Tetragrammaton with Rick Rubin - Carnivore Aurelius

Episode Date: September 27, 2023

Carnivore Aurelius is the pseudonym used by an independent health researcher. He’s found his life’s purpose in this research and also in sharing what he’s learned with his growing online audience across social media. Carnivore Aurelius is dedicated to becoming his healthiest and happiest self, using the tools endowed to us by nature, and isn’t afraid to buck conventional medical wisdom in the process. After a lifetime of suffering from health conditions ranging from skin issues to recurrent sinus infections and rheumatoid arthritis, he ultimately realized that the modern medical system wasn’t equipped to help him holistically, only focusing on suppressing symptoms with drugs instead of addressing root causes. What he’s found on this journey to health is a great belief in alternative healing modalities: finding great relief, initially through the carnivore diet and later with the addition of sunlight, breathwork, grounding, and detoxification. He’s now his own doctor, having become versed in biochemistry and nutrition sciences, and intends to inspire others to take back control of their own health and happiness. Follow this link for reading recommended by Carnivore Aurelius ------- Disclaimer: This podcast is presented for exploratory purposes only. Published content is not intended to be used for preventing, diagnosing, or treating a specific illness. ------- Thank you to the sponsors that fuel our podcast and our team: LMNT Electrolytes https://drinklmnt.com/tetra Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with your order. ------- House of Macadamias https://www.houseofmacadamias.com/tetra ------- Squarespace  https://squarespace.com/tetra ------- Manna Vitality  https://mannavitality.com/

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Tetragramatine Tetragramatine Tetragramatine Tetragramatine Rolling Stone Magazine Why is the right, so obsessed with seed oils? Okay, rolling stone magazine. Why is the right, so obsessed with seed oils? Wellness influencers and conspiracy theory peddlers love to demonize seed oils, but experts think their fears are bullshit.

Before seed oils were invented, everybody was hot and healthy, reads the first sentence of an August 21st tweet by Carnivore Aurelius, a Twitter account with more than 300,000 followers. The tweet cites statistics, claiming to link consumption of seed oils to an increase in obesity and cardiovascular disease rates, embedding a photo of a crowd of people at a Lanx City beach in 1908. Carnivore Aure Relius is an account devoted to restoring our ancestral meatloving lifestyle. His website also sells a branded bag of beef liver crisps

for $89. To clarify, it's 10 bags. Like other proponents of the Carnivore diet, like Jordan Peterson or Andrew Tate, Carnivore Relius frequently advocates for traditional family values. Tweeting about how feminism is a scam or idyllic photos of young beautiful moms of babies with the caption, ladies, there's nothing wrong with you if you want this over

becoming a partner at a law firm. It has also devoted much space to pushing the evils of seed oils, term used to encompass sunflower oil, canola oil, soybean oil, and so forth. That was just published a few days ago. Yeah. Were you surprised? You know, I think it's so indicative of the times we live in that rolling stones is now writing about cooking oil.

And not rock stars. But what's clear to me is that people are waking up right now. People are fed up with the mainstream way of living. The so-called experts have presided over the biggest destruction in health the world has almost ever seen. I mean, in the last 50 years alone, obesity's gone up from 10% of people to 40% of people, and today as it stands, over 70% of people have acronic disease. So, of course, we're looking for a

way out. And the experts know that, thanks to the internet and the decentralization of media, we no longer have to rely on them. We can completely circumvent them. I saw this coming for years, honestly, and it's a little bit surreal that it's actually happening, but in a way, my brand is representative of the clash of the New World and the Old World. Let's talk about your brand slash what you're referred to as. I am Carnivore, Eurelius. And you were born as a person like everybody else,

but have decided at some point I'm creating this persona. Is it a persona? Yeah, I can walk you through. From the beginning and how do you get the idea? How did it happen? For sure. Well, there's a funny story when I was in college, I wanted to be an entrepreneur,

and I organized actually an entrepreneurship dinner with a friend. I didn't know everyone who was there. We brought in a lot of these hot shots from recruitment firms and individuals on campus, and I'm sitting next to an individual, and he says to me, hey, Mr. Carnivore, what do you want to do in life? And I said,

He can call you that then. He called you by your name. Yeah, my real name. And I said to him, I don't know what I want to do, but I know what I don't want to do. And it's investment banking and finance. And I go, what do you do? And he goes to me, well, I'm actually the head recruiter

for one of the big banks. I'm like, great, I don't care, because I'm not doing it. Well, lo and behold, 12 months later, I found myself recruiting for finance. So six months are so in to this. So you had like a premonition in advance that it wasn't right for you? I did, but I still felt prey to it.

The carrot that it dangled was. Yeah, learning enough. Yeah, and it seems like that's the one that probably everyone else in your school would like to do. Exactly. I didn't know where to go. I didn't know how to be an entrepreneur, or what else I would do, honestly. Mm-hmm.

And I didn't want to look like a foolish friend at that time who didn't get the great job, the great job in finance. So six months in when I realized it was terrible, I almost had this existential crisis. Like I knew this would be terrible and I still did this. I still did this to myself. So I don't know who I am. I don't know what I want in life. If I can fall prey to this, despite knowing I shouldn't. So it wasn't only just that the job was terrible. It was actually that I had no clue how to live my life

and be happy at that point. So it was both a very challenging but extremely empowering time. After that I left and a number of health issues actually started to arise. So my whole life I had been sick, like really from the age of birth, I was late. Like I came out, my head was too big, I couldn't fit through the womb.

I had to get a C-section, which improperly colonizes your microbiota. I was not breastfed for too long. At the age of three, I was hospitalized with a group, like some autoimmune cough condition. For the next call it five years, the healthiest thing in my diet was probably Ben and Jerry's ice cream. I had eczema, I had acne, I had rosacea.

It was not a good look. High school, I had recurczema, I had acne, I had rosacea, it was not a good look. High school, I had recurrent sinus infections, it was just a litany of issues. We were mouth breather at that time, do you remember? For sure. I was about everything I stand against, or recommend against today. I actually had braces in the whole head. And you now looking back realize this was not healthy. Exactly.

But at the time, this is what other people's lives are. Exactly. That's how everybody gets acne. Or everyone feels like crap after a meal. Yeah. Has terrible gut issues. Yeah. But it still, I think, was enough to slowly drip,

like almost like water torture, Chinese water torture, where enough of these drips started to slowly wake me up. But nonetheless... That's something that's to change. Yes. But nonetheless, I still didn't change. I went through all the doctors, all the creams, all the antibiotics. I even got sinus surgery because I was getting so many sinus infections. I went through the modern health mechanism.

Yep. And this all came to a head after I left that finance job. I had loads of gut issues. I had migraine starting. It was super dehydrated all the time. I went to a doctor and he said, you have IBS, drink some gatorade for the dehydration, take some anacids, and you'll be

good. But let's run some tests and make sure it's nothing worse. And I said, sure, I trust doctors. I still somehow did at the time. But it was kind of the first moment where I realized that the whole medical industry, at least in hindsight, is just treating the symptoms and never the root cause. So I got some blood work done. The doctor found loads of inflammation, thought I might have some rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune condition.

And you're a kid. And I'm like, this, no, this was in, I mean, yeah, this was in my early 20s. Yeah, but still rheumatoid arthritis is an old person's illness. It's not a kid's illness. Oh, no. My health was like I was 60, 70, 80 plus years old. It was not stellar to say the least. At that point, I had actually been somewhat familiar with dieting. I was eating what I thought was a healthy diet at that time. I was kind of paleo. I was eating a lot of salads. I was eating loads of chickpeas and lentils and everything you hear about that's kind of a health.

Vegan-y paleo or more paleo paleo? It was vegan-y paleo in a way and then there was a lot of plants. I was centering my diet around, quinoa and all the plant-pacers. They do lose. Exactly. But eating some chicken still. I was eating probably sweet green,

New York City salad chain, like 10 times a week at least. That was kind of the staple of my diet. So I was just dumbfounded. I'm doing everything right again, but it's not working out for me. I feel like death. At that point, I saw an article online

about these crazy individuals who are eating only meat and thriving. And I legitimately, at that moment in time, just said, effort, I'm down. What year was that? This was 2017, probably. And do you know who those guys were and how you heard about it? Like what was it? I think it was an article in Vice.

And then around that time as well. And it was an article making fun of them. Yes. Exactly. Around that time as well. Yeah, this has been kind of this, I think the standard course for a long time is this sort of ad hominin attack on people.

Yeah. Around that time as well, Michaela Peterson was sort of up and coming. And Jordan Peterson for curing her rheumatoid arthritis and autoimmune conditions through a carnivore diet. So I did a little research, but honestly, not too much. I was just willing to try anything.

Yeah, you've already taken drugs and they weren't working. And you were, it sounds like you were desperate. Yes. I wouldn't say I hit rock bottom, but I hit rock. I hit something hard, rocky. It wasn't the bottom though, just yet. Thankfully.

And legitimately, I kid you not after starting to eat carnivore within three weeks. Like all my gut issues cleared up. Clear down. I'm credible. My skin started to feel better. I started to have energy again. Amazing. And it felt like it breathed a new life into me. And like anybody else that experiments with a new diet, I could not shut up about it.

I could not stop telling my friends, my family. What did your kind of or diet at that time look like? At that time it was pretty much just meat. Yeah, it was not sophisticated. No other foods. Yeah, it was pretty much just meat water. It it was not sophisticated. No other food. Yeah, it was pretty much just meat water. It was meat water, definitely no juice. Salt?

Yeah, salt. I was doing salt. Meat water and salt. I went about as bare bones and as simple as possible. But honestly, I didn't even really know why. Just something about it. Appealed to me. Something about the unorthodox, contrarian nature, and all the stories I've

heard about it, especially regarding inflammation and such. But after really just becoming this, I became effectively an accolite forward to my friends and family. Now who else knew about it at this time? Like Paul Saladino already existed? We've talked about this a bit. I think we started tweeting it like the same exact time because I do remember when he came into the scene,

it was a really nice boon to see that. His book is called The Claren't Worked. Claren't Worked Code. It was nice to see some credentials, I guess, on our side. But I remember around that time, one night at dinner. And Seladino was a Western doctor. Yeah, exactly. Who is one of the early carnivore?

You and him are probably the early movers of carnivore, other than Mikaela Peterson. There are others as well, like Dr. Sean Baker. He was actually an MD who was definitely describing the carnivore diet early on. And you know Stanley Ausley? Yes, exactly. From the Gr grateful dead fame.

Yeah, he was, I think, in the 80s, actually, or 90s, even. I think in the 60s he was eating only meat. Remarkable. So there was a lineage to it. But let's just say my family and my ex-girlfriend and my friends at the time were not stoked that I was doing this. And they insisted that I was killing myself.

I went back to the doctor because they told me I had to... My parents were like, we're going to disown you if you don't get blood work. And make sure you're not okay. So I went back to the doctor. I told him, hey, Doc, by the way, all those issues, I've cleared up. And I'm doing something a little bit kooky, but I feel so much better. But I would just like some blood work done

to make sure everything's all right under the hood. And he says to me, please tell me you're not doing keto. You said I'm not. I'm not. Little did he know. Well, I told him what I was eating and what he said to me was, my name, I will no longer work with you or conduct blood tests on you. I cannot endorse this diet.

This will be the last I ever take your blood work if you don't switch and eat a more heart healthy diet, more plant-oriented diet. I actually have this message. He reiterated that after my blood work. I had a doctor fire me once too. So you know. I mean this is what I realized. The doctors were no longer working for us. Doctors supposed to be an aid in our health journey, but really they were just covering their own butt. And that to me was like the last straw that this whole medical profession was not going to save me. Now, it may have been a little bit too grim at the time

because thankfully today there are a lot of great doctors out there, but. But the fact that the doctor wasn't interested in the fact that all of your problems were better. He was interested in you doing something that went against his beliefs. Exactly. And that he could potentially be sued for.

I didn't know that. I didn't know the sue part is a part of it. Well, yeah, I think they all have pretty high, I guess, liability. And if, say I went out and had a heart attack, he would probably be sued by my parents or someone along those lines, I imagine. So it's kind of this litigious society we live in geared toward this orthodox mainstream

thinking, which prevents really stifles a heretical unorthodox thinker like myself. So at that point, but you weren't a heretical unorthodox thinker. You were someone who did everything the right way and it didn't work. And we're experimenting to find something that worked. Exactly. Because you were failed by the system. Exactly. Exactly.

It was your heretical now. Heretical now. But only in reaction to trying everything. Yeah, that you did work. I was as the kids would say today, a normie. I was a normie. I was a normie, conformist, placid, kind of sheep. I did everything to the best of my own,

my best of my abilities, and it was this grand revelation that in our society today, if you find yourself lost, sick, and unhappy, there's nowhere to turn. And the people you do turn to will tell you you have a problem and need medication. There are no adults left in the room with any real guidance. And the second you start to actually improve, everyone tells you you're insane, and you're going the wrong way. Meanwhile, my life was improving in every single way of shape and form.

And I posted a few kind of cheeky memes about this, but if you eat fries and chips and pringles, no one will say a thing. But I eat steak and eggs and people say, I'm killing myself. How does that make any sense? These are foods we've eaten for all of a turn. Try it in true.

Try it in true. The lindy effect as Nassim Teleb would say. They've lasted, they've stood the test of time. So I started the Twitter actually as a last resort. My family, my friends, my people around me at the time were tired of hearing me talk about this. So I had to take it somewhere else and I had to tweet about it. It was my only really...

And how did you become a kind of a realias on Twitter? Kind of a realias was a spur of the moment thing. I liked Marcus Aurelius who was this ancient Roman emperor, around 100 AD. I started reading Marcus Aurelius after I quit that first job, actually. And I was looking for any guidance on how to live my life and how to be happy. And it heard Marcus Aurelius' book, Meditations, mentioned frequently.

Here was this guy who is the emperor at the peak of Rome, like the most power out of anyone in the history of the world, probably. And instead of using all that power for evil, I mean, he could have had anyone killed, he could have had any woman, anything he wanted. Instead, what he did was diary to himself every day about how to live a good life and how to restrain his desires instead of indulge them. So I was incredibly inspired by this man because my whole life I've been told to chase my desires,

give into pleasures, give into the hedonism and the materialism of modern society. But he actually said to do the exact opposite. And frankly, I found that the more I did it, the more I disciplined and controlled my desires, the happier I became. But I was still very early in the journey at this point towards what I felt was a kind of good life. But what Marcus Aurelius inspired me to do was almost diary to myself of what sort of man I wanted to be. Because that's all his meditations was.

So the Aurelius bit of Carnivore Aurelius was just that. Carnivore Aure, it's not necessarily that it was a new persona that I killed my old persona, it was an aspiration for me, a man to look up to that I couldn't find in modern society around me. So Carnival Relius was a diary to myself of who I wanted to become, and it was a self-exploration, it was a journey into stepping into my highest self every single day and reminding myself what I need to thrive. That's amazing. I remember asking Neval Rava Khan about, he wrote something that was so beautiful and helpful.

And I read it and I called him and I said, I just want to thank you for writing this. And he's like, oh, I really just wrote that so that I would remember it for myself. I didn't really write it with anyone else in mind. Those were just kind of my notes to myself, same idea. Well, that's one of the most pure, what I learned from your book as well.

The audience kind of does come last. I was speaking out of necessity. I was trying to give myself the advice I wish I had. So Carnivore Relius to me was an aspirational figure. So it was trading out the aspirational figure of a Wall Street banker for a new aspirational figure of someone devoted to becoming his highest and health as self. And the carnivore bit was me just figuring out and confirming that I wasn't killing myself, eating red meat. Tell me about the anonymous part. I understand the idea of the aspirational

why you chose the name. Why did you decide to become an anonymous figure? For sure. And why is it something that someone else might want to do? Yeah, definitely. So I think I need to set the backdrop a little bit more. I think in the pre-internet era, identity, credentials, and truth were kind of synonymous. Like if you had all the eyeballs on you on TV, if you were Tom Brocar, if you had a PhD, if you had an MD, you were probably closer

to the truth than the random Joe Schmo on the street. Because these institutions actually had a privileged access to information. They effectively had a monopoly on information. So to get access to research journals, for instance, colleges and universities have to pay upwards of $10 million a year, I believe it is, or $10 million over a quarter. More than an average person can pay to see these. So if you came along and you were someone like me 20 years ago spouting out these ideas, you probably belonged maybe on the Venice Vortilog or you probably a little bit crazy and shouldn't be trusted because there was no recourse to actual science. There was no way for an average person to read these studies that I'm citing.

But thanks to the internet, it's completely shattered all of these permission slips to credential. So now all information is available. Exactly. And now someone like me can say, okay, my doctor says saturated fat raises cholesterol and hard to say is, let me fact check that. Let me fact check you actually.

And read the study you're referring to. Read the study that built your textbook and actually look at it for myself. So thanks to like PubMed and Sy SyHub and a lot of these sources, we've eradicated the monopoly on information. And it's led to both extraordinarily wacky and wrong ideas, but also I think a renaissance of real truth. So when it comes to anonymity, I saw early on that I was going to face this interesting problem of how to critique the experts when

I was not an expert. And I read something from Thomas Selle, who I'm a big fan of. He suggested that the only way to criticize the only way to truly speak truth to power is to either speak posthumously when you're dead or anonymously. So at the time, it explained why. The idea is that speaking from your persona subjects the merit of the idea to secondary importance.

So I understand. So it becomes about you instead of about the information. Exactly. So this article in Rolling Stone about me, it's about me being right wing. Yeah. It's not about which head is made up. Exactly, I'm a statue. Yes. Fun were really a statue. Yeah, exactly. It's made up.

They can only critique me the person. They're not actually willing to pick apart these studies, I say this. And honestly, what I found was nothing short of revelatory. I mean, our whole dietary edifice is upside down, just based on flawed studies from the 1950s and 1960s. And that goes back to this kind of Rolling Stones article that in the early 1900s people were effortlessly healthy. people were effortlessly healthy. Like, they ate, you can look at these studies from the USDA even and these ethnographic studies.

They ate four times as much butter. They ate more cranes. They ate more sugar. They ate vegetables. They ate more meat. They ate more, uh, lard and animal fat. They ate just about everything. Less processed food.

And less way less processed food. They ate just about everything. Less processed food. Less way less processed food. They ate just about more of everything demonized today, other than processed food, and they were totally fine. And then you could look at sort of West and A prices work, or some of the tribes that are still healthy today, like the Hadsah, or the mosae, or the simani tribe, and there's still tribes out there that are thriving with no heart disease. Yet they're in a front to almost all of our dietary guidelines. I mean, the hodza and mosae subsist off largely meat and milk and blood actually in the case

of mosae, and the hodza eat pretty much meat and honey, honey which is a sugar, obviously demonized today as well. The Siamani tribe, they eat 90% of their calories as carbohydrates. And when they were surveyed recently in the 90s or 2000s, the researchers found the lowest cases of heart disease ever recorded in history. So there are these tribes out there and these populations, even in our own country, who were thriving. Yet we still demonize the foods that they were using to live their healthiest and most vital lifestyle. L-M-N-T. Element electrolytes. Have you ever felt dehydrated after an intense workout or a long day in the sun?

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Minerals are the stuff of life. So visit drinklmnt.com slash tetra and stay salty with element electrolyte. LMNT. Do you think there's a financial basis for that demonization? Is it corruption or is it something else? You know, it's a tough question. I think the Aka, or the Hanlon's razor approach is kind of don't attribute something to malice that could be attributed to stupidity.

I think that's part of it, but I definitely think there's a monetary play that emerged over the years. I mean, I could walk you through the story of how red meat kind of became demonized. Because it is, I think, a helpful illumination into what happened. Because in the early 1900s, heart disease was not really a phenomenon in the United States. But between 1900 and 1950, it absolutely ramped up.

And this all came to a tipping point when Dwight Eisenhower, the president at the time, had a heart attack. In the 1950s, I believe, or the 60s, and this sent the whole country into a panic. We were looking for any way out, because everyone just assumed they were going to be dropping debt, which it did feel like at the time, according to some of these reports. So they sent a guy named Ansel Keese, who may have heard of,

to survey populations around the world with various heart disease rates and determine what factors might be contributing. He did what was now known as the infamous Seven Countries study. He found seven countries in Europe, effectively drew a straight line from correlating on the x-axis saturated fat and take and on the y-axis to their cholesterol levels. So what he found was that saturated fat and take

in those seven countries was correlated with cholesterol levels. So what he found was that saturated fat intake in those seven countries was correlated with cholesterol levels. In separate studies at the time, they found cholesterol in the plaque of all the heart disease patients. So kind of through this game of connect the dots, we jumped on this conclusion and this hypothesis because we were desperate. And we assumed that saturated fat increased cholesterol, which led to heart disease. Truly, it was that simple. There were other studies in the early 1900s on rabbits where they injected. In reality, we don't know now that eating

high cholesterol foods raised your cholesterol. Yeah. Number one, and number two, we don't know that high cholesterol in your body causes heart disease. Both are false. It's not that one of the two are false. Yeah. What I pointed out in the seed oils thread that was just critiqued by Rolling Stones was that since that point in the 1950s, we've actually done a number of randomized controlled trials. So, key's data was all correlational. We just assumed that people who

tend to eat more saturated fat tended to have higher cholesterol and this led to heart disease. We didn't separate, separate, randomize and control for an intervention to actually test. So, correlational studies are great to build a hypothesis. And it was great that you did proof. But they're not proof. So they're not proof. So what we did was try to prove it, and what did all the randomized studies show, actually the exact opposite in many cases. There's a study called the LA Veteran Study, which I think is actually very interesting.

It was done on 200 veterans in the 60s, where they took one group of veterans, gave them their normal diet in cafeteria, and another group of veterans, gave them their normal diet in cafeteria, and another group of veterans, they substituted all of the saturated fat for seed oils. What happened was that over eight years, actually, the group eating less saturated fat had a slightly lower cholesterol, actually, and a slightly lower rate of heart disease. But what they did have was a double the rate of cancer over those eight years. And what the researchers concluded was that we can't study the impact of saturated fats

and unsaturated fats on your diet if the study is not conducted for as long as eight years because these oils take a long time to build up in your fat tissue. Now the problem with all the modern evidence that people tend to rely on is they're very short-term control trials, where we see that maybe in two weeks time on an animal or on a human that unsaturated fat tends to lower cholesterol levels, but what's happening over the course of eight years? So now back to the LA Veteran study, yes, it may have reduced heart disease marginally in that study, but the group eating saturated fat also had double the rate of heavy smokers

in their group. So something about saturated fat protected against cancer in the heavy smoker group, actually. But possibly caused more heart disease. And there are a few other studies just like that. There was one called the Minnesota coronary experiment, which showed for every 30 nanogram a desolate or reduction in cholesterol. There was actually an increased rate in heart disease. And a few of these other controlled trials, which call into question this whole diet heart hypothesis, this whole edifice. But no one's really talking about these. Maybe because you

can call it corruption, you can call it self-interest. It's unclear to me, but what I do know is that there is a rash decision to reorient our diets away from red meat and towards some of these processed fats that, in my opinion, has been that. Well, processed fats and grains, I believe. And grains as well. Yeah, in the... Like, if I remember growing up, the food pyramid.

Yeah. They told us to eat six to eleven servings of grains a day. On the bottom of the food pyramid. Grains and legumes, I believe. Exactly. And bro to Barnes, someone I like, who was a thyroid researcher in the 70s, had a great quote saying, substituting these polyunsaturated fats in our diet, or seed oils as some people refer to them today, is like playing Russian roulette with our health, except no one's given the choice

whether or not they're playing the game. So there's a very mixed bag of evidence on the seed oils is what I am to say. And there's absolutely terrifying evidence in animals about what these oils do to your brain, to obesity, to cancer rates, yet we've turned them into now today 20 to 30% of the average American diet. And we've got... What are seed oils in for your average person who doesn't pay attention to their diet, where are the seed oils? Sure.

Seed oils largely come from oils like canola oil, sunflower oil, safflower oil, soybean oil. I remember in the vegetarian community, canola oil was considered a healthy oil. Exactly. And it still has heart association, heart healthy logo on it today. So these oils bar none have been by far the biggest change

in our diet in the last 100 years. I mean, they didn't even exist in the 1800s. And now, as I mentioned, they're almost 30% of the average Americans diet. They're in all processed foods. They're in almost every restaurant. If you eat out, they're almost 30% of the average Americans diet. They're in all processed foods. They're in almost every restaurant. If you eat out, they're cooking with it. If you get takeout, if you get uber eats,

they're dousing it in these oils. It's their cheap and they're so-called heart healthy. And you have an incredibly hard time avoiding them today. So one of the biggest problems with them is that they accumulate in your fat tissues for up to eight years. And we are in totally unknown unparalleled territory when it comes to pseudos.

We don't know what happens to humans when we have this brand new fat in our tissues. The fatty acid content of our fat tissues, the amount of linoleic acid, which is from seed oils in them, has gone up five times in just the last 40, 50 years. So the average human today, their fat tissue is now like 30% seed oils, which is a totally novel phenomenon in history. Now it's a very controversial topic, and a lot of people would disagree on it still.

So, my take on it is, stop playing Russian roulette with your health. Use olive oil if you really don't want to use butter, right? Use something that is stood the test of time, like olive oil. And if someone doesn't, why would someone not want to use butter, talk about butter? Sure, butter, because your doctor probably still thinks the saturated fat from butter is killing you. Because there's still sort of this idea and this paradigm that saturated fat increases your cholesterol

and that will lead to heart disease. Now, I also really do not recommend, especially for the carnivores out there, walking around with a cholesterol that's 250, 300, 400. I think high cholesterol actually is potentially damaging, but not for the reasons why we've been told. So one of the things we knew as early as the 1950s was that high cholesterol was a biomarker for low thyroid function, actually. Because thyroid is necessary to convert cholesterol

into all the youth hormones, like testosterone, progesterone, all the stuff that makes it fun to be alive, and vitamin D, actually, as well. So high cholesterol is a biomarker and an indicator that something is going wrong metabolically, and you should figure out what that is. Now the difference in my stance is that I don't think it's as simple as attributing all the blame to saturated fat and butter and steak, because steak is much more complex food

than just saturated fat. And removing it from our diets, I think has been a quite a big problem for our health. You're sharing your experience of what worked for you. Whenever I read any sort of diet or health recommendation, I always wonder, how does the writer know this is right for me? Yes. Because I've tried things that were good for other people and they didn't work for you. Yes. Because I've tried things that were good for other people and

made it work for you. Exactly. Yeah, I'm a fan of radical experimenting because I do think people are different and you need to kind of embody an idea, run the code if you will, to know if it's true. So one of the mantras I've stated a number of times is don't trust me. Please don't trust me. Verify this all for yourself. I don't want to be trusted. These are things that just worked for me. I think in a perfect world, the right sort of health practices should work for most people.

The challenge today is that I like to think of health like where we should be on these tracks like a train that is healthier entire life like living in a cord of nature. Like I said, if you go back in time to these hunter-gatherer tribes, health and happiness, that's our birthright. Actually sickness was the anomaly, whereas today it's the opposite. So it shouldn't need to be too complex to be healthy. It feels like as a species we're becoming more and more disconnected from nature. Exactly. And what happens when that train is on the tracks, and it veers off tracks, it will break and light on fire. You can't take a train on fire and just put it back on the tracks actually.

You can't take a train on fire and just put it back on the tracks actually. It will still be on fire. So I'm a huge advocate of returning to nature, but I don't think that returning to nature can necessarily not enough for a lot of people because there are fires today that we need to put out first before you return back to nature. But in essence, I think you can define sickness and even depression and unhappiness as being misaligned out of harmony with your true nature, with not knowing who we are. You have to be kind of so ignorant of who we are today to live like we do, to live in these boxes and cities and living these incredibly unfulfilling lives where we work for a boss we hate,

we're under blue light all day, we eat seed oil slop for dinner. This is just so out of alignment with our entire evolutionary history as beings. It would be almost like taking a lion, putting it in a zoo, only feeding its salads, shielding it from the sun, and then telling the lion it has a problem when it gets sick. It's the environment. It's everything around us. It's not us. Like if you have a health issue, it's not you. It's a sign that something is out of whack in your environment, in your lifestyle, in your diet. So based on your experience, what are the things lifestyle-wise that have made the biggest

difference? Yeah. So I've been through a big journey with health. At first, I would have said, only diet matters. Eat meat, you're gonna be okay. But since then, my approach has actually become a lot more holistic because we are holistic beings and everything we do is like food. Everything we're ingesting is affecting us.

And when I say ingesting, I mean the light through our eyes, the emotions in our body, the breath. So I have water from our shower. The water we drink, but the water, yes, that we're going to scare some people. We're going to scare some truth. It's true. And I now think of there being kind of eight or so pillars of health. they're being kind of eight or so pillars of health. I can, I'll list off the pillars quickly and then I could even give some super practical tips for each of them to help people. What do you think pillars? Eight pillars. See if we can remember these all. Diet, toxins and detoxification. That's part of. No, die is the first. The second I would actually single out toxins and detoxification. Okay. Because we live in this particular world and with we're bathing in literally, metaphorically, a ridiculous amount of toxins. Okay. Next is sleep. Fourth is movement. Sleep for his movement. Fifth is movement. Fifth is breath.

Fifth is breath. Light. Six is light. Seventh is stress. Stress. Eighth is play. Play. Having a silly goose time.

And is it one through eight in that order or not necessarily? Play. Having a silly goose time. And is it one through eight in that order or not necessarily? Not necessarily. Okay. So it's just a list of eight. Yeah. Let's start with the thing I think everyone should agree on. Okay.

Because in some ways the diet wars are a bit of a distraction. Okay. I think everyone that's caring about their diet is on the same team and you can make some big changes without arguing about kind of vegan versus carnivore, right off the bat, at least. Toxins. Welcome to the house of macadamias. Macadamias are a delicious superfood. Sustainably sourced directly from farmers.

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Thy roasted with Namibian sea salt, cracked black pepper, and chocolate dips. Snack bars come in chocolate. Coconut white chocolate and blueberry white chocolate. Visit houseofmacadamia's dot com slash tetra Well, let's talk a little bit more about the carnivore diet. Yes, before we go into the list Okay, I think it's really interesting One of the things that the carnivore diet does is the elimination diet, which is a really interesting one. If you reduce what you put in your

body to one food, whatever that one food is, anything that you're allergic to, as long as it's not that one food, you've stopped putting in your body. Exactly. So let's say you're allergic to sprouts, and you don't know that you're allergic to sprouts. You'll solve your sprout issue by becoming carnivore. 100%. And what's unique about carnivore? Well, first off to your point, we see benefits, dramatic benefits from any diet that's

actually just one food. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's a potato diet, a rice diet, and people benefit tremendously. Yes, by shrinking your diet to one food, it eliminates 99.9% of the things that you might be eating that are causing distress that you don't know are causing distress. Exactly. And the one thing though that's unique about carnivore in terms of elimination diets is that it's nutritionally replete, meaning it has every single nutrient your body requires, whereas just eating rice and just eating potatoes actually would not.

So nutrients, when I tend to recommend red meat to people, their first reaction is like, oh yeah, I just need it for the protein, right? I think people's assumption is that red meat is just bro protein. But what they don't know is it's actually a multivitamin. It's full of B vitamins, it's full of torine, which there was just a recent paper showing that torine increases longevity in every single animal studied. And torine is nowhere to be found in plant foods. It's high in creatine. Creatine in a recent study showing it's associated with lower rates of cancer.

Incredible for your brain. Vegetarians who supplement with creatine increase their cognitive performance. So there's something that's clearly missing on those diets. There's carnitine, there's coolein, there's selenium. It can go on, but red meat is just truly nature's, one of nature's multivitamins, along with a few of these other organs and stuff.

And clearly tried and true for humans for as long as we've been popular. Yeah, if you go back in time, I mean, one of the hypotheses that, you know, Paul Saladino's recommended as well is that humans have a species-specific diet, just like a dog does, just like a lion does, and the way in which we understand that

is probably by going back in time to see what we evolved to eat. So if you go back, call it two million years even, there's a hypothesis called the expensive tissue hypothesis was that, unlike apes, humans have a very small colon. So apes have a massive colon because they eat these leaves all day, and they ferment them into fat. Humans, instead, actually, have a very small colon

and a very large small intestine. It's backwards, I did not name them. And as a result, we were able to increase our brain size unlike apes who are still throwing poo at each other in the trees. So versus on Twitter. Exactly, which maybe is no better, honestly. So the idea was that the nutrients and the easily digestible nutrients in red meat and

fat and bone marrow were what unlocked that ability, what unlocked that ability for our brain to grow because we didn't need to spend all this time fermenting it. If you look through all of history, through every tribe ever, ever recorded, and I can mention the work of Weston A. Price quickly because he did this in the 1940s. He wanted to go out and look to see if there were any, he was a dentist who wanted to search the world and see if there were any people

who didn't have terrible cavities like we're developing at that time. And he thought he would find the holy grail of vegan and vegetarian diets because that was starting to even become the rage back then. Instead, what he found was that every single tribe that was healthy prized and prioritized these animal-based superfoods, whether it was meat, whether it was milk, whether it was shellfish, whether it was organ meat. They consumed over 10 times the amount of the fat soluble vitamins, A, D, E, and K, then we do today.

All from animal sources. Yeah, they ate vegetables. They ate carbohydrates, but each tribe consumed a different amount of vegetables and carbohydrates. But the one thing that they had in common was they all ate animal foods. There was no healthy vegan or vegetarian population, and there never has been in the history of the world. It's a totally new phenomenon. Whether or not there are any healthy ones that still look like this. Yes, it is. And studies on veganism, a lot of people will point to the bodybuilders and say,

look at these guys, they're so strong and fit. Well, this is the problem with how we think about health today, in my opinion. Health is not six pack abs or muscles. It's, how's your brain working, how's your mood, how's your gut, how's your skin, how's your energy levels? Are you fun to be around? It's a holistic conception, and studies consistently show that veganism and vegetarianism associated with higher rates of strokes, higher rates of depression, higher rates of infertility, sperm count declines, hormonal issues,

so on and so forth. So the evidence is irrefutable, in my opinion, that we need animal foods in our diet if you want to live optimally. And I think there's some people today who are vegan and maybe doing slightly better, but if you look at their supplement cupboards, they're supplementing over 100 pills a day to get there.

So maybe it is possible if you do that, but then you need to deal with all of the other additives and the pills and so on and so forth. So if you're looking for what humans have thrived on forever to construct this species specific diet, clear meat plays a role. So I ended up doing this carnivore diet, actually, for a strict carnivore diet for about two years. But I can talk a little bit about how I've

changed my mind since then, actually. Yeah. How has it evolved for you? Sure. And what caused it? Tell me everything. Sure. So about two years into the carnivore diet, I started to hit a little bit of a wall. My energy started to decline again. My gut started to deteriorate a little bit, started to wake up in the middle of the night, a lot of perplexing issues.

Around that time, I saw a study showing that honey, eating honey in patients with high blood sugar, lowered their blood sugar. This was mind blowing. Honey is a straight sugar. How could a carburetor lower your blood sugar? I mean, at this time, I legitimately thought orange juice was cracked. Poison.

Yeah, heroin cracked. I have one friend who said, if I drink orange juice, I'll go blind. Exactly. So that was the first inkling. The honey. Yeah, the seed of doubt. After posting that article, someone reached out to man said, you should check out this guy, Ray Pete. Said, sure, why not? I'm kind of interested in some of the French thinkers. Here is this guy who I'm not interested in some of the French thinkers. Here is this guy who one did not market himself at all. You can barely even find his website.

It looks like the first website on the internet. But reading through, he agreed with my stance on just about everything, unsaturated oils, toxic, red meat organs, amazing, vegetables, kind of food for goats and rabbits, potentially full of gochur gins and other toxic chemicals, which can discuss as well. But the one thing he didn't agree on was that carbohydrates were essential, actually, to thrive.

Now, at the time, I believed that carbohydrates were indeed essential for our body, but not essential on our diet, because as many people know that are versed in the health world, your body can make carbohydrates out of its protein and out of its fat. But Ray's stance was that the process of doing so was actually a backup system. It was like turning on the generator and going in called it low power mode. It was an evolutionary sign that we were in a famine state actually, and that as a consequence we down-regulated our thyroid and our metabolic rate so that we could conserve fuel for longer. But that's also talking about keto. It sounds like that would also be critique of keto. Carnivore is like a more extreme keto in a way. So I was also keto for.

But yes and no, Carnivore is more protein than fat. Whereas keto, it's really about the fat. Yeah, exactly. It's limiting the protein. It's limiting the protein. You're explicitly trying to drive ketones through fat, although... So what Ray is saying is that that process of driving the ketones is hard on the body. It's extremely stressful on the body. Do we know that to be true? So you can look at studies on epileptic patients. So the ketogenic diet was originally created for epileptic patients because it was the one thing that helped them and it still does help them. But the one thing that's almost, it's tried and true, irrefutable in the medical literature about

these studies is that on those diets, their thyroid falls, their T4 levels decline, their T3 declines, and their TSH increases. And we know that those are bad things. We know that those are bad things. And this was my first time really hearing about thyroid. I thought this was just some random organ people mentioned offhand, honestly. And one of the unique things he mentioned was that you don't need to go to a doctor to test this, actually.

You can just take your body temperature every morning and the body temperature is the best surrogate of your thyroid function. Because thyroid is key to producing energy and energy is required to heat up your body. So I went, got the thermometer, and my body temp was waking body temp was anywhere from 96.5 to low 97.

According to Broda Barnes, who actually was a thyroid researcher, our body temp, and as you all may know, should be around 98.6. That's human body temperature, but mine was remarkably lower. Mine is like yours was, has always been lower. And I think we have this epidemic of kind of subclinical hypothyroidism today,

where people are walking around with extremely low thyroid function. Did you do the test under your arm? You're supposed to do it. Yeah, I did mouth technically, brota barns recommended a mercury throm thermometer, an old school one under your armpit. That's how I did it.

When I did the testing years and years ago. Exactly. So I started to research more about thyroid and I realized that it's this linchpin of our health. It is kind of the thermostat for our overall metabolic rate. It controls the metabolism of every single cell in the body. All of our energy generation, our cognitive function, our mood, hypothyroidism is associated with pretty much every disease, diabetes, high cholesterol, obesity, weight gain, depression,

almost all the diseases of modern society. So here I was kind of thinking I was healthy, but in many ways I was declining and so on. But maybe what it sounds like is for two years, you were putting out the fires on the train. Exactly. And once the fires were out, you realized that you were missing something.

Exactly. So the carnivore diet is world better than what I was eating. Yes. And it works, and same with keto. Keto and carnivore think work for so many reasons other than them being low carb. So big reason why people demonize carbs today

is because they cut them out and they feel better. The challenge with that is carbohydrates are not a food. Carbohydrates are a molecule, right? Like chain of molecules. Like pasta is not a carb. Pasta is a food that has carbohydrates in it. And loads of carbohydrates tend to irritate your gut, tend to cause inflammation,

tend to down-regulate your metabolism. So when you cut out carbs, you're probably cutting out bread. You're probably cutting out processed food. You're probably cutting out pasta and all these grains. Desserts, all kinds of things. Exactly. I'm not going to eat cake anymore. Right. And we kind of straw man. And no rice and no grains. Yes. It's part of that. Yes, exactly. Whereas what Ray recommended was only eating the most

easily digestible carbs, which were fruit according to him. And honey. And honey, exactly. And now this totally aligned with my philosophy on health, because vegetables, one of the reasons why carnivores avoid vegetables, is because vegetables can't run away from you like an animal. So they produce pesticides to fend off predators,

like plants out there in the garden, they don't want to be eaten. Fruit, on the other hand, actually, specifically was created by the tree to spread the seed of the tree for animals to eat. So fruit is actually one of the only foods in the world made for animals to eat. Even animal food, even steak is not made for us to eat. Milk is another as well, although people have challenges tolerating dairy. But also, most people who have problems tolerating dairy have problems with pasteurized dairy,

which is the way it's sold now. Exactly. Yeah, it's with the quality of the dairy, or one thing hypothyroidism does actually, is down regulates the production of lactase, the enzyme that produces or that digest lactose. So what I've learned over the last kind of five to 10 years in health is that there's usually a root cause of your health issues.

And what this bioenergetic view, which is kind of this rapete philosophy where he just connected all of these different dots, what his philosophy, what the bioenergetic view, which is kind of this Ray-Pete philosophy, where he just connected all of these different dots, what his philosophy, what the bioenergetic view, people like Doug Wallace are talking about today, there is really only one disease, and it's low energy production. It's dysfunctional mitochondria. So now for the first time, I had what I believe was this bottoms up view of diets. Instead of saying, I'm gonna just demonize one food group,

whether it's vegetables for carnivores, and maybe whether it's carbs for keto people, whether it's meat for vegans, I'm going to construct a diet from the bottoms up to increase my mitochondria's ATP production and energy generation, and figure out exactly what it is my body needs to thrive.

And what are those things? One of those things that is the grand question. I think the one area every dietary camp can agree on and should agree on is that we have nutrient requirements. Like nutrients aren't just those things on the back of a label. They're required for every enzyme in your body to function. So when we generate energy, the food we eat has to go through a 30 step process or so

to turn into ATP, the currency of the cell. Every one of those steps requires vitamins and minerals. So the first thing I think people should do is this is a little bit complicated but well worth doing is put your diet in something like cronometer where you can actually track the nutrients in your diet. So write down everything you eat in an app that will tell you the nutrient density of what you're eating. Exactly. The nutrient content. The breakdown. Based on the RDAs. So yeah, the RDAs, they're flaws,

but it's a decent heuristic and guideline for how many nutrients we need. And it will shock you how many nutrients you're missing if you're not careful about this. The easier kind of heuristic and hack and why the carnivore diet works so well is just eat a whole animal. Because the animal does, full animal does actually have pretty much every single nutrient we need to throw out.

So a key to the clonivore diet is not just eating meat. It's eating nose to tail meat. Nose to tail meat, exactly. Not just steak. So steaks, liver, heart. Exactly. Brains, olive. Stakes, liver, heart, brains, all of it. That means these, if you look at the animal,

kingdom, killer whales, wolves, they all go for the organs first, actually. They prize them more than the muscle meat. So the organs are what holds the most nutrient density in the body. Yes, your liver in particular, I mean, if anyone's still skeptical of the nutrient content of meat, liver next to kale, like makes kale look like green toilet paper.

I mean, liver is loaded in more of every single nutrient in plant foods and countless others that you can't even find in plant foods. It's like vitamin A retinal. You can't have an optimal hormonal profile without vitamin A retinal. It's critical to hormone production, to lowering all the excess estrogens in the environment for your liver detox. I mean, one of the most important nutrients in the world. It's amazing to me, and I'm just in all of this every single day, like how much our body adapted to require everything nature provides. For instance, the methionine, methionine is an amino acid in stake.

Studies show on animals actually that too much methionine shortens their lifespan. But if you give them glycine, it offsets all the effects. Well, glycine is what's in collagen, and collagen is 50% of an animal in the wild. So we're meant to be eating this glycine in balance with all of the methionine in our diet, along with the B vitamins to help recycle all of them through this process of methylation. But to our earlier point, the more we live and eat

and accord with how we did for all of eternity, the better things tend to just work out in terms of our diet and our life and our health. And it makes sense because this animal machine that we are has refined itself over millions of years based on that information that it was getting. That was, that was coming in for millions of years and it worked. And then if you decide I'm gonna try to fuel

my Volkswagen with vinegar, we don't know how that's gonna work. Yeah, you're out of luck. And the beautiful view of, so modern medicine back to that car analogy, modern medicine looks at us like cars like this. And when you have an issue, you need to open the hood, look inside, replace a part. So when I had a gut issue, they insisted on shoving a camera somewhere in me to see what's going

on under the hood. And if I had an issue, they needed to do something in there to replace it. And if I had an issue, they needed to do something in there to replace it. Whereas this bioenergetic view looks at us like a car in a way, if you want to use that analogy. But imagine if your car got sunlight, if it could turn from a Toyota camera into a Mercedes, or if you put vinegar in it in the wrong food and the wheel fell off. If we are entirely interconnected, constantly adapting, regenerating, rebuilding to every single thing in our environment. And when we are giving our bodies signals that something is out of whack, out of harmony,

we degenerate. Because our body is panicking, it's going into panic mode effectively, a hibernation. It's shying away from the environment instead of embracing life and vitality. So much of today's life happens on the web. Squarespace is your home base for building your dream presence in an online world. Designing a website is easy using one one of square spaces best in class templates. With a built-in style kit, you can change fonts, imagery, margins, and menus. So your design will be perfectly tailored to your needs.

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The Squarespace app helps you run your business from anywhere. Track inventory and connect with customers while you're on the go. Whether you're just starting out or already managing a successful brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create and customize a beautiful website. Visit squarespace.com slash tetra and get started today. I got a call from a friend of mine who has always been healthy physically but always never paid attention to any of the diet or health issues that anyone else focuses on. He just full on American diet, normal average.

And he called me and he's like, I'm concerned, I went to the doctor and I did a blood test and it's like everything's going wrong. And I'm really scared. And I gave him a list of things to try, just for, I said, just give him nothing have nothing to lose you know before you start taking drugs that you would have to take for the rest of your life. Just make these changes and a list of diet changes, a list of going out in the sun every morning, go for a walk in the sun every morning, don't eat these things,

eat these things, see what happens and he called called me back, and he, three weeks, everything changed. He said, everything changed. You went back to the doctor, got a blood test, everything's normal. In three weeks. And if he, if he told the doctor what he did, the doctor would have fired. Yeah, exactly. Despite everything improving. Yeah.

I mean, your body, you can become a new person in almost 30 days, like, with the right diet. It's remarkable how fast your body can you can become a new person in almost 30 days, like with the right diet. It's remarkable how fast your body can change, can adapt, can regenerate if you fuel yourself. Another friend who came to visit recently who was a vegan for 25 years and a month ago started eating meat and the first day he ate meat, everything changed, like the first day. And meat's bad for you, right? I mean, it's amazing. It's remarkable.

Yeah, I guess most people assume when you're dieting, quote-unquote, it's just for abs or for your beach body. Most people don't realize how transformative health can be. How transformative changing your diet and health can be, how transformative changing your diet and lifestyle can be for everything. I mean, they're different, I would say, chapters in my life, but before and after caring about my health, it was like a different book. Like, I am truly a different human being.

It's not just that my skin is a little better, or I have more muscle. It's that I care about different things, I'm more creative, I'm more energetic. I'm no longer as placid and conformist. And that's because, according to this bioenergetic view, in a way, you need energy to cope with the world. Without energy, you end up just deferring to what's out there because your body is effectively

in a panic mode. So energy is the tool. It is the door to higher states of being. And to me, that's what health is now. Health is a tool to step into my eyes self. It's not my eyes self. It's a means to becoming, becoming it. That's amazing.

So you're saying if you want to become a sheep, eat what a sheep would eat. Exactly, vegetables. It's true. And if you want to be an apex predator on earth, eat what the apex predator is eat. Talk more about the argument against vegetables. Sure. So the carnivore argument against vegetables is one that from a disease standpoint, when I was on the carnivore diet,

I would have said, disease is largely due to inflammatory burden. That was kind of my conception of disease. And there's a great paper from Bruce Ames in the 90s, I believe it was. He suggests that 99.9% of the pesticides in our diet are actually not from the glyphosate and the pesticides they spray on the food. It's from the plant itself. They're endogenously produced. And they're doing that to protect themselves from being eaten. From being eaten. It's like a protective layer of poison. Exactly. And we are the only

creatures dumb enough to still eat them. Now, throughout history, we did include some vegetables in our diet. But if you look at these traditional ways of eating them, they usually went through extensive preparation processes to do so, whether it was soaking them, sprouting them, fermenting them, or cooking them for extended periods of time. Eating raw vegetables is kind of one of the most inane ideas, I think, possible, because these foods aren't designed to be eaten by humans in their raw form.

We don't have the machinery to cope with loads and loads of these foods. Now I think some vegetables, sure, they're fine, but a diet that's copious in these raw vegetables is just asking for Got irritation and gun issues now. I saw you eat a rock carrot today. You weren't supposed to tell Tell me about rock Sure, so going back to my dietary stance I now think that

We do indeed need some of call it each category of food. The problem is that most of each category of food today is crap and terrible. So that's why it's super easy to straw man these categories and say they're all bad for you. Most carbohydrate rich foods are probably, are a problem. Most red meat people are eating, are a problem. Most red meat people are eating, they're eating burgers, right? If you're eating burgers in fries, that's a problem. It's not the red meat though. Most fats are polyunsaturated garbage fats are

a problem, but that's not to say the whole category itself is a problem. Most vegetables, I think, are somewhat problematic for humans, but others, I think, can be used tactically. So going back to the raw carrot. My kind of central theory, one of the central theories of disease now is like Hippocrates said. Disease starts in the gut. So our gut is colonized by microbiota, you know, trillions and trillions of bacteria.

And when they're fed, extensive amounts of food, because we don't digest it appropriately, they spread, they migrate, and they ultimately die off. And when that happens, their cell wall, which referred to as endotoxin, irritates the lining of our gut and sends a signal to our body that were under some sort of inflammatory burden. Now, small amounts of these are not a major issue. But today, with the state of our gut health, and leaky gut, as people have probably heard of, it's causing a massive inflammatory burden, almost every single time. Explain leaky gut. Sure. So your gut lining in the small intestine is about one hairs width thin. It's this incredibly small barrier

that is the only thing that stands between the inside world and the outside world. And any time we have an energetic decline or under the burden of stressors, the gut wall actually opens up. And part of that is actually what I believe to be a protective adaptive response, because if things are really hitting the fan, we want to let as much nutrients in as

many nutrients in as possible. But unfortunately in our modern world, we're kind of always under these chronic stressors. So our gut is always leaking into the bloodstream, things that shouldn't necessarily be there. One of those is endotoxins. And endotoxins are correlated as well with almost every single disease. And part of the reason the keto and carnivore diet works so well, in my opinion, is because they cut out all of these inflammatory triggers on your gut.

Steak and fruit and some other foods digest very rapidly in the small intestine and Aren't able to feed these bacteria in your gut and in your colon to this to the extent that some of these other foods Like vegetables wood which are higher in and fibers or indigestible particulate matter. So the raw carrot is a rapete idea and So the raw carrot is a ray-peat idea, and it's kind of taking off recently. But one of the things that perplexed me for a while is, why are there some studies showing you know, fibers associated, dietary fibers associated with lower rates of disease, yet why do people like myself benefit tremendously when they're not eating

fiber? When I'm eating loads of fiber, it's a major problem for my gut and a problem for everyone around me to be frank, but still yet, studies show, social, social, social studies show that fiber tends to benefit or tends to show a benefit for a number of these diseases. Ray Pete came along and suggested that insoluble fiber, fiber that actually can't feed our gut microbiome, but is present in some foods, actually binds these endotoxins

and eliminates them out of the gut. So it's like a street sweeper that comes through, helps bind and remove these irritants. So the raw carrot is pretty much purely insoluble fiber. And there's a reason why it looks like the same thing in the toilet as it does going in, because you're not digesting it, and that's the benefit of it. So eating the vegetable in this case is actually like a medicine. It's not so I can get the nutrients from it, but it's so I can clean out the end of

toxins in my gut. For ladies having hormonal issues, actually, it can be tremendously beneficial as well, because when you detox estrogen out of your liver through the bile, it gets dumped into your gut, and actually you can reabsorb that estrogen that's meant to be detoxified. Insoluble fiber, another thing that does is binds and removes the excess estrogen. So there are loads of cases online of people who are having serious cramping or hormonal issues, and those resolving with this raw carrot, the single raw carrot. Would cillium do the same thing or no? And those resolving with this raw carrot, the single raw carrot.

Would Cillium do the same thing or no? I honestly don't know too much about Cillium, but I believe Cillium is more soluble fiber, maybe not. I don't think so. Not familiar. Not familiar. But, yeah, hypothetically, any insoluble fibers should help. Soluble fibers, on the other hand, can be a disaster.

And that's where... That's your case. Yes. If they don't work out. Exactly. So, when I tactically include foods from each of these categories, that is when I'm thriving. That is what I think we were adapted to eat. So the carrot is one example from the vegetable world.

Yes. Beyond meat and beyond carrots, what else is in the diet? Just Yes. Beyond meat and beyond carrots. What else is in the diet? Just to be clear, not beyond meat. Oh. Okay, not beyond meat. Real meat. Real meat.

Are you into grass fed as well? Yeah, vegan cows. So cows that only eat plants. So starting with nutrients, there's micro nutrients, which are things like minerals and vitamins, and then there's the macronutrients, like carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. So like I said, I think you need every micronutrient, and you should check chronometer for that, or kind of the RDAs. Regarding macronutrients, this gets into the discussion on thyroid. Is that any time we're restricting excessively one of these macronutrients,

our body has to mobilize resources adaptively. And that in turn slows down our metabolic rate and our energy production. So, if we excessively restrict carbohydrates, for instance, carbohydrates are critical for our brain for one. Everyone needs 150 grams of carbohydrates for their brain a day around that. No matter who you are, carbohydrates are critical for our gut, their critical for our thyroid conversion in the liver, so many other things.

And because our body knows that, it has to slow down our metabolism to save resources if we were hypothetically and a famine without carbohydrates, or else we'd burn through all of our tissue and die. The same goes for fats, actually. Fats are also critical for our cognitive function, for our hormones, for loads of other things. And when you restrict fat excessively, same thing happens. Everything slows down. So, carbohydrates and fats, what I generally now eat for myself, and this is an experiment, like everyone should work out for themselves, is I try to eat now, actually two times at least the amount of grams of carbohydrates to proteins in my diet. So I'm on a fairly high carb diet. And that's just how

I feel the best, that's how my thyroid works the best. And what would be in the category of carbs that you do eat and the ones that you don't eat? Sure. If I were to define my diet now, I would do it, I would suggest it is highly nutrient dense, easily digestible diet. Both are key. So for me, the carbohydrates that are easiest to digest in the following order starts with fruits, honey, maple syrup. And this is where it's completely counter again. I mean, I thought I pissed off a lot of people when I said red meat was good for you. This might piss off more people and did it my life that simpler the sugar tends to be easier to digest. So fruit and honey are very

simple sugar molecules. They're just a sucrose molecule effectively, which is fructose and glucose. And because there are short chains of these molecules, your body doesn't require much work at all to break them down. And for that reason, when you eat something like fruit or honey, tend not to have much digestive distress. Now, you do need to experiment because some people have issue with some fruits, some fruits are higher in fructose, lower in glucose. So it is an experiment, but generally, fruits tend to be the easiest to digest, and honey, and maple syrup as well. From their white rice and white potatoes

can be easy for people to digest, but those are starch molecules. So they're long-chained. It's so funny because in the world that you're in, the former keto, current carnivore world, this is pure sacrilege with yourself. Oh my God, yeah. I mean, like I said, I looked at people eating orange juice.

Like, I almost wanted to smack it out of their hands. I thought they were killing themselves. So this was in terms of carbohydrates, a complete 180, a complete and total 180. And in my life, I've honestly learned through mistakes and failure. Yeah, we all do. That's the only way we learn. Yeah, and I'm sure there will still be more. But I think I could have only got to this weird hydra head of the

rapier world where I think somehow red meat and sugar, meats and sweets, I like to say, are good for you, is through making loads of mistakes along the way. But as always, don't trust me, verify this. Experiment. See how your thyroid adjusts. See how your energy adjusts, see how your mood adjusts. And your body is the ultimate intelligent resource in the world. It will tell you if these things are working or if they're not. I think we all need to trust our own intuition, our own bodies a little bit more. And for me carbohydrates are resounding yes now. Every time I look at them, it's just.

It's saladino back on sweets. Yep. That's interesting. We both kind of had an awakening around the same time as well. Interesting. Which is quite funny. Yeah, so he loves fruit now, loves honey now. And funnily enough, loads of rapiders as well went through the same exact journey.

You kind of need to traverse this world from veganism to plant base to paleo to... Were you vegan at one point? No, I wasn't. But there is this sort of process, I think everybody goes through, where you first start reading some ingredients on the back of the label. Then you realize, holy crap, I can't pronounce. One of the label, then you realize holy crap, I can't pronounce one of these things. Everything's kind of killing me. You start looking to be healthy. You usually make the wrong health decisions at first because there are so many piranhas out there

just making crap up. And also misinformed, like people just don't know. People just don't know. People just don't know. People just don't know. And certainly not taught in medical schools. No. And nutrition science in particular is so muddled because it's very hard to do a good nutrition study because to really control for something you'd have to lock people up in a metabolic ward. And that's why I want LA Veteran study, I reference, is actually so important because they don't do studies like that anymore.

So there are studies for just about every dietary camp to point to. And unfortunately, people are, I think, using it. I don't think out of ill will, actually, but they are harming themselves and others. And so long as you are honest with yourself, I think, and you have the right intentions and you're mindful, you will know if something's working or not. So, instead of doubling down on your diet, if you don't feel as good as you want to be, I think we need to be very so critic today and admit that kind of all know nothing, an experiment. Yeah, and listen to experiments,

other people have done, if it sounds interesting to you, try it. Yes. And then see what happens. Yeah, in Hinduism actually, and Abhadeed the Vedanta, this is kind of out of left field, but there's something called the triple method

they use for to kind of learn to be enlightened. And they suggest it's first listen to the teacher, next contemplate the teaching itself, and third meditate on it, and do it yourself. I think there's kind of a triple method for diet where it's like, one, does this accord with our entire evolutionary history? two, are there some experts who actually agree with this? Like, is there real science behind it? And then three, is it benefiting you? I mean, most people are skipping one of those steps

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We're very good at seeing the short-term benefit and many of the things that benefit us the most over the short-term are actually and many of the things that benefit us the most over the short-term are actually quite damaging in the long run. So take fasting, for instance, which is something I actually don't love anymore either. Something I'd kind of did a 180 on. Fasting feels really, really good at first, but it's because it's spiking your adrenaline and it's giving you this kind of rush of energy that I think in the long run the science I've seen would suggest is hurting you. So that's where just because our mind is not an enemy but also is not necessarily evolutionary adapted for our long-term benefit, it can mislead us.

So, I think you do need to be careful with just feeling something out and feeling how good it is for you. So, back in terms of the diet, yeah, I think getting all the macronutrients, in terms of the carbs, protein, getting sufficient protein, the best studies I've seen are like around 1.6 grams of kilogram of body weight around that. Animal protein tends to be the most bioavailable and easily digestible. And fats, that's back to the whole, I think saturated, over unsaturated fat or mono unsaturated. Collagen bone broth.

Collagen is critical, in my opinion, to balance out the methionine in the diet. Eating just muscle meat is almost like eating a refined food diet nowadays. All throughout history would balance the collagen with methionine, with the muscle meats, and all the nutrients and all the organs. So as much as you can eat notes to tail, and eat 10 to 30, 40 grams of collagen a day, I think you'll experience immense benefits. If you eat steak and bone broth,

is that enough variance, or do you need to eat liver, or at least take a liver supplement? Yeah, I mean, I'd recommend getting some liver on a weekly basis just enough to hit the RDAs. So a few hundred IU or a few thousand IU a day, I believe it is. Because if you look at these RDAs, what we've actually studied, the best study is showing what we need, show you need some vitamin A or retina. So liver and egg yolks are really the only source

in the world of those. So I think the base of your diet should be things I mentioned. And then you should tactically supplement with these kind of animal superfoods. If you're eating a lot of eggs, do you need the liver? You can get by, but liver still has loads of other minerals, other than vitamins, other than vitamin A. So like loads of B vitamins,

callin, selenium, copper, that you're not going to get from eggs alone. Oysters as well, I think are kind of the liver of the sea, tremendously beneficial foods as well, I think are kind of the liver of the sea, tremendously beneficial foods as well, for hormones, testosterone, the zinc is incredible for you. So yeah, I think the heuristic of eating a varied diet from animals will get you a lot of the way there. And then I think we just need to break out of this paradigm of thinking of diet solely

in terms of calories. Diet is a tool to increase your hormone, to improve your hormonal profile, your thyroid, your gut health, everything I listed before. And if those things aren't improving, it's time to potentially change up your diet. Should we talk about environmental stuff? Sure. Sure. The biggest, scariest one by far is the toxic exposure. If you're an average person today, not kind of wary of everything in your environment, you're exposed to, you know, 200 to thousands of chemicals a day.

Novel chemicals, brand new in terms of history to our diet. And I think this goes a long way to explaining why disease is skyrocketing. Because each and every one of these chemicals is poisoning our metabolism. Take BPA for instance, which is found in plastic products. BPA has been shown to inhibit thyroid function, to lower androgen synthesis, to increase estrogen, to damage your cognitive capacities in your brain. Just about anything bad these chemicals do. So even before diet for a lot of people,

I just suggest stop poisoning yourself, go via negativeativa, improve via removing. So some things that are, I think, the biggest culprits are generally the ones we're exposed to on a daily basis. So think your soaps, shampoos, conditioners, body washes. Our skin is a mouth, which a lot of people don't realize. Anything you put on your skin, you're going to-

Same as eating it. Yeah, effectively the same as eating it. So if you want to eat your shampoo, stop dousing yourself in it. And that's why I think all your like your shampoo's body washes. Surprisingly, you can use loads of food products for these. And they're also nice snacks while in the shower. So like egg yolks, olive oil, coconut oil, honey, you can use these all in your body, surprisingly. And this is kind of the ancient, some of the

ancient wisdom we've forgotten. So those are big. The next biggest category is tap water. You're not pretentious if you say you don't want tap water at a restaurant. If you live in the United States, go to ewg.orgtapwater, put in your zip code, and you will be absolutely terrified of what's in your water. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of chemicals, at well exceeding the guidelines, EWG recommends. Link to cancer, infertility, heart disease, just about every single disease today. Heavy metals like lead, pharmaceuticals that you pee out are recycled back into the water supply. So there's birth control, there's SSRs,

there's pesticides in the tap water. It is truly one of the worst cocktails you could be putting in your body. So instead of drinking tap water, you should drink. I, what I generally recommend is I like coconut water, I like nature's water, fruit juices and such, or buy yourself a nice reverse osmosis or distiller filter, remineralize it and you're good to go. And you can remineralize it with some cheap drops on Amazon.

But that's a huge one for people, especially those with skin issues. I've noticed some major changes from just cutting out tap water. The next one I would say is plastics. I mean these are ubiquitous in the environment now, obviously. We're basically all Barbie just covered in micro- the micro plastics in all of our organs. So avoid plastic to the best of your ability. And especially do not heat plastic. So one of the biggest sources of plastic actually is bottled water in plastic bottles of water. So only have, if you're going to have bottled water, only have it out of a glass bottle. Yes, exactly. And even that potentially problematic. There was one study showing that bottled water,

a lot of these were in plastic, but there's one study showing the fumarates and the malleates, I believe they are, in bottled water inhibited the Androgen receptor, like the testosterone receptor, up to 90% from bottled water. So, we're swimming in this toxic soup today and you need to be incredibly proactive and get ahead of this. So, all of the, you know, anything you're

putting on your skin, which is, you know, cosmetics as well for ladies, loaded with heavy metals. Another one is deodorants. Deodorants, many of them are very high in aluminum. So, just kind of sift through, sift through all the chemicals you're exposed to on a daily basis. And if you wouldn't eat it, if it didn't exist 20 years ago, throw it in the trash. Last one that just came to mind as well are these teflon pans. I would not touch a teflon pan. Get rid of it.

So cast iron or stainless steel? Yeah. I would not touch a Teflon pan. Get rid of it. So cast iron or stainless steel? Yeah, I would prefer stainless steel. Why is that? One of the introductions in our diet in the last 50 years was actually fortifying foods with iron. So growing up, if you're eating a lot of junk food like I was, if you're subsisting on cheeses and processed grains, if you look at the ingredients, most of these have added iron. So a lot of us have actually some excess iron stored in our body today, especially this

like synthetic form of iron. And iron, as we know, is incredibly reactive with oxygen and can rust in our body. So too much iron, if it's not balanced by copper, can be somewhat toxic. There's worth being cautious over. Okay. So, I limit it. I would prefer to use stainless steel, ceramic. I've heard of people using glass.

Your pyrex. Yeah, yeah. Some of those can be better, but I think the more natural the better. Some people have only cooked over fire that I know. And that has its issues as well, but the more natural I think the better. Yeah, in terms of toxins, that is...

Is it other airborne toxins or... Okay, the air today, there was a study that actually came out recently. I think it was somewhere in Europe showing extra ginsens in the air today there was a study that actually came out recently. I think it was somewhere in Europe showing Estrogens in the air so You know an air filter I think is important if you really do want to bulletproof yourself And played play defense. Oh another probably makes sense more if you're in a city with a lot of people close together If you're out in the country probably less of an issue because there's a lot of trees and there's a lot of oxygen and a lot of people close together. If you're out in the country, probably less of an issue because there's a lot of trees

and there's a lot of oxygen in there. A lot of fresh air. 100%. If you were in a city, one, I would try to leave, two, yeah, get in our air filter, please. Another category is actually polyester clothing. And I think this is especially problematic for a woman. Their study is showing

polyester bras in particular leech, BPA, and some of these forever chemicals, the PFAS, into the bloodstream. So you really almost need to be like a Sherlock Holmes today and sift through everything you're exposed to, or you will completely overburden your detoxification abilities, which brings me to the second part of this category, detoxification. So thankfully, our bodies are pretty remarkable, and have a very robust ability to detoxify, provided we're giving ourselves the right nutrition and the right sort of practices.

One thing I've been doing recently actually is lymphatic drainage. I think it's quite powerful. The lymph system along with our liver and our gut is one of the primary detoxification mechanisms. What I suggest for this is actually this guy Dr. Perry Nicholson. He has a big six, pretty much smack or rub these six areas on your body, 30 seconds each, once a day, and it dramatically increases your detoxification abilities. According to him, he's seen people lose, you know, 20 plus pounds from this a lot. What are the six places? Starts it your collar. It's kind of like the head, shoulders, knees, and toes,

song, but starts at your collarbone. From there it goes up into your neck. From there it goes back down. And you do tapping? Yeah, I'll usually tap. And then I'll go up. You can tap, you can rub, you can circle. Then it goes to your armpit.

From there it goes to your armpit. From there, it goes to your abdomen. Afterwards, to your groin. And finally, to your knees. And it's 30 seconds on me. 30 seconds to a minute. I mean, it's five, six minutes a day. Can dramatically increase your detoxification ability. But then, what's key is you need to be pooing. Because you'll dump all of that into your gut to be eliminated. So many people with health issues aren't going once a day. Going once a day is a very important parameter and tool for your health because if the goods are staying inside of you for longer than a day, there's a reason why it stinks, it's because it's giving off putrid byproducts. And those are leaking back actually into your bloodstream,

causing loads of inflammation. So gut motility, what I recommend for that is one checker thyroid, again, it's kind of the usual approach. Two. Which is with taking your temperature first thing in the morning? Yeah, improve your thyroid. That will help immensely. Two, the raw carrot, also beneficial for gut motility. Three, walking after meals. Four, magnesium, tremendously beneficial for me.

Specifically, I like magnesium glycinate. Don't get magnesium, sitrate, stands for magnesium, Sinate. Don't get magnesium sitrate, stands for magnesium, S word, it, right? Because it makes you really go too much. But yeah, gut motility is incredibly beneficial. And then the last thing is your liver health. Your liver is one of the primary detox organs and getting those enzymes checked with a doctor making sure your liver is one of the primary detox organs. And getting those enzymes checked with a doctor,

making sure your liver is functioning, make sure you don't have fatty liver, fueling your liver with... How do you find the right doctor? That's a journey. That is really a journey. I think doctors in a way heard this analogy once, they're like wild animals. You need to watch your back with them, unfortunately, today.

But if you find the right doctor, it can be a godsend. I think ultimately the right doctor is within. I think we all do need to become our own doctor. But there are loads of great kind of functional medicine practitioners today out there. So I would look into kind of functional medicine, integrative medicine. Unfortunately, you have to go to the fringes. I think to find someone that's beneficial. But find someone that's walking the walk and find someone that's working for you, right?

They're not an antagonist. They should be your ally on the journey. They should be willing to experiment with you and read studies that you send them. And, you know, they should want to be challenged and be open-minded. What do the tests you do for the liver? Liver, there's the standard liver panel,

like ALT, AST, GGT, some of the liver enzymes. You'll be able to test with a doctor. And then if your thyroid is low based on your morning temperatures, what do you recommend? For me, the biggest by far was carbohydrates, actually. Adding carbohydrates. Adding them back in. Just because they're so critical for the conversion of T4 to T3 in your liver, that's one huge piece. The next piece are some nutrient deficiencies. So if you're deficient in, you know, selenium, iron, vitamin E, vitamin A, vitamin C, protein,

number of these nutrients you should be able to find on the panel I mentioned. Your thyroid function will be inhibited. So complete nutritional diet is absolutely okay. Next I would say this goes into one of my other pillars, but sunlight. Sunlight is so important for your metabolic rate. And sunlight has impact on the thyroid? Yes. Bright light. Bright light in particular.

It's not just the vitamin D from the sun, which is critical for your thyroid. But being in a bright environment is also a signal to our physiology that we're in summer. But it's also bright natural. Exactly. Or something like sauna space or a jive light. Yeah, possibly. But yes, to your point, when you're indoors under bright light, it may seem bright, but it's actually anywhere from 100 to 1000 times less bright than the sun. So get outside. Like, our parents are right growing up. Going outside is very important for your health. In general, would you say spending as much time outside as possible is probably best? Yes.

Unless you live in Antarctica, maybe. I think for most people, they want to be outside as much as possible. One terrifying stat from our modern world is that the average American spends 93% of their time inside. That alone can explain a lot of disease. One of the reasons why circadian function, by the way, is important, I think, is because a disregulated circadian rhythm lowers thyroid function. So I think actually the thyroid is the linchpin that all of these other facets, that all the

dietary camps, all the diet gurus are all are giving about comes back to our energetic function overall our mitochondria and our thyroid So this is why sunlight is such a big pillar for me because it does play an immense role into our overall physiology and our health Another reason why going outside is so important this this goes back to the toxin category, is because many buildings today in homes are loaded with molds. And also many building material are not. Yes, furniture.

Furniture and building. Yes. Furniture, floors, new carpeting. New carpeting. They are aerating and giving off hundreds of chemicals. So if you tend to feel like crap every day, going to a certain environment, it's worth checking, especially the AC unit for mold,

especially in your home, actually. If you live close to the sea, if you're in an area that rains a lot, mold is ubiquitous today. And that's one thing as well. I believe you can test for, and I'm on a blood test and a urine test too, elevated mold levels.

So yeah, sunlight is an incredibly important and underrated pillar, especially the, you know, kind of actually the first person I ever had mentioning morning sunlight was, I think you in, tools of Titans, I believe you mentioned it. Tim Ferris-Fuck. So I was going to say the the fulverment thing which it is as well. He's been really influential in that. But sunlight especially in the morning is great for

tuning your circadian rhythm and boosting your metabolism throughout the day. Do you think if you were not sick as a child, you would have come to this stuff or it's really in reaction to just realizing I don't feel good enough? Like for me in my life, like suffering has been the greatest feel and a great spiritual teacher like his name is Eric Bre, he's a quote that, success can be a curse because you're never forced to question reality and wake up to it. So I think that's why we see a lot of, kind of, so-called successful people that are unhappy because they're never forced into that corner where they have to change their life.

They have to turn some other direction. They have to turn some other direction. They have to turn within. So the adversity I face with regards to health and cause instrumental in my journey today. And I would say that for anyone on this podcast, like, or anyone listening that, if you have a health issue, if my life is any indication,

it will be a gift in hindsight. Any health issue I've had has always been such a tremendous gift, because it was kind of like a warning message that I was doing something wrong. And that's something needed to change. I don't think our bodies are fighting us. They're not out to get us. They are really messengers, and almost like a dashboard, an alarm system, a visual cue on our body that something inside is going wrong, and that we need to live in a new environment or need

to change something about our diet. Like for instance, if it could be the diet or it could be your relationship or it could be the house you're living in or it could be the job you have or it could be the house you're living in. Exactly. Or it could be the job you have. Or it could be legitimately anything. And the more I learn, the more I realize how holistic health truly is. I mean, take stress and emotions. I think stress and emotions are such an important part

of health. I've been reading a lot of Eastern spiritual teachers, and I often will look at how long they live, and most of them tend to live longer than a lot of the diet gurus, despite actually a pretty negative take on the body and not a great diet. And I've been thinking for a long time like, how is that possibly the case? And I've been thinking for a long time, like, how is that possibly the case? And what I realize is that our emotions, our stress levels, our cortisol, you know,

Allah, Jodh, Spenza, and Bruce Lipton, we're feeding on these on a daily basis. They are as important as the food in our diet. Take, you know, meditation has been such a big part of my life. In the span of a 30 minute meditation, with say a migraine, for instance, I've gone from feeling like I was in the depths of hell to the highest joy in 30 minutes. Because something about meditation is releasing an emotion,

lowering your stress and allowing you to tap into some higher joy, some higher energy that is always here. What was your first experience of meditation? My first experience of meditating, actually I was on a plane, and the lady next to me was sitting upright the entire flight. Like a vertical, eyes closed. And I made some comment like, did you sleep well?

And she was like, no, I was meditating. You should look into it. That was the first I'd ever heard about it, actually. How long did those at? That was around the same time I'd quit that job. So around 2017. After that, I was doing the meditation on and off. It was this hot thing. Did you find a teacher? Did you learn from a book? So the first thing I did actually was download

Headspace at that point in time, and that was very helpful. From there I ended up using Sam Harris as waking up, waking up up, which I recommend even more. I think it's the best app bar none for, for beginners. Do you still use that? No, so call it two or three years later, I was going through some trouble in my personal life. You know, I had a girlfriend who I'd been dating for eight years, who was like a very prominent part of my life. We were diverging, a close family member died suddenly. I was fed up really with my life in New York, the whole partying, the whole kind of bottles and models. And by

models, I mean Excel, financial models, was not doing it for me anymore. And COVID hit then as well. I was going through a lot of trouble. I started to realize how just kind of anxious and nervous I was. Somehow I was fortunate enough to meet a meditation teacher and a philosophical counselor, this guy named Andrew J. Taggart. And he taught me to meditate in the Zen Buddhist Advaita Vedanta Inquiry School. Slowly kind of shepherded me and convinced me to just sit down and spend more time meditating. At first he gave me the pitch right like everyone needs at that time. I think that, oh, it'll be great for your productivity, maybe for your blood pressure, and for your mood. Which I think it was, but for me it's been so much more than that.

It's shown me that all the clichés are true. I think happiness is purely within. And there have been moments when I've touched it, which is quieting my mind and meditating. And that's stuck with me. And really, one of the main driving forces for my life now is how to embody that more on a day-to-day basis. That's great.

Yeah. I'm happy you have that experience. Thank you. I think it's... Part of the reason things are such a mess today, I think, is because we're all focused on finding happiness outside of ourselves. And it's unfortunately the case that in the modern world everything we're told that will make us happy is just a hedonic treadmill.

It can't last. If you think about how many times, at least in my own life, how many times I've thought I needed something and then the search will be off. And then I got it. And lo and behold, here I am still searching. This leads to this kind of existential terror. I think everyone is kind of taking out on each other because nobody knows how to be happy anymore. And we're using kind of each other as tools to fulfill our own selfish desires and our own insecurities and our own angst.

And it's just reigniting this separation and inflammatory world. Whereas once you recognize that the happiness can only come from within, I think that's when we start to slow down, we start to turn around, we start to stop competing with other people so much, start to realign our lives towards this simple harmony so that we can stay quiet and stay present and find what it is we're truly seeking. So when I think of diet today actually, diet for me today is not actually the means to be this bodybuilder that's flexing in the mirror. Diet for me is a way to get my body out of the way, actually, to quiet my body so that

I can then quiet my mind and then I could see what is really here at all times. In your list of eight, that would be the stress piece. Yes. I think from a worldly view, like a secular viewpoint, meditation is one of the most effective tools to lower your stress. I say one of. And one of the things I learned, one of my favorite books ever is this book,

Letting Go by David Hawkins. He talks about how we carry around these emotions with us. And the reason why we're so stressed all the time is not because of the external world, but because it's triggering emotions inside of us. So say something happens at work. You think you're going to miss a deadline or something, and you totally flip out. If you ask yourself, inquire a few times, what's so bad about me really missing this deadline? At first, it might be something like, you know, my boss is going to hate me. Next it might be, okay, what's so bad about your boss hating you?

Well, my boss hates me, I'm not going to get a raise. Oh, okay, what's so bad about that? If I don't get a raise, my wife won't love me. Okay, what's so bad about that? But if my wife doesn't love me, I'm gonna be alone. So you start to get to these deep existential kind of terrors that are subterranean beneath the surface. So the reason why you're freaking out

when you're gonna miss the deadline is not because you're gonna miss the deadline. It's because you don't wanna be alone. You don't wanna be alone. So meditation for me is actually an inquiry now and thanks to Andrew who taught me taught me all of this. It's an inquiry into kind of what I'm holding on to and then an allowing. So find what it is that's triggering you with you, triggering you, and then you sit with it and you just let it be and you accept it.

And that to me, bar none is the biggest most effective stress lowering tool in the world. But it requires a lot of work. And that's where I think the spiritual journey is not crystals and fairy dust. It's really crawling through like shit for a long time. It's crawling through a long tunnel of poo of your own crap you've buried for a very long time. It's crawling through a long tunnel of poo of your own crap. You've buried for a very long time. Now there are other easier stress-loving tools than that. Like, breath work is very effective. Specifically, extended out breath breathing. So if you're, if you're exhales longer than your inhale, it activates your parasympathetic nervous system. Carbohydrates again, there's a reason why we crave them

under stress, it's because they're very effective at turning off the stress response. Now that can be a problem that you need too much, but tactically used, it can be very effective. How do you use breath work? How do I use breath work? I should be doing more breath work to be honest. But do you do it while you're doing anything or would it be its own practice?

It would be its own practice, I would say, or something like yoga, for instance. But the reason why breath, I think, is important, how I use breath as a tool is nasal breathing, I think, is very important for your health. Not mouth breathing. Not mouth breathing. Actually, too, when you sleep. So keep some tape in your room, and if your partner doesn't like you, and they can tape of your mouth, but also to encourage nasal breathing when you sleep, which may sound frightening, but it's actually very effective.

The back is a stress really quickly, which is something's magnesium again, it's very effective for lowering stress. Magnesium is kind of like the relaxation mineral without it, your body's kind of always and is triggered highly, highly excited state. Some other things that have worked for me in the past are L-thienine, and then just eating

a completely nutritious diet. But breath work, nasal breathing, increasing your CO2. That is incredibly important for your overall metabolic rate, your inflammation, and actually the aesthetics of your face. Mouth breathing actually will change the shape of your jaw, cause it to droop more, cause it to sag more. You can look these memes up online, but mouth breathers have a distinct look to their face.

And that actually in turn will feed into worse health because you won't take as full of breaths as well. If your jaw is actually compressed. Sleep. Sleep? Sleep. That's a big one. If you ask what the most healing thing in the world is, it's not liver, unfortunately. It's not sunlight.

It's not any food. It's doing absolutely nothing. It's falling asleep. And I think that's very important to remember when it comes to health, actually, that restoration and regeneration comes from doing absolutely nothing. So deep sleep, REM sleep is borne on probably, like probably the most important factor of health.

I mean, if you told me I had to choose between going vegan and sleeping eight hours a night, or sleeping four hours every single night and going carnivore, that would be a top decision. I'd say carnivore now. I'd honestly mark my word. I think I would go vegan, honestly. Sleepy becomes sleeper really.

Sleepy are really. Sleepy are really. Sleepy hangry everything just goes to crap. So, for sleep, morning sunlight very important. Dark room, cold room, no blue light at night. Credibly important. Use candles, use red lights. Hours? What hours? I've tended to notice in my life that the early, what's the saying? Early to bed, early to rise, keeps it a man healthy and wise. The best I've ever felt in my life, I was on the 9-5 grind. 9pm to 5am, obviously. So sleeping at 9pm waking up at 5am.

That's the best I've ever felt, but plus or minus a few hours. There's some old wives' tales that sleeping after 12 a.m. is not nearly as restful as sleep before 12 a.m. I don't know that there's signs for that, but it feels for- I know that on my ordering, the only time I get deep sleep, regardless of when I go to sleep, is before midnight.

That's very interesting. If I don't go to sleep before midnight, it'll just be R.E.M. and light sleep. Well, if I go to sleep at 10, I can get up to two hours of deep sleep. Well, there we go. And it feels that way for me. I've never measured it, but it feels like going to bed earlier as a good decision. I know also in Chinese medicine that each hour of the night restores a different part of the morning. And I believe the liver is before 12. It's good to know.

I mean, it would be fun to look up. I'm fascinated with Chinese medicine. You're looking up and we'll talk about it. I'm curious. I'm very curious. The Chinese medicine clock, sleep clock for organs. Chinese medicine is not something I've explored yet. Oh, wow.

Yeah. Deep dive into the Chinese body clock. So me that too, that sounds great. This is amazing. Okay. Yeah, gall bladder, 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. liver, 1 to 3 a.m. Well, something I have heard, right? Something a lot of people face is waking up in the middle of the night. And this was something that was disturbing me towards the end of the carnivore diet. Every night I started waking up at 3am or so. That's not something I ever dealt with. And according to the sort of peterian philosophy, one of the reasons why that would happen is because your liver runs out of glycogen, which

is the stored carbohydrates. Now, remember, carbohydrates are critical for your brain. So when that happens, your body needs to switch over and needs to spike cortisol, spike adrenaline, to release fat, to release protein, to turn into glucose if you don't have any for your brain. And that's what wakes you up, which is interesting because that Chinese body clock suggests one to three a.m. is for the liver.

So one of the other sleep tips I have is if you are waking up a lot during the night, try some, and you are open to this carbohydrate model, try a spoonful of honey, some fruit, and a little salt before bed. The carbs help to fill up your liver glycogen. They're super easily digestible, it won't irritate your gut. This isn't to say eat pasta right before bed, talking honey and fruit, or fruit juice.

And the salt actually helps to lower adrenaline. Help me a lot. I'll make it deep sleep as well. In terms of changing your life, one of the things from Joe to Spenza that completely changed my life was changing my warnings. And every ancient religion talks about the power of like 4 a.m. to 7 a.m. as they're being greater chi or greater ability to access higher states of consciousness during those twilight hours. So one of the things I did when my life kind of felt like crap

was I started waking up earlier, I started meditating at those hours, I started envisioning my higher self and completely reshaping my day based on that morning change in routine. And not only that, I made sure to knock all my phone for the first two hours, because your body is incredibly kind of programmable and open to subliminal messaging in those hours. Joe dispends I would say it's because your brain is in

theta waves then. So make sure you're only, you know, thinking elevated thoughts before bed and in the morning during those hours. What do you do for movement? Movement has been a journey for me as well. Now what I recommend and believe is most beneficial is muscle mass. Bar none, like studies show muscle mass is one of the most effective longevity tools. Not only that, muscle is this sink for glucose and a sink for fat. So one of the best ways to lose fat, in my opinion, is to increase your muscle mass because it burns fat at rest.

And we'll take kind of all the store body fat instead of shunting it all to the liver to dispose of it, which can overwhelm your liver, it actually will use it as fuel. When you're at rest, it's almost a cheat code to increase your metabolism all day long. Not only that, there's a study recently which I thought was great showing muscles release these myocons. They release molecules when you contract them. that shuttle themselves to the brain and increase BDNF, a neurogenesis, mood, cognitive function, and the research actually called them HOPE molecules. So every time you work out you increase a little HOPE in your body. And what's the workout that you're currently into? Now I will try to hit each

muscle group for around kind of 10 sets a week. So, whatever that is, whether it's compound list. Is it a day or? It's, I've really modulated my workouts over time and this will get into my workout. Sort of one, one key piece about working out, I will say is that over exercising is as bad as under exercising. And you really need to listen to your body. If you are super stressed, I do not believe in no pain, no gain here. I think a lot of people will say, I wake up, I feel like crap, I go to the gym and it's a new day. That's one of those moments when I don't think you should listen to your mind. Because that's just pure adrenaline, pure stress, and it will start a backfire. So if

you're working out and you feel winded and wiped the whole rest of the day and the whole next day, which often happens, especially if you're hypothyroid, you did too much. So you need to find the dosage that works right for you, whatever that is. And exercise is really hard to make a unilateral recommendation for people, but I do think building muscle and mobility is very important as we age. One of the things I loved about Peter at T is book is that, suggested that the ways in which we die aren't necessarily affected by missing out on blueberries in your antioxidants and such, we die because we do things like we fall and get hurt and then we end up in a hospital.

We don't do what we love anymore and kind of waste away. So if you care about your health, I think you need to really get proactive in terms of your mobility, your stability and how much muscle you're carrying as you get older. Have you experimented with heavier weights and less reps versus lighter weights and more reps? I have a little bit. I'm honestly not an exercise guru, but I know it means now I've really just got into the point where I trust my body. I think we can all get to the point where we trust our body in terms of health. And what are the basic exercises you do? Basic exercises, I think the compound lips are important, but these are also more in-depth

for people, and you need proper form. So squats, bench press, pull-ups, these are lips that recruit your whole muscle mass, your whole body, and in doing so, they can be incredibly stressful but also incredibly beneficial for your hormone profile, for your mobility, for your flexibility, et cetera. Then there's also the isolated movements which are kind of more aesthetic in nature but still will build some muscle. So like the bicep curls, the hamstring curls, the calf raises, and things like that.

Those are more secondary. Those are more secondary. But for me, honestly, today, when it comes to movement, I tend to like activities that give me joy. So if I'm doing an exercise and I'm just dreading being in the gym, I'm out. I'm gone.

I'd much rather be playing tennis or swimming or yeah, or snarkly or something along those lines that's getting the movement in, but also bringing me joy. It's more movement and play than training. Exactly, exactly. But don't movement and play than training. Exactly. Exactly. But don't get me wrong for a long time.

I did intensely lift muscle. I think it is beneficial, but I think we have an over reliance today on exercise for health. If you need to lose weight and want to get healthy, I think you do that in the kitchen in the sunlight, not in the gym. The gym is something for me when you're get healthy. I think you do that in the kitchen in the sunlight, not in the gym. The gym is something for me when you're already healthy. It's like, let's see what our body can do. Let's build up some muscle and move around a little bit. And that gets kind of into the play aspect as well. Play seems trite and silly,

but from personal experience, there's nothing that changes my health more than having a good dose of play in my life. And what's remarkable is there's actually studies that support this, that being in stimulating environments, that doing new things actually increases neurogenesis, will build new neurons in our brain, will improve cognitive function, will increase dopamine, increase mood. And it really puts a emphasis on the importance of being in a meaningful environment in your life. Like, if you live somewhere where every day is just a wrote mechanism, a wrote machine, your body is going to degenerate. It's play and joy is a muscle almost. And if your body doesn't

think you need to do it, it won't utilize resources for that. So if you hate where you live, leave, find somewhere new to go and take everything every step you can to get out. Obviously that comes kind of from a privileged position, but you need to make the intention first to get out. And put yourself into an environment that stimulates you like a human is meant to be. I read some negativity online about you saying something good about having a happy family life. I wanted to ask about it because it's strange

that that's controversial. Yeah, I think if you're not sad with your family, if you don't hate your family, you honestly are a threat to society today. It's crazy that we live in such an upside down world where in terms of life, we've prioritized hookup culture instead of marriage, polyamory and such instead of monogamy. All these new facets we've never been exposed to in history are now supposed to be the way out for us. It's really quite perplexing to me. When I look in terms of my life, when I look at society today, it feels

like we have this infinite buffet available to us. We have so many different ways to live our lives, and I think that's tremendous in some ways. But unfortunately, we have a lot of fake fools gold paths. We have a lot of fake, fool's gold pass. We have a lot of pass that are just dead ends that may feel great along the way. Empty calories. Yes, exactly. Empty calories. And listen, I'm a single man, so I'm not speaking from experience.

But when I envision what a good life really is, family to me is fundamental. Love, family, joy. I don't give a crap about being healthy if that's not a big part of my life. All of these other facets are kind of just means to an end to just increase the amount of joy and love around me. And if you don't want a family good good on you honestly. I think that's the beauty of the modern world is that you get to pick that for yourself. But I'm noticing this trend in which we are almost discouraging family starting. There's almost a limited messaging that if you are starting a family, you are somehow harming those around you or

somehow either aren't. You're giving up. You're giving up. Yeah. I mean, a lot of this has been around, tweeted recently, that it was a woman holding a baby, and I tweeted saying, ladies, there's nothing wrong with you if you want this over being a partner at a law firm. And there was obviously a lot of vitriol, or not obviously, but there was a lot of vitriol around that.

And what's clear from talking to women today is they somehow feel like they're just up, they've been encouraged or made to feel like they're giving up on life if they just if they want to start a family. If they don't want to ascend the corporate ladder and become a partner and become a high-flying CEO at a firm. So great, give them that option. Everybody should have that option. But let's remember what the highest joys here on earth are. And I can tell you man, woman, no matter who you are, your meaning in life is not going to come from work alone. I think work can be such an incredibly important avenue of self expression, but it's not going to be an end in it of itself. It's funny because that tweet that you sent out was basically,

you were telling your life story. You were working at a finance company and you realized it was empty and you opted out. Exactly. You're sharing that information with your audience. Exactly. I think because it was couched in these other terms. It was sort of this hot button topic, but today we work is taking such a predominant spot in our lives, interestingly.

And... At least in America. At least in America. And we assume it's going to fill our deepest yearnings in life. We assume that that next promotion, or when I get 100,000 more followers on Instagram, or if I hit a certain benchmark in terms of revenue,

but I've seen through enough life experiences now that all of these external goals are fleeting and impermanent, and actually end up just turning us into kind of hungry ghosts, as Buddhists would say, for more and more and more and more. So my philosophy, and I think this is where I differ from a lot of those in the health world, is I think humans need a higher purpose or we go insane. I think we need a purpose that is an end in it of itself. Not a means to an end.

So examples means to an end, money. You can't eat money. It's a means to an end. If you make that your end in life, you will never have enough. Work as well, promotions. Means to an end. Even relationships, I think a means to an end potentially. What is possibly an end in it of itself that's good just for doing it? Think things like creativity, things like play,

things like love, things like meaning, things like God even if I dare say. But what we all need is a way to be in the world that allows us to be content, that allows us to be at peace, and elevating work to that idol is going to lead you to a state of despair in all likelihood. Just climbing a ladder to nowhere. Exactly. Exactly. And I think modern society is that climbing a ladder to nowhere. Thank you. you