seen a lot of people do, I would have clients that would come to me who were obese, who were also vegan, and their vegan diet consisted of a lot of french fries

and potato chips and other types of sugar and that kind of stuff. Just because, you know, like get gummy, you know, they would get like vegan gummy bears, which actually exist and stuff like that. Like, oh, I don't eat animal product there for I'm healthy. No, it doesn't work that way.

For the gummy animals. Now, here's a deal. Like, who should do these diets and who should they avoid, who should avoid them? I'll make a general statement for all of them, but I think we can go through each one. Generally speaking, if you have a specific reason that this diet may benefit you,

like if there's a particular application of this diet and it's for your individual body, then that diet may work for you. So what does that mean? Here's an easy one. You have epilepsy that's controlled by a ketogenic diet. Then the ketogenic diet is probably a valuable diet for you.

Let's say you have a hyperreactive body to most plant foods. You've just got all these autoimmune issues, you can't figure out what's going on. Well then, a carnivore elimination diet might work really great for you. Let's say it just kills you to think about the way animals are treated in factory farms. And you hate to think that you're eating

dead flesh from animals because you have this empathy towards them. Well, then a vegan diet is probably gonna present a tremendous amount of value to you. And then as far as a paleo diet is concerned, I would consider that one more in comparison to all the other ones we covered today. Kind of that well-balanced type of a diet in the sense

that it allows more foods into it, but it's also kind of restrictive. Here's the final thing I'll say on all this is that, at the end of the day, and this is based off of my experience training everyday people for 20 plus years. And if you guys can agree with me as well, and I'm pretty sure you will,

and that's this, that we can make general statements about nutrition, but a lot of it breaks down when you come down to the individual. A lot of it breaks down to the individual. Well, the reality of this and going back to the evolutionary argument is that at one point, a normal human that was roaming this earth probably was in one of these diets at one point in their year.

Sure. You know what I'm saying? If you looked at a year, there was probably a week, they were vegan, there was probably a week, they were carnivores, probably a week, they were paleo. There's, so in reality, we probably evolved to eat like all of them and the thing that I try and teach my clients.

And so, and this was something that I was known for, in at least my circle of fitness people, is I was one of the few guys that I think that didn't ever attach to a diet, and I was always encouraging clients to actually go through all of them. And what I had challenged them to do is to understand them, like we've done today,

go on out of the pros and cons, and exactly what's happening in that diet, and then learn to try and connect that with why that's benefiting you and don't do what people do with, like what I hate with fitness modalities, the same thing is you try something, you get great results from it, because why you were sitting on the couch eating Doritos,

now you're in a fucking CrossFit gym, no shit, it changed your body unbelievably, because you weren't doing anything else. It wasn't CrossFit exactly, it was that, you're moving, you're making better choices right else. It wasn't CrossFit exactly. It was that you're moving. You're moving. You're making better choices right now. The same thing goes for diet.

If you're eating shit, you're all over the map. And now you're following this diet, whether it be vegan, carnivore, paleo, and it changes and it does wonders for you. Don't just accept it at that and say, oh, the paleo diet does this for me. Or oh, the ketogenic diet does it for me and stick to it. Try and unpack what is so different about the way you're eating right now. What are you eliminating and what

are you adding to the diet? Definitely. What are you adding in? Yeah, what are you? Well, that's it. Now, it's like it used to be like whatever was available, like it's opportunity. I have to find food and now it's in excess. And so now we do have to consider all these different strategies. We do have to consider some kind of restrictive barrier. You're going to create for yourself that makes the most sense. So that way, you have a mindful approach to what's going to work best and keep you in lean, healthy conditions. Look, at the end of the day, the reason why people like diets is because diets give us

parameters. And the more basic a diet is, or the clear the parameters are, the more people tend to get drawn to it. So avoid carbs, only eat meat, you know, just don't eat foods that existed after the agricultural revolution. It's easy to follow because of these parameters. So I'm going to give you a parameter right now that I think is more effective than any other parameter you're going to find in any of these other diets. And we can name it something. We can call it the processed free diet if you want. But here's a deal. Here's what we found.

You can get away with a lot if you're not eating too much, okay? So what they find, we know studies show that sugar can be really bad for you in the context of having a lot of calories. Sugar in the context of eating little calories doesn't seem to be that bad for you. Saturated fat in the context of a lot, a lot of calories might actually be inflammatory in the context of low calorie diet seems to be perfectly healthy. So what we need to battle,

what the modern problem that we need to battle is what? It's overeating. Now we know this for a long time. We've been talking about this. Don't eat too many calories, but it's not that easy. How about we have just avoid foods that make us wanna overeat? In fact, this is the single most effective thing I've ever done for clients in terms of,

by the way, this isn't a solution, this isn't the cure, but if there's one piece of advice that I could give someone, where I'll see big results in a big way, it's just, hey, avoid heavily processed food because they make you wanna eat more. Oh, and by the way, we now have studies to support this. When they show it, when they have people eat all the food that they want, and they have a diet that's comprised of high processed foods,

and a diet that's comprised of no processed foods, there's a five to eight hundred calorie difference. That's a massive difference. That's pounds and pounds of body fat every single month that you be gaining or losing. So if you're somebody that needs parameters, here's what I suggest. Have fun, play around in all these different diets, see how your body feels, how your body,

how things work with you. I like to do that myself, but try to stick to this one rule right here, avoid heavily processed foods because any of these diets with heavily processed foods within them, they're gonna encourage overeating and that seems to be the biggest problem

in modern times. And with that, go to mindpumpfree.com, download our guides, they cost absolutely nothing. You can also find us all on Instagram. You can find me at Mind Pump Sal, Adam at Mind Pump Adam and Justin at Mind Pump Justin. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body,

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