Realfoodology - Protein Supplementation, Anti-Aging Tips + Weight Loss | Angelo Keely Of KION

Episode Date: July 18, 2024

EP 204: Welcome back to another episode of Realfoodology! Today, I sit down with Angelo Keely, co-founder and CEO of Kion, a cutting-edge supplement company focused on helping people look good, feel young and be strong. As I approach 40, I've become increasingly focused on maintaining lean muscle and overall health, making Angelo's expertise on protein particularly timely. Together we cover the crucial role of muscle mass as we age, explore the lifecycle of proteins, and uncover the benefits of bioavailable options. From essential amino acids to the nuances of plant-based proteins, Angelo shares invaluable insights to help us optimize our protein intake for longevity and vitality. Join us as we navigate the science behind protein and its profound impact on aging and health! Check Out KION Go to getkion.com/realfoodology for 20% off  Topics Discussed 05:10 - The importance of muscle mass  09:54 - Protein’s life cycle  12:10 - Muscle as we age  13:21 - The two components of protein growth  16:01 - Bioavailable proteins  17:47 - Amino acid building blocks and complete proteins 20:19 - Plant based proteins and genetic mutations  25:51 - The way we eat protein matters  29:08 - Essential amino acids & supplementation  32:30 - Aging and protein digestion  33:49 - Hitting your protein goals without overeating  36:41 - Branched-chain amino acids  40:31 - When to take essential amino acids 44:44 - Maintenance vs weight loss  50:28 - Protein leverage hypothesis  51:31 - Collagen powder  53:50 - Protein powder  56:49 - Upping your protein intake  58:19 - The mainstream push for plant based dieting   01:06:16 - Angelo’s health non negotiables  Show Links: 130: What are Amino Amino Acids & The Best Sources of Protein | Angelo Keely of KION Sponsored By: Kion Go to getkion.com/realfoodology for 20% off  Check Out Courtney:  LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database  Produced By: Drake Peterson Edited By: Mike Frey

On today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. A protein inside of a legume is different from a protein inside of rice or inside of chicken or beef. They have slightly different combinations of these amino acid building blocks. So a complete protein is one that has all nine of the essential amino acids. There's 20 amino acids that go into making up these things, beans or rice or beef, et cetera. And each one has different amounts of each one. You want to find protein sources that have a sufficient amount of the nine essential ones. And essential means your body can't make them. If you consume a protein that gives you the nine essential amino acids, your body can convert them into the other 11

to the degree that it needs them. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. I'm so happy that you're here. I'm your host, Courtney Swan. And today's guest is a repeat guest. I decided to bring Angelo Keely back on. He is the co-founder and CEO of Keon, which is a supplement company focused on helping people look good, feel young, and be strong. If you guys remember, I had him on the podcast last year. We had an amazing episode all about protein, and I wanted to bring him back on because he's such a wealth of knowledge all about protein. And a lot of my focus as I am turning 40 in September, I can't even believe that's coming out of my mouth right now. A lot of my focus has really been on prioritizing protein, getting enough protein every day

and making sure that I'm building more lean muscle because as we age, it is harder to build muscle. It's harder to keep it on. And it's also absolutely imperative for longevity, for lifespan. If we want to live a high quality life, I want to live a very high quality life and I want to be active well into my 90s. So I am doing everything I can and trying to research everything. And Angelo is a great person to come on and talk all about this.

So I brought him on to just dive into all protein and muscle. We talk about the reason why muscle is so incredibly important when we age. We also talk about quality of life, lifespan, and how muscle building actually plays a role in all of that. We also dive into what proteins are the most bioavailable, whole food protein versus animal protein, protein powders, animal protein versus plant-based proteins. So we dive all into that. We talk about essential amino acids. We also talk about his amazing supplement from Kion that is isolated essential amino acids. We dive into what the difference is between branch chain amino acids and essential amino acids and well, so much more. So I'm not going to give anything else away. This was such an amazing episode. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. I learned a lot and it was just jam-packed with

really good information if you are on a muscle building journey or if you're just wanting to incorporate more protein in your everyday life. That is a question that I get a lot on my Instagram. How can I get more protein in every day? It kind of seems to be something that everybody is either has on their mind or maybe they're struggling with or they're just starting their journey of trying to incorporate more protein. And this is a great jam-packed, informative episode all about protein and muscle building. So wherever you are in your journey, I think this is going to be a great episode for you. And I'm very excited for you guys to hear it. So let's get into the episode. And as always, if you could take a moment to rate and review, it not only means a lot to me,

but it really does help the show. Truly, it helps it so much. So if you want to do the smallest thing with the most minimal effort, if you could take five seconds, just leave a rating, leave a review. If you want to as well, it really helps. And I just want to say, I'm so grateful for your support. I really appreciate you being here and listening. It really means a lot because without you listening, I wouldn't have this podcast. So thank you so much for this, for the support. And again, if you want to tag me at real foodology on Instagram, I see most of your messages and I'm so grateful. So thank you guys so much. Thank you for listening. Oh, I almost forgot a very important piece here. So Keon has generously given me a 20% off code to share with you guys. So if you want to try their essential amino acids or any

of the products on the website, make sure that you go to getkeon.com slash real foodology. Again, that's getkeon. It's K I O N.com slash real foodology. And you will save 20%. Angela, I'm so excited to have you back on the show. I, I really, so I'm about to turn 40 in September. And one of the things that I have really been thinking about and talking about a lot on this podcast recently is, um, I'm starting to get more and more concerned about muscle mass because from what I've learned is that, you know, as you age, it becomes harder and harder to build and maintain your muscle mass. And so if you're not really on it in your younger years, as you age, it just becomes harder and harder to accumulate.

And I know that it really plays a huge role in our overall health. So I really want to talk about muscle mass and how we build it in a healthier way and also to talk about your amino acids, which I am a huge fan of and I take all the time. So again, thank you so much for coming on. Thanks for having me, Courtney. And I'm excited about talking about all that. So let's go. Yeah. Okay. So first and foremost, if people are new to this, why is muscle so important,

especially as we age? So wow, muscle does so many things. I think the most obvious thing that people are probably familiar with is that it actually is the part of our body that helps us achieve difficult tasks. So if I want to, maybe it doesn't sound difficult now, but to stand up, to sit down, to walk, to run, to lift heavy things, et cetera, it's this core organ that allows us to perform these tasks. So if you want to be able to perform those tasks when you're younger, it's like, oh, can I perform them better? Could I run faster or could I jump higher? Could I play the sport or could I, you know, make it through yoga class and not feel like I want to

throw up or whatever it is, you know, like feel like you have the muscular endurance and strength to do those things. As we get older, naturally those things get harder to do. And so if, you know, if you think of your grandparents or your great-grandparents, maybe even your parents now, you see their difficulty in doing things that they could do when they were 30 or 40. And a lot of that is fundamentally based on muscle function. So literally it's how much muscle they have and how functional that muscle tissue is. So if you want to move well as you age, for whenever that is, whether that's when you're 40, 45, 50, or all the way up to 80,

lean muscle, functional lean muscle is going to be a huge part of that. Now, some of the things people don't think about as often maybe is how muscle plays such a major role in our metabolism. So in a couple of main ways, the more, well, this may be something people don't always naturally understand, but we just burn calories just like sitting here. So if I'm just at sleep in bed, I burn a certain amount of calories. And a large amount of how many calories I burn is how big I am, right? But actually, how much muscle you have determines much more how many calories you will burn because the muscle tissue itself demands a lot more calories in order just to maintain it. So the more lean muscle you have, if you replace a pound of fat with a pound of muscle,

your metabolism will actually increase and you will just burn more calories at rest. Another major part of muscle in terms of metabolism is that it is actually, it plays a major role in basically regulating your blood sugar. About 80% of the sugars that we absorb through carbohydrates are actually absorbed into the muscle tissue. That's where it gets stored and utilized. So again, the more muscle you have, the more easily it is for your body to actually utilize carbohydrates that you consume. If you have a lot less muscle, then you need way less carbohydrates, quite frankly. And if you eat too much at one time, that's when you can get these bigger blood sugar

spikes, et cetera. And I'll just keep going a little bit more on this aging front. Muscle is more closely correlated to not only living longer, but having a higher quality of life as we age and reducing all cause morbidity than basically anything else. And some of the reasons for that are things we already just discussed. If I have a healthier metabolism, then so many different parts of my body are going to function better on a cellular level, in terms of my cardiac function, et cetera. Everything's just going to work better. If I have more lean muscle that's really healthy and I can remain active, I can go on walks. I can do exercise.

I can play games with friends. I can play with my kids and grandkids. I'm going to be spending more time outside and naturally I'm going to be participating in more exercise and I'm going to be healthier and live longer. But a major thing that we don't always see also is that muscle is the reservoir. And this is kind of, we're digging in, we're getting a little bit nerdier here, but we'll, you know, I think we'll backtrack and go through what amino acids really are so uh muscle is the reservoir of amino acids or you might say the reservoir of protein for the rest of our body so in a similar way to if we eat a lot of

carbohydrates and fat in a given day more than we need those carbohydrates and fat will get stored in our body as fat. Like actual, like when you gain a pound of fat, it's because you ate more carbohydrates and fat than you needed and it got stored in your body. And the reason why your body stores that is for a later day, maybe when you don't have enough food, then you can actually survive off those fat stores. Well, muscle is very similar, but not for fat. It is for protein and amino acids. All of the other parts of our body. So this is our vital organs. It's your heart, your liver, your kidneys, but also things like your skin, your hair, your nails, hormones, enzymes. All of these are made up of proteins. And the way that proteins function in our body is that they only have a certain half-life, you might say. So if I look at my arm and I see it's made up of skin, right? It's actually made up of millions of little proteins. And each one of those

little proteins only lasts for a certain amount of time. After a while, the protein gets old, and it needs to be broken down and rebuilt. When the protein breaks down, it breaks down into all these little amino acids. And some of the old ones, I just pee them out as urea. The good ones that can still be used get reused to rebuild that skin, to rebuild that protein. That said, if I'm not eating enough protein daily, not consuming enough amino acids in my diet, or I'm aging and it's harder for me to get the amino acids out of my food and I'm less sensitive to them, or I'm going through some type of stress response, and that could be from injury, chronic illness, which unfortunately all of us will go through at some time as

we age. If you're a female, the major hormonal changes in perimenopause and menopause, and also men have major hormonal changes as they age as well, all of these things are going to induce certain stress response in the body, again, where we don't get the same value of amino acids and protein out of our food. So when that happens and you can't actually replace that amino acid to rebuild that skin tissue from the food that you eat, either because you're not eating enough or because you're going through some type of stressful experience, where do you get the amino acids to rebuild that skin tissue or that heart tissue or any of these other things in your body that you can't go without? You can't just like have your skin rot away or your heart stop functioning. You get it from your muscle. So your muscle is the one

organ we can spare. We can actually break down the proteins in the muscle to supply amino acids to the blood to help rebuild all of these other organs, to supply the raw amino acids for hormone production, for enzyme production, for the neurotransmitters for our brain. So when you're younger, you think about muscle just being like, oh, it's this thing that helps me do things, helps me be more athletic, maybe helps provide more tone, makes me feel more attractive, potentially makes me maintain a better metabolism. As you get older, it's a savings account for when bad things happen. Maybe not bad things, but like things that are just going to happen to all of us, things that make health harder and that require the use of some of the amino acids we've already

stored in our body. So that would be my maybe too comprehensive story of why muscle is so important. I love that. I love that you equated it to a savings account. And really what I heard in that amazing explanation was that it's all about quality of life, right? Like all of us want to age gracefully and we want to, or, I think most of us want to be here for as long as we can. And while we're here, we want our quality of life to be as good as we can have it. We want to have energy to show up for our kids, for our family. We want to still do the activities that we want to do. And in order to do that, then we need to maintain good muscle mass, and that's how we maintain our overall health. So how do we maintain our muscle mass? Now, I know most people

know the answer, which is getting enough protein every day. So what are the proteins that are most bioavailable? And I want to break down all of these. So I want to talk about essential amino acids, but I also want to talk about whole food protein, plant-based protein, protein powders. What are your thoughts on that? So let's kind of give them an all comprehensive, what are the most bioavailable proteins? Great. Two things I'll highlight before actually examining the proteins themselves is that one major piece of building and maintaining muscle is to stimulate new protein synthesis. One way that you do that is through exercise. So that's why people advocate for resistance training, whether that's lifting weights or doing Pilates or whatever it is for you that enables you to actually

practice resistance training. But actually, cardio can do it as well. Running and riding a bicycle also can promote new protein synthesis. And basically, when you do that, it tells the body like, hey, I want to rebuild and make these muscles bigger and stronger. Or maybe not even bigger and stronger, just I want to replace the older muscle muscles bigger and stronger. Or maybe not even bigger and stronger, just I want to replace the older muscle tissue with newer muscle tissue, make it more functional. It kind of depends on the type of training, right? Like if you're doing cycling and Pilates, it's more about replacing the muscle and making it healthier versus trying to build up a bunch more mass. Whereas if you're doing really heavy weightlifting, it's going to provoke

building up even more mass. In either case, both of those represent stimulus. So it's communicating the body like, hey, I want to stimulate new protein synthesis. You can also get that from foods. So certain types of proteins that are exceptionally high in essential amino acids, and when the essential amino acids are very concentrated and get into the blood very quickly, they also promote that stimulus of protein synthesis. Now, regardless of whether or not you get that stimulus, like, so let's say you do some Pilates or you lift weights and you communicate to the body, like, oh, let's do it. Let's build new proteins. You also have to give it the raw materials of protein and fundamentally of amino acids in that protein to help rebuild it. So if you train really hard lifting weights,

and then you don't eat enough protein, you will not be able to rebuild and maintain those muscles. Because again, if you're not eating enough protein, it's actually going to break down the muscles and try to supply it to the rest of the body. So I just want to highlight there's two components. One is stimulus, like this kind of chemical messenger component to resistance training into certain types of protein. And the second piece is the actual building blocks. So when we look at proteins in our foods and try to decide, like, what's the best kind or how would we evaluate the quality of them, the first thing we're going to look at is how digestible is the protein. So inside the protein, and this is whether it's plants or meat or eggs, dairy, when I

eat this protein, it gets digested through my whole digestive system, and the amino acids inside of it functionally get released, right, through kind of the breakdown of the proteins. And then those amino acids go into my blood. So when I say digestible, I mean, how good is our body at actually breaking down those unique proteins? And some protein sources, it's easier for our body to break down. So this doesn't mean like, how digestible is it? Do I like the way like my tummy feels when I eat it? You know, like dairy, maybe like some people have a reaction where it causes bloating. Others, it doesn't at all. Regardless of that, what I'm saying is, can you actually get the amino acids

out of the protein? And in that perspective, fundamentally, plant sources are much less digestible than animal sources. So if you look at everything from dairy to eggs to beef, pork, chicken, fish, all of those animal sources are very highly digestible. Actually, our body's ability to break down the protein into the amino acids makes the amino acids more available to us. The plant side, it's a much lower percentage, even though it may say I'm eating 20 grams of protein when I eat these legumes and rice or 20 grams of protein when I eat the chicken, I'm actually getting more out of the protein from the chicken than I am from the legumes and rice because it's more digestible. Yeah, and, oh, sorry, I wanted to ask you about this.

So, cause also from my understanding too, is that if you're consuming plant-based proteins, they actually don't have a full spectrum of amino acids like some of the animal source proteins do, right? So that's the next point. So the first thing is like, can I even get the amino acids out of it? You can get less of them from the plants. Then the question is, okay, of the amino acids that

I can get from this protein, from beans, does it have the right composition of unique amino acids that my body wants? And this may seem kind of strange to people, but literally like a protein inside of a legume is different from a protein inside of rice or inside of chicken or beef or milk. They have slightly different combinations of these amino acid building blocks. And this is where the definition of a complete protein comes up. So a complete protein is one that has all nine of the essential amino acids. There's 20 amino acids that go into making up these things, beans or rice or beef, et cetera. And each one has different amounts of each one. You want to find protein sources that have a sufficient amount of

the nine essential ones. And essential means your body can't make them. Again, it sounds kind of weird, but actually, if you consume a protein that gives you the nine essential amino acids, your body can convert them into the other 11 to the degree that it needs them. It cannot convert those other 11 into those key nine. So you have to eat those nine in your diet. Again, the situation is that most plant proteins do not have a sufficient amount of all nine to be considered a complete protein. You can combine them though. So I was raised vegetarian with a little bit of fish.

So we ate milk and dairy, et cetera, but we had to talk a lot about, and my family was like super health food centric. I love that. But like we talked about why you'd combine lentils and quinoa or beans and rice because we needed to because our diet was much more limited if we weren't eating cheese or eggs or other things at that time period. But there are some. Soy is a complete protein. That's why it's the

most popular protein powder, right? So tofu and any of the derivatives of soy, buckwheat, quinoa, those are all much more rich in the nine essential amino acids. But as soon as you turn to animal-based proteins, and again, these could still be vegetarian, like eggs and dairy, excellent amino acid profiles. It has all nine of them. And sorry, one thing I do want to say really fast before we keep going on. So about the plant-based proteins too. So the bioavailability piece I think is really, really important for people to understand this because not only is our body not able to necessarily utilize as many amino acids from the plant-based proteins, a lot of people have genetic mutations, which is very normal.

Like I have the MTHFR gene, like it's very normal for you to have a genetic mutation. And a lot of people may not have that or may not know that they have a genetic mutation that doesn't even allow them to get some of these amino acids from the plant-based foods. And I think it's so important for people to understand this just because I think plant-based is being pushed so hard right now and I'm not inherently against it, but I just think there's a lot of nuance and people need to really understand this if they want to make sure that they're getting enough protein in their diets. And another really important thing to note is that you are going to have to consume way more amount of the buckwheat, the quinoa, the beans and rice than you would if you were just to eat a piece of chicken or a piece

of beef in order to get the equivalent of amino acids. So I just think it's really important for people to understand that. I think it's a really good bridge. That would be another point I'd bring up is really, what's the caloric impact also of this protein source? And I think it's definitely true for plants, where it's like if I want to get the same amount of true amino acid availability, or even just protein, like even if I'm not counting the fact that I don't get as much from that protein, just the same amount of protein, fact that I don't get as much from that protein, just the same amount of protein, I have to eat a lot more calories from total beans and rice because there's other calories coming with it. There's all these carbohydrates. On top of that, if I'm trying to get the actual true amino acid availability and get at least

complete essential amino acid profile, I have to eat even more. So I'm consuming so many calories in order to get this amount of protein. And I think fundamentally, if you just break down healthy eating to its simplest terms, it's what are nutrient-dense foods outside of just energy density? Energy density would be carbs and fats, but does it have amino acids and does it have other core micronutrients? And how do I get all these amino acids and these micronutrients from the foods I eat and not eat thousands and thousands of calories, right? Like that's the simplest way of kind of breaking it down. I'd also say though, it's true though for people who go on like a really strict animal diet and they're eating fatty steaks or like bacon or these things that are also very high in calorie with actually quite a low amount of

protein and amino acids. So it's obvious things. It's why historically bodybuilders eat egg whites and everyone knows. I mean, an egg white is very high in essential amino acids and you take out the yolk and you remove all the fat. So it's like, it's very concentrated. The yolk is also good though. It has all the types of micronutrients and vitamins. Yeah. So yeah, it's just kind of, it's navigating that. So I think fundamentally, those three things are actually probably the most important. And then it starts to get a little bit nerdier, which I think this is where we start to introduce protein powders and amino acid supplements and like, why do they even matter and how do they work? So the next piece is what is the amino acid profile specifically? Like you got these

nine essential amino acids, you want it. Why is it, like, are beef and chicken equal or are they a little bit different? What about whey protein powder? Is it a little different? And the reason why something like whey protein powder has just been kind of like the gold standard for so much research around protein studies and amino acid studies is because of all the different protein sources, the amount of leucine, isoleucine, valine, some very specific, they're actually the branched chain amino acids that it contains, promote more protein synthesis than the counterparts in like a beef protein, a beef isolate protein powder. So it just has more of certain amino acids. So if you eat foods that are higher in specific amino acid profiles,

they're also going to actually promote more protein synthesis. And I would just highlight, this is not only muscle protein synthesis. This is what we call whole body protein synthesis, meaning promoting the development of new skin, replacing old proteins in your vital organs, support for hair, like nails, like so many different parts, enzymes, hormone production, all of this. It's promoting the whole body to look at lower functioning proteins and to replace them with newer functioning proteins when you choose these higher quality proteins in your diet. Now, this is when we get slightly nerdier, but I think this is

where it becomes especially relevant for aging. And this is especially relevant for aging, weight loss, and athletic performance, what I'm about to start to get into. So if you fall into one of those buckets. Which we all care about. I feel like we care about all those. Okay, so this is interesting, and it's really from the last decade that we've come to understand this better, the overall scientific community.

And by the way, these things I'm talking about, if you want a deep dive into this, I would check out the International Society of Sports Nutrition, ISSN, position paper on essential amino acids is a good dive into this. And it'll break down, there's hundreds of studies basically on this, but it's kind of a good summary of like, if you're a little bit nerdier than we're going into now, you want like the 30 page version and not reading 200 studies. It's a cool like next step. But some of the more recent research basically has shown that the way that we eat protein sources and how isolated the essential amino acids inside of them are will directly impact how much protein synthesis is stimulated. I'll unpack that now. 30 grams of beef protein promotes as much new

protein synthesis. So that's kind of stimulating effect. The same thing you get from like when you do resistance training. Promotes as much new protein synthesis as 70 grams, so twice the amount of beef protein, if that beef protein is eaten as part of a mixed meal. So if you eat the beef protein with, you know, a healthy meal, you know, baked potato and broccoli, right? Like You literally are going to get half the amount of new protein synthesis as you would get from an equal amount of that protein if you ate it on its own. Why is that?

I've never heard that before. This is a super nerdy article, but if you check out the Nutrients 2020, David Church is the lead author. They go through a lot of the research on this. Simpler ways of understanding it are in the ISSN report, but there's a lot of really good research on this. The reason for that is because the peak concentration

of essential amino acids in your blood at once is what determines the amount of new protein synthesis that gets stimulated. So when I eat the beef protein on its own, and it's not mixed up with the other carbs and fat and fiber, et cetera, it breaks down more quickly, and the essential amino acids go into my blood more quickly, and that peak concentration stimulates more new protein synthesis.

Makes sense. Yeah. So what I would just say is like, I'm someone who eats whole like mixed meals. So I'm not the guy eating pieces of steak on their own all the time. But I would just like, so I would say overall, this is not to tell anyone to like, get so obsessed with your food intake to have to like divide everything up and eat it separately, but it just gives you the initial context to think about it. So now when you compare that beef protein to a whey protein powder, and I think studies would show similarly for some other types,

like if you did a, there's not one on like a beef protein isolate powder, but I would say it's going to be a similar type of output. When you compare it to a whey protein, the whey protein has three times the amount of protein synthesis as the beef protein on its own. Gram for gram, three times the amount. Now, why is that? A few things. One, that whey protein concentrate, and isolate would be even more significant, is even a more concentrated form of the protein with the essential amino acids even more bioavailable and in slightly better concentration, slightly better proportions than what you get in the beef protein. But really, it's the bioavailability. It's just the protein powder. It's been stripped of more of the carbs and the fat, and it's isolated in this form. Now, when you compare that to essential amino acids, and now essential amino acids as a supplement are basically, they can be plant-based, they can be animal-based.

Like my company, Kion, we make a plant-based. It's fermented in a way similar to, you might think about kombucha or the production of different types of cheeses, et cetera. It's fermented in a way similar to, you might think about kombucha or the production of different types of cheeses, et cetera. It's fermented from certain sugars. You create these essential amino acids. They basically are what you get from a whey protein powder, but without any of the non-essential amino acids. And what we have determined through many, many studies, and this is not Keon, this is like the research community, is that essential amino acids promote all of the protein synthesis. The non-essential amino acids are helpful building blocks, and you use some of them. Some of them you actually don't use. I think some people online make really crazy claims saying whey protein is converted into 80% sugar. It's like, that's not

true at all. But there's a portion of the non-essential amino acids that you actually don't use. They get converted to sugars and to urea, but mostly they get used to help build new proteins. But the essential ones promote, they stimulate all of it. And you actually don't need those non-essential ones in a supplementary form. If you're already eating two to three meals per day, four meals per day, you're getting plenty of the non-essential. Yeah, because your body's making them.

That's why they're non-essential. Yeah, your body's making them. And in whole food sources, you get more than you need. Okay. You don't need all the non-essential amino acids for new protein synthesis that are in a piece of meat. Okay. You simply, you need, we don't know the exact amount. We've actually studied it in animals and it's about, uh, like it's like about, I think 70% of the total content. So probably like, we only need about half the non-essential amino acids that we're getting. We still use them. They get converted into some like energy where you can actually, they get converted into sugars that you can burn and use

as fuel, but you don't need them for the protein synthesis. Anyway, getting back to the essential amino acids, basically what you're getting is just the active component of what is in a whey protein powder, but without the non-essential amino acids. So when you consume those essential amino acids, gram for gram, they're three times as powerful as the whey protein powder. So you start to see the scale. The beef on its own is twice as powerful as a mixed meal. You look at the whey protein powder, it's three times as powerful as that. You look at the EAAs, essential amino acids, they're three times as powerful as that. So when you start thinking in terms of, hey, I'm really trying to hit these higher protein goals, what you're really thinking is, I'm really trying to hit these higher essential amino acid goals. That's what defines something as a complete

protein that I actually need in my diet. It's the chemical messenger component of the protein that actually tells my body to build new proteins. If I'm trying to get those and trying to get them in the most efficient manner, then in addition to eating a few healthy meals per day, if I'm trying to find more ways to slip in essential amino acids into my diet, it's a very good case for saying, hey, rather than trying to eat one more piece of chicken breast or another egg or beef jerky or whatever the snack, chia pudding, this other part during the day, if really what you're trying to get is the protein and the amino acids, the essential amino acids are going to be so many times more powerful than trying to sneak in that much more whole food protein. And now when you get into the idea of

aging, where it's more difficult to digest protein, that's a major factor of why we actually need more protein as we age and we start to lose muscle and sarcopenia happens is because we can't digest the protein as well. But secondarily, we're not as sensitive to the impact of the amino acids in the protein. So interestingly, those notes I just told you where it's like, hey, the essential amino acids are three times as powerful as the whey protein, that's for young people in their 20s. In studies of women in their 60s, the essential amino acids are over six times as powerful as the whey protein. Wow. And that is because, yeah, and that's because as we age, we simply, the ability for our body to digest the proteins, but also our sensitivity to use those amino

acids to communicate, hey, let's rebuild skin, let's rebuild muscle. Our body simply doesn't prioritize it, so it needs a stronger signal. And the essential amino acid formulas give that stronger signal. It gives it more leucine, more isoleucine, more valine in a concentrated form without it being wrapped up with the other non-essential amino acids, without it being wrapped up

with additional carbohydrates and fat. It's just like mainlining the signal that actually tells the body to rebuild the proteins. Okay. That's fascinating. And I might be going a little bit too far left field with this one, but I was just thinking about when I was in school getting my master's, we were in one of our courses, we were given a study that showed that actually there's a balance between like eating just enough calories where you're getting all the vitamins, minerals, nutrients, carbohydrates, you know, protein, everything that you need, but where you're not overeating. And what they showed is that like, if you found that perfect balance of not overeating

too much food, you actually aged more gracefully and it really helped with slowing down the overall aging process. So my brain right now is thinking, okay, so if we want to be able to hit all of our protein goals, but not be overeating way too many calories, how do we do that? Okay, well, we supplement that because we make sure we still eat, you know, three whole real food balanced meals, get enough protein from steak and eggs and everything that we've talked about. But then also, instead of adding on more calories, why don't we just supplement with the whey protein and then also adding in the amino acid supplements? And then you can hit all of those amino acid goals without aging fast, essentially. It's an excellent proposal. I think it will be more and more what gets proposed by

nutritionists and dieticians going into the future. I think one of the challenges for this whole space is that, I'll be the first to admit, I'm like in this business, protein powders and essential amino acids are just like not new. Like it's old. It's not something you can even like patent really, right? So there's not a ton of money to be made from it, whereas drugs or other types of interventions are better business in a way because it's actually quite an affordable way to manage not over-consuming calories and yet still directly attacking the anabolic resistance that occurs with age. As we age, our bodies just don't want to, there's a resistance to continuing to try to stimulate

that protein synthesis. So it really is, I think it's an ideal formula. And so for example, I just turned 40. I'm someone who absolutely uses the essential amino acids daily, specifically for that purpose. Hey, how can I hit these higher daily protein and daily essential amino acid intake levels without it being that I have to eat one more meal or one more snack? But when I look at my parents, who are 30 years older than me, I have them on it two to three times a day. Amazing. Because they have that additional need. Yeah,

they need more. And as I age, I will need more. And similarly, if I was a more competitive athlete and I was trying to compete for something, or I was trying to lose weight, again, I would be increasing that intake even more because, well, we can get into those conversations maybe, why that makes sense. I just want to ask you before I forget, because you brought up branched chain amino acids, and we might've talked about this last time. I don't remember, but I'm seeing all these like BCAA drinks and supplements. Can we talk about the difference between those and why you want essential amino acids and not the branch chain? Yep. So I think the easiest way to cover this is actually to go through the history of the science and how it got marketed and turned into supplements

that people buy today. And then it will make a lot more sense. So when the scientific community first started really researching this, and there was more of a budget for studying protein and amino acid nutrition, some of the first things that the scientific community discovered was that leucine, isoleucine, and valine, these three amino acids, were very important for stimulating new protein synthesis. Leucine primarily, you'll probably hear that a lot, like that's like the most popular one, but these other two are really important as well. Those three are the branched chain amino acids. So early research showed like, hey, these things are really important. And what happened was also we had less sophisticated diagnostic equipment in the way that we would

actually provide the amino acids to subjects and then measure protein synthesis. As the methodologies improved and we studied it more and more, what we uncovered was that the three branched-chain amino acids on their own do create this spike. They create this really strong signal to say, hey, let's build new proteins. And then if you do not have the other six, so here's the big point, BCAAs are actually three of the nine essential amino acids. If you don't have the other six essential amino acids, the spike just crashes. And there's actually no significant anabolic, there's no anabolic response. You don't build new proteins. If anything, you could actually have some catabolism, the breakdown of proteins, because you encourage this spike and then there's

not enough of the essential amino acids actually in the blood to support it. So then maybe you have to actually break down muscle tissue to supply the blood with those other essential amino acids to fulfill the new protein synthesis. In best case scenario, there's real no impact. So it doesn't make sense actually to take the branched chain amino acids on their own. It could make sense in certain cases to combine with other deficient proteins and kind and other more complex scenarios. But taking BCAAs on their own are fundamentally a waste of money. Now why are they still so popular?

What happened? Well, when that research developed, business people and marketers, everyone's trying to make a living, they try to capitalize on it. They develop brands and products and they even try to support development of new studies that support that study and that back it up. And so somehow, to this day, there continue to be BCAAs on the market. But honestly, even some of those will say BCAAs,

and if you look at the label, they actually may include all nine because they know that it doesn't work on their own. But anything that's marketed as a BCAA overall, I would just avoid it include all nine because they know that it doesn't work on their own. But anything that's marketed as a BCAA overall, I would just avoid it because it's the potential for it, unless you really want to get sophisticated into the analysis of what's in that product and how it functions. Again, for any nerds out there, there's a great meta-analysis on this from 2017 by Dr.

Robert Wolf that is very conclusive. I mean, the whole amino acid and protein community, if you went to any of these conferences, which I go to, they all know BCAAs are a waste of money and don't work. But yeah, somehow they continue to be sold. I also just feel like from a common sense standpoint that what you just said makes perfect sense to me. Why would we only take the three when we need the nine total? So that just like common sense comes in for me and I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. So, okay. So let's talk about these essential amino acids. So when is the best time to take them? I feel like I've heard that it's best to do it either before exercise or before bed. Is that true? I think that the best time to take them is every day.

And I really say that because like anything in health, it fundamentally comes down to adherence. And if you start a behavior and you can maintain that behavior over and over and over again, and then anchor other healthy behaviors to it, that's actually how you start to see change. And at the most fundamental level,

the benefits of essential amino acids have to do with what we were talking about earlier, promoting new protein synthesis, helping you to hit these higher daily essential amino intake levels so that you can overall have this better long-term health. So trying to contain it to like when I exercise or not, you know, it'd be like, oh, I'm only going to eat protein when I exercise. Like it just,

it doesn't really make sense. It does enhance though the benefits of exercise. So specifically in the context of exercise, if you take essential amino acids before exercise, there will be a multiplying effect with the exercise itself to stimulate even more new protein synthesis than either of them would do on their own. So you'll replace older muscle fibers, you will replace more of the old muscle fibers with newer ones, you'll overall improve long-term muscle function, you'll build more strength, etc. You'll also reduce the fatigue that is potentially going to occur through just breaking down a muscle protein during that process. You can enhance your overall mental alertness because the amino acids actually

help maintain a better balance of the amino acids in your blood so that you don't get as much tryptophan into your brain, which then promotes serotonin. It makes you feel sleepy during exercise. And it supports the overall recovery period subsequent to it. So before is best. During is also great. But here's the thing. Afterwards is also great. If you don't like to drink something before you work out, taking it afterwards is totally fine. And it will significantly support the recovery period and also still have this kind of multiplying effect with the exercise to promote more protein synthesis. But here's the kicker. As we just discussed earlier, the essential amino acids on their own promote protein synthesis,

not to the degree of going to the gym for an hour, but of the same sort, right? So taking the amino acids on days when you don't work out could potentially make even more sense. Wow. To ensure that you're also stimulating, you're still allowing your body to recover from the intensity of whatever the exercise was on those non-workout days. But taking on days when you don't work out is going to ensure that you, again, continue to rebuild old proteins and promote new protein synthesis outside of the more taxing stimulus of doing intense weight training or going for a run. So there's a good argument to say it makes even more sense on days when you're not exercising. And then when you start to get in, and this is all kind of in the context of athletics, that said, taking them before bed also will support the recovery from an exercise

session the day before. But just as well, taking them first thing in the morning will do that as well. So I mean, what I like to say is find a time of day that you can be consistent with, whether that's first thing in the morning or they do oftentimes help people to curb cravings. So it's like, if it's like something that you do mid morning, you know, instead of having another snack or instead of having another coffee or mid afternoon for a little energy boost, like find the time first thing in the morning or, or like right when you wake up or mid morning or mid afternoon, um, right before bed and then also stack it with exercise. That's kind of like I think the most sustainable maximizing the benefits without taking them all the time, right? Find the one time per day and

then kind of stack it with your exercise. That said, I think that's for, I would call that like maintenance. On the other hand, if you are in a situation where let's say you want to lose 15 pounds of fat. Oh, let's actually make the math simpler. I want to lose 10 pounds of fat. I think lots of times when people think about weight loss, they think just 10 pounds. But I promise you that in most cases, whoever's listening to this, you're thinking

10 pounds of fat. You're not being like, I want to lose this little bit of muscle that I've worked hard to get, right? I want all the fat to go away. I want to maintain my muscle and I want to be a little bit toner. So the way that just the science of this works is that there's a fundamental element of calories in, calories out. Now, different foods have different impact and different macros. We'll get into this like protein and amino acids interact differently in the body. But fundamentally, it's about 3,500 calories for a pound of fat. So if I cut 35,000 calories from my diet, less than what I'm currently consuming and I maintain all my normal

activity levels, I'm going to lose 10 pounds of fat approximately, right? It's approximate. Now, over what period of time? And that's why people say like, don't try to do it like all at once or really fast, or maybe it's like half a pound a week or a pound a week, whatever it is, because it could be too dramatic. But that's basically what it's going to take. So let's say I want to do that over seven weeks, right? So then that's going to be about 5,000 calories a week. Is that right? Yeah? I think so, yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Matt. I didn't practice. We're going to do a bunch of week. Is that right? Yeah. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry, Matt. I didn't practice. We're going to do a bunch of math. Yeah. Right. I need to get my calculator

out here for this. Yeah. That's about 5,000 calories a week that you need to cut. Okay. And so to cut 5,000 calories a week, if you're like disciplined with it, like we can divide it across the days and let's say it's like cutting 700 calories per day for seven days. That's 4,900 calories. Again, all this stuff is approximate, right? 700 calories for a smaller person, like that's a lot. That's a lot. That's still, that's a pretty big cut. That's a pretty big, pretty big cut. For someone my size, you know, I guess I'm comparing to like a woman of your size versus a man who's like 200 pounds. It's less of a deal for someone my size. I guess I'm comparing to a woman of your size versus a man who's like 200 pounds. It's less of a deal for someone my size.

But regardless, that's still kind of a lot. But you get the idea of that's basically what it's going to require generally. But here's the kicker that people do not realize. You will not just burn fat if you go into a caloric deficit. Because what happens is, and this has also been very clearly illustrated over the last few years, and we have clear scientific numbers around it. For every 30% of a caloric deficit, and I'm going to switch the numbers around because it's just easier. Let's say daily you eat 2,000 calories a day, and you want to cut 600 calories a day out of your diet. For every 30%, you need to increase your daily essential amino acid intake by 300% over

whatever it was before to maintain your current muscle mass, to maintain a net protein balance. Because you don't only burn fat when you go into this caloric deficit, you, quote, burn muscle. I mean, what actually happens is that when you eat any of the protein in your diet, your body's hungry. So it's like, I don't want to use this protein, these amino acids to build new muscle or to maintain my muscle and maintain my proteins, I'm hungry. I'd rather convert it into sugars and use it as an energy source and instead use some of my existing muscle tissue, break it down, turn it into amino acids to supply to the rest of the body. So you really have to significantly amp up the amount of daily essential amino acids. So not only are you in a situation where you need to be in this caloric deficit, right? You need to significantly increase the amount

of protein in your diet and or supplement with something like essential amino acids. If you're going to go into any type of caloric deficit for the explicit goal of losing fat, if you don't want to lose muscle, you need to significantly increase the protein intake and or increase essential amino acids through some type of supplementation. So in that case, if someone was really diligent, had a clear goal, they want to lose a few pounds and they're trying to do it in a healthy way,

ensure they don't lose muscle through it, because that's the other thing. It's like you go through these yo-yo diets where you cut a bunch of calories and you burn all that muscle and you burn the fat. It's hard to get the muscle back. It's not like this thing that just comes back. And you're really trying to do it in a sustainable way. That might be a case where you actually are consuming the essential amino acids a few times per day during that period. You're upping your daily protein intake, but maybe you're taking one to two servings of essential amino acids in the morning, another midday, another at night. And that way you're

ensuring you're getting those essential amino acids without eating a whole nother meal or snack. Yeah, that's such a great point. I think that's so helpful for people too. I feel like it will make it a lot easier because people trying to cut back their calories, it's so hard to get all your protein in, to get everything in, all your macros in. And plus you said earlier that it helps with cravings. And I'm assuming it will probably help with your hunger cues as well. Because if you're getting enough amino acids and enough protein, your body at some point is probably signaling your satiety hormones saying like, okay, we've had enough, we've had enough nutrients for the day. And then you're still cutting your calories back,

which we know we need to do if we're on a weight loss journey. So that's, I feel like that's so helpful for people. That's another great point, just that, you know, like the protein leverage hypothesis is basically this idea that we eat until we get enough protein or we eat until we get enough of the key essential amino acids in that protein that we need for our body to feel satiated and then we've gotten enough. And that's, you know, you think about eating processed foods that maybe have lots of fats and sugars and other things in them that are lower in protein. So they've already got this addictive flavor thing and they're

deficient in the core nutrient that you need. And a lot of them are your carb loading. Sorry, but then you're raising your blood sugar, then you're crashing and then you're craving more sugar and you're just in this vicious cycle. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, totally. So whereas on the opposite side of the spectrum, when you're consuming like say a plant-based essential amino acid supplement, it's purely those nutrients that your body is craving and that once it gets those, it's not saying like, I need more, more, more, more, more. So it does fundamentally support in that craving, curbing those cravings. So I can already imagine the questions that my listeners might have. And one of them being, is this something that replaces your protein powder,

your collagen powders, or is this something that you also add into addition to those? So I'm going to answer the collagen powder first and then the protein powder. So collagen powder, they're really two different things. And I would just say protein powder is different from collagen as well. Collagen powders are not a complete protein. They're very low and deficient in essential amino acids overall. And I would not count them towards your daily protein goal. I would consume a collagen powder specifically if you are looking to counteract the impact of aging specifically on skin and hair and nails. And I would say, similar to what I just said, it becomes that much more important the older you are.

Like I can understand, you know, a 70-year-old female who really is like, I just want to have like the best glowing skin I can have. I'm not trying to like change what I look like, but I want to, you know, I want to have more elasticity. The hydroxyproline and proline and glycine that collagen is very rich in, these very unique non-essential amino acids, we do believe promote that. If you're younger, if you're 20 years old, if you're like a 25, 30-year-old female, I'm more skeptical, honestly, of the daily collagen use. I think if you really, if your diet, maybe if you're vegan, it makes more sense. But if you're eating healthy meats and an animal-based diet, I think the collagen is just going to provide less benefit the younger you are. It's not going to provide really any benefit for anything else. It's not

going to provide benefit, for example, for like weight management or for maintaining lean muscle or any of these other things we've discussed. It's really specifically only in that one area. And again, I think it's better the older that you get. Like myself, and maybe joint function. Yeah, that too. Yeah, but like as a male who's 40 and had like generally had pretty healthy skin and I'm not like that concerned. I mean, it happens to everyone though.

Maybe like I'll start getting wrinkles and be like, oh my gosh, you know, like you gotta change this. Time to add in the collagen, yeah. Yeah, and I have like friends that have collagen companies. It's not one I take every day. But again, like I can understand how some people would.

Now, protein powder is interesting and different. I would consider protein powder and essential amino acid supplements as two tools that accomplish the same goal. So you could absolutely replace your protein powder with essential amino acids, and you would simply have a tool that works a little bit differently. Here are the benefits of each one. First of all, I'd say if you're going to take a protein powder, if you haven't tried it yet, I highly recommend trying a whey protein isolate. Whey protein isolates have the best amino acid profiles of all protein powders. And for the vast, vast, vast majority of people, they're highly digestible

for folks. Even if I'm lactose intolerant, I can consume a whey protein isolate because the isolate basically means they remove the sugars and the fats. And those sugars is where you get the lactose. And so it's like 99.9, 99, I don't know exactly that exact percentage. It's over 99% lactose free. And yeah, it's just an ideal protein powder with an ideal, you know, amino acid profile, et cetera. Consuming that, the reason I like something like that kind of protein powder is I can mix it in with foods, you know, like I can mix it in with foods. I can mix it in with waffles or we could make a cake out of it or my family will make protein-rich ice cream at home. Or you can use

it almost like a flour-like material. And if I want to consume smoothies, I like blueberries and whey protein isolate powder. It tastes really good. I just like it. Yeah, it's fun. Add some cinnamon too and it's so good. Yeah. So that said, when I compare it to essential amino acids, I know the essential amino acids are way more impactful.

They just provide way more benefit gram for gram. They're much lighter. So if I'm looking like, I don't want to feel like full right now, but I don't want to like feel hungry either, you know, the essential amino acids are going to satiate the hunger, but they're also not going to make me feel full. I'm going to feel very light, almost like I'm fasting. On a gram for gram basis, at my age at 40, they're at least four times the impact of the protein, if not four to five times. If I'm combining it with exercise, they're even more impactful than the whey protein powder. And yeah, they're easier to take. It's like you can bring a packet and shake it up in a drink and have as a water bottle or just take a few capsules. So it's like a much more...

And that way too, they're cheaper. Like they're literally more, they're just financially cheaper because you can take less of them for a greater impact. But I don't mix them into like my waffles like it would be. I don't make ice cream out of them. Like The flavor profile is very, it's a very different type of thing. Well, yeah, I kind of see them as both tools that I can use during the day to up my protein intake. We exhausted this conversation earlier, but just kind of like to wrap it up, like the way I see it is,

it's just another tool in the toolbook to ensure that we are getting enough proper amino acids on a daily basis so that we can build and maintain that muscle mass. And for me, like you just said, I love to do a protein smoothie in the morning, or I also love to do protein yogurt, where I'll add a scoop of protein to yogurt, like coconut milk yogurt and eat that in the morning with blueberries and it's super filling. And then the amino acids are super simple. Like I'll just literally put a scoop in my, I'm holding my hydro flask right now with, you know, my 40 ounces of water.

And then it's just another super easy way where I'm not even thinking about having to consume all of that. And it's not like another meal that I'm having to think about consuming, like, Oh, I need to get this other steak in. It's just, it makes it really simple is basically what I'm saying. And you really don't have to think about it. And once you build that habit that you brought up earlier, where you're just like, Oh, I'm making my morning, I'm filling up my water bottle for the day and I'm adding in my electrolytes and my amino acids like done. And you don't even have to think about it. So it just makes that habit like really simple and easy. And then you're getting all of your essential amino acids on a daily basis. So this is why I

love Keon. I love the flavors that you guys have. They taste amazing. I'm just such a huge fan. And I'm actually like getting my boyfriend on your amino acids now too. Um, because he's been really talking lately about how he wants to build more lean muscle and he's been going to the gym more and I'm like, we got to get you on the amino acids too. So, um, yeah. So I, I wanted to ask you, um, I, Oh, actually I have one more question for you before we go, which I meant to ask you earlier. So I want to know what your thoughts are about, I mentioned this very briefly earlier, where I feel like in the mainstream, there's this really big push for plant-based. And there's this mentality that Americans are consuming too much protein. And I'm literally doing air quotes right now for those listening. And I want to know your thoughts on that because I see that as kind of feeling this propaganda that

we're trying to get people to eat less meat. And I'm not a huge fan of it. And I'm curious what your thoughts are as far as like we're consuming too much protein according to the mainstream. So, you know, it's an interesting conversation to have like in a podcast format like this where we don't actually have the data to look at. And that's what I would point to. I'd be like, really, what'm like in the health business. I was raised by like health nut parents. I live in Boulder, Colorado. I really try to watch what I eat and I go through periods of tracking my food to simply see what I'm eating. And it is hard to eat enough protein. Like it is not, I mean, it's hard. So then the question would be, well, what do we mean by is eating too much? What are the numbers that we're quoting then?

And I think that that could be the fundamental misalignment. And it could potentially be propaganda by some type of business or research community that really wants to promote some type of lower protein intake for some other reason. But if you look at the data over the last 60 years, we have something called the recommended daily allowance, which is 0.4 grams of protein per pound of body weight. So if you weighed 100 pounds, that'd be 40 grams of protein a day. If you weighed 150 pounds, that'd be 60 grams of protein per day. It's very clear now. Yeah, I was what I'm saying. It's very clear now through protein and amino acid studies. And these are not like supplement companies paying for this. This is like people doing geriatric studies. This is people doing sports performance studies. This is people looking at women and menopause. Like,

what are the actual protein requirements to ensure that people maintain their lean muscle, have healthy hormone function? It's very clear that like that is the bare minimum actually below the bare minimum to not have significant health issues to not have problems with your organs to not have hair loss to like to have like serious fatigue like to be messed up basically and instead a much more much more, and I would say reasonable goal for people is something closer to one gram of protein per pound of body weight. Now, it could be slightly different. If you're on the younger side and you're less active, maybe it's only like 0.8. But I think about people listening to this kind of, well, people listening to this kind of podcast and overall, I think how

we would like people to engage in society, we'd like people to be more active, more engaged in the outdoors, exercising, eating well. And so if we're really trying to all have this more optimized health, we would all be eating more towards this one gram of protein per pound of body weight. So if people are looking at it and they're saying like, oh, people are eating 0.6 grams and that's like way too much. That is not way too much. That's crazy. It's just simply not way too much. And those people are unfamiliar with really the last several decades of protein and amino acid research specific to human outcome studies. I'm not talking like what happens like on a, you know, just on a molecular level, but literally like what happens when these groups of people eat more healthy protein and other whole foods? And also what happens when people even add things like these essential amino acids? What are their outcomes? Their outcomes are positive. They stay active longer. They build more lean muscle. They can go on longer walks, they can survive cancer at much higher rates, they can survive all different types of chronic illnesses at way higher rates. So again, I don't

know what the initial data is that's being looked at, but it seems confusing to me because I know it's hard for me to try to get in that gram of protein per pound of body weight. And I know the data says that is much closer to what we should be consuming. So I don't know who these people are. I mean, the only other argument I might say is, are they just eating way too much food overall too? Like are they, you know, are we looking at populations that are morbidly obese? And so in general, they're overeating protein, but they're overeating calories as well. And it's like, that's really the bigger issue that we're talking about. Seems like there's something weird in the data. I totally agree. And like I said,

it feels like propaganda that's being pushed for a certain narrative from certain probably organizations that stand to make a lot of money off of people eating more like plant-based. And because oftentimes when I hear like, we're consuming too much protein, it's coming from a plant-based narrative. And then they use that to then say, see, we actually don't need that much protein.

And so then you can get enough from just eating plant foods. And then I would also argue, are Americans really consuming enough protein? Because we're 92% metabolically unhealthy. There's only about 7% or 8% of our population that's actually metabolically healthy. So we're not even starting from a healthy standpoint right now. So I would argue whatever people are doing right now

is not working, right? And if you look at the data, if people are eating more protein, they'd be more satisfied and full. So we wouldn't have an obesity epidemic on our hands. So I mean, there's a lot to unpack there, but those are my thoughts. And I was just curious what your thoughts are on that. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I would suspect that it's something wrapped up in overall obesity as well. Like there's some kind of manipulation of the data that's confusing it. And really there's a different underlying problem that's going on at the same

time. It's like when they talk about some of the studies around red meat, but it's like they're doing studies also related to more highly processed meats. And these people are also consuming other types of processed foods and more likely to smoke and like all the different behaviors start to stack up and it's like, yeah, no wonder that that group is not as healthy. It's unhealthy. That recent study that just came out and they were trying to link meat to cancer. And then when you actually broke down the study where they were feeding them was like lasagna. And then they were calling that like a high meat diet. I'm like, what about the refined carbohydrates in there? And also we're not even taking into account the factory farmed meat and all the stuff that they're pumping those cows with that is obviously not super healthy for us.

But yeah, those studies are so corrupt. And if you actually look in the fine print of it, it doesn't even match. So it doesn't even match up to what we actually know to be true. Like I said, in the very beginning, it's something I'm super passionate about right now, because as I'm going into my 40s, I really want to be conscious of building more lean muscle mass because I know how important it is for my health. And I just feel like in general, there's been this resurgence of people understanding the importance of eating more good, high quality protein and getting enough in our diets every day. And so, and a lot of questions that I've been getting on Instagram is how do I get enough protein in my day? And the answer is you, answer is, make sure you're prioritizing good,

high-quality meats. Like we said, also getting these high-quality protein powders and the essential amino acids will help you meet those daily goals. And with Keon, I love it so much. Like I said earlier, they taste so amazing and they make it so easy. So I'm a huge fan of your products. Thank you so much. And thank you so much for coming on. Thank you, Courtney, for having me and just getting to have such an awesome conversation. Yeah, this was amazing. I know I asked you this last time, but just in the essence of I do this every time with every podcast, I'm curious to know what your health non-negotiables are. So these are things that you prioritize every single day for your

health. Gosh, I'm so curious if I would say the same thing today as I said last time I was on the show. Now it is sleep. Sleep becomes more and more of something that I realize. Yeah, just going to bed early enough so that I can have really restful sleep and a whole sleep routine around that. And being able to wake up early and have that time by myself in the morning allows me to just meditate, to write, to think, to go on a walk, to get grounded. And I think from that, I feel much more empowered to make other really good decisions throughout the day. I'm less impulsive. I choose, I make better diet decisions. I make better exercise decisions. I make better relational and communication

decisions. So yeah, I think that pre-bed routine to sleeping, to waking up in the morning is the most important. You and I are very aligned in that and I've been really prioritizing that too. So it's super helpful, but please let everybody know where they can find Keon. And also just for everybody listening, make sure that you also, when you're on the website, check out, they have amazing protein powder. They have really great coffee. They have a lot of really great supplements outside of the essential amino acids, but please let everyone know where they can find you and also find your products. So really I've poured everything into Keon and all the information, the kinds of things we talked about today is all there. So I would just go to the link that is specific for your audience, which I believe is getkion.com slash realfoodology.

I'm pretty sure that's what it is. Thank you so much for your time. This was amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to the Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Lab production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you liked this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time. The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute

a provider patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.