Mind Pump: Raw Fitness Truth - 1230: Surviving & Thriving in a Toxic World With Max Lugavere

Episode Date: February 17, 2020

In this episode Sal, Adam & Justin speak with good friend and author Max Lugavere about his newest book, The Genius Life. Health is important to everybody. (1:41) Is Max getting into ‘tiffs’ over social media? (3:40) Making the case for organic vs non-organic. (6:24) Endocrine disruptors and their effect on our hormones. (9:45) The importance of seeking out the opposing view from your own. (14:08) Why is vegans' anger so misplaced? (17:50) The rising popularity of the carnivore diet. (21:30) Don’t Fork Around! The value of dietary protein. (24:00) Do not be afraid of a good quality salt! (27:05) How ultra-processed foods highjack your hunger levels. (31:34) What you eat vs when you eat and its impact on your circadian rhythm. (32:29) Are your lights carcinogenic to your health? (37:15) The Vigger Trigger. The importance of thermal exercise. (43:06) Chronic use of anticholinergic drugs and the dangers to our body. (52:05) What’s the problem with heating plastic containers in the microwave? (54:38) Fish consumption and mercury toxicity. (56:34) Taking caution when taking Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs (NSAIDs). (58:45) Knowledge is power. (1:02:17) The Genius Life: Heal Your Mind, Strengthen Your Body, and Become Extraordinary. (1:07:07)   Related Links/Products Mentioned February Promotion: MAPS Split ½ off! **Code “SPLIT50” at checkout** Pre-order ‘The Genius Life’ by Max Lugavere Leader of Largest US Organic Food Fraud Gets 10-Year Term Mind Pump 990: Max Lugavere on the Dangers of Plastics, Building a Social Media Page, Coping with Loss & MORE BPA levels in humans may be much higher than previously thought Genius Foods: Become Smarter, Happier, and More Productive While Protecting Your Brain for Life - Book by Max Lugavere and Paul Grewal Mind Pump 1227: The 5 Most Important Supplements to Take Sodium Intake and All-Cause Mortality over 20 Years in the Trials of Hypertension Prevention Redmond Real Salt ‘Ultraprocessed’ foods may make you eat more, clinical trial suggests Lux Light Meter Free University of Eastern Finland: Frequent Sauna use Associated With Lower Cardiovascular Death Rate in men and Women Visit Infrared Sauna for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Do Ibuprofen and NSAIDs Affect Athletic Performance? Visit NED for an exclusive offer for Mind Pump listeners! Mind Pump Free Resources Featured Guest/People Mentioned Max Lugavere (@maxlugavere)  Instagram Website Podcast Ellen Vora, MD (@ellenvoramd)  Instagram Layne Norton, PhD (@biolayne)  Instagram

If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, MIND, with your hosts. Salda Stefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. In this episode of Mind Pump, we got to interview one of our favorite favorite guests, our good friend, Max Lugovier. Now he's a filmmaker, health and science journalist, and he's the author of the International Sensation in New York Times bestseller, Genius Foods, becomes smarter, happier, and more productive while protecting your brain for life. This has been published in eight languages around the globe. He also hosts a very, very well-received podcast called The Genius Life,

and he just wrote a new book that will be coming out in March called The Genius Life. So if you've read his first book, you're going to love his second book. In fact, you can pre-order it if you go to geniuslifebook.com, go there, pre-order the book, you will not be disappointed. Again, he's one of our favorite, favorite guests. Before the episode starts, I'm gonna remind you all that MapsSplit is 50% off. Now MapsSplit is the Bodybuilding Inspired Program.

It's six days a week in the gym, it's hardcore, it's serious, but if you really want to shape and sculpt your body and you have some experience working out, we highly recommend it. Again, it's 50% off. Here's how you get the discount. Go to mapsplit.com, that's MAPS, splt.com, and use the code split50,

splt.com.50, no space for the discount. You were for sure the most handsome of us. We're not even gonna, we're not even, we're not even, we're not even gonna, we're not even gonna clip over to us. We're just gonna run Max're not even all the cameras on that we're not gonna clip over to us We're just gonna run Max's void or face the No, I'm gonna have some fun. I'm gonna have some fun with this opening. I bet your audience is probably predominantly male though Happened here. Yeah, dude ladies first off

We're handsome as hell I can't explain it because they do No, we are we're fifty-fifth. I. Justin and I bring the average up, that's it. Half of our audience, Sal needs us. Biological mail, just identifies as mail. Wait till if in 50% of our audience. On a survey. I love that it's half female though, that's a really good sign.

It shows that you guys are in touch with it. Exhibiting traits that some would describe as feminine, but which I think are, you know, perhaps encompass like warmth and empathy and things like that, understanding. Well, health, the one thing I love about the topic of health, the category of health, is it's important to everybody.

So I can talk to anybody about it. And if I do a good job communicating it, male, female, Republican, Democrat, Christian, atheists, they're interested in improving their health. The truth is, I would say that we're more experts on training the human body than we are the male body. I mean, the female body? Yeah.

Did I say male, human, female? Yeah, I just used what real general is? Human females. Yeah. That's fine. Male body is not that the organism called female. The female body because science were female. Yeah, at least 65 to 75% of your clients are female. Interesting. Yeah, men are way less likely to hire a personal trainer. They're less likely to ask for help. Yeah, so, you know what exactly? They got it. You know what I mean? Yeah, I got trainer. They're less likely to ask for help. Yeah, so, you know what, they got it, you know what I mean? Yeah, I got it. They got this, bro. Yeah, so when you think about the decades of training all of us have under our belt,

I mean, we've for sure helped way more women than we have men. So I think that's probably why we learned to communicate better. Max, did you hear about the organic farmer who, he got busted because he was, and I believe his crops made up about 10% of the organic market, and they got found out that they weren't organic. Got sentenced to 10 years in jail and committed suicide. Oh my God.

Yeah, actually, you didn't hear about this guy? I did not hear, no, but that, his crops made up 10% of the organic. It's like a massive, like a big percentage of maybe Doug can look it up when, it was 10%. I remember when you read it. Yeah, it was 10%. I remember when you read it. Yeah, it was 10%.

So you didn't hear about that. Well, I mean, I don't wish suicide on anybody, but what a fraud. I mean, that's not, that's not good. Terrible. You said you've been getting arguments with people over organic stuff? Not argument, and not people.

I mean, that makes it sound like, you know, bigger than it is, but yeah, I've gotten into tips on Instagram, you know, when I, when I, yeah, we love tips. Because, you know, I like to recommend to people that they buy organic when it's certain crops. And we're talking about certain crops. And I don't, you know, I don't think organic is as important when talking about

animal-based products and things like that. But, you know, if you're going to eat the skin or the peel, I make the recommendation to go organic. I like supporting organic farming. I think it's better for the soil. But then, you know, some of these like evidence Nazis come out of the woodwork and they'll cite data showing that it's really unclear whether or not

there are any health benefits to organic food and that it is also unclear as to whether or not organic is better for the environment. If you look at certain metrics, organic farming takes more land, it's less volume-centric in terms of what the amount of food that's produced. It's also unclear in terms of whether or not there's a nutritional benefit in terms of vitamins or minerals. You'll see higher levels of certain

vitamins like vitamin C, I believe, in organic, but you'll see less in conventional produce, but then there are other vitamins and minerals that are higher in conventional produce, but then there's like, you know, there are other vitamins and minerals that are higher in conventional that are lower in organic. So the data is not fully there. You do, there are pesticides that are approved for use in organic. They're not synthetic, however, you know, you'll get the synthetic pesticides in conventional, which everybody knows. But I'm just like less likely to give the benefit of the doubt to these huge,

the food industrial complex. We have yet to do long-term population studies, looking at herbicides like glyphosate in people over the long term. It's not a studied in children. It's not a studied in pregnant women. We don't have any generational studies. We don't have any generational studies.

So yeah, so I'm just more, I'm quicker to embrace organic. And in terms of the health benefits, they do tend to have higher levels of certain compounds, like polyphenols and things like that, which it would be assumed that those compounds are gonna be good for human health. Now the data that I like to talk about

when debating organic versus non-organic studies do show that people who consume organic foods have lower measurable levels of pesticides in their system. Now the argument can be made, does that matter? We don't know if it's good or bad. That is a benign. Okay, but here's the thing, it's there. It's there.

And they've done studies where they've taken people families and move them off of conventional, you know produce and vegetables move them to organic and then you can see the amount of pesticides found in their system decline over time. So that to me says, okay, well, I don't know. I'd rather like you air on the side of Okay, I don't know. I'd rather like you air on the side of natural than on the side of synthetic. And you write that there are no real long-term studies, especially in that generational ones. Like life facades have an interesting effect on bacteria.

And like antibiotics, low dose antibiotic use, you start to see the effects like two or three generations later with less and less diverse microbiota and potential issues. So, you know, okay, who knows? That's their defense. We don't know. The evidence doesn't really show anything.

Okay, then that means I'm going to err on the side of safety. Yeah, 100%. I mean, I'm just not willing to give these synthetic compounds the benefit of the doubt. Another argument that would be, see, I like to present both sides of the issue because I think it is complex, right? In those studies where they'll switch kids or adults to organic diets and they see this reduction pesticides in their urine, the question then becomes like, what pesticides are they testing for?

Are they testing for the pesticides that are approved for use in organic agriculture? Maybe not. But one of the issues with compounds like glyphosate is that they are suspected endocrine disruptors. And endocrine disruptors, one of the things that makes the most treacherous, and I think we talked about this the last time that I was here, is that they don't necessarily follow the typical linear dose makes the poison paradigm, where you might have a very high dose of an endocrine disruptor that has overt toxicity, but then you might see

them having an effect at a low dose. That's much different than the dose that you would say at a high dose. And so that allows these compounds to subvert political scrutiny, scientific scrutiny, and when you look at the amount of money, basically, that goes into them. The fact that, again, as you mentioned, we don't have these generational studies. You got to, I mean, at a certain point, you throw up your hands and you're like, what am I supposed to do? Well, I like to opt when I can for, you know, when it's produced where I'm eating the

whole thing organic because I know that, you know, the pesticides that they're using, they only use them when they absolutely have to. And organic farmers that I know, they're very dedicated to regenerative agriculture and the pesticides come from natural sources. And some might say, well, there's no proof that natural pesticides are any safer than organic pesticides.

Well, some of the pesticides that a user actually plant derived and some of the healthiest compounds in plants are actually the pesticides that they create for themselves to ward off predators and things like that. So, yeah, so I mean, that's just like, you got to make a decision at the end of the day. And so when it comes to the foods where the produce where I'm eating the skin or the peel, that's when I buy it. Back to the endocrine disruptors. Now that, for the audience who might not know, those are compounds that can affect or

influence the hormone system in the body. What about really low dose, long duration exposure to endocrine disruptors? You may notice very subtle effects, right? Like a little bit of feminization or more fat storage in places that you might not normally store body fat or going through puberty earlier. And how do you test for that? Like how do I test and show that, okay,

the average child is going through puberty now at a younger age, which is actually true. That's actually happening. Some of that's related to fat storage, but we don't know. Men's testosterone levels, right? Like, I don't know if I test somebody that their testosterone level is 15% lower

than it could have been. I don't know that, but we do know that testosterone levels have been declining across the board now for the last few decades. It's one of those things, it's kind of difficult to study in the traditional sense of six months and see what happens,

because we're consuming these things for decades and decades and decades. And we do know that they do a fact or interact with. That's the fact, that's why they're called Endocrine Disruptors. We know for a fact that they interact with the hormone system. We just don't know, we can't say with certainty how much or how bad with some of these things.

Am I right? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the dose that we're getting that has been deemed safe by our most, first of all, it was just recently revealed, and I can't cite the exact study, but that, you know, we have way, we likely have way higher levels of these compounds in us at any given time, then we had previously thought, just because of updates to the testing methods and things like that. And even at the dose at which we're regularly exposed to these compounds, they are likely having an effect. I mean, there was a study that I posted on Twitter just today where they found that in

normal healthy people, they gave people a dose of BPA, which is not, you know, it wasn't like a mega dose. They couldn't be able to do that for ethical reasons. So they gave them a dose at which, you know, a dose that the FDA says that if you're on a daily basis exposed to this amount of BPA over the course of your lifetime, you're safe. What they found was when they gave that dose of BPA along with an oral glucose tolerance test, they had an altered insulin response. And so that was an effect. That was an effect, yeah.

We know that these compounds are powerful what are called Xenoestrogens. They act like estrogen in the body. There are certain cancers, you know, like breast cancer for one that is certain types of breast cancer, or certain breast tumors are sensitive to estrogen, but estrogen has an effect on glucose metabolism. I mean, you know, if you've got two little estrogen, you develop insulin resistance. If you have too much estrogen, you develop insulin resistance. So it's a, it's just not a smart move to try to to be tinkering with this system of hormones in the body, which are so finely tuned and so sensitive, you know. And then we've just got these chemicals that we're exposed

to on a daily basis. And if it was just like one compound here or there, I don't think that, you know, maybe it wouldn't be such a big deal, but we're just, we're inundated. Our exposures are just unprecedented, like in evolutionary, you know, on the human time scale. Whether if it's, if it's not BPA, it's Thalates. If it's not Thalates, it's PFAS compounds, and, you know, and that are used to basically create like Waxi, the W waxy linings of papers that we wrap our burgers or burritos with or like the receipts, or receipts, which are coded in BPA. They found in 2014 that if you use hand sanitizer, hand sanitizer basically opens up the pores in your skin, thus like dramatically making more permeable

your skin to environmental toxins. If you use hand sanitizer before touching one of these store receipts, which is very common, like millions of people do this, then you're basically by at least an order of magnitude increasing your exposure to BPA. Oh wow, cool. And how interesting that is to me,

because just in the last, I wanna say, year, maybe two years tops. It's like almost standard at every grocery store. As soon as you wipe in, they have those alcohol, chemical wipes and sanitizer. And that's kind of like, and we never had that before in Katrina's routine. She gets, as soon as she gets a cart, she walks over to the hand, wipe, sanitize, wife's hands, and then goes in there. So now hearing that, I'm like, you're more susceptible. Oh my God, dude.

No, what a fucking death trap. So now hearing that I would like you more susceptible. Oh my God, dude. No. What a fucking death trap. Oh, that's great. So with your first book, very popular, you've been on lots of mainstream TV shows. I've seen you on the doctors and Dr. Oz and you're very popular. You've got this other book that's coming out now,

which we've looked at. And I think it's phenomenal. I think it's going to do actually better than your first book. Are you seeing more, because you talked earlier about getting a little bit of pushback from different segments of the health space, whether it's the fitness space, because of the macro zealots coming after you or whatever. Are you seeing more of that? Are you getting more of that?

Like, you're now, somebody people people are gonna fight or go after? Yeah. The thing is, there's like all these different factions in our space, right? Yeah, yeah. You've got the vegan community. I mean, I've fucking duked it. Can I curse?

I've duked it out with them. And I have nothing against vegans in general. We've discussed this, but they have, I mean, one the other day called me a literal, in quotes, called me a literal cancer. Yeah. So I mean, they're just, they're angry and they come at you and I'm pretty, I've got pretty thick skin.

I grew up in New York City, right? But I'm still human. And so when, things like, when, when people come at me, it's, you know, I feel compelled to respond. Um, why they call you a cancer? Because I posted a, I posted it somebody on Instagram. You're like the nicest guy I know. It's so exciting to hear that. I make any sense. He's like the nicest man in the

world. Yeah. I'm trying to help people. I'm trying to help people. Yeah. So somebody posted a, like it was a photo of their bookshelf, like a stack of books on a coffee table. And the caption was, these books have changed my life. I recommend everybody read these books. And you go through the books and it's like, who's who? A vegan, known vegan proselytist, doctors, and whatever. It was like forks over knives, it was the Alzheimer's solution.

It was like, the China study was like, all these books. And so I took a screen grab because I thought it was, this is what's wrong with like the world. Is that we, it's like, all we do is we seek out our own confirmation bias, right? And so I took a screen grab and I put it on my stories and I was like, man, if this isn't like a literary echo chamber, I don't know what is.

I was like, you're not gonna see anything good about meat or any animal product whatsoever written about any of these books, thousands of pages of whatever writing represented there and all just with the same message. And I was like, that is so messed up. about any of these books, thousands of pages of whatever writing represented there, and all just with the same message. And I was like, that is so messed up. And so-

And the Tiki torches came out. And the Tiki torches, yeah. Well, I mean, actually, not, it was just that one person. It was just that one person who replied and said, your little literal cancer, you don't have the clinical experience to know the truth. And yada yada yada. And so, and I think I even shared that on my Instagram, because I was like, look guys, like, do we have to be like this?

Yeah, you know. Yeah, I think one of the best possible things you can do in it with any subject where you have an opinion that's formed is to seek out someone who has the opposing opinion who's intelligent and compelling and see if they can change your mind. Honestly, be open to seeing if they can change your mind.

Oftentimes, you'll come out with new information. They might not change your mind, but if they did, that means the previous opinion you had was wrong anyway. I don't know why more people don't do that. Well, that's exactly, I mean, not to pat myself on the back, but that's what I try to do. We started the conversation about the organic, and I was giving all the disclaimers about because I got into an actual, but that's what I try to do. Like, we started the conversation about the organic and I was giving all the disclaimers about because I got into an actual,

it got me to think differently about just like the sweeping generalization that organic is better. Well, if we're talking about beef, it doesn't necessarily make as big of a difference. For that, you really just wanna look for grass-fed. But at the end of the day, I think you've got to make decisions and so I'll offer that as a disclaimer

But too few people are willing to do that to challenge. I would say the vegan segment of the vegan faction is probably one of the more aggressive, but that's because Behind their their opinion and belief and how they eat it's not just this way of eating makes me feel but like you talk to and how they eat, it's not just this way of eating makes me feel, but like you talk to keto zealots and it's like, this made me feel better and it transformed my life in the very passionate with vegans, they, some of the many of them firmly believe. They're saving lives.

Yeah, that they're saving lives. Yeah, and now they're saving the planet according to them. Right. So those two of them is what causes, I think, to be that way. Yeah, so to assume that that's probably where you're getting a lot, most of your opposition. Yeah, there is like a significant overlap between veganism and mental illness too. And I'm not just saying that and the direction of causality is it's probably, you know,

it's probably multi-directional because the vegan diet I think probably attracts in many ways, people who have mental health issues and then you go on this diet that is not providing nutrition. I'm sorry I'm very triggered right now. And and then they go on this diet that's like you know it's harder to get be 12 it's hard to get all these like nutrients that we know are very good for the brain. I would say exacerbates those. Yeah and I would say any any extreme belief probably is going to attract more of that segment of the population with a little bit of, you know, maybe mental issues, mental health problems, but in particular with veganism, the way that I've talked about it with some people is that in some cases it may be misplaced empathy. And what I mean by that is, because I don't doubt the empathy

of someone who says I don't want to kill animals. I think that they're very genuine in what they're saying, but I think sometimes it's misplaced because they'll disregard the empathy for their own selves. And I've seen this with clients, I've had clients who are so empathetic towards animals that they will sacrifice their own physical health, like glaring at them, where doctors are looking at them and I've worked with them and their doctors and they're like, if you don't eat, you're not

going to menstruate again, if you don't have meat, if you don't take these nutrients, your hair is going to continue to fall out, and this is not everybody, but for some people this has happened, I've seen this, and they will not empathize themselves, they will not say any take care of myself, they only empathize with animals, and so I think that's, there's a little bit of something going on there with that misplaced. Well, we also, we just did an episode that I think just went up the other day. And we looked up the top 10 nutrient deficiencies.

And the common theme about all 10 of them is like the number one source of getting those nutrient deficiencies solve was through meat. Yeah, you know, it's like, and you have to really try to find a plant source of that. It's just difficult, unless you're really doing your homework. You have to supplement. Yeah, it's really, really tough.

That's all it. I think that's all it is. You can do it now, Dave. Modern markets allow you the ability to. Well, you could do it, but you have to do your homework. And in my experience, because of the documentaries, what the health and the end-changers, you've got people like my niece, who's 17 you know, it motivates her to st and then her way of going vegan is just cutting out meats,

and just now eating salads and more. And it's like there's no, she's not going and doing her research on, oh, now that I've completely eliminated this nutrient dense food, what am I potentially lacking in? And I'm not talking to the hard core of the Indian who's doing it to save animal lives and has done all their research and falls

and is healthy. Awesome, good for you, like keep doing it. I'm more concerned about the masses and that this general message that's coming from these documentaries that are getting the average person who's not doing any homework, what's, however, switching over because they think they're saving the earth, yet they're eating avocados in Minnesota that was shipped from fucking Mexico.

How do you feel about the rising popularity of the carnivore diet now? Is the counter to that, Max? Yeah, I mean, I think that they, you know, people, there's no doubt that people are, at least anecdotally, seeing reprieve from pretty serious autoimmune conditions on it, but I'm not, I don't think that that's optimal either for most people. I think that you get, it's like, there's a very reasonable of your mask.

Right? Like looking for a shocking answer. No, I mean, that's why, yeah, I think it's, I think it's, you get all these like xeno-hormatic compounds in plants, like the polyphenols that I was talking about before, that I think are in many ways like the heavy hitters in terms of the health benefit that we see from plants.

I mean, the benefits that we get from plants are not just in the vitamins and minerals, the handful of vitamins and minerals that we know that we need from plants. They're in the metabolites that we get from our microbiota when they ferment the fiber that we consume when we're eating plant matter, where, get, you know, the polyphenols that are also metabolized by the microbiota and that some of them enter circulation and are good for us. The plant pigments that we know are good for the brain. I like, I love to talk about compounds

like lutein and ziozanthin, which are the yellows and oranges that you'll see in the produce section that are really important for preventing age-related macular degeneration, but they've also recently been shown in clinical trials to boost brain processing speed. Yeah, and your average adult consumes, I think, two milligrams of combined lieuteninzya is anthone a day. If you consume six, that significantly helps protect your eyes as you age, and 12 seems

to, even in young people, provide a visual processing speed boost. So that's why I'm always like eat a big salad every day. Yeah, what you'll find with the extreme diets is rather than being, for example, rather than vegans being pro-plant, it's anti-meat and rather than carnivores being pro-meat, they're just anti-plant. And so that's where I start to,

I think you start to see the problems because you're missing out on some potential incredible benefits, but there are those outliers that seem to do better avoiding whole swaths of you know categories of food or whatever. Yeah, it's just like the irony that you've got like these these super loud and aggressive factions, but you know the the animal haters like the veg, can't prove with any good evidence that abstaining from animal products is going to be any better for your health, and the carnivores can't prove with the available evidence that abstaining from plants is going to be any better for your health. So, we should-

We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should- We should Was this the main motivation behind the first chapter that don't fork around, was this topic? Like, is this how you led down this pathway? I know you talk about protein and they're also. Yeah, so the first, so in genius foods was sort of like a, you know, it was a nutritional carom annual for the brain, but in the genius life, the nutritional guidelines are a little bit different because what I'm trying to do with my readers is get them, is to help shift their bodies

to a, you know, in terms of their body composition to a more positive state, and to optimize metabolic health and to basically, you know, get people to understand that their hunger mechanisms are not always, don't always fall within their control. We like to think that we have the reins of, you know, of our hunger. But in the modern food environment, I think that our hunger is often hijacked by ultra-processed foods and by, you know, the pervasive advice that for whatever reason protein is bad for us, which, you know, it's not. So in this book, I think I put an emphasis on just recognizing the value of dietary protein. And I think, you know, for like that, just that simple statement right there, like listeners of your podcast are probably well aware of the value of protein people in the fitness world are well aware, but your average person

doesn't realize the protein is the most satiating macronutrient. If you make no change to your diet, other than just try to eat more protein, like prioritize protein, most people I think are gonna see like a spontaneous weight loss. It's one of the first, okay, so one of the things I always like to do with clients,

no matter what your goal is, is instead of taking things away or saying you can't have, is to insert things that I know they're lacking in. The number one macro nutrient that the general pop was lacking in when I would assess diets was protein. It's just, I mean, if you're over 135 pounds, which most Americans are, if you're over 135 pounds,

the amount of chicken breast that you would need to consume in a day is just not normal. People are eating four or five chicken breast in a single day, so and that's what it takes to add up to that much protein. So I would see people eating 30 to 50 grams of protein a day, which sure you can live off of that and you're okay, but it's not the most optimal for performance building muscle and then also it desatiating benefits that you get so you don't end up craving all the other foods. That's true. It can be overstated what you just said, Max, because the biggest problem with modern nutrition is we can look at sugars and carbs and fats and this, but ultimately the biggest problem

is we eat too much. So seeking things out that make you not want to eat as much is a very, very good basic first step, I would say. And it makes sense, if you think about it, evolutionarily speaking, why would protein be so satiating? Why are fats also satiating? Not as much as proteins, but more than carbs. And why are carbs typically the least satiating?

Probably because proteins and fats are essential. And if you eat lots of carbs, your body's hunger mechanisms are going to continue to kick up, to try to motivate you to eat those essential. I mean, a last is that you can only find from eating outside your self. You have to eat protein. So it makes perfect sense. But yeah, as a trainer, when I have someone bump their protein, I would watch their calories naturally drop just by prioritizing that.

Yeah. What are some other tips and things you talked about in that chapter? I talk about the value of salt and sodium. One of the topics that I cover in the book across all of the chapters is the value of maintaining a healthy blood pressure, which all the research seems to be pointing to is crucial for having a brain that not only performs well, but age as well, which as you guys know, maintaining brain health as we age, or even optimizing brain health is something that's super passionate about.

And so this whole idea that salt is somehow this cardiovascular demon, I like to remind people that sodium is a nutrient. And there's actually a fairly large meta-analysis that was recently published. I believe it was either 2019 or 2018 that found that actually people who are on the most salt-stricted diets have the highest risk of death. And the lowest risk seems to be when people consume about three to five grams of sodium per day, which is at least double what the American Heart Association

recommends. The American Heart Association recommends we consume about one and a half grams, no more of sodium per day. But the most people consume salt by way of ultra-processed foods, canned foods or preserved foods which are loaded with sodium. It's not that your average American needs to eat more salt. Your average American is already eating lots and lots of salt, but because they're consuming

60% of their calories from ultra processed foods. So once you cut those foods out of your diet, I think it's crucially important to make sure that you're getting adequate salt. Everybody that's ever done like a or initiated a low carb diet knows that they experience that low carb flu occasionally. And I think that can be mitigated by adding more sodium into the diet because the minute your insulin levels drop, your kidney spills sodium. So this is something that when you're eating an optimized, an air quotes diet that's built primarily on whole foods,

which I know that you guys advocate for. Salt is something that becomes crucially important, eating more salt, not only that, but salt makes our food palatable. Is there a hierarchy of quality in terms of like salts you'd recommend? Yeah, I mean, what they're showing now is increasingly around the world sea salts are contaminated with microplastics.

And so we already, you know, I mean, we're exposed to plastic compounds on a daily basis. I, when I'm traveling, I mean, you know, I'm drinking out of a water bottle right now that is made of plastic. I, you know, we can't, we can't always avoid it. But, you know but in terms of the salt that we use, I think if you can avoid sea salt in your home, that's probably a good thing. I'm not really a fan of these iodized ultra-processed salts that usually use anti-caking agents. Some of them have these aluminum-based ingredients. I'll go for a Himalayan, a a pink salt or like a more mineral rich salt

that I find, like at my supermarket. Yeah, because of sea salts, they collect it from the ocean, dry it out, but because there's plastics and pollutants in the ocean, they end up in the salt. Yeah. That's what's happening. And then the Himalayan ones,

they're pulling them out of ancient mines, you know, before we ever produced any plastics. So these are pure. Yeah. So like an example of a company, real salt, they readman real salt, they, their salt comes from an underground mining Utah, which is obviously going to be pristine and untouched by pollution. The other thing about that meta-analysis, they found that people at a very high sodium

consumption, they did have an increased risk of heart disease, but only when they didn't consume adequate potassium. So potassium is the balance. The balance, yeah, it's super important. Very interesting. Yeah, so when you don't need it, and I notice this myself, when my processed food consumption goes down, my sodium drops way down naturally, and I just add salt to my food. So that's really the advice is, hey, when you're not eating lots of heavily processed food, make sure you add quality salt to the foods that you do, the whole foods that you do eat. Yeah, or just don't be afraid of it. And salt to taste. I mean, I think, you know, a lot

of people, you know, grow up not enjoying eating vegetables because they're just not seasoned properly. So salt is a very important, I think, culinary device to get us to eat more vegetables for one. And then, you know, certain things that people do cause them to lose more salt. I mentioned the low carb diet, certain medications. I believe SSRIs actually can cause us, can act like a diuretic, can cause us to excrete sodium, which an entrepreneurial portion of the population are on. Caffeine, vigorous exercise, sweating, you lose primarily salt sodium in your sweat. So making sure that you're keeping your electrolytes,

your electrolyte intake up, I think is important. And then the other aspect of the chapter that I talk about, which I know that you guys talk about all the time and we're pretty aligned, is just basically letting people know what ultra-processed foods do to your hunger. In the first book, Genius Foods, I introduced this concept of hyper-peleability

and how these foods short-circuit your brains like reward centers. But now we actually have like really good data from the National Institutes of Health. There was that great study that was published by obesity researcher Kevin Hall who found that an ultra-processed food-based diet actually causes us to over-consume about 500 additional calories a day. That was a crossover study. They even switched the groups and they saw when one group was eating less because they weren't eating the heavily processed foods and then they switched over to the process. They also consumed 500 more calories. It was consistent across the board. You shared that study like what a few months ago. Yeah, it was crazy. It's insane. I mean, we've seen this as trainers. That was a big one for us.

You know, you talk in your second chapter, you get crazy. It's insane. I mean, we've seen this as trainers. That was a big one for us. You know, you talk in your second chapter, you get in a circadian rhythm and I wanted to ask you, how important do you think that is in the weight loss journey? I think it's super important. I mean, in the hierarchy of what you eat versus when you eat, I think what you eat is probably still the most important factor, but I do think that what that when you eat matters in accordance with what we're learning from animal studies

and from human trials in terms of, our body's own natural inclinations to digest and metabolize food. I mean, we know that our metabolisms are rippin' and roaring during the day where diurnal creatures were meant ripping and roaring during the day, where diurnal creatures were meant to consume food during the day. Parrystalysis is at its fastest during the day. We know that we're at our most insulin sensitive in the daytime.

That right there would tip you off to the possibility that our metabolism are influenced by these rhythms, these circadian rhythms. So I talk about the value of getting good light in through your eyes, first thing in the morning. I think that's really important. That's one of the chief time-setters that your brain and body uses to know what time of day it is. And that hormonally can have an effect

on things like insulin sensitivity and the like. Like light can actually affect how insulin sensitive you are. And we know this because light, one of the things that light does is it suppresses the production of melatonin. And melatonin actually makes you less insulin sensitive. So when melatonin, later on in the day, it's sort of the sleep hormone,

it starts to rise, it gets released by the penale gland. Later on in the day, you actually become less insulin sensitive. So to make sure that your metabolism is primed to be able to utilize and partition fuels at its most optimal, getting about a half an hour of 1,000 locks of light, first thing in the morning, or before noon, I think is a really important lifestyle thing that you could do. So you think the old tip of don't eat past six o'clock is actually pretty good advice, then?

I think it's really good advice. Now, it's not that food is necessarily, like I see these posts on Instagram all the time, and I also see, I've seen literally fitness influencers say that the time that you eat has no bearing whatsoever on your weight. And that's false. So I mean, a bagel, let's just take a bagel. You know, if it has 100 calories at 759 pm, it's not going to have, you know, magically 150 calories at 8 pm.

That's just not how it works. But they do research in humans has shown that circadian disruption, which can easily be achieved by eating a very late night meal, if you don't regularly eat late at night, can actually alter the hormones that affect the calories outside of the calories and calories out equation. So eating late at night can disrupt leptin, which is sort of the master throttle.

It's the cascading effect that happens from this. And this is what's tough about studies is we take something in a small window and we just measure at 8 o'clock it still is 700 calories. So therefore, law of thermodynamics applies, it doesn't matter. But the reality is we're not taking an account the cascading effect that happens. And the body's burning less calories like you said. Yeah. The body's burning less calories when you eat it late versus when you eat in the dates, which might be a small effect. Yeah. Do that over a long period of time,

or consistently all the time, right? If you're somebody who's a midnight snacker all the time, and that's got a major compounding effect. A thousand percent, so I'm not refuting calories and calories out, but I think too often we focus on the calories inside of the equation. When calories out, hello, that's like an important part

of the story as well. And so by eating late at night, and the suggestion in the literature that we could maybe reduce levels of leptin, that's going to have an effect on your metabolic burn. And it also can affect grolin, which is another hormone that controls our hunger and satiety. So the next day, I mean, eating late at night could potentially make you more hungry and less prone to making good food choice. There has to be a physiological difference too because very few, if anybody goes to bed at 6 p.m. at night, at 6 p.m. if you ate your last meal there, you're still up and walking

and moving around for two, three hours potentially. If you eat at 11 o'clock at night, there's a good chance you're doing that sitting on your couch or laying your bed, and there's going to be something to do, there's going to be some benefits too just from being upright and gravity and moving around that helps the digestive process too. So I think there's that side of the out cycle too when we talk about the calories that you're intaking. Well, it all makes sense again from an evolutionary standpoint.

You probably wouldn't be cooking a wonderful meal in the middle of the night when all the lions are walking around and humans are basically blind. You probably ate it during the day and at night you shed everything down and let's go in the cave and hide. Yeah, it turned for this, right?

You had a light was medicine and then what was the other part as far as like later in the day, you sort of the detriment? Well, the idea that light, you know, in a certain context can actually act like a carcinogen. And this is a powerful idea. And actually the whole, the idea of light as a carcinogen is I was interviewing this brilliant woman, Ellen Vora,

MD, who's a holistic psychiatrist on my podcast. And I was familiar with the science, but she put it like that, and I was like, whoa. That's like, that's some way to think about, like, artificial light later on in the evening. And the reason why this could actually be the case is that melatonin, which I mentioned, it is a sleep hormone, it helps us wind down,

but it's not just a sleep hormone. So melatonin actually is one of the most potent antioxidants in the body, it's an epigenetic, it's involved in gene expression. It also is a gatekeeper on the process known as autophagy, which is important for longevity, and it's when cells clean house, old dysfunctional cells clean house.

And so by basically not allowing your melatonin to be expressed the way that it wants to be in the later evening hours, you basically are allowing for this mil-you in the body that could actually be pro-carcinogenic. You know, without melatonin. Melatonin is an important, it's one of the hormones that's responsible for the reparative and restorative aspects of sleep.

And swing schedules are carcinogenic. People who work at night and go to sleep in the day, they have a higher risk of cancer. But this is the fact. Yes, 100%. So, yeah, so I mean, that's like a hypothesis that I think warrants further testing for sure, but mechanistically, in so far as bright light that our ancestors, that we've only really had to endure for the past 100 or so years, or a couple hundred years. Something that our ancestors did not know or have access to,

maybe one possible route of cancer, ideology for some people. Now, what do you recommend? Do you recommend that people dim their lights at night, turn things down, wear blue blockers? What are the recommendations that you have? Just be really deliberate about the light that you allow to enter your eyes.

I mean, I think if we're talking about eye-level lamps that have warm bulbs, what I did was I converted all of the bulbs in my apartment to very warm, it was just a very warm hue. Moody lighting? Moody lighting, essentially. Yeah. Well, it's, you know, to me, so I live in an apartment complex in LA, and when I walk through the complex, I can sometimes kind of like see through my periphery inside other people's

apartments. And I'm not actually looking, but... Keeping tall. Yes, but not others. No, no, but... I'm actually surprised by how many people allow their apartments to be lit by like what are essentially fluorescent lights. Oh, super bright.

Yeah, super bright. And they're like this like blue hue and super bright. I mean, in the kitchen or various parts of the home. And so the first thing that I did when I moved into my apartment was I got rid of all the super bright bulbs. And I made them more aesthetically pleasing. I put in these warm bulbs. And yeah, I try not to, you know, like too late at night,

go to drug stores or supermarkets because the lighting in a drug store supermarket can easily reach a thousand locks, which tells you to bring that it's daytime, even when it's not. And I love Blue Blocker glasses. I think they're one of the very few sort of products in the health and wellness space that are actually worth their money. I watch a lot of TV at night, binge watch shows at my brother's house. My brother, he's got this like 80-something-inch TV. It's like massive.

So if I'm watching a show and it's like a daytime shot and it like flashes to the sky or whatever, the amount of light emanating from that TV, I was just messing up my- I would think that TV's in computers are up there and your phone too, like when you're stay- how many people lay in bed and are like Instagram scrolling and texting like dark in your room but then there's bright screen on your eyes, it cannot be good. Yeah, it's not. There's actually an app,

and I haven't tested it with a more professional device, but there's an app called LOX, and it's a cool app to install on your phone because it gives you, you can use the front camera or the rear camera, and it gives you a sense of the amount of light intensity in your ambient environment. Oh, wow.

So you can measure it. You can measure it. You can measure it. You can measure it. There's all kinds of cool testing devices for your iPhone. I have something that measures the amount of decibels in the ambient environment, because I'm very cautious about, like, I want to ever lose my hearing, because I'm such a music junkie.

So I have an app that does that. I can measure elevation and things like that. But the locks, I think, comes in really useful. And what you'll notice when you have it is that even on an overcast day, the light is sufficient. So for people that live in northern climates that are like, well, I can't get adequate sundering the day because it's like overcast and whatever it's winter, even on an overcast

day, I mean, the amount of light that you get is sufficient to anchor your body circadian rhythm. We use Himalayan salt lamps. So we put these little like night lights throughout the house, and then we turn the lights off and the sun goes down, and that's what we use. And it's a very warm glow. And my sleep has been so much better,

and I noticed it tremendous difference with my kids. My kids wind down and they go to bed at a decent time versus when we're somewhere else and the lights are on real bright above our heads and everybody's sleep gets destroyed. I just make a habit of every, as soon as the sun goes down, I have three pairs of my glasses,

blue blockers throughout every level of my house. That's so, I don't have an excuse for my bedroom. There's a pair, if I'm down in the living room, kitchen area, like there's a pair, I just throw them on as soon as the sun goes down. And when I don't, I can notice a significant difference in how long it takes me to fall asleep. That's the biggest thing that I notice,

like that I can measure. It's like one of those hard things, like people try it out, they're like, I don't know, am I getting better to sleep or not? I can tell how long it takes me to fall asleep, which you add that up. That's, if I normally toss around for 45 minutes to an hour to probably fall asleep

by just putting those on, if I knock out within the first 15 to 20 minutes, I mean, add that up over. That's hours a week, Yeah, that's a take. You also talk about, I think the name of the chapter is the vigor effect, is it the vigor effect? Or the vigor trigger. There you go.

And this has to do with stressing the body through measured applications of certain things. Talk about that for a little bit. You talk about hot and cold therapy and those effects. Yeah, I think it's super important. I mean, we all know the value of physical exercise, but there's another type of exercise that the modern humanists sort of lost touch with,

and that is thermal exercise. So getting out, experiencing routine cold or even mildly cool temperatures is to the benefit of our biology. I mean, researchers have basically taken human subjects, they've thrown them in labs, they've made them sleep there for months at a time and they've found that even when exposed to temperatures

at around 66 degrees Fahrenheit, he started to cultivate brown fat, which is metabolically active. It burns calories, it burns fat, it burns sugar. And having more brown fat on your body is associated with better overall metabolic health, better brain health, and things like that.

So I'm a big fan of just routinely exposing my body, whether it's through cold showers, cold plunges. They're now using cold plunges as you're seeing these case studies pop up in the literature of people even self-treating depression with cold water swimming and things like that. So I detail all of that research in the book and how important thermal exercise is. I talk about sauna's a lot too.

I was really turned on to the health benefit of sauna's by a number of studies that are coming out of the University of Eastern Finland that are showing us that sauna's are just one of the most effective healing modalities that exist. I mean, SONAs are, I mean, you guys know, you have an infrared SONA. Actually, interestingly about infrared SONAs, they're not actually technically, the International SONA association doesn't want them to be called SONAs. Well, yeah, which is a really funny thing. I mean, I'll use an infrared SONA because they get you to sweat and sweating is a great way to purge environmental toxins and things like that. But yeah, I mean, when you're sitting in a sauna, you're getting rid of end potentially, you know, endocrine

disrupting chemicals, certain heavy metals. It acts like an exercise mimetic. I mean, if you put your finger on the radial pulse and your wrist, you'll see that your heart rate is getting up to a BPM that's like about what you would see on a treadmill, going at like a mile to moderate pace. It boosts blood flow all over the body, which is similar to when you put like a hot compress on a swollen or on a sprained ankle or something, it starts to get, you'll see blood flow in the area, boosts nitric oxide. So when you sit in a sauna,

it does that all of your body, it boosts circulation. It's great for your brain. And they're seeing that regular sauna use is associated with a pretty dramatic risk reduction for cardiovascular disease, stroke, for all-cause dementia, for Alzheimer's disease, and things like that. So yeah, I read a study that showed a dramatic reduction, all-cause mortality. or all cause dementia for Alzheimer's disease and things like that. So, yeah.

I read a study that showed a dramatic reduction all cause mortality from people who used, for me the biggest thing was when I use the sauna regularly or when I would do like cold shower, cold dip regularly, I noticed that I got better at it. So I noticed that I could stay in a sauna for 20 minutes at a particular intensity and then after a couple weeks, I could do it for 25 or 30, or I could stay in a sauna for 20 minutes at a particular intensity and then you know after a couple weeks I could do it for 25 or 30 or I could withstand you know

60 seconds under a freezing shower and eventually work my way up to you know three or four minutes and what that Tells me is that just like with resistance training when I'm lifting weights and getting stronger There's a part of my body that's adapting and strengthening my ability to acclimate to temperature is becoming stronger Which tells me it was atrophied in the first place, and anything that's atrophied on the human body, not as healthy. It's not so. What's your theory on that, how it affects the immune system?

Because one of the things that I felt was a, and I don't know if this is so much causation or correlation that when I did it for a consistent six months, I really started to notice how resilient I would be with getting sick. Like, yeah, I used to be the guy who, if one of us had a cold in here, guaranteed I'm getting sick. Just, there's, I'm just had a weak immune system.

Ever since I started doing hot cold contrast, I, now, my son can be sick, Katrina can be sick. I've gone two years without being sick, like never in my life have I ever been that long without getting sick or that resilient. I attribute that to that. Do you believe that it plays a role in that? Yeah, it's not even believed like there, that's been published.

Like people who use Sonomore frequently, they give a, I forget if it was the common cold or flu, so don't quote me, but yeah, I mean, that's a documented phenomena that people, you know, that engage in sauna more frequently. They less risk, you know, lower risk for colds or flu is one of the two. But yeah, there's this idea that I advanced to that chapter. It's called cross adaptation, which I think is really cool. And this notion, it's this idea that when you submit your body to a certain type of stressor,

and so I call it the vigor trigger, when you submit to a certain whether it's cold stress or heat stress, the acclimation that you endure has a spillover effect into other areas of your life. So maybe it's like immune function, maybe it's also your ability to be resilient in the face of psychological stress. If you can endure a cold shower and you practice, I don't know, maybe we can use the term progressive overload

for these kinds of stimuli because it's like, right? Why not? So if you're progressively overloading your thermal sensors or whatever with cold showers and then maybe a more intense cold water immersion, that conceivably is gonna have a significant spillover effect into other areas of your life.

I would 100% agree. One of the first things clients would tell me when I train them is they just felt, besides physically stronger, they just felt stronger in the boardroom, they felt stronger at home. They felt like they can handle emotional stress better, and it's mental fortitude.

Yeah, it's just because it requires a certain level of fortitude to train yourself at a particular intensity, it makes perfect sense that that would apply to, you know, because it's uncomfortable being in a hot sauna, and it's uncomfortable being in freezing water. So it makes perfect sense that you would have that spillover. One thing I found too with the cold water immersion, which I didn't know if like this is another thing that's documented or not, which with me, like the normal tendency was to when I encountered stress was to really bear it down in brace. And that was something that, you know, from sports, it was something I would always do when I was under a lot of

tension or stress, or even if it was from work or anything. And what that does in me actually going in and going through the cold water, it showed you right away, that doesn't work. Like you really have to release and you have to be able to breathe and calm and find that calm state. And the quicker you do that, the easier it is to stay in there versus the other

where you're just suffering the whole time. Yeah, I found exactly that. Like when I get into these cold, like I do the water that I get into, there's like a place in New York and a place in LA where I can do like legit cold immersion and the temperature is about 48 degrees Fahrenheit. And I've learned exactly that,

that you know, your kind of gut instinct is to start to like hyperventilate, but if you just kind of like tune into your breath and like slow it down, it becomes a lot more bearable. Which makes you think that it'll carry over into all stress of life, right? No matter what whether it be physical or mental, emotional, you just learn to relax a little bit more

in a very hyper stress state, which the think of the carry over breath is good enough. Yeah, I feel like I have like access to that now too, and I like encounter like more stressful situations I can find that calm a little easier. Well, I mean, not to go off topic, but it's oftentimes our resistance to reality is what makes it so damn difficult to begin with.

So you're in this cold water and you're resisting it like, no, that that resistance is just making it more difficult. Right, no such thing as big problems, only problems that we perceive to be big. Yeah, so you just chill, all right. Well, no pun intended, but I'm gonna just chill here and just accept the fact that it's worth. Yeah, that's a line that I've actually, I used to do a lot of yoga back in the day before I messed up my lower back, but that's another story.

But one of the best things I was able to take away from yoga is the idea that you just, you know, when you're in like a stressful pose, just breathe into it. Yeah. You know, they use that term a lot, and I really appreciate it. I find that that term, you can take to any area of your life, you know. Now, the chapter that was really,

that's most interesting to me personally, was about all the toxic elements. And we covered a little bit. I thought that he was gonna say that when he contributed to that. That. That's the, did you see like he was a loony? No, the chapter that I thought was best was definitely the one that I contributed to. The next one is next. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no of course you're going to talk about exercise, but the chapter that I had to do with the toxic compounds that we're exposed to, that's very fascinating.

We touched a little bit on that at the beginning of the podcast, but there's other things in there that I think I'd like to ask you questions about. For example, you talk about how some drugs are, and I hope I'm saying this right, are anti-colonergic. Colonergic. Colonergic, thank you.

Anti-histamines in particular. First of all, what does that mean? What does an anti-colonergic. Colonurgic, thank you. Anti-histamines in particular. First of all, what does that mean? What is an anti-colonurgic compound? What does that mean? Basically a drug that blocks the functioning of a neurotransmitter in the brain and body called acetylcholine, which is important for learning and memory. It's also involved in voluntary muscle control

and involuntary muscle control. And so you'll see certain drugs like to stop incontinence that have an anticolynurgic effect, but also you'll see drugs that are used to treat and air quotes, conditions like Alzheimer's disease that are working inversely to actually increase the functioning of acetyl colon in the brain. But there's this whole category of drugs called anticholinergic, and there's tons of them that many of these drugs people take chronically. Their toxicity is well known.

Any doctor is aware of the toxicity of too high of a dose of an anticholinergic drug. What is unsettling and why I talk about it in the book is that chronic of an anticholinergic drug, but what is unsettling and why I talk about it in the book is that chronic use of anticholinergic drugs is associated with a dramatically increased risk for dementia. And so it would be impossible to name all of them, but yeah, some of the more common ones are over-the-counter antihistamine drugs that people take for allergies and also for as a sleep aid.

People take them all the time. Benadrill? Yeah. Wow. Now could you, let's say you are somebody who suffers from terrible allergies. I have nieces and nephews who have lots of allergies and really one of the only ways they get relief is by taking claritin or zirtec on a regular basis. And then when they get acute attacks, they take other things. Can you offset some of those and those effects by supplementing with a high-colding diet

or by supplementing with acetylcholine? Do you know that if that makes a difference? Yeah, I don't think so. And that is not something that I've seen in the literature. I wouldn't think so, but I will say that there's probably options that if you were to go to your physician that are non-anticoinergic, you could easily ask. Okay, I got it.

Yeah. You talk about microwaving food in plastics. This one was something I told Adam a long time ago because he would always be warming up his food in his plastic containers. Yeah. What's the problem with that? The problem is a lot of the compounds

that are used to make plastic are not inert. They're able to leach into our food and heat catalyzes that reaction. And so it's not the microwave, per se, that is a problem, but it's heating or storing. In a sense, we're melting plastic into our food a little bit. Yeah, you also don't want to

I know that sous vide cooking is very popular among among culinary fiction. That's delicious. It's a fantastic way to add plastic to your food That's what I thought. Yeah, I knew it. They make they make Bags though now that are plastic free. They're called silicon bags, silicon bars. Yes, yes. What about silicon? Is there any fears with silicon leaching? I know it's one of more stable compounds, but. Yeah, I don't think so, but I'm not, you know, I don't know. The problem with a lot of these compounds is that consumers become aware, and then it becomes this chemical game of whack-a-mole where there's always like replacing a product

on the market, and there's really no data either in favor of or against. So with silicone, I don't know. And what I read on silicone was that it was stand a higher temperature and that's why it was leaching in. So if I recall, that was the big difference. And that's what makes plastic so bad. It's not the microwave, it's not the plastic in itself. It's that at certain temperatures,

it belt basically melts or leeches into your food and now we're consuming some of the plastic in itself, it's that at certain temperatures, it belt basically melts or leeches into your food and now we're consuming some of the plastic. So I think what what what the sous-vie or the people that have that can't I don't remember who the brand that came of the product but I remember when I bought this sous-vie that was the first thing that I looked into was okay this can't be a good idea to put a plastic sandwich bag and throw my food in there and then boil it I mean that's got to be melting it if there. If a microwaving plastic is bad, that's gotta be bad. But the silicone I think can handle a higher temperature than you actually boil water at. And that's what I do.

That's what they say, right? You talked also in the book about the mercury disillinium ratio and fish. Now this is something that I recently learned. I recently got married and Jessica and I are gonna be trying to have a baby soon. And one of the recommendations is be careful for eating too much fish because of the mercury content.

But as you dig a little deeper, you find that selenium, when there's a high amount of selenium in fish, it offsets that a little bit. Am I correct? Yeah, I mean, that's the hypothesis. But a lot of the, primarily the early studies that were linking fish consumption to mercury toxicity. So mercury is toxic.

Right. If the study's linking fish consumption to mercury toxicity, all actually initially involved the pilot well, which is not a fish but a mammal. And it has far higher levels of mercury than it does. I see. So lenium.

But the most commonly available fish are gonna have more selenium than mercury. And selenium is a well-known antidote to mercury toxicity because one of the reasons why mercury is toxic is that it binds to selenoproachings in the brain that serve as antioxidants. Oh, I see, yeah.

I see. So you eat a fish that's high in selenium or has a better selenium than a mercury ratio, probably not a problem. You definitely wanna avoid King McRule, swordfish, shark, things like that. And if you're pregnant, the advice from authorities is to limit consumption of tuna and things like that. But tuna does have a higher salineum than mercury ratio.

It does have a positive salineum to mercury ratio. So I don't think there's anything wrong with consuming tuna. And in fact, when you look, and I talk about these studies in the book, observationally, women who are pregnant who consume more fish, and you have to imagine that most of the fish that people are consuming in this country are, you know, probably tuna is one of the most commonly consumed fish.

If not the most commonly consumed fish, women who consume more seafood have babies that come out having higher IQs and better cognitive function and things like that. So I think the benefits of consuming fish outweigh the risks. And then when you look at the fish that are actually gonna be the best for you because they have higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids, like salmon and mackerel,

not king mackerel, but like the regular mackerel that you would buy, or sardines, they all have very low amounts of mercury. And you talk about non-starotal anti-inflammatories in there. What are some of the cautions that people should take heed to when using those? Yeah. I think acute use is fine if you have pain. I try to, in this chapter, what I try to do is I definitely don't want a fear monger.

That's not my goal. But these are all the kinds of compounds that I think people just like take, you know, they're not very discriminating. They just kind of assume that because they're available to us that they're safe, you know, well, I know people take them every single day. There you go. Yeah. Every single day. Yeah. So I mean, that's what I try to dissuade. I try to get my readers to think a little bit more critically and to dissuade them from just doing anything too much. And that includes the use of these NSAID drugs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatories, which they disrupt enzymes that protect the gut barrier,

which is super important. They've been shown to negatively affect the mitochondria of cardiac tissue, and they can also easily cross the blood brain barrier. And we know that mitochondrial dysfunction of neurons is one of the earliest problems, essentially, with Alzheimer's disease. The brain has problems creating energy, essentially,

which is, energy is created in the mitochondria. And so, yeah, so I mean, I tried to disobey people from using them on a chronic basis. There's no link between N-Sed consumption and, or N-Sed use and dementia or Alzheimer's disease, so I make that, I make that caveat in the book, but I just try to get people to think more critically. And if, you know, if you do have a pain condition and you need these drugs, and by all means, use these drugs. Yeah, I've seen in athletic or performance-based studies that lots of use of NSADS can reduce muscle strength adaptations from exercise and has been connected to increase later on risk

of tendon and ligament rupture because the blocking the inflammatory signal and part of that inflammatory signal is important, tells the body to repair and build, so it can actually have a negative effect on performance if you consume them too regularly. Yeah, and I believe there's a link with regular and seduce and risk for colostridium difficile infection, which is like this. Oh, see this. See this, yeah. Causes, you know, I forget how many millions

of hospitalizations every year, a significant number of deaths. So you really, especially for the elderly, that's a big one. That's a, a lot of, like, that's a big thing to watch out for in these homes for the elderly is Seedif, because if that, that has been known to kill people

in advanced age. Yeah, I mean, I've had like, it's better now and I've been strengthening my core and everything, but I've had like chronic low back pain for the past five years, and I rarely will take a medication for it. I'm not saying that everybody should be like me, if you have pain, take, you know, don't suffer,

but I'll do, I'll jump through hoops to make sure that I don't have to take like, pain medications, you know, all like anti-inflammatory, like omega-3s and curcumin, which is very limited, you know, evidence that they can help treat pain, but you ever use cannabis or cannabinoids? I've tried some CBD because I got hooked up with your guys. You know, I can't say, I haven't taken it for pain, so I can't, you know, I can't comment on that.

I'm not a fan of THC, so I've never used that. Makes you paranoid. Yeah. You're too smart, that's why. Is that what it is? I don't know. I've never been able to. Real analytical thinker.

Oh yeah, I could definitely make you paranoid. Yeah, yeah. If you have too much. One of the things that I enjoy talking with you though, because you do talk about some of the fringe borderline what someone would say, woo-woo stuff. You do it in a very non-zellet way. Like it's, and I agree with the way you present it,

because it's like, never in history have we been like this where we have this many offenders. You know, one of these things by themselves, probably not gonna cause cancer, probably not gonna kill somebody, probably not a big deal. The occasional introduction of it here and there, but it's like you're getting bombarded by all of them. And if you're just, if you have the attitude of,

and why I don't like people that try and fight with someone like you with your message, and say, oh, that's bullshit, the research doesn't support that, you're fine. Doing that is you give people a free pass to just say, fuck it and go over, overboard with it. And I know being somebody who,

we talk about this even with like highly processed foods and things, I mean, I could be using some hair products, some beard oil, toothpaste, microwaving, six semi meals all in plus. I mean, that could be a day, drinking out of like all of that, in a single day and wrapping something in the wax paper that now, if any, I'm touching receipts,

and you gotta think that like, all of that can't be good. And if I can make some small changes like simply using glassware instead of plastic, you know, or limiting the amount of drinking out of a plastic bottle and switching like, it's not like I'm, you know, trying to freak anybody out, but it's like, why, why not? Why not make that better, easy switch? I'm not asking you to spend tons extra money, just make a smarter choice and limit the amount exposure you're doing.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think knowledge is power. And most people live the way that you described. I mean, most of the time, like, you know, people don't really have this information. And so I think it's important to get it out there. And, you know, that's why I take issues sometimes with online in the fitness community. You'll see people who are like sugar apologists or like junk food apologists.

You probably see this all the time. But it's like, I don't think that we're considering the public health implications of giving this advice that sugar suddenly gets a free pass if you're counting your calories because it's just, like look at the population statistics. Well, that was the main debate we had with our buddy Lane. That's how we got connected was, his message, I mean, he just did another video the other day. And I just chuckled and laughed and kind of rolled my eyes.

Because he tries to take the opposing side that we demonize sugar. And so he made, did you see his video? He did it. No, I didn't see it. He made like this spoof video of a drug deal going down, but it was sugar. Oh, I saw that. Yeah, yeah.

But the thing is, he's speaking to an echo chamber, essentially, of like fitness people. And I'm actually like not. I'm, you know, I get to go on freaking Dr. Osso, the Rachel Rachel, and I'm hyper aware of the fact that I'm reaching like the masses, you know. And I'm hyper aware of the fact that I'm reaching the masses. And I'm like to give them a free pass to eat more sugar. What? Yeah, you don't want to do that.

Well, and that was our big debate that we had with him was that, for two decades, we changed the average Joe's. How many competitors and pro athletes I got to train? Like, fucking less than a percent. Yeah, the other 99 plus percent were average Jane and pro athletes, I got to train like fucking less than a percent. Yeah, they had their 99 plus percent were average, Jane and Joe's and those people can't be here in that message. I can't be promoting to them that like, yeah, if you train like me and do so, then go ahead, eat all the sugar you want as long as it fits in your macros. Like, that message is not ideal for the, for the, the masses. And it's the small popular.

And so I think that was, that was our big debate with him is exactly that. If you control your calories and your macros tightly, sure you can get away with certain things, but the average person doesn't even know what a macro is let alone controlling it tightly and heavily processed high sugar foods are hyper-palatable and encourage you to eat more.

So when you take somebody who doesn't control these things super tightly way in measure everything and you tell them sugar is okay so long as your calories are not that high. What the average person ends up doing is eating that sugar, makes them want to eat more and they underestimate how many calories are eating anyway. So now they have a lot of sugar and it's in the context of a high calorie diet which is extremely inflammatory and just generally bad. So it's just terrible advice because you have to know who you're talking to. It's like you have to know your audience and this is how we communicate like artificial

sweeteners. That's a great one. You see people taking out their high sugar sodas and replacing them with artificial sweeteners and they don't lose any weight. Is that because artificial sweeteners can't cause weight gain? No, but it's because they make you eat more. So am I going to tell my client to switch out their sugar for artificial sweeteners now?

Because I know it's just going to make them eat more and I'm working with the average person. That's a very important thing and I think you do a very good job of talking to that person and not being in that echo chamber. Thanks, man. I really appreciate that.

I appreciate you coming on the show again, bro. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited for this book. When is it going to come out? Comes out March 17th. It's called The Genius Life. If you go to geniuslifebook.com. We've got some great goodies that we're giving out,

like free bonuses. And, but the book is available everywhere. It's called The Genius Life. And I'm on Instagram, at max, Lugavir, L-U-G-A-V-E-R-E, and then I've also got my podcast called The Genius Life also, and I know that you've been on it. I love it.

Can't wait to have you back. Oh, I love coming on your podcast. We always have great discussions. Now, can people pre-order the book now? They can pre-order the book right now. Okay. Oh, very cool. And did you know you were gonna write this one

when you wrote the first one? Did you write the first one that had no idea you were gonna write about everything? Like you were in this one? I did not know that I was going to write a second book. The first one was pretty dense, but what I did was there's slight overlap in the second book, but what I did was I expanded on those topics. For example, I go deep into exercise, and that was a chapter that I was super psyched to

get to collaborate with you on. I sent it to you because I was like, God, the last thing I need is like the fitness community catching an error in my text. I was like, God forbid I say that you can only achieve hypertrophy in like the eight to ten rep range when we know, you know. So I sent that to you. Thank you for, for, for like, you know, being serving as a form of checks and balances. But no, yeah, it's, nutrition, genius foods was like a nutritional Bible. And then, you know, what I realized is that nutrition is just one part of the story. Like if you're, you could be like checking, you know,

all the teas and dotting all the eyes, you know, in terms of your nutrition, but if you're not, at least conscious of the fact that these endocrine disrupting chemicals exist, or if you're not aware of what protein that these endocrine disrupting chemicals exist, or if you're not aware of what protein can do in terms of satiating your hunger or getting adequate light in the morning or giving yourself a break from it in the evening, there's like all these different factors.

Then I go into mindset and stress relief and how to optimize sleep and all that stuff in the book. I think these are all, I think, crucially important. Yeah, and the way you write is, I consider this an amazing, a great guide to improving your overall health. It's easy to understand and the way you communicate it.

You don't communicate the, the small, insignificant, you communicate things in the right way. Like, here's what you can do realistically. And I really appreciate that. You did that. Thanks, man. Yeah. I mean, I don't think that living a life of counting calories is a, I don't, I don't consider that a genius life. I think that people need to, people ought to know how to eat.

And unfortunately, we live in a time where the food supply has become essentially toxic, you know, I mean, we're, we're thrown health claims from every conceivable angle. We're being implored to overeat, we're sold things and we're compelled to buy things that we don't need almost every single day, multiple times a day. And so I think sometimes it's just like the little insights, the little tricks that people need to have an actual,

like a market difference in their lives in terms of how they feel and their health down the road. So I tried to pepper the genius life with just tons and tons of those sort of actionable tips and tricks and counterintuitive things that people might not necessarily think about, but that are gonna lead to big health wins. Awesome.

Yeah, wait to see a crush. Thanks man. Thanks for sharing, you guys. Thank you. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at Mind Pump Media dot com. The RGB Superbundle includes maps and a

ballac, maps performance, and maps aesthetic. Nine months of phased, expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels and performs. With detailed workout blueprints in over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainer's butt at a fraction of the price. The RGB Superbundle has a full 30-day money-back guarantee and you can get it now plus other valuable free resources at MindPumpMedia.com. If you enjoy this show, please share the love by leaving us a five-star rating and review

on iTunes and by introducing MindPump to your friends and family. We thank you for your support and until next time, this is MindPump. family. We thank you for your support and until next time this is Mindbump.