Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Interview With Andrew Steele From DNAFit

Episode Date: February 12, 2015

In this podcast I talk with Andrew Steele from DNAFit about my test results and about genetic testing in general and how you can use it to optimize your health and performance. ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS PODCAST: How Insulin Really Works: It Causes Fat Storage…But Doesn’t Make You Fat: http://www.muscleforlife.com/how-insulin-works/ The Definitive Guide to Why Low-Carb Dieting Sucks: http://www.muscleforlife.com/low-carb-diet/ Carbohydrates and Weight Loss: Should You Go Low-Carb? http://www.muscleforlife.com/carbohydrates-and-weight-loss-should-you-go-low-carb/ 5 Powerful Vitamin D Benefits That Make It a “Super-Vitamin”: http://www.muscleforlife.com/vitamin-d-benefits/ Why a Gluten-Free Diet Is Unnecessary and Even Unhealthy: http://www.muscleforlife.com/why-gluten-free-diet/ Why High-Intensity Interval Training is Best For Weight Loss: http://www.muscleforlife.com/high-intensity-interval-training-and-weight-loss/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now, you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are, one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website,

which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long

overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. All right. Thanks for coming on the show, Andrew. I'm excited to dive into my genetic blueprint. Excellent. No, thanks for having me, Mike. I'm looking forward to talking you through it.

Yeah, totally. So before we get into my test results, can you tell me and tell the listeners a bit about you, your story, how you're an Olympic athlete, how you came to work at DNAFit, and then a little bit about the process of what is DNAFit, just for the people that don't know. Well, basically, it's literally just a little swab test. It almost looks like an earbud that you rub on the inside of your cheek. And we analyze from that a selection of gene variants which look at markers specifically focused around exercise nutrition so your training and nutrition plans and how you can choose the

best way for you based on your genetics cool yeah when i was doing it i was like i just rub it on my cheek and that's it and then it marks all the mysteries like a image of like i'm gonna have to go to a clinic and get blood taken or a biopsy. So no, pretty easy. We just send it by the post and we're based here in the UK. But people seem to buy the kit from all over the world. So it's quite good. Yeah, that's cool.

And so now tell me about you just so listeners know like who are you? What's your story? So I have two distinct hats, I guess, that I wear. so um my i have two distinct hats i guess that i wear um the first one being and that happens in the first part of the day is that i'm a professional track and field athlete so i'm a olympic athlete here in the uk running for great britain uh specifically in the the 400 meters and the 4x400 meter relay so um that you know that is part of the reason why i came to be involved with dna fit and i and I'll touch upon that briefly without boring people too much in my story but effectively I'm a professional athlete and I'm

still in full-time training as soon as I finish training I'm kind of in the office in inverted commas for DNA Fit here so I run the company I manage all the work we do across professional sport and our fitness and training interventions and look after a lot of our other sort of special projects as well. But really, the story of how I came to be involved with the company is quite good in terms of putting into context the use of genetics. Because it's quite, it's a fairly new concept to people, I guess, you know, like my DNA tells me something about this or not about how I work out or how I eat. And it's, you know, in some people's minds, genetics is a scary, overly scientific world. And, you know, I don't know if you had any preconceptions about what a gene test was or a DNA test before. Not really. I mean, it's not an area that

I wouldn't say I'm nowhere. I wouldn't consider myself an expert at all. I mean, I, I, it's not an area that, uh, I wouldn't say I'm, I'm nowhere. I'm not, I wouldn't consider myself an expert at all. I mean, I've, I've just in, in my, all the research I've done more on the health fitness side, I've come across the fair amount of stuff. Um, so I had to add, I think the right type of expectations, but, uh, yeah, I know that a lot of people, I think, especially in, in, when when it comes to to just fitness and overall health many people think that their genetics are are probably working against them it's probably like the you know what i mean the general connotation like if they you know they they know that person that quote unquote can eat whatever they want and stay yeah oh it's genetics or they think that because they have

always been overweight that they're genetically doomed to be overweight, things like that, I think. Yeah, that's it. And, you know, that's, that's part of it. And the real key is that genetics is not about predeterminism. It's not about what someone can or can't be, rather, we just like, provide this extra level of information. So you can play to your strengths, so you can take that knowledge and make the best choices. So I think of it as like inclinations. Yeah, that's it. Basically, you know, we just use it to add to the whole picture to make the best decisions just as you would measure. Can you watch your bench press PB?

What's your, how, how's your resting heart rate in any realm of health and fitness? You would, you would measure things. And this is an extra measure that we add into the picture. Right. So basically I'm'll probably i'll just quickly tell you sort of how i came to be working with dna fit as a an olympic athlete um i had my first olympic games was at the beijing olympic games in 2008 and um back then i used to train sort of in in the four years prior to beijing i trained what was considered kind of the wrong way for a 400

meter runner we did a lot of endurance training a lot of um like what we'd call northern graft here in the UK so I'm from Manchester in the north of England where we've got a kind of uh hard-working reputation of no nonsense and I used to do this sort of lots and lots of longer running almost like a middle distance athlete like an 800 meter runner whereas the 400 for people that reputation of no nonsense and i used to do this sort of lots and lots of longer running almost like a middle distance athlete like an 800 meter runner whereas the 400 for people that don't know their track and field it's officially a sprint it's a long sprint but it's officially a power event um so i used to train what was considered a little bit unorthodox for the 400 meters then i did a lot of endurance but with some sprint as opposed to the common way

which was a lot of sprint with some endurance as you can imagine so um I used to do this and evidently it was relatively successful for me I reached Olympic level I reached the Olympic Games and in the process of doing that actually ran a pretty sort of important benchmark for me which was um running under 45 seconds so anyone that runs a 400 under 45 kind of enters this new threshold in people's minds of what level of athlete they are so i reached the olympic semi-final and uh we came fourth um in the four by 400 meter relay by the absolute smallest fraction of a second unfortunately but either way it was quite a positive first olympic games it was like right okay here we go in four years time uh i've got the london olympic games the home olympic games such a huge like opportunity um once in a lifetime

once in 10 lifetime opportunity so um everything of course was geared towards like how do we take you from semi-finalist to medalist and how do we take the relay team from fourth place to first place over these four years now i ran around i ran 44.94 seconds in 2008 and what i needed to win a medal was about half a second quicker about 44.4 would have been a pretty safe bet that I'd be in with a shot of a medal there. So we needed half a second over four years. Sounds like pretty easy on the outset. Yeah, anyone that's played sports at that level

just knows that there's a point where it's so hard to improve, just even small amounts. That's it, yeah. The margins become very, very fine, don't they, between success and failure. So either way, we decided on this. We're like, we need to take you from here to here over four years' time.

How do we get there? Do we stay doing the same or do we change? And we looked at my abilities in my races and where my strengths and my weaknesses were. My strengths were very much in the last 100 meters. I was the strongest guy on the track in terms of endurance in the last 100 meters. But I was probably the weakest guy on the track in terms of acceleration, in terms of the first quarter of my race.

So getting out of the blocks up to my top speed was taking me like over 100 meters. So the other guys were gaining half a second on me straight away so we're like look let's just get that half a second there we keep the endurance as well as we can but we're going to make you a world-class short sprinter as well as just a world-class 400 meter runner so we decided to change the emphasis towards this new no the more common way which was mainly sprint training with endurance as opposed to the other way around which I'd done most of my career and over those four years we did that a couple of other things sort of got in the way of the process I had a partial rupture of my

Achilles tendon and I also had mononucleosis for about 18 months which didn't help of course but effectively this change in training didn't work for me we got to the day of selection in London 2012 and I was on average about a second slower than I was four years prior and I ended up missing out on the home olympic games on the thing that I've been working towards for seven years so it was kind of like this is that was really sickening you know really nauseating and to have such a long-term goal and we missed out um so that was very tough and it took me a while to get over that and to let the dust settle but afterwards I was thinking to myself I was going what happened there what went wrong and how can I fix it so come Rio 2016 the next Olympic Games which would be my last in terms of

physical career ability I get back to where I was and better and I decided I realized that you know that old way that everyone told me was kind of wrong for for 400 meter running was evidently a lot more effective for me because over those four years I not only didn't really get much better at the short stuff the zero to 50 meters but I actually lost my individual calling card which was my stupidly good last 50 meters so I was like you know I lost my individual strength I lost what made me who I was and maybe that unorthodox method of training was actually the right way for me. I'd come to this decision, I'd decided to change back to that way and so on and made a few big points to deliver over the next four years up to Rio 2016. But shortly after, I was actually in Scottsdale, Arizona on a training camp there.

I got sent a little swab, the swab I alluded to before in the post through one of my coaches through my strength and conditioning coach and it wasn't even called DNA fit at the time it was just a DNA test for sport and I thought hey whatever I'll do this with cynicism perhaps to start with and then I was really fascinated when I got my results because in a way it confirmed a lot of that which i'd been forced to learn through that painful and quite costly trial and error over those four years yeah i had a majority of endurance genetics i had two gene results in particular which signal the raised probability of achilles tendon rupture which i

had and i had this slow recovery speed and my mononucleosis is effectively an over training fatigue illness so I was like ah that's me well done guys but also I wish I'd had this four years prior like seriously if you'd just shown me this it wouldn't have changed everything but it would have been an important influencer at least for the people that paid my bills and were putting pressure on me to change my training yeah so I was like look I can really see the benefit in this and um I took it on board and thankfully uh this this year I had my best season by far since Beijing so um continue to improve hopefully I'll be back there in Rio not only running 44.9 but running a little bit quicker as well so yeah fingers crossed so look at you know

the the use in professional sports is quite obvious so you can see that but what i really started to think was actually you know hey if we take this and we extrapolate this down to the general consumer the general user who is just starting to get healthy or get fit now obviously i'm an olympic athlete so i can if i get things wrong i'm going to assess what went wrong and i'm going to change in order to get better again that's my job i'm not going to just give up but the everyday person the motivation to change your activity levels or to change your nutrition to change your life really is so fragile because we it's very difficult you know it's, very difficult to set out on a new journey to say, I'm going to change this.

I'm going to be disciplined. I'm going to not eat that food. I'm going to do this exercise, which I don't like and I find really difficult. And so anything you can do to increase the probability of success there to create lasting change, because if someone doesn't see results after a month, they're not going to carry on trying

or they're not going to reassess or maybe that didn't work for me. They just going to stop yeah so i was like if we can just add this to people from the very start so they don't have to go through this trial and error process then that's a really useful motivator and incentive to increase the probability of success and therefore make a larger change to people's activity levels and health, basically. Yeah, compliance really is the big thing. I mean, for the average person, just they want to be fit. I mean, even people that want to be extraordinarily fit,

that's still as much, that's way easier than trying to do what you're doing. You know, we're not, people even like me, I'm not trying to necessarily squeeze every ounce of strength out of my body or every ounce of performance out of my body. I want to be in shape. I, you know, I like to look a certain way. I like to feel a certain way. And it's kind of like a longevity health thing, uh, and a bit of vanity thrown in. And, uh, and that, that's, I think where a lot of people are at. And for that, it really is that if you just stay consistent, even if you're not, even if you're doing quite a few things, uh, incorrectly, or if you're not, even if you're doing quite a few things incorrectly, or if you're not, you're not training optimally, or you're not, maybe, maybe the diet is a bit overly restrictive and you don't, you don't have to necessarily do it that way. Just complying with it over time. You know, give somebody five years on like subpar

with a subpar weightlifting program and subpar diet routine, they're still going to probably after that time, a fair amount of people are gonna be fairly happy with where they're at. That's it, you just need them to adhere to something, don't you like that? Something is so important compared to nothing. And I and then of course, optimally, they would start off in the beginning, knowing what they're doing. And then you know, those five years, obviously five years, you could take someone from, you know you know normal or overweight completely out of shape to like you know ripped or whatever and just just just just complete totally fit in five years so that's it and i think you know with them one of the interesting factors about this like genetic

information is the motivation it brings because it's so personal it's rather than saying that i'm going to eat this food because i've heard it's good for me that's so general but actually i'm going to eat this food because in particular i have this gene which does this so i need it for this reason etc so it's a really good motivator to make things a little bit more personal a little bit more of a very you very individual journey that someone embarks upon to keep into adhering and give them motivation to start as well. Yeah, I mean I found it interesting personally because it kind of confirmed some of the things that I already knew that I just – I wasn't surprised, which when we get into it, I'll kind of chime in here and there on those points.

And then also just gave me some good – good, it's, I feel more informed about how my body works and, uh, or at least the, the blueprint of it. Obviously a lot, some of these things are going to change with lifestyle and, uh, you know, like, yeah, I might, you know, genetically my body in my case, I guess it does very well with carbohydrate, which isn't surprising, but even if I, if it didn't do well with carbohydrate, that's something that can be improved upon with lifestyle. So I mean, there's some there's a really important point you've touched on there, Mike. And that's the genetics is not the whole picture. And I don't know whether it's because of pop culture and books and films that make people think it's more than it is. But actually,

genetics is just one part of the whole picture and that's what we really try and stress and actually you know your environment is so important so we only report on sort of a good housekeeping thing here we have kind of a protocol before we actually include a gene in the test so firstly it has to have been shown every gene variant has to have been shown in multiple peer-reviewed, clinically validated studies for its association with each particular section. So there's no single studies in here. Or just rat research on preliminary or whatever. The second point is that all those studies have to have been on humans, not on rats or mice.

And they have to have been shown for their effect there and then thirdly that there has to be an actionable lifestyle or environment change that can support or uh help that that gene's activity so we don't tell you anything that you can't do anything about right because to me that's a very controversial area and you know to say that oh by the way you've got this chance of this um see you later is yeah it's a little bit wrong almost you know definitely because i mean you put certain ideas in people's head i mean you have the opposite of placebo and the nocebo effect where i mean these are real things where you know the the reality is what is going on in our minds affects our bodies and so in just the listeners like so you have the placebo effect where you you're you're given a sugar pill but but you're told it's a, something to treat a certain problem. And then it, it, it, uh, it actually treats the

problem just because you think it does. And then on the flip side of the nocebo effect where you're giving something inert, but you think it's harmful and it harms you. So it'd be the same thing where you're told something negative. You're told that you're genetically predisposed to this or that, or in a way where it's almost like fatalistic where you're, you're screwed. And then you start thinking that, and you know, there's a, there's a very real chance that you could start manifesting some of that just because you believe it very much so and that's you know that the mind state there is so much of an important factor it's almost more important than than genetics in some ways that people mustn't read into the word genetics or the word dna more than another factor to add to the whole picture.

And that's what we try and be really clear about because people have inbuilt perceptions of what this is. And it's our job as a company, I guess, to educate people back to its use, but also its limitations as well. Yeah, great. All right, so let's just jump into it. So we have the first point here on the diet report for me which is carbohydrate sensitivity great okay so what do i mean by sensitivity what do we what are we referring to here so um your listeners will be very um well clued up on their nutrition so i won't be really basic but effectively the whole blood glucose disruption insulin resistance etc from sugar from simple carbohydrates, refined carbohydrates.

It's affected how intense that is or not depending on a panel of certain genes. So we're having – So basically like how well your body can deal with large glucose loads. Basically, yeah. So with glucose loads. So either a sharp spike in high glycemic index foods or an overall load of medium glycemic index foods, etc. So we're looking at basically your individual response to carbohydrate. So what does a calorie of carbohydrate mean to you individually?

What do your genes tell us about that? So in your case, as you said, you're very low and actually quite rare that i come across someone with as lower response as you um in these the particular five genes we look at in relation to carbohydrate here you only have one of the gene variants which is associated with um a raised response the rest you have the lower response versions of those genes so um that would on a really simple superficial level um that would say that you should be a little bit less scared of carbohydrates than perhaps the media delivers us to think so of late yeah and i don't know if you found that yourself like through your yeah yeah i mean i uh have always done well with carbohydrate and it also to be

fair i i mean i've i always i grew up playing sports. I, I don't know. I was hitting a baseball when I was three or something. So I always like had a, I was always burning a lot of energy in general. So I had a high, high carbohydrate need in general. But, uh, but yeah, especially I've noticed it a lot in the last several years as I've become more informed myself about just the physiology of, uh, well, I guess, all the various physiological processes related to training and diet. And I find that, I mean, I can eat absurd amounts of carbohydrate and not even feel anything. Like, I don't even, so that makes sense. And here I am, a professional athlete

training six days a week, twice a day, and I still have to watch my carb intake. Yeah. So, and there's an example probably there of like, you know, I mean, you're training more than me. I'm weight days a week twice a day and i still have to watch my carb intake yeah so and there's there's an example probably there of like you know i mean i you're you're you're training more than me i'm weightlifting depends what i'm doing with my program it's three to six days a week and i do cardio three to four days a week so i get in maybe an average of six hours of exercise a week but still yeah it's uh that that makes sense like i wasn't surprised when i saw that no no that's that's great you know that's good to hear i think. I think in my case, I was right the opposite end of this scale, so very high. And I'd had to find that out the hard way because I was like –

And what was your experience? So what would happen? You get tired and just groggy and eat a bunch of carbs? Well, basically, obviously, I've been fed this idea of, oh, I'm a sports person, so I need energy all my career. We need big bowls of pasta and all this stuff. this idea of oh i'm a sports person so i need energy all my career you know we need the big bowls of pasta and all this stuff and actually you know i remember lamenting the fact in the in the in beijing olympic games there's the athlete food hall and in there it's 24 hours a day every cuisine from around the world for free including a free 24-hour day mcdonald's then

let me let me point out which seems so against the olympic spirit but hey it's the most popular uh line really is the most popular but by far my like like the longest line in the was the buffet food that bad no no it's excellent the food is excellent but people just chose their mcdonald's that's just that's like that's that's straight brainwashing is what that is but hey no i mean if they can get away with it, then they can get away with it. No, I'm just saying that's the effect. That's how strong their brainwashing marketing is. That doesn't even make sense.

McDonald's is disgusting. So I remember sitting in there thinking, you know, I'm at the salad bar. I'm filling my bowl with green leaves and protein basically. And my teammates are eating big bowls of pasta or pizza or something. And I'm thinking, why am I having to do this and you don't? And I found out over the years working with a nutritionist closely. I was very early adopter of a lower carbohydrate for a sports person, a lower carbohydrate eating plan for a sports person.

It was quite unheard of at the time i started but i found i was if i didn't i had my body fat was too high yeah even though i'm professional sports person all the activity i do my body fat was always too high um and i'd found that out and then i was i had see how you've got this table and for the listeners they'll see at some point i'm sure there's a table with various genes the gene result mike has and then whether that has a strong effect, a medium effect, or no effect on this marker. And Mike has only one gene which creates an effect. My genes created all of them. Oh, wow.

So you're very lucky there. And that actually corresponds with a bit of research. I wrote an article on it, which I'll link in the description for people listening. research. I wrote an article on it, which I'll link in the description for people listening, but on just carbohydrate need in general, and do you need to go low carb to lose fat, which is really the thing to do these days. And of course, when you have protein matched, when they're on a high protein diet, there are several RCTs that show that there is no benefit in terms of fat loss by going low carb or higher carb if you're in a calorie deficit and you're on a high protein diet. But with what you're saying, it's a bit different because of your situation because, again,

as an elite athlete, very little things make a difference. And where I've seen it working with people is carbohydrate sensitivity seems to come into play when we're talking body composition, seems to come into play when people are lean and want to get really lean. Yeah. Right. Okay. Yeah. So the fine, I mean, that, that's what I've seen that people that are just quite overweight and which actually it makes probably makes better sense for them to do, go lower carb just because their bodies probably don't do very well with it. Cause if you're overweight, your insulin sensitivity is going to be, it's not going to be good. That's for sure. It's not going to be great. But I've worked with a lot of people that they just did a moderate carb intake. Like

let's say a guy is 250 pounds and he starts with 200 grams of protein, 200 and 250 grams of carb and 50 grams of fat a day. I've worked with a billion people that fit that profile and do great. But where I've seen it, um, it can, it can vary is when you get lean and you want to get really lean. And my guess is it would come down to something more like this because I wouldn't say it's common for me to see that somebody really needs to go low carb to get really lean because I guess you kind of do gain. As you get leaner, you gain and you become more insulin sensitive, especially if you're if you're also training your weightlifting, you know, three or four hours a week, and you're doing a lot of high intensity cardio, which you're doing a lot of things to

in just eating well, in general, you're doing a lot of things to improve insulin sensitivity. But I've definitely seen that where there are certain people that just respond better to lower carb. Then that's it's all a question of like responders you know so high of the high versus low responders nobody is a non-responder you know so it's effectively just how high or low responder are you to these various various markers and uh and that's what that's what our genes can tell us and and they but they don't tell us that like this won't work for you or this will work for you. Right. Is it just pointing someone towards the enlightening, the correct, more correct path or the probability of the more correct path? So it was very, very confusing if you're just thinking, right, I'm going to start losing weight now.

I want to really lean up. What do I do? And currently it's very, very like zero carb carb very high fat that's on trend at the moment yes but actually then you don't know what's going to happen in six months someone will say oh you only eat raspberries now and yeah it's very very confusing so we just have to sort of it's probably already planned out yeah what's the next trend we're gonna let this somewhere is planned it out yeah we're gonna let this high fat thing ride out for a bit yeah yeah so i've been talking of fat um shall we have a look yeah let's let's look at let's move on to the next one which is fat sensitivity so effectively we we use this the same concept here um that's uh you know

what our individual response to fats um is so we have a panel of genes here that look at that and the cumulative effect of that. And there's one interesting result to to pull out for you, Mike, which is the there's the FTO gene. Now, overall, you're you're a lower sensitivity. You're not very low, like in the carbohydrates case, but you are less than medium, so less than average response to fats, which is good. But then the FTO gene is sometimes called the fat gene in the media. You're a version called AT, so you've got one copy of the A version of the FTO gene and one copy of the T, so you're officially called heterozygous. And the A version codes for an increased level of ghrelin the hunger hormone so in some in one study in fact that people that had two copies of

the a were 70 percent more likely to be obese forever just because they're hungry all the time so this isn't responsible for you being hungry all the time but you do create more than someone with tt you're basically coding for raised ghrelin activity so you know what's kind of just ironic about that is i don't get hungry it just it doesn't matter i i don't i cannot i can fast for i've 24 hours and i would maybe feel low on energy, but I would not feel hungry. I'd never feel hungry. Oh, amazing. Well, good for you. Well, people that's like, I've never, cause you know, just being in the fitness world, people are like, fuck you. Like, like for dieting, you know what I mean? Cause I'll be, I can be in a calorie deficit. It doesn't

matter. I just don't get hungry. I can eat when I want to eat. I eat however much I want to eat. I can not eat. It just doesn't matter. Yeah. yeah i mean that that's that's got to just be a because i it wasn't that wasn't the case when i was younger when i was in my early 20s i would get very hungry but also there's a bit of a psychological thing there because i used to think that if you didn't eat protein every two hours you're going to lose all your muscle you know what i mean so yeah i'd be like internally anxious if i hadn't eaten because i'm thinking i'm like losing all my gains or something. So to almost train your mentality to not like care that much about your food intake or not overly overthink it basically. That's how I, that's completely how I feel about it now because I mean now that I'm more informed and I have a lot more experience where I know that my body does tend to do well on,

I would say probably three to five meals a day is I feel good on that. But you know, if I only, if I miss, uh, if I have to eat two meals in a day, it doesn't matter. It's not like it's, you know, I'm at a point now where I'm also kind of just maintaining the physique that I want. So psychologically, yeah, that's gone where I don't have any sort of anxiety about food or eating as long. I know if I hit my numbers every day and I get the majority of my calories from nutritious food and I have a balanced diet and that's pretty much it. And so it's just kind of an interesting thing to then see now that for whatever reason, I mean, there may be a physiological change that comes with it or whatever, but... Well, there's one other really interesting gene here in this, which is the FABP2, which is the long name for it is the fatty acid binding protein.

And like its name suggests, that gene's job is effectively to bind protein from the intestine into the bloodstream, basically. So to take protein from the gut to the blood. And we don't really want it in the blood. That's where we don't want it. And the three versions of that gene are either very good at that job mixed or not so good at that job um and you've got the version which isn't very good at its job it's not very good at taking uh the fat oxidation and raising higher levels of triglyceride in the blood so um so basically in your case the fat that you eat is not necessarily being taken very well into the bloodstream, to put it in a really simple way.

So that's good. Yeah, and just for the listeners to clarify there, so dietary fats are stored very efficiently as body fat. The energy cost is very low. cost is very low. I think it's somewhere in somewhere between zero and 3%, um, because the, the molecules are similar to, to what, you know, body fat, how it's, how it, how it's put together on a molecular level. Um, whereas carbohydrate, for instance, the energy cost is higher because it needs to go through a process called de novo lipogenesis where the body turns the glucose into body fat. So it, what you would want is what, like what Andrew is saying is where you want as much fat oxidation to occur in terms of like staying lean, when especially in during bouts of overfeeding,

ideally, your body, you want it to be burning off to be oxidizing as much as what as much of what you're eating as it can, which means there's less leftover for storage, essentially. can, which means there's less leftover for storage essentially. Yeah. So you're good at, well, your, your gene that's not good at its job is good for you. And, and again, just to kind of correlate that to my, to my, my experiences is, um, I've, I've noticed, especially over the, over the holidays. And, uh, I was out of town for the weekend where I can eat quite a bit of food. Of course, there's a point where it just becomes too much. But in concentrated bouts of overeating where I'm going to eat a 5,000-calorie dinner, just something ridiculous, I just notice in general that my body –

of course, I'll gain body fat, but I don't gain fat. I'm not a hardcore ect body fat, but I don't gain fat. I'm not like, I, I'm not a hardcore ectotype person where they just don't, it's really hard for them to gain fat. But, uh, I definitely am on the, I'm more in that direction than the endomorphic where, you know, they're just very efficient at, at gaining body fat. So I've noticed that where my body tends, it seems like it just tends to deal with calorie surpluses a little bit better than average. Yeah. Hey, I wish I was like that. I'm not bragging. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just saying that like, that makes sense on these results. You know what I mean? That's good. Okay, great. So look, that's when those two

markers are really where we, um, where we move people towards suggesting various macro splits or not based on these two responses to fats and carbs. There's no real – there's no evidence which has been strong enough to pass our protocol yet on particularly on protein or anything along those lines. So we just stick to our carbs and our fats so far. Cool. So we just stick to our carbs and our fats so far. Cool. Yeah. So, you know, in my case, what the diet that works best for me is obviously a moderately high protein intake, somewhere around a gram per pound.

And then I have a moderately high carb intake. Depends on what I'm doing with it, but it's always in a moderately high. And then I have a moderately low fat intake somewhere around probably 0.3 grams per pound of lean mass is kind of just like my general level of intake. And yeah, that it works well for me. My body always feels good. I have energy in the gym and you know, that's, that's good. That's my balance, I guess. Well, definitely with someone on the carb side of things, you know, if someone came to me as an, with a, what you have, they're very low low responder i would certainly discourage them from trying the you know the low carb high fat yeah i don't feel good on it it's just i don't feel good no that's it and you know genetics may be part of the reason that it may not be we don't know the full like everything about the person there's also i guess the physical i'd have to get you know i i'm not gonna i've done it for

shorter periods of time and if i were to really stick it, I'm sure for six months that my body would, it would have to adjust to some degree. Yeah, well, we'd all have to adjust if we stick to something for six months, but, um, but, uh, you know, how, how adherable it is to you, uh, part of the genetics you want to play, play with your genetics rather than against against them you know so yeah that's it for sure um the next real like marker we look at on the diet side is this detoxification ability yeah this is interesting so so quite interesting here this is not uh to make this so clear this is not going on a detox in common um obviously as you will know your listeners will know as far as food being said yeah yeah so i'm not telling you to go and drink only kale juice for three weeks um here this is not going to tell you that but we look at basically the genetics around both phase one and phase two detoxification function in the liver um so this can be the most lot of um the most sciency part of the test almost to try and get across so I'll be

really like blunt simple yeah just so people get a sense for it but in phase one we focus on the risk of DNA damage so the risk of potentially toxic risk from too much of these pah and HCAs which if people aren't familiar with potentially toxic compounds that we get in our diet. The richest source is from char-grilled meat, high-temperature cooked meat. So the tasty bit on the meat, basically. The blackest. So now in the UK, it's not very common here that our customers eat this char-grilled meat that often.

In the US, it's a good deal more common in hot countries. And barbecue, char-broilled meat that often. In the US, it's a good deal more common in hot countries. Barbecue, char-broiled, etc. What we do is we can look at these two genes which affect how fast you activate the enzymes in these, liver detoxification in phase one.

There's a CYP1A2 gene and the EPHX1 gene. depending on the version you have, they're either the code for the fast activity or the slow activity or one of each, so mixed. Um, and in your case, Mike, you're the fastest possible. So, um, you've got the, uh, you've got both of those genes. You've got the version of the gene which activates them faster. And the faster you activate, the higher the risk of DNA damage. So you want to be the slower end, ideally.

But in your case, you're the faster end. So there's no evidence to say you need to cut this out completely. You don't need to never have meat with any high temperature cooked. Yeah, I just shouldn't be doing it every day. We say like maximum two servings a week. Yeah. meat with any high temperature cooked method. I just shouldn't be doing it every day. We try it. We say like maximum two servings a week.

Yeah. So I probably, I probably have one a month maybe. And it's like a steak from a restaurant. Okay, cool. Well, that's great.

You know, if, so what we say to people is look, if you've got the choice of the cooking method, think, can you make the choice which leaves less of that? Maliard reaction is called. That's the,

the char grilled nights, the burnt bits on the meat, if you can. And if it's not your choice and it has to be done, then that's a lifestyle factor which we can't change, and so be it. But if you can make the choice, think if you can avoid less of that. It might be keeping the meat moving in the pan, sautéing it, steaming it, etc. Yeah, I mean, I guess it depends how I'm cooking. Sometimes I'll be broiling, but again, it's not – there's not much in the way of burning. I eat a lot of chicken and I eat fish and turkey and things that –

I guess the most – the highest risk – well, the highest concentration food types would be those that are long, slow smoked, then high temperature grilled. So your ribs and your sort of brisket or pulled pork that's gone through two of those phases, which increase the levels of PAH and HCAs. They're only potentially toxic, but they can lead to DNA damage, which then leads to much worse things on a chronic long term level. So good to be aware of it, Mike, if you find your habits changing. And then that kind of feeds into phase two detoxification here, which is the next page, which is the GSMT1 and GSTT1 genes. Now, in phase two detoxification, we need an enzyme effectively,

to put it really basically, to metabolize away potentially toxic substances a scientist would probably slap me for over simplified but um basically we need these two genes to generate this enzyme and it can clear the toxins out yeah let's say that i mean that phrase clear the toxins sounds so much like i know i know which i hate but um so say it in that way yes um we actually have this gene active or we don't we have the deletion or the insertion the null version or the active version basically um and depending on what version you've got you need to either get this enzyme from somewhere else or you're generating it naturally well enough. In your case, Mike, you've got the deletion of one of those two genes. So one of those genes is the null version. It is

not generating the enzyme you need. But luckily, you can completely cancel out the lack of that activity by increasing cruciferous vegetable intake in particular, which are broccoli, cruciferous vegetable intake in particular which are broccoli brussels sprouts cabbage kale and cauliflower basically so um the average recommendations say or five fruit or veg a day or five veg a day they don't specify what the veg is in someone with your gene result we'd specify that of that veg at least four times a week it should be a cruciferous vegetable cool and what's the molecule in those vegetables that's really well it's it's it's the this uh dim dim so if you but you can also supplement if you can yeah exactly i'm not sure of the research of whether that's as efficient or not probably not i mean it's always i mean food in its natural state pretty much always beats

supplements but i guess well not, not always, I guess. There are certain – Some things you really – Yeah, certain types of vitamins and things that ironically – Yeah, I mean you probably struggle to get enough vitamin D just from diet if you're – unless you're eating herring. Yeah. So, yeah, that's one of those. But in DIM, you can get a DIM supplement for sure and that would be an individual's choice.

We try not to make any distinction between what's better or not there. But yeah, basically get your dim in. For you in particular, that would be perhaps quite useful. Cool. Yeah. Also, I think it was something about garlic and onions on there. Yeah. That was also good for me, right?

Yeah. So the allium vegetables. Yeah. I love garlic. I'm eating a ton of garlic and onions. And then also I do like a few times a week, I either do like cauliflower or broccoli. I like Brussels sprouts a lot as well. So it's also funny that I don't know if that's just a thing or if it's just a coincidence that it seems like I tend to gravitate toward the certain types of foods that my body does benefit from.

Like I really like cruciferous vegetables. I really like garlic, onions. I'm not a big fan of charred burnt meat. I think it's okay, but it's not like I ever have cravings for it. You don't crave it. Exactly. That's really interesting. That would take someone with an extremely amazing psychological behavioral phd to yeah yeah no i'm just i'm just saying it i remember thinking that going through it like

oh that's interesting because i kind of gravitate toward those things and gravitate away from and i often find that the people say yeah i know so sometimes it's reconfirming or reframing what they thought their instinct was right and other times it's like oh right okay well if i'm i need to make a big change then but i i generally find probably a majority of people are like oh yeah that's right actually you know if i'm true to if i'm honest to myself no i don't really care about that food but i have always eaten lots of this etc so sure sure yeah that's good to hear yeah yeah so i'm just there you know conscious of boring people with loads and loads of individual and information here on the on the genes but we look at then sort of four pages of whether you've

got a raised or normal need for antioxidants omega-3 uh the b complex vitamins and vitamin d and just whether the genes signal the normal need or something above that right so in your case yeah we've got the four pages so we've got a raised need for antioxidants and in particular one gene which signals a raised need for selenium so your brazil nuts might be a little bit more important to you than than someone else with a different gene type so i didn't get on that brazil nut uh wagon i just i just supplement wagon. I just suffer from it. Fine, get the selenium in. That's good. Omega-3 is

an interesting one and maybe something which some people overlook actually in their health and fitness choices. We've all kind of heard of oily fish are good for us, deep sea cold water fish are good for us. That's because of their omega-3 content generally.

And some people have genes which signal like a raised basal inflammatory response, like a raised cytokine levels, et cetera. And more omega-3 would be needed than the average to tamper that or to counteract that. In your case, Mike, you're a normal, so the average recommendations would apply. There's no harm in you taking extra omega-3. Some people, they would have gene results which say, look, you might need almost threefold the average recommended daily allowance. That would be important to know just for overall health. Sure. Long-term health is so important, especially if you're a raised need.

Yeah. I take about three grams a day, so I take more than I may needterm health it's so important especially if you're raised need yeah yeah i take about three grams a day so i take more than i may need but it's not a it's not an absurd high amount no i mean three grams is not super high in in sporting circles some people are on 10 grams a day you know and uh and that's that's that's fine but if you are paying for that then that's probably a pretty expensive way to live that's probably a couple hundred dollars if you're if you're buying you If you're buying high quality stuff, exactly, like natural triglycerides. Yeah. And then the same general principle applies, vitamin B and vitamin D. The vitamin B is around the MTHFR gene,

which is associated, depending on the version, with raised levels of homocysteine, which its requirements need to be met by B-com yeah the mother the motherfucker gene i remember that one yeah that's right i'm trying to remember who told me that originally but i didn't want to be so crude like um and then the the vitamin d receptor gene so um whether you've got an impaired like calcium absorption and vitamin d need uh based on gene which you are heterozygous for so you've got an impaired like calcium absorption and vitamin d need uh based on gene which you are heterozygous for so you've got a slightly raised need yeah but in my opinion we could all do with a lot more vitamin d absolutely i mean we just have all so much research that you

know michael hollick dr michael hollick is he's been kind of the pioneer of that and now we know what was once thought as sufficient is now is now, it's such an excellent at the bottom of, at the bottom. I mean, it's so important for so many different realms, not just the obvious immune health, which everyone talks about, you know?

So, um, I consider that very important. And in your gene type, it's even more important than someone else. So I take, I actually, I actually had a blood test one of these days just for fun to see where

everything's at. Cause I take, uh, between my, at my normal daily is 5,000 IUs a day. But I know that a buddy of mine was doing 5,000 IUs a day as well for a long time. And we live in Florida. Not that we're in the sun that much because we just sit inside like cave trolls and work. But he went and got tested and he was low. He needed more. more yeah that's it you know so he that would tell him okay i'm going to take advantage of the fact i'm in florida

and actually get yeah i know yeah yeah all right so then we got uh now we move into salt alcohol and caffeine sensitivity that's right yeah so you know very quickly the um salt is like from a general health like health bodies and governmental agencies very much push the low salt uh i think and in some people the gene results create a raised risk above the average of hypertension uh high blood pressure predisposition based on the normal salt intake in your case you are a raised predisposition to that so look if you're doing a lot of exercise and you're you're sweating you're a lot of activity you to that so look if you're doing a lot of exercise and you're you're sweating you're a lot of activity you probably don't need to be too careful on your salting but

on a longer term basis if you find your habits are quite high in terms of salt intake then it might be keep keep this in mind that you are a raised predisposition of hypertension health problems from excess salt yeah yeah i i generally stick to the institute of medicines like two to two to three grams of uh sodium a day and i do about double that in potassium and right yeah that's good and that's about right so you know we look at that saying between two and three grams is about the the the sort of normal range anything above that is where we start to talk of excessive sodium intake so yeah bear that in mind it's a good motivator to when you're picking up when you're cooking your food do i need to add this

salt now or not yeah yeah i actually save my salt for dinner i like to cook so i usually you know i get like i might need a teaspoon of salt for or or so which is about i think it's like 2.2 grams of sodium for a teaspoon something like that so the majority of my salt i just kind of save it for dinner yeah great and then then we have this alcohol response now this is not what everybody wants it to be everyone is going to tell me i should drink more right but have you ever heard the phrase a glass of red wine a day is actually good for you sure yeah and it's very very commonly said uh in your gene type mike Mike, it's not true. Well, I disagree.

No, I don't even like alcohol, ironically. Well, that's great. There's no harm in not drinking. That's one of the points. We're talking about literally fully moderate alcohol consumption, so literally, let's say one unit a day, a small glass of wine a day. I say red wine because of its resveratrol and various other stuff around it. But in some gene types, moderate and moderate only intake is actually associated, has a positive effect on HDL cholesterol.

So actually on the, you know, positive effect on blood lipids. So in your case, it's not doing the positive effect. It's not doing the negative effect either, but you're not getting energy, something actively good out of, let's say, a small glass of wine a day. And no need to start drinking one day. Yeah, that's right. Tanya is an excuse to become an alcoholic. Yeah, good. So you're actually what we call almost a rapid metabolizer.

So the acetaldehyde is actually rapidly metabolized into – And what would that mean? The reason why I ask is my brother has been much more into drinking. That was more his thing. He hasn't gotten one of these tests, so I don't know where he's at. But I know that – actually, that's not true. He did do a test. I don't know what it was exactly.

He did some tests where basically what they told him is because I guess he can drink a lot and he just doesn't get hangovers uh and so i wonder like if i were to drink with this gene does this mean that my body would process the alcohol quickly and i or is it that not related or how would that it's not really as simple as that as far as i understand but you you metabolize the alcohol into the the toxic intermediate which is acetaldehyde faster so that means i would get drunk faster i'm not entirely sure but um you because there's so much other around your tolerance and you know what you've just eaten etc but um it has been associated with um with worse hangover symptoms worse okay so yeah my brother might be different because apparently he can get blackout drunk

and then wake up the next day without even a headache. And ironically, he's probably also getting a positive effect on his cholesterol from the first. Yeah, I don't know. After that, he probably cancels out the benefit. Yeah, exactly. Good. So that's basically what we can signal.

Have you got the version of the gene which gives you a positive cholesterol response from moderate and moderate only i must stress alcohol consumption so um and then we have caffeine so do you drink much coffee michael um not coffee no i wish i liked it it smells so good to me it tastes horrible to me so unfortunately but i do uh i do get my caffeine not every day like if i'm not working out if i take you know i have one or two days where i'm not lifting in a week i'm not doing pre-workout but my average caffeine intake i would say is between 200 and 400 milligrams a day all right fine perfect well in your case anyway you're what we call a rapid metabolizer of caffeine which which means that there has not been associated any increased health risks from excess caffeine intake.

That's interesting because caffeine – when I have caffeine, it hits me very quickly and it's out very quickly. Yeah, yeah. Well, the rapid metabolizer would imply that too. Okay. Yeah, so that's good so those that are slow um they've been you know in in the studies shown that when they are caffeine intake is let's say excess of 300 milligrams a day on a chronic level um those with the slow version of that gene were associated with um raised risk of bone mineral density health problems and the

other you know the stuff which has been linked to excess caffeine but in your gene type they weren't associated with it so so basically if you want to drink caffeine every day then there's no nothing stopping you and if you go into excess then uh it seems that you'll be okay as well so interesting yeah that that again kind of corresponds with my experience that i never i mean mean, I don't go into excess intakes. I don't really feel the need to, but, um, like I said, I know that I can have 400 milligrams of caffeine on an empty stomach and I'll feel it. I'm not going to get jittery. I'm not going to be like, my heart's not going to be racing. Uh, and then within an hour, 45 minutes to an hour, I'll feel, I could go, I could go take a nap. I feel totally

back to normal. Yeah, cool. I mean, I'm seriously into my caffeine so much so I've done a barista course professionally and et cetera. And I can drink coffee pretty late in the day and it has no impact on me. And I'm a fast metabolizer too. That's cool. Yeah, that's it. So keep going with the caffeine. Yes.

I love caffeine. There's my one drug of choice, caffeine. Yeah, well, hey, hey as a professional athlete it's the only vice i can have so so i need it yeah for sure um and then the last two markers michael just the lactose intolerance and their celiac predisposition so um i'll quickly touch on the lactose one because it's quite on trend to cut out lactose or dairy from people's diets nowadays. And if you're not lactose intolerant or casein allergic or something like that, then it's probably a bad idea to cut it out in order to lose out on a big source of calcium. And protein. Yeah, well, yeah, great protein.

So look, there's the LCT gene, which is kind of called the lactase persistence gene. So we're all born with the ability to generate lactase as humans, as mammals. That's what we're born with. And this lactase helps us digest lactose, basically. Now, in a huge majority of the human population, that ability turns off after early life after we stop needing our mother's milk after a couple of years or so then we stop generating lactase and therefore we become officially lactose intolerant now um at some point in history an individual in they predict central northern europe developed a mutation which allowed him or her to continue

generating lactase all their life and then you have half of this person's gene and half of the rest of people's genes so thank you you should generate enough lactase on a genetic level um to to have normal amounts of lactose you have half of the lactase generating gene and half not uh don't know if you found any problems with lactose or no i have to eat a lot for it to be a problem or i found i found if it's very low quality i mean i don't generally eat a little but if it's like there's certain types of dairy in the past where it's kind of upset my stomach but generally speaking uh no like i have i'm obviously fine with whey protein i mean my the whey protein that i personally use is a whey isolate so it has basically no lactose anyway.

But, you know, whey concentrates are fine. And, yeah, I mean, I don't drink milk much just because it's kind of, I feel like it's a waste of calories. But I've never really had a problem with dairy, no. Yeah, good. Well, that's it. You know, genetically, that would be what I would probably guess. So, you know, that's it.

Some people, you can read a little bit into ancestry somehow from the LCT gene too. Yeah, that's what I was just thinking. But yeah, you've got half of the lactase-generating gene, so you should not have much problem with that unless it's in huge levels, of course. Yes, and I've actually noticed that before where I've had like, in the course of a day, maybe a couple cups of Greek yogurt and some cheese for dinner, something like that. There is a point where it'll upset my stomach, but it takes a lot. Okay. Right. That's very good. And the last one we look at is predisposition to celiac. Now,

this is the medical gluten intolerance, not the currently trendy, oh, I'm cutting out gluten. Yeah, which I've written about. It's so stupid. How have you? Yeah, right. I was wondering where your opinion lay on that, actually. So yeah, as far as, you know, sort of medicine's concerned, there's not really any such thing as non-celiac gluten intolerance but there was a big study that came out just recently that showed essentially what people i mean just for listeners the long story short you had people that that believed that they were gluten sensitive and when they eat when they ate gluten they had you know certain uh or foods with gluten they had gi problems and basically what it boiled down to is in the study when they

when they when they were being given straight gluten but they didn't know it was gluten they had no they had no reactions. But then researchers went a bit further, and what they found with these people is that they were sensitive to certain types of carbohydrates, which are known as FODMAPs, fermentable oligosaccharides, blah, blah, blah. It's a long acronym, but wheat is one of them. There are others like different types of beans, random foods that when FODMAPs were cut out of these people's diets, then their GI issues became markedly better. So in many cases, what people think is a gluten intolerance is actually just that their body

isn't good at breaking down this type of carbohydrate. And then what happens is it goes, it passes through the small intestine, not fully digested, and it ferments in the large intestine, then you get gas and you know, you just don't you get bloated and don't feel good. So just for the listener, that's a that's something to keep in mind. If you think you might be gluten sensitive, you're probably not you might just be running into food intolerances, certain foods, certain types of foods that your body just doesn't do well with, but it's not the gluten. So yeah, I mean, like, you know, it's very, very common that people, I might be gluten intolerant or not. And if you are medically celiac, then you need to know,

you know, that's a serious thing. So the average risk is about one in 100. So our genetics play quite a sort of role in putting us into one of three like predisposition categories so the average about one in 100 and in your gene type mike you are in the higher predisposition risk so you're in the one in 35 um category so you know by that doesn't still not that higher risk one in 35 And I would normally say, make sure this is not diagnostic. We can't tell if you are or you aren't. Absolutely. But what we'd say is that 1 in 35, I normally ask them,

how do you feel after eating gluten? Do you feel particularly bad symptoms? And if so, then please go to your doctor to start the process of being diagnosed, see if you're not. Yeah, Yeah. And that's in my case. No, I have no symptoms.

I've been eating grains for, I don't know, for my entire life and never had a problem with them. So it's impossible that I'm celiac because I would have, it would have developed by now. I would have had enough of the auto immune. It would have beaten my small intestine to shit by now. And I would have the problem.

You know what I mean? Yeah. I think especially for someone who's evidently so in tune with their lifestyle, their health and fitness, you would probably know if you didn't feel quite right. Definitely. That's it. So my father was celiac and he actually only really realized in his 60s. Oh, wow. Actually, but he was never healthy.

So you couldn't really say that he would have noticed it anyway. Yeah, and that's a good point, too, because symptoms can be masked by other conditions that, you know, you just if you always kind of just feel like shit, then how do you know? Like, oh, I just I just ate that bread and I feel like shit as usual. So I don't know. Yeah, but I'm always tired anyway, et cetera, et cetera. So, yeah, that's it. But but so what we normally say is, look, the the the other end of the genes put someone in less than one in 2000 risk of it. So they're pretty unlikely. In your case, you're more likely, but it's still only 35.

So, you know, that's just to be aware of that. And should someone have particularly bad symptoms, we just encourage them to start getting diagnosed or not, you know? Yeah, which would be a good idea even without a gene test if you notice that. I mean, it's worth going to a doctor and finding out because if you leave celiac untreated, I mean, it gets real bad. It can be really nasty, and that's what people don't realize, I think. They think of it as gluten intolerance. It's not. It's a real medical condition, you know?

Yeah, yeah. They need to know for sure. Yeah. So, I mean, that's basically… So, that's the diet report. Yeah, that's basically the last mark on the nutrition side of things. We have a little table at the end there which shows a whole host of the micronutrients themselves and what the normal recommended daily allowance is and then whether the genes that we analyze

signal a raised need or not based on that. So, that's just an overview. And then we've got these four markers that we look at in terms of fitness genetics or performance genetics, depends what you want to call it, whether it's exercise, fitness, training, performance. It all basically focuses around the activity we do to get better and what the genes say about that. So we have four sections.

get better and what the genes say about that so we have we have four sections this power endurance response um is mainly kind of the the real headline uh section that people always ask us about so should we should we have a quick dig into that yeah yeah let's do it so you know obviously we work with a lot of professional sports like your premiership soccer teams here and um a lot of those and this is you can, is particularly useful in team sports when people are giving a statement to 22 people at the same time. But actually, as an individual trying to get fitter, at the moment it's all about trends again. So at the moment it's very on trend to be doing just HIIT,

just very high-intensity interval training and nothing else. And then it used to be that you had to hit the road and go for miles and miles just hit you know just very high intensity interval training right and nothing else and then it used to be that you had to hit the road and go for miles and miles if you were considered to be doing the right exercise so again it's all very confusing so what we're trying to do is give this extra layer of information to help point someone or give them more info to choose which way they point based on who they are rather than just try something because it's i read about it in this magazine etc so yeah i mean there's also what people need to keep in mind though what are their goals like i'm a bit i'm a big advocate of hit over lists if for when it comes to fat loss

because at this point i mean what are there i've probably looked over myself 20 to 30 different studies that there's just no question you burn more fat over time doing higher intensity interval cardio than like, you know, incline walking or jogging. Um, and that's why I enjoy a hit and I recommend it just because my, why I'm doing cardio is for cardiovascular health, but also because I want to burn it's for fat loss reasons, really primarily, you know what I mean? Yeah. And that's it. The goal is so important. We must make clear that we never, ever use genetics, say power genetics, endurance genetics, to change somebody's goal to say what's a good or bad.

There's no such thing as good or bad. There's no such thing as can or can't in terms of genetics. It's just tweaking the method you use to reach that goal, whatever it may be, to almost place your genetic strengths so right there's no such thing as a oh is that a good profile for a marathon runner or bad profile or even like oh should i still be lifting heavy weights or should i go you know what i mean yeah that's it so we always take into account the goal what the level they are how how often can they train do they have a gym what do they want to do exactly you know the preference is really important too we take what what is what is adjustable and can we adjust that taking into

account these genetics so in your case um you come out as kind of a bit of a mixed bag um in terms of our sort of percentage score about about a third of these panelists are the power response genes and two thirds the endurance response but um there's one key gene result which is interesting to look up there the the actn3 gene which is um almost like an a-list gene if there's such a thing this is like the the headline gene if anyone ever talked about sports or exercise and genes, the ACTN3 gene comes up. That's because one version of it, it's the C version. Sometimes they refer to it as the R version in the studies.

The C version has been associated. Well, it basically codes for a protein which is better at fast-pitch muscle production in 97 of olympic level sprint athletes they all had um at least one copy of the c version and you have one copy of the c version mike so i'm basically an olympic sprinter all right already an olympic all you need to do is put the spikes on and you're there okay so so look what we do is with this like i don want to – we don't want to neglect either realm. But you've got that key ACTN3 gene, which would imply that, you know, you're going to see a good response from this fast, high-intensity side of things because you can build this protein, the fast-twitch muscle protein, basically.

So that's really important to note. There's the IL-6 gene, which you've got there. The GG version is particularly strongly associated with the power response. But then you've also got a few of the other genes, which are really quite well associated with endurance response too. So the double insertion of the ACE gene, the II version of the ACE gene, the other ones, thepar aging and so there's there's a whole host there which you've got on the endurance side too so what i would you know when you work out i get you know you've found out entirely what works for you i guess over over the over the years for sure

yeah yeah my body responds well to um particularly well to heavier weightlifting. Uh, like, but again, it's, it's a goal thing. Like my goal, uh, you know, it go, go back five years. Cause my first five or six years, almost close to seven years, I didn't really, I wasn't very informed in the gym. I was doing a lot of high rep stuff and magazine workouts and yeah, I, you know, I built some muscle, but nothing really, really that impressive. And. But where my body really started to change was when my workout programming got better. And, you know, it's probably more just a factor of switching from shitty kind of like isolation type magazine bodybuilding workout to more barbell, heavy barbell training, squatting, deadlifting, pressing. That's going to change anybody's body.

And I see that now, you know, working with – I've worked with thousands of people that there's nobody that doesn't respond to heavy barbell training. It just is what it is. But yeah, so I found it is kind of dictated by my goals, which aren't necessarily performance. Like, you know, I'm, I'm fairly strong. And if I, if I were willing to get fatter, I could get stronger. That's for sure. But, but I have seen that my body does respond well to heavier weightlifting. I've been able to build a good amount of muscle, you know, pretty, pretty high FFMI for a natural weightlifter, probably around 24. And you know, so. Yeah, great. Well,

your ATT and 3G is certainly helping you along the way that I would say. Yeah, that makes sense. So what we try and do is say, look, we want to take advantage of that. So at least one of the workouts per week, we want to make a high-intensity, low-reps, lots of sets and lots of recovery. So, you know, we might look at even like six sets of three or something along the Olympic powerlifting type methodology to take advantage of those.

And then we would supplement that at the other end of the week, perhaps, or whenever it works in someone's schedule with the more traditional, not that traditional, but still, you know, the bodybuilding world to take advantage of the endurance response side of things. And that's how I train. I train, I periodize in my workouts. So I'm going to be workouts so i'm going to be doing i'm going to be starting my workouts with very heavy power lifting one to three rep type stuff and then i'm you know the middle of my workout is kind of a moderate four to six five

to seven and then the end of my workout is a couple sets in the higher rep ranges yeah very good and one you know one one tweak you could think about in the future is even splitting that up into different days. I've done that before too as well. Yeah, the sort of polarization of the training, which people love in sports science, thanks to a few sort of very long-term studies. One that was a 38-year-length study on the Dutch speed skating team. And the biggest change was this polarization from when they were did power they did just power

and when they did endurance they did just endurance so um yeah really interesting so that's where you are you've got this actn3 that the the the a-list power um but there's also a couple of really important endurance response genes there which i wouldn't want to neglect either so uh good that you kind of span both ends of the spectrum there yeah that's interesting and then so we've got we've got three markets here you know i don't want to sort of dwell too much in too depth on each of them but sure we have a vo2 max response so if you are measuring your vo2 max levels we have a high responder versus low responder there and if that was a goal of yours um which i'm guessing is perhaps not your VO2 max.

Yeah, I mean, that would just be VO2 max, just so this knows how well your body uses oxygen. So I guess a higher VO2 max would just be more for longer endurance stuff, and that was never really my thing. No, those that are really into their triathlons, Ironmans. Yeah, I mean, the sport I played the most growing up was hockey and that you know it's a very like it's high intensity activity and then downtime yeah so if somebody's goal is um you know really improving their endurance sport then they're use vo2 max as a measure of how well they're doing this is important to know because some

genes create a kind of genetic resistance to reaching the highest levels of vo2 max they don't stop you but they make you make a low responder they make it a little bit more difficult you have to work harder for it you need to know that and you need to to give yourself you know a longer sort of turnaround time and when you're going to reach your goal or how you work out differently in order to make it the most efficient if that's your goal i see and if it's not your goal then it's good to know but uh but that if that's your goal i see and if it's not your goal then it's good to know but uh but that's that's where it sort of stops in that case if you're not trying to improve your vo2 max and then we have recovery and injury um so recovery speed we're looking at the uh genes here associated with a pro inflammatory response so um as your listeners

will know every time we work out there's effectively an inflammatory response in the body. That's part of working out. That's part of training. That's what makes us better. But some genes signal actually are raised above the normal levels of inflammation. And you've only got two of those genes. So you're actually towards the faster end of our recovery profile there so this is not a recovery between exercises or between this is recovery on a macro level across systemic recovery yeah that's it so what we normally do is just try and uh if someone has only got a you know three or four days in the week to work out and they were um slow recoverer then we have to really you know the importance of spreading this out. So the CNS

recovers fully and et cetera, et cetera. So if you ever, do you find that you feel like a faster than average recoverer? Yeah, yeah, for sure. I've, I've been able, I mean, it's all, I've always kind of been where I can push my body pretty hard. Even when I'm in a calorie deficit, I can push it pretty hard. Like, you know, I, I kind of max out at about, I would say, five hours of weightlifting and two hours of HIIT per week when I'm in a calorie deficit. But that's a – and that's all – like my weightlifting is intense, a lot of heavy weightlifting. So that's quite a bit of exercise when in a calorie deficit. It is, yeah. That's quite a heavy load. Yeah. Yes. But my body, I'm totally fine. I'm sure you have the standard. I'm sure my hormone profile,

it's affected by some degree just because it is what it is, but I don't have anything that I notice. I don't feel a major drop in libido. I don't feel a major drop in energy. I feel generally fine. So that makes sense that I would have that result. Yeah don't feel a major drop in energy. I feel generally fine. So that, that, that makes sense that I would have that result. Yeah. Great. Well, that's good. You know, so, um, don't be scared of your load and just how you feel. And yeah. And again, it's kind of, like I said, I was saying earlier, just for the listeners, a lot of the, this is something where I just kind of would come to, and this is something I kind of talk about, you know, fairly often part of this whole world is learning your body. There are certain principles and laws

and rules that apply to everybody, but then there are things like this where you have to learn what your body can take. And I have worked with a lot of people where I know that they, they can't do as much as I can do in a calorie deficit. They know that their body does best and they feel fine on three days of weightlifting and maybe an hour to hour and a half of cardio per week. And, you know, so by getting a test done like this, it can help speed that process up of just learning where your body's sweet spot is. Because for really the goal is a lifestyle and longevity, not, you know, train, not burn yourself out in two years and then be done. Yeah, that's it.

It's a lifestyle thing. We want to just help people understand a little bit more about who they are and some of the cards they've been dealt almost as a human. The recovery, because often people's choices are you know they're guided by one of few things the media what they read in men's health and men's fitness whatever um what their friend does or they you know an associate or the guy at the gym who also works out and he does this four days a week back to back and yeah and and and frequency in high volume high frequency high volume is very popular right now in the weightlifting scene, um, where, you know, people are trying to do, they're trying to do like push, pull legs, rest, push, pull legs on it. And they're trying to, you know, it's commonly where one of those three of those workouts are going to be very heavy. And three of those workouts are going to be, you know, 10 to 12 rep. And I've emailed with a lot of people that have tried to do those and it just beats them down even in even in a calorie surplus two or three months almost one for one and that's very popular right now though because it's pushed by a lot of guys

that are on drugs that don't disclose that they don't so people don't know like yeah what you don't know is the you know eight grams of drugs that guy's on every week and that's why that's it yeah he's recovered he's recovering five times as fast as you that's chasing this um sort of thing we call the sports science of the super compensatory effect you know it's just where you get more than the cumulative effect of double the you know so it's um and that's yeah that's a very rarely used when you've got to be so careful in using the super compensatory effect you know for sure like because if you get it wrong you just burn out and you don't get any effects so you don't get any benefits so yeah exactly that's it so yeah the inflammatory response there is quite an important um factor to be aware of uh if you're trying to plan your week and you know especially if you're tempted by this high frequency high volume school of thought yeah um and then the

last one is injury risk now we're really concentrating around uh injury predisposition here this is uh not necessarily meaning you're going to be injured or you aren't but certain genes signal a raised probability of mainly injuries around tendon ligament uh type of thing so there is some stuff around inflammatory response and prevalence of muscle tears, for example. But for most guys going to the gym and working out, tendons can be the real issue there. So Achilles tendinopathy, patella tendinopathy, et cetera, et cetera. Now, in your case, Mike, you're higher than average. You're not the very high.

But in particular, the COL1A1 and COL5a5a1 genes they're they're focused around collagen basically they are um they are basically the the collagen found in your connective tissues and your tendons ligaments and cartilage um and depending on the the gene result there they're associated with either an increased risk or moderate or uh non-increased risk so you've got the um you've got the uh let's see where you your coal 5a1 the tt version um in particular uh that's like reported it to contribute to increased risk of tendinopathies now if you're not you know you're probably not going to get an achilles tendinopathy if you're not road running or you're not using your achilles tendon a lot.

But have you ever had any issues like in soreness or pain? Yeah, I've had it with my patellar tendon on my right leg. But it also is related to tightness in the quad because I work with a massage therapist. And there's been like with tight, like my VMO has been very tight. I didn't really notice it. I was feeling it more in my patellar tendon. But generally speaking, no, I haven't, like I've never had any injury. I've just had, I've strained muscles here and there. Nothing.

Well, not even, yeah. I mean, mild, mild type of strains, nothing major. But again, that's probably more because I'm pretty strict on my form and I'm just not stupid in the gym. Like I use weights I can handle. I keep my form in. I'm not pushing the boundaries of weekly volume. I'm not going super high frequency. So I guess knock on wood.

That's great. I think just be away. If you find your patella flaring up a little bit, treat it with the importance, maybe a greater importance than you might be tempted to because you're at this just slightly raised predisposition for these things. Your genes are just signaling, look, the risk is a little bit higher here. And that's good to know because what I've always done is when things are bothering me at all, I just back off of it and let them get better and then get back to what I'm doing. Even if that means that, you know, I guess it wasn't because of this wasn't a tendon issue. But for instance, as I was kind of building my squat up, i was having hip flexor my hip flexors were

getting so sore and i had to drop weight to 225 and just work with 225 for probably three or four weeks before they finally just settled down and then i could move back up and wait yeah just to allow the adaptation there and get it to come come back to normal so that's it you know like um i would take away from those that the the gdf5 and the two cold genes um uh are particularly focused around their tendinopathy actually and you you've got the raised predisposition like they had a half raised or fully raised predisposition on all three of those yeah so um bear that in mind especially just watch your tendon and your sort of your collagen influence there is so tendons ligamentsaments, and cartilage. Yeah, makes sense.

When you're loading up. So that's about it. That's the summation of your fitness and nutrition genetic profile. Yeah, that's awesome. Like I said, it's great because it confirms some things where I'm not surprised, where I kind of gravitated towards certain things or away from certain things, and then I feel educated more on how my body works. And, uh, like, like for instance, injury risk thing, something good to keep in mind.

Cause again, I'm all about longevity and I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a competitive power lifter. So I don't have any reason to, you know, be like, oh, I don't care. I'm, you know, I got to hit that. I gotta, I gotta pull 500. So I was going to go for it. You know what I mean? Well, that's it.

And yeah, that's what we, we want to, you know, we want to, we don't ever want to put, we're not trying to put someone on a diet or like, here's your training plan. We're just trying to better equip you with more information so you can make the most educated choices, basically. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. And so listeners can, can learn more.

It's dnafit.com is where you can check it out. Yeah, yeah. So comment that. And if anyone wants to quiz me on the use of it at all, I'm just on Twitter at just Andrew Steele, all one word. So I'm there. Any questions and so on, feel free to get in touch with me there, guys, too. Okay, awesome. Well, thanks a lot for there, guys, too. Okay, awesome.

Well, thanks a lot for taking the time, Andrew. This was great. Pleasure, Mike. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did, go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. general wellness. Also head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've

written. I release a new one almost every day. Actually, I release kind of four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.