The Bossticks - How To Manage Weight, Gain Muscle, & Age Gracefully Ft. Angelo Keely

Episode Date: March 29, 2024

#679: Today, we're sitting down again with Angelo Keely, co- founder & CEO of Kion. We have a conversation about how to maintain your muscle and strength as you age, covering the most important things you can do for your health. We dive into topics such as the benefits of creatine and amino acids for muscle longevity and protein synthesis, the Ozempic craze and why it's hindering so many from meeting their fitness goals, and how you can achieve your fitness goals in the healthiest way possible. To connect with Kion click HERE To connect with Angelo Keely click HERE To connect with Lauryn Evarts Bosstick click HERE To connect with Michael Bosstick click HERE Read More on The Skinny Confidential HERE To Watch the Show click HERE For Detailed Show Notes visit TSCPODCAST.COM To Call the Him & Her Hotline call: 1-833-SKINNYS (754-6697) This episode is brought to you by The Skinny Confidential  & Kion To save 20%, go to getkion.com/skinny Listen to episode 507 with Angelo HERE Produced by Dear Media

The following podcast is a dear media production. She's a lifestyle blogger extraordinaire. Fantastic. And he's a serial entrepreneur. A very smart cookie. And now Lauren Everts and Michael Bostic are bringing you along for the ride. Get ready for some major realness. Welcome to the skinny confidential, him and her.

You're hearing all these things. How weighty are the things? Like how much research is really behind this thing versus that thing? Were there other studies that said something different? You know, like, how do you kind of sort through it all? It's not so much that, like, tons of people are out there like lying, right? Or just saying things that are totally false. But I think they're isolating one study and one claim from that study to say something, you know, just like really groundbreaking.

So, from my perspective, in someone who's actually trying to bring the most science-backed products, which, for example, when the ISS ended their report on essential amino acids, there were more studies, than creatine that they referenced, like 127 studies. That's a lot of studies. So when they, when they kind of summarize the information, you can trust that they weren't cherry picking. Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the skinny confidential, him and her show. Today we have our good friend, Angelo Keely, back on the show for his second appearance. Angelou is the founder of Keon, which is a supplement brand coffee company. They make the best aminos in the world, all sorts of incredible products that Lauren and I take daily. And again, this is a second

appearance. In this episode, we're talking all things health and wellness. We're talking how to manage weight and muscle in a healthy way. We're talking about diets. We're talking about proper supplementation, how to get proper protein with any diet. We're talking about healthy ways to think about raising our children. This one's for anyone really who wants to put a greater emphasis on their personal health and potentially learn something new when it comes to your health and well-being. Angelo is an absolute wealth of knowledge. We love talking to this guy. With that, Angelo, welcome back to the Skinny Confidential, him and her show. This is the skinny confidential, him and her.

I was telling you off air, and I want the audience to know that I live on your aminos ever since we talked. And I was looking at the last time you came on. For those you guys that miss Angelo's on the show again, and his last time you were here was in 2022. And people need to go back and listen to that episode because we basically started it with you telling a story about getting stabbed on acid. So hopefully you've leveled that up now, maybe even shot or something. How are you going to top being stabbed on acid? I want to know all the demons in your closet. How are you going to top being stabbed on acid?

But he also has one of our favorite brands that we use every single day in the gym at home. And that is key on the coffee. We use the aminos. We use the creatine. Like so many things. So welcome back. Welcome to the skinny confidential. That's all I got.

I don't know what else I can do. That's pretty good, though. To top the... No, that's good. You topped it. tried. I mean, I do what I can do. Might have to use that in one of our intros and we'll update the intro. You know what that sounds like? Michael's alarm in the morning when he wakes up.

Michael, for some reason, thinks that he has to wake up to the most annoying alarm on the planet. Not that you're annoying, but it's a little jarring when I'm sleeping. You know what I mean? Yep. That's how he wakes up. I'm actually going to pull that clip of you doing that and that's going to be the new alarm. I've never seen anything like this motherfucker in the morning. It is like, it's almost like Larry David-esque the way he wakes up. will be in a blissful sleep with all my stuff, like my weighted blanket, like just so calm. And he will wake up like everything. It's like Icobod Crane. It's like he accidentally bumps his elbow.

Oh, shit. Damn it. Fuck. Like it's just so. I'm just like, shut up. Is this for real? Okay. Let me tell you something. And then we're going to get into the episode. Lauren does this thing where she really obviously cares about, I guess, the aesthetic of the house. Who does it? But at the sacrifice of function sometimes. And she has all of these. She has a squatty potty that is clear. She has an invisible, like a tray that you use in bed that is clear. So I'm in the middle of the night. You trip on everything.

And I smash into these clear things that you can't see. And of course, I'm like, you know, yeah, of course. Okay. Well, he's making his mango ki-onaminos with some creatine mixed in. So I can hear that too every morning. Is mango the best flavor? According to you guys, that's what I remember from last time. Although flavor's been one of those things in building a business that it's maybe the most, like, surprising to me.

the degree to which someone is so confident that this is the best flavor and the other one is terrible and sucks and people be on all sides. People swear by watermelons, swear by berries, swear by lime. You guys are the mango crowd, which I think is probably the best. I know. Because that's probably the best. Those are the best Keyon users. Yeah. By the way, I love all the flavors. Watermelons is my second. But mango, I've now associated mango with my workout because I use a scoop with mixed with creatine every single day frothed up. It has to be with a frother. You told me, no, I love it with a frother in my cold cup with ice. But I've associated this with the workout. So it's like my brain wants that. I love that. For real,

that is a great routine. But for real, like taking it before you work out, some people take it afterwards, which is also good. But before you work out is not only is it good for motivation and for like having the energy and the endurance during the exercise, you actually get the most benefits from it, from the exercise itself. Why are women so scared of creatine? Why are women so scared of creatine? Because their boyfriends in high school and college took it.

And they got all swole. And they talked about how swole they were getting. And it's like, I don't want to have anything. I don't want to get like that or whatever they thought those guys were, we're getting. So I think it's, you know,

you get exposed to an idea at some point. And it's pretty hard to shake it sometimes. It's unfortunate, though, because creatine is a really cool ingredient and supplement that is especially beneficial for women. Creatines changed my life. And I feel like you're the perfect person to ask. I think it's really helped me put on muscle, but stay lean at the same time. I was in a journey of losing 60 pounds. And one of the things in my toolbox is creatine. What do you see creatine doing for women? So, I mean, just quick signs of what creatine is. it's actually a unique energy source. So we think about like carbohydrates and fat as being things that we burn in our body, but there's an even more immediate source of energy at the level of our cells that we use for doing like really intense exercise.

And that could be like lifting weights or pushing through really hard like on a sprint or something like that. And that's actually the phosphocreatine system in the cells. So it's what gives you bursts of energy. So when you consume creatine on a daily basis, which, by the way, that's the most important thing. People may say you need to consume it like before or after work. It doesn't matter. Just take it every day.

If you take it every day, it saturates your cells. And then what happens is when you need boosts of energy to like pick up something heavy, to run really fast, or even what we're finding is for cognition. It actually improves cognitive function because it's supporting at the cellular level, like these very quick active bursts of energy. So when I say it's really important for women, the reason for that is it's important for everyone, but oftentimes women consume less of the whole food sources of creatine, which are things like beef. Like beef has a lot of creatine. There's really no plant-based foods that have creatine

in them. It's almost all animal based, and it's things like steak. For women whose diets tend to include less of that than their bro-boyfriends from high school that ate tons of beef, it's a great solution to try to hit that core need for that nutrient without having to like change their hold that. Yeah, I want to go back with you in a second, but staying on the creatine cognition for a second, I think everyone focuses on the physical benefits, but to your point, I think there's a lot coming out about the benefits from a cognition standpoint from creatine. We were listening to somebody talked a other day who suffers from migraines, and they were saying that one of their doctors told them if they have a really poor night of sleep instead of supplementing with the typical

like five grams of creatine to maybe go to like 10 to 15 the day after after you've had. had a shitty night of sleep and supplement that way and that can help negate some of the effects of that poor night of sleep. Do you find that to be truthful in any way? There is science that specifically speaks to the benefits of creatine related to sleep. I think we're still kind of unclear on exactly like how and why it does it. But bottom line, it improves people's sleep. And that is a great example of helping to recover after a poor night of sleep as well. Okay. So this is your second time on the show. And I was looking, you haven't been on since 2022. It was a phenomenal episode, I think, for anyone that missed it.

It's episode 507. It's called The Missing Ingredient to Losing Weight and Building Lean Muscle. It's relevant for everybody, and it's a great episode. But for those that don't know you and haven't listened, maybe just a little context on you, and then we'll dive in. So, I mean, I guess, like, what's the most important thing you want to know about me? Like, just the company, the background. Yeah, I think how you got interested, health, wellness company.

And again, I highly suggest everyone go listen to the first one because we really get into your story there. But just quick overview. So I was raised in a super health-focused family. My parents were actually like in the supplement business in the 70s, then had a natural health food store, natural health food restaurant. I was born at home. Never got a haircut until I was nine, never didn't get a birth certificate until I was like seven. So they were like some pretty crunchy hippies from outside Austin. So I was raised in that environment, got exposed to supplements really early. My parents actually gave me amino acids as a kid. They were the ones that started the term Keep Austin weird.

They were probably, someone probably looked at my dad and was like, do more of whatever that thing is. this gigantic hair and huge beard, et cetera. Yeah. So, yeah, so I was just, like, raised in a culture of valuing supplements, valuing amino acids. And my parents actually specifically had made the choice to be pescatarians. And this is, I just turned 40s. This is in the 80s. And with that decision, though, they knew a lot about protein nutrition. So when on days when we didn't eat fish, they talked a lot about combining different plant proteins to make sure that we got all of the essential amino acids in our diet so that we could be healthy and thrive, et cetera. So I basically like had that background. Story went into depth last time, kind of got into a lot of trouble.

Exciting story about getting stabbed on acid, recovering from that, kind of refinding my, not refining. You know, you get raised in a certain culture and an environment, a faith, you may say, of like what is important and what the people around you value. And at some point, you have to, like, actually figure out what you believe. And that was a very distinct moment for me at 16. And from that moment on, I was super into health. Like, not because my parents were, but because, not just because I was into sports, but like, I really wanted to think about what I ate, what kind of exercise I did, whatever kind of alternative modalities might work.

And again, that's when, like, I got really into weight protein at that point in time, but also into amino acids. And that just kick started like a journey of health. And, you know, fast forward to 2017. And I finally had, I think, the business background, the experience. I'd lived overseas for several years, done a lot of life. a lot of different businesses and felt, you know, confident and ready to, I tried to do my own thing, but, like, really try to do my own thing now. And I really just came back to my roots about,

like, what was most important to me. And that was health and nutrition and products that, like, I can really stand behind. And you guys take the aminos every day. I take the aminos, like, every single day. You can give them to your kids, right? Yeah, I give them to my kids. So you mentioned your parents gave them to you, like, in a pill form. Like, what kind of form was it? It was a pill and, like, a liquid form. Okay. So we, So I give Zaza, I call it candy water. And I'll give her mango aminos. That's fine.

That's fine. Like a scoop a day? Yeah, that's fine. Okay. I mean, I think it all depends on your unique child. Whenever you're talking about kids. My child's like minerals, minerals, minerals, D3. I want blue. I want yellow.

That means B12. They want, we have cookie water, candy water, watermelon water. They're all manipulations. Like the watermelon water is colostrum. The candy water is mango aminos. Then we have a cookie water. as electrolytes. I think like, you know, you know this as a parent. And I think it's very difficult to get your kids to do certain things, but they model what you do. And I think they've seen us

doing these kind of things. And so they get curious. And so I think like, I guess the parenting tip from my perspective, I'm always hesitant to get parenting tips, right? Is that if you want the kids to do more of these healthy things, they have to see you start doing those healthy things. And is that more how it arises for you guys? It's not like, here do this. They see you doing it. kind of want to participate in the routine with you? I use creative branding a lot. So like saying like calling Mango Amino's candy water, they want the candy water. So or I'll say like, I'll say like, do you want salty water from the sea?

And they like want it. They want like the water where the mermaids love. It's minerals. Like I'll like use creative branding. And I think that wrapping it in a package in a bow like that makes a big difference. Yeah. Like I have a very specific post workout routine that I've been doing. And I've Mike's son who's.

not even two yet. He's part of the process. He like gets the protein out and he gets, you know, I use this coconut milk and he, is that what it is? Yeah, he gets your creatine out. He gets all this stuff and we make it together. And then he gets a little mini portion of it with me. It's like something we do. But he looks like he knows. He's like smoothie, smoothie. And he knows what that means. And so I think just like teaching them that kind of stuff. Because I much rather have him have something like that than some like chocolate sugary like fake milk or something. But we're not perfect. Yeah, I know. But yeah. I'm not trying to be perfect. My macro take on that would be, I think probably it's great if you give your kids aminos. I give it to my kids. They take

weight protein, all the stuff. And I think probably the most potent thing I heard you say, Michael, was that you're doing something with your kid to that degree. We're like, you're doing this positive behavior. He gets to be part of it with you. You guys get to sharing it together. But that'll have a bigger impact on him long term. Yeah, he like dumps the protein in there and like dumps the blueberries. Super anal about it. The tick with this smoothie. I mean, let me tell you about this tick. This kid is like, like smoothie, smoothie. Then he has to put his hand on the smoothie and make the smoothie. If I try to touch the smoothie, he slaps my hand off. It's a whole thing. You're right. It's about making them

part of the, they feel like they've got ownership over it. Can I'm part of like cool, healthy stuff with you? Creatine too. They can take creatine. I think creatine is something that's like less. So breaking it down a little bit more, I think that the primary benefit of, say, Aminos. The things that Aminos helps with the most is for building and maintaining muscle and for basically losing fat but being able to maintain muscle while you do it, improve the outcomes of exercise. So literally, if you take it before you exercise, you will get a lot more out of the exercise. You'll build and maintain more lean muscle. You'll burn more fat. You'll recover faster. And similarly, when you age, all those things get harder. So it becomes

more and more beneficial the older you get. So if you're talking about a kid, I think that if they're just like fundamentally like not eating that much protein, it's a great extra tool to use because essential amino acids are the thing that you're trying to get from the protein. It's the active component of the protein that provides all the primary benefit for protein synthesis. So if your kids not eating that much protein, I think it's a great thing to give. I'm more primarily used with my kids because they, because they're pretty intense athletes already. Like they're super into exercising. And I'm thus like really thoughtful about making sure they get enough protein because I just want to support them and not getting injured and like being healthy,

etc. And for my daughter, who she's so much harder to get to eat protein, she like just doesn't, she's just like not as into it. It's like hacks are peonomino's. Another one is like nutritional yeast. Like little weird things that for some reason she likes. And I'm like, great. Like that's a way to do it. What do you put nutritional yeast on? I'm hearing all about this. She loves it on rice. Okay. I wouldn't eat it on. It seems weird to me, but she loves it on rice. You know, I grew up actually eating it on popcorn. I think it's killer on popcorn. The problem is, though, how old are your kids?

Well, now they're 8 and 11. You're not supposed to apparently TikTok scared me of giving popcorn to my kids under five. Why? Piece of joking? Yeah. Do you think so? I mean, my kids ate, I don't know. You have to choose all your own risks.

Like, I definitely get my kids popcorn when they were little kids. Maybe I'll give them popcorn with nutritional eats. TikTok's a bunch of softies. Get your kids popcorn. They'll be fine. I mean, I mean, that, yeah, I don't know. I mean, I can't weigh in. I don't know, like, the statistics on kids getting injured from popcorn.

But I'm like, whoa, that seems pretty soft. Like, dang, man. I'm like, I'm definitely trying to encourage my kids to have a bit more resilience and be a bit tougher than popcorn. No offense, anyway. How did you as a parent and someone who's so wellness, like, conscious, get your kids into sports? You said they're really into sports. So I think overall, like my approach to parenting is not, I'm not trying to get my kids to do anything.

And I don't have expectations that they need to do or be anything. My primary focus with them is can they be emotionally and psychologically self-sufficient people? Like when they grow up, can they sense what their own feelings are? Wait, not even when they grow up, like now. Can they generally know what they're feeling, generally know what they want, be able to advocate for it, but also be sensitive enough to other people to understand what they're needing, what I'm needing, what their friends are needing, et cetera. And if they have those skills, then generally they'll be able to sort through life. They'll be able to choose things. They'll be able to deal with resistance.

Like they start getting interested in something and they get kind of bored. They'll be able to name like, I like this, but I'm also kind of bored and I don't want to work on it. And then we can talk through it and they can keep progressing. So I think with that focus, I then just talk to my kids, you know, invite them to try things, challenge them to do stuff. And then when they start to get into something, if they really seem like they're into it, I do everything I can to participate in it with them. So for example, my son started to kind of get into basketball when he was like, I don't know, seven, eight. And so I got into it. I went and I became the assistant coach. And I would be part of the group with him and be there to support him and be interested. And

he's got more and more. I'd wake up in the morning and be like, hey, do you want to practice? to be like, sure. So I would practice with him every morning for 10 minutes. And then I'd be like, do you want to do more? And he's like, I'd love to go on a father-son trip. So I like took him to, there's this guy, Micah, I'm forgetting his last name. He's like a big NBA trainer. We went to Michigan for like a week when he's like eight or something and did like this intensive basketball thing. So I just jumped in it with him. And in that journey, there's been times when he was like it was hard or he didn't want to do it. But I think his passion for it continued to get nurtured and the fact that I was doing it with him, he just like kind of kept growing at it.

Whereas it's different from my daughter. She got into gymnastics. You weren't doing cartwheels? Well, it's funny, though, I like, I did. I, I sent up for parkour with her. So I can do, because gymnastics is super exclusive of dads. Like, you can't like get involved or like help. So I can't put the leotard on and start doing some place. No, no, they won't let you. I tried. I got put on the leotard, showed up for practice everything. No, but I did sign up for like a parkour thing. And I learned how to do a cartwheel. So I actually know, I never knew how to do a cartwheel and I learned how to do a cartwheel at 39. So that would be a sight to see, Angelo. I'd like to see a video of that.

Do it right now. Go through the camera. Okay. I have. So I guess in summary, it's like be focused overall. I'm trying to be focused overall on my children's general sense of self and self and sense of others and then just invite them to do stuff and then be there with them and like do it. I think that's great advice. And then they're going to figure out the stuff they're into. And like most. kids, I think being in your body is pretty cool. It's really cute that you're this involved when you're running such a big company because it's a lot of work what you're doing, what you're building. It's like there's a lot of sacrifice that goes into it and it's inspiring for me to hear as someone who wants to build my own empire. And it's like, how do you sort of do it all, but do it well? I think about that a lot. I actually think about that more than I even talk to you about how do you do it all, do it well. I don't know that there's such thing as balance. And I think about,

but really show up and be present in it. I mean, I think that in the essence of what you said, do it all, I might just challenge that I don't think you can do it all. Right. So you really have to choose. You have to almost like, like, viciously choose. Yeah. And like basically the only thing I do is Keon and my family.

Yeah. Like that's the only thing I do. And then I find ways of integrating pieces of it together. So for example, I mean, like I'll go, I'll still go do like intensive basketball stuff with my son. like for me to do an intensive basketball training for two hours, that's like pretty intense exercise and coordination and skill development. And I didn't like play high school or college basketball. So it's a challenge to me. But it's like I'm getting exercise and I'm with my son doing this thing. But I don't, I don't do anything else. And I think even with my kids and with my

family, it's like, don't be on my phone. Don't be doing other distracting things. Like don't like either be working and building the company or connecting with my daughter, my son or my wife. Yeah, so you don't let it bleed over. So I've got four things. I only have four things to do in life. That's good advice. I'm glad you're going to start taking it on. Anyways.

I was looking at you. I, you know, it's funny because in that similar vein, I think you're 100% right. You can't have it all. And sometimes we will get pressure from friends or people that want to, you know, do things socially. And I think every parent listening recognize like, you know, it's so hard when you have young kids to get out and be social.

You just can't. work. And so what we've, what I try to articulate is we are fortunate that we've kind of built our life around even like doing stuff like this. So like I get to socialize with you for an hour and whoever else comes on the show. Like that's my social time. It's hard then for me to like later and say, okay, I'm going to be going to three dinners and I don't do that. But this is, this is enough. And then you build the stuff around it. You know what I mean? I connect with that. And I think that's, I used to fight that more and be like, I want to, you know, get to go do these things with my friends or, um, I was a musician for a lot of my life. Like, I'm not even an artist or musician now. I'm just like a business guy. You know, it's almost, like I want that opportunity to express myself in that way. And it hasn't, I haven't had the space. But what's weird is I think if you're focused enough and patient enough that comes back around. I think so I just started doing voice lessons with my daughter. So now we do voice lessons once a week. And so it's like I'm getting to do, I mean, it's not like I'm getting like playing a band or something, but it's pretty cool. I'm getting to challenge myself and grow. And so

similarly, I think you can like, in the way that this can be social as your kids get a little bit older they can do things that are like a bit more. Because how old's your eldest? She's four. Four. Yeah. So, I mean, it's still pretty hard. Four and two.

It's like. We're in it. It's still pretty baby. We're in. We're in. It's still pretty baby. Once you get to like eight and six, like a lot more opens up in terms of other ways that you can express yourself, pursue interests, just like, I think, leaning into them.

I feel like you have to like what you said is like manipulate the situation to work for you. Like, for instance, like if we are going to go to dinner with someone, how can we integrate the kids in it. Like, can they bring their kids? Or if you're going to go on a vacation, how can you make it like family? Like, you really have to like make it work for the family or the business is what I'm learning. What you said, you can't do it all. It can work in little pockets if you sort of manipulate the situation. Does that make sense? Yeah. And I think especially if it's like those two things are your focus. Yeah. Like you want to be an awesome mom, wife and business, businesswoman, like, then you can probably try to craft things together and find little

shared wins. Yeah, like, I know this sounds maybe fucked up in a way, but like in this moment in our lives, I think we want to be awesome parents and, you know, in a great relationship and then be great business people. And that means sometimes we're sacrificing right now friendships. But I think our real friends will understand, okay, they're in it with two kids under four and doing these things. And the ones that don't get it, it's like, I don't have time to convince them.

Speaking of age, you mentioned you just turned 40, not 10. Not to call. I don't mind. I like it. I mean, 40 is the new 20, I think. And the reason I bring it up to you is you've been around health and wellness and fitness for so long. You've also seen behind the curtains building a company like you've built. You've seen all the things that are fads, the things that are trends, the things that really stick in your 40 years and being so focused on this space.

What are the things that you've seen that have stayed consistent? Like, that really works as I age. And one of the things you're like, okay, like that was not so important. I think that a couple things stand out. One is that consistency and adherence is more important than whatever new fad comes out. New information come out on Instagram today where it's like, you need to do exactly this many reps of this thing. Or you can't eat this food anymore. You got to do this or do that.

If you just consistently every day continue to show up and you try to eat quality whole foods. and not eat stuff that's like obviously highly processed and not that nutritive. Like if you're eating stuff like tons of cookies. Like there's not. You know there's not really protein. Like you know what's in it, right? And you generally every day find some way to exercise and move your body. And whether that's like, you know, I think resistance training is great.

I do some cardio. Maybe you just love cardio though. I would say doing whatever that form of running is or whatever you like every single day or every other day and being sticking with it is much better than trying to do. jump from thing to thing and start and stop and like not actually get anywhere. And I think a lot of the industry and marketing and consumers relationship to it is like just jumping around and trying all these different things. And it's if you just stick with like good, solid, consistent stuff, like it will work out. I do think it's pretty simple. I think it's like simple resistance

training, push, pull type workouts, some type of, like, low, moderate level activity, like zone two. I don't mean to get too nerdy, but it's like where you're, you're heart. No, we love nerdy. Okay. Yeah. I mean, like zone two exercise where you're basically, you're jogging or riding a bike or doing something. You can be like speedwalking or rucking to such a degree that like your heart rate's up, but we wouldn't really want to hold a conversation, but you could, like doing that. And then basically, like, if you can get some kind of like sprinting, running hard. But that, like for me, I do moitai.

So I like kickboxing. I'm never going to run that fast on my own. I just, like, someone's going to have to make me do it. Sure, but retryor is like a bunch of spurts of intense energy. Yeah, it's like spurts of intense energy. Because all these things are different. Like lifting heavy things is one body system. Your heart being able to be at an elevated level, but not too elevated for an extended amount of time

is another way that your body needs to train. Being able to sprint is another type of body training. Like those, like even just one or two of those, each of those per week will make a huge difference if you just kind of, if you start doing this. But if you really only like one, just do one. Like, you don't have to do them all. And then on the food basis, it's like, it really is like getting in enough protein every day and then eating, I think, fruits and vegetables.

But you base it around the protein first. Well, I think protein and I think protein and vegetables and fruits because vegetables and fruits do have a lot of really important micronutrients that not all protein does. But when you get down to like all the other foods you're going to eat, I mean, you don't like need to have whole grains. I mean, if you like whole grains, great. You don't like need to have tons of these other fats. I mean, you'll get these things with like if you eat vegetables and fruits and quality protein, animal protein, you're going to be pretty healthy. and then just kind of fill in the edges. So I think it really can be that simple.

And, you know, research about other types of supplements and products come out, and there are specific impacts as we age that, like, change those things. And protein actually is one of them. Like what? Yeah, give me a good thing. Yeah. So as we get older, our ability to digest protein and get the essential amino acids out of it. And then for that to actually communicate to our body to build new proteins,

which so that's the essence of what amino acids are and do they're the thing in protein that when we eat it it helps us rebuild the proteins in our body and the reason why that's important is because you eat carbs and fat to be to be burned as energy if you imagine your house you imagine your body's like a house and you need to get natural gas or electricity from the electric grid to like fuel your lights to make your lights turn on run the dishwasher etc that's what carbs and fat are. But if you actually want to remodel your house, you want to fix a hole in the wall, you want to redo the kitchen, you want to fix anything physically, all of those parts of your house that are your body are actually proteins. Your liver, your kidneys, your skin, your hair,

your eyes, your hormones, enzymes, muscle, all of this stuff, your nails, all of that is made up of proteins. And they all get old, like even for young people, they start to get old and they break down and you have to replace those proteins. And as you get older, you don't replace them as well. So like it's if you imagine living in a house and like you haven't been fixed, it's like hard to like keep it maintained and keep repairing things and fixing it. That's what happens to our body is we get older. When you take something like essential amino acids, because your body doesn't have to digest it, it's formulated in these very specific ratios. it is so much more effective than protein,

which goes back to my point earlier. When you're a kid, it's not quite as important, but literally gram for gram, if you compare essential amino acids like Keone Amino's to beef in a mixed meal, so I'm not just saying eating it alone, but you eat it with like potatoes and broccoli, it's like 24, 25 times as effective.

Because you're just getting the pure essential amino acids. So as you get older, the idea of not only eating protein, like really starting to supplement more. I'd say starting age 30. It makes a lot of sense. That said, the main question we started with was like, what's most important? What do you really need to focus on? I think it's fruits, vegetables, protein. But there are really important supplements like something like essential amino acids that are going to provide a benefit that you can't get from the foods. I think like the, and what I was asked, like, for example, like I was having these

respiratory issues. So I was like doing a bunch of stuff with NAC. But it was like very specific towards that, just super that specific issue. And then I'm like, okay, once that it went away, I'm not doing as much. But I think from like a, and not to go on a tangent there, I think sometimes people look at supplements and they're like throwing the whole kitchen sink at everything, but the things that you do on a consistent yearly, daily basis, I would say, okay, if aminos fall into that, creatines, maybe one of them, maybe some weight proteins or whatever proteins you prefer. Like what are the other things that you've said, okay, these things are like kind of a daily, weekly staple? I think that creatine is another great one. So I mean, honestly,

and I'm not trying to now turn this into like a, a point. plug. I'm just being real about like my brand. Like I make the ones. He makes the ones. You make the ones. Yeah. And it really is way protein, like way protein isolate. And the reason for that is because it is harder to hit daily protein requirements. And you're looking for ways to use something like a supplement, which protein powder is. It's not just food. It's a supplement. But you can use more like food like ways. Like you can put protein powder into pancakes for your kids. I do that. You can put protein powder into bake goods. You can make like, I can make our chocolate protein shake for my kids for dessert.

Yeah. And they, and they, I mean, I put milk in there. Even put a little cream, whatever. And it's like ice cream for them. But I just got them this protein. That's such a good tip. That's a great. I mean, like, you know.

Damn, that's a great time. It really works. Yeah, like, speaking of fruits, I'm like, okay, I want to get a shitload of blueberries in because I've heard blueberries are really good and I feel good on them. And so like I'll take a bunch of them, like literally like half of a full thing of blueberries and put it in with the width way. protein with a little bit of coconut milk with some ice and then, you know, maybe some creatine or like whatever else I'm feeling. But it's just a way for me to get that extra protein

kit. Because even like you said, someone like me who's focused on protein like yourself, even if I want to get like 150 grams or so, like that's a lot of, it's a lot of eating. And that's a lot of different things. Yeah, and like food prep. And like if you want to eat clean food at home, like if you do eat out, you don't know like what orals they cooked with or you can end up getting a bunch of calories from that. Just trying to make your own food. Yeah, if I can get 40 or 50 grams of protein from a powder and I can drink a down and get the fruits in. It's not like all day. So weigh creatine aminos and anything else that we should be getting every day? I think that those are really good places to start. I think I think

colostrum is a great one, but I think that it's more optional. I would say it's a more optional one. But I think it's, we've been making colostrum for years for this specific reason. It is a really good product. What are some things that you see on social media that you think are misinformation when it comes to wellness. I mean, there's just so many. I'm like, what, gosh, what's the, I think this is like the challenge. Here's the biggest thing I'd say. Like, even in the context of this conversation, we have a lot more time and space to go into more nuance if we want to. Okay. But in every answer I give you, I have to summarize things. Go, please. But I'm saying there's hundreds of studies on every single subject, right? So I have to summarize, like, even if you take a little quote,

I said, where like, this essential amino acid is 24 to 25 times more than the beef protein. But I Don't worry, they'll pull it. But I need to say it's part of a mixed meal. And it's like, and I have to describe how muscle protein synthesis works, et cetera. Like there's a context. There's always context and nuance. The internet loves taking the context. Yeah.

So there's just no context for things. And so I think that being able to decipher what actually has, say, hundreds of studies behind it. And across those hundreds of studies, there are clear overlap. of results. Like, so there's, for example, for creatine, when the ISSN, the International Society of Sports Nutrition did their big paper on it to say, like, is creatine legit or not? They were able to cite like a hundred studies. So I would say for colostrum, there's not as many studies as that. Point blank, there just aren't. That doesn't mean it's not good or not legit. It is. Like, I believe in colostrum. There's really good studies. That's why we make a colostrum product.

I love colostrum. But with creatine, like hundreds of studies and a lot of clarity. But on social media, someone may pick out one study and say this one thing in this really strong way and act like it's like just the fundamental truth. And really, it's what one study uncovered in this one population group and kind of... Quick bait. Yeah. So I think the challenge with social media is you, like, you're hearing all these things, how weighty are the things? Like how much research is really behind this thing versus that thing? Were there other studies that said something different? You know, like, how do you kind of sort through it all? And so I think that's the greatest challenge because it's not so much that like tons of people are out there like lying, right? Or just saying

things that are totally false. But I think they're isolating one study and one claim from that study to say something, you know, just like really groundbreaking. So for my perspective, in someone who's actually trying to bring the most science back products, which, for example, when the ISS ended their report on essential amino acids, there were more studies than creatine that they referenced, like 127 studies. Like, that's a lot of studies. So when they make, when they kind of summarize the information, you can trust that they weren't cherry picking. They're really trying to like build a complete picture for people to understand.

From your opinion, though, what is, what is things that, like, it could be your opinion, it doesn't have to be necessarily case studies, just something that you see on social media from your opinion. So I think the idea of fasting as in. increasing longevity. Most of those studies and the studies that are referenced are rodent studies. What's a rodent study? Rats. Rats. On rodents. Yeah, they're rat studies. So they're studying fasting on the rats. They're studying fasting on rats. And then they're building this huge, gigantic story about it, right? And you have all these influencers talking about it and you even have, I'm not going to call anyone out who's like more people who've written books on it, etc.

But you're talking about rodent studies. I think that to encourage people to make such a big change in their life, say to not eat for 12 hours a day, I think, or even more, 16 hours a day. I think 12 hours a day is probably not that big of a deal, or even like 20 hours a day or only eat one meal a day. Not that I think that there's anything wrong with making that decision to do that, but to market to people, like, this is absolutely the thing and it's going to like make you live so much longer and all this. When there's all these other. human studies that show that other things are potentially more important just seems like a weird use of your time. Like why would you build, why would you like promote all these things that are based off like rat studies? My big issue with a lot of this stuff and documentaries and even people listening to podcasts and getting this is they, this is going to sound certain. They get out of their own intuition and they're like, okay, now I'm following a very specific plan. But every, like all four of us in the room are producers, like we're all different. and our bodies are different.

And the way that we're going to need nutrients and supplements are going to be different depending on what we're doing. So, for example, if I'm like weight training my ass off every single day and training really hard, I'm not going to be able to fast in the morning. I'm going to need that fuel in my body, where if some days I'm like, hey, I'm not feeling well and I kind of want to give my system a break, maybe that's more relevant. But people get so stuck on like, this is my routine and my regimen, and I'm going to block out what my body and mind is telling me.

And I'm just going to follow this. I think we're really good at doing that, especially as humans. And it's essentially what I'm saying is we just stop listening to our bodies and we get out of touch with ourselves. Like I eat when I'm hungry and I stop when I feel a little full. I don't, you know what I mean? Like, what a novel concept. I'm not saying I'm sorry. But I think a lot of people like they will kind of say like, no, I'm supposed to do this specific thing with these specific calories at this specific time or not.

And like that's what they do. They don't and they get out of like basically being in touch with themselves. And I think like, Lauren, I think you were still trying to push me to say like what's a specific thing that's like bullshit? But it's this thing. I think it's the same element of like people acting as if there's like this one absolute truth from like these very simplistic studies. Maybe it's like rodent studies, then persuading this whole group to like change their whole life to live in this whole way according to it. And then people like worship that and just try to do that. And then they ignore maybe their own intuition. Like that to me seems like the greatest issue, not even so much the specific thing being

promoted. I'll give a, I'll give a counter example to that. Like I don't think there's anything wrong with intermittent fasting. Many days, like, I won't eat in the morning. I'll take amino still because I want to maintain muscle and you will lose muscle if you're, you know, not eating for that period of time. But I'm not doing that. Yeah, I'm not doing that with this idea. Like, I have to or I must. It's like, hey, it's like, I feel kind of clearer minded. I'm not really that hungry yet. It's going to overall help my total daily caloric intake. It's positive for me. Like, there's nothing super negative about it. But when someone's like worshiping like this truth, that this is what the science said, but it's like this one guy said it and pulled it from these

very selected studies. Like, that's the thing that concerns me, because I don't want to go and critique anything. I'm not critiquing intermittent fasting. Yeah. I also think it depends like the gender too, like with intermittent fasting. Like I know I've heard many things where it says like sometimes it's better for men than women because of hormones. I think it's so true that people will make these statements or these proclamations that are, there's so much or they're so aggressive about it that you're right. It's it's there's nuances people. People get yeah and people get really defensive and really crazy about these kind of topics around diet because I think it hits like people's ways of life you know and and how they think about themselves but for example and I'm not going to

pick on a specific diet but if you choose like one certain kind of diet and you think this is what's good for you and everyone else around you telling you're watching all these documentaries confirming that bias and then a few months into the diet your hair starts falling out and you ignore that signal from your body. Like that's an issue, right? Like, you can't be like, well, this is happening because of any other reasons. You have to honestly look at yourself and be like, wait, is something I'm doing really not as productive as I thought it was, right? And I just think that we're really good, especially when it comes to health and fitness at saying, like, I am this thing labeling myself in a specific way. You see it with the carnivore people. You see it with the

vegetable. You see it with the, you see all these people. They label themselves. They call themselves this thing. And then they ignore what's actually going on with the results. They're getting individually because they've attached that label to themselves. I think that's really dangerous. You know, as soon as you make a way of eating part of your identity, like that's, that's an issue. Man, the way you phrase that, I think it really hit me because I was just thinking about overall diet, how much that reflects people's sense of like how they look, how they feel, how other people perceive them and how sensitive many of us are regarding that. Like we all want to be validated and approved of you want to look good, you know, or you want to be able to perform well

or do these things and how diet gets like connected to that. And then you get and then people get really defensive. It's a strange. And super aggressive versus like what is what are the foods and the supplements that literally make me feel better, right? And that then help me live better and potentially help me look better, etc. And like that actually being the focus versus all this weird identity. It's like there's all this other weird emotional content that's going on that doesn't even have to do with.

The food. Imagine, like, I meet someone for the first time or I'm going to a speaking event. And I have to describe who I am. And I'd be like, okay, I'm Michael. I'm a husband, father. I like these hobbies. I run these kind of businesses. Like, these are my interests.

These are what I do. Like, I wouldn't start this like, hi, I'm Michael. I'm a carnivore. You know, I mean, it's like a strange way to describe yourself. But a lot of people have made their food, their primary identifier. And it's a strange thing to lead with, in my opinion. Like, my diet is the thing now that I use as a descriptor to explain myself in my life. I think people haven't thought like that if you're doing that it's kind of like well why like why is that your main descriptor because that just your food should not be the main thing that lets people know who you are right yeah I mean that's I mean that maybe that's I suddenly felt bad because I was like oh man for those people like what is going on like I know I guess I would just say for anyone listening and they're in that boat don't want to be part of like picking on you and making you feel bad about yourself that you're doing that but it is maybe something curious to ask yourself about it's an interesting thought like you're not thinking

about, I don't know, the people most important to you. Like, you're saying a father, right? Or like your active contributions to society as being a businessman and doing these things. It's like all about this one thing that you're putting in your body. Like it's an interesting prompt or question to ask yourself, like, why are you so? I'm sure. Not only obsessed with that, but needing to like evangelize other people on it, et cetera. I'm sure there's going to be people have a certain opinion of what. But I've always, I just, I don't know, I've always found it very strange that people get so bought into a way of eating that they then make it part of their personal identity as their main descriptor. And I think that becomes part of a real issue. Like, who do you actually

want to be? And is food controlling your life or are using it to sustain yourself? Like, I look at food as a source of like what I need to live and sustain myself as health in as health the way as possible. I don't look at it as like the thing that drives my life. Right. Like I got other shit going on and I want to use the resources as food as a resource, not as like a thing that determines how I behave every day. I relate to that, man. I think that's how I think about it. Maybe I walked into a mind-pillar on this one, but who knows? I like it. Lauren, what do you think about all this? I think that if you are using your food choices as an identity, like if it's linked in your bio, I would ask yourself why. I think that's a good question. And maybe it's a really

important part of your identity, and I would still again ask myself why. Or I would also say, if you're triggered about people, I talk about raw milk all the time. Raw milk has changed my life and people get so triggered online about it. And I'm like, why do you care what I eat? Like, why do you care? Like, it just triggers people. It's like, why does anyone care? And it's really triggering.

And I think when I'm triggered, I ask myself why I'm triggered as opposed to outwardly blaming other people. But what if I like describe myself, like, if you're like, you went to my bio and it said whiskey drink or beer enthusiast, like on the reverse end of it. It's like, that'd be very strange for people to use like that descriptor. You know what I mean? I just, I bet there are people. I'm sure.

And that'd probably again be like a good, maybe, maybe we keep it open-ended. Everyone, how did you describe yourself on your Instagram bio? Yeah. And look at that and see, is that what you want to be the most important things in your life? Is that, is that like? I got to add mom and wife. I'm actually curious. I'm going to do a little plot twist about your take on semi-glutide, Ozempic,

Wagavi. Uh-huh. What's your vibe on that? Because for me, I think that it could be used as a tool if used properly. But I think the problem is some people are not using it properly because they're losing muscle. You're the perfect person. Ask this, I feel like. You know what's so interesting is you asked me about this.

It had like just come out. I did? We didn't talk about it on the first interview. But right before like in 2022, you're like, hey, what do you think about this? Those MPEC thing. And it was like brand new. it like it was like super brand new but we didn't get a chance to talk about it and go go so much has happened since then that I think now there's way more information and it's a much we could have a

much more fruitful conversation about it yeah so I think overall like big picture what those drugs do those impic they they fundamentally help you control your appetite right I mean they do other things but like people who take them end up eating less and when you eat less you you're going to lose weight because there is just pure science between calories and calories out. The challenge with caloric restriction diets, and I would just say overall, if you want to lose weight, I would encourage you to eat less calories. That is going to be the most fundamental thing you have to do.

But when you do that, you have to be very, very thoughtful about how many essential amino acids you're still getting in your diet. And the reason for that is because when you restrict calories, even though protein and the essential amino acids inside of them, their primary role in the body is not to give you energy. Like I described earlier, your body's a house, right? The primary role of protein and amino acids is not to be turned into energy to like turn on the lights and to run the whole house or to move your body. The primary role is to help rebuild the proteins in your body, particularly the muscle. But when you deprive yourself of calories, your body does

start using the essential amino acids as an energy source at a way greater rate. And this blew my mind when I read this. And it's from research 2020, 2020, that if you go on a 30% caloric deficit, so let's just say that your maintenance calories are typical woman, 1,800 calories, and you want to lose weight. You would cut your caloric intake, say, by 600 calories a day. And 600 calories a day would have you lose about a pound a week. So if you start eating 30% less food, 30% less calories, you'll lose about a pound a week. But what happens is when you cut your calories by that much, what happens is that there is a threefold increase. So you need 300% more essential amino acids in your diet in order to maintain your muscle,

to maintain protein balance. So if somebody is going and they're doing something, something like this at a caloric deficit and they're going to lose weight, they need to then triple up on their amino intake in order to not lose the muscle at the same rate. But that's not that overwhelming. If they're doing one scoop, they just do three more. Yeah, but me, but a lot of people, I didn't know that even. Yeah, but right. Yeah, I mean, I think if you're using something like essential amino acids already,

yeah, it would be like three times them out. But I'm saying in your diet, I'm saying like if before you're eating 100 grams of protein, in the 100 grams of protein, if it's all the highest quality, animal protein. Probably only 45 grams are essential amino acids. So, because half of protein is essential amino acids. But that's like beef, um, milk products. It's not like plant proteins are way less. They're like 20% or something like that. So that would basically mean that you, if you're going to cut calories like that, you would need to go from eating 100 grams of protein to eating 300 grams of protein a day. So you're trying to cut, you're trying to cut like approximately

600 calories out of your diet. And if it's getting too heady, like we can make it simpler. No, no, no. But I'm trying to cut 600 calories out of my diet. But I need to eat now suddenly go from eating 100 grams of protein to eating 300 grams of protein a day. The reason for that is because if you don't eat that protein, now I'm going to solve the problem with essential amino acids. Okay. If you don't eat that protein while you're also cutting those calories. So you need to like eat way more protein as a total percentage of your diet than you were before. You will lose muscle and not just losing fat. You'll lose a lot of. of muscle. You can actually lose a pound of muscle at a 750 calorie deficit, whereas you can

lose a pound of fat at a 3,000 calorie deficit. So overall, what I'm trying to say is you need to eat a lot more protein or you could take a lot more essential amino acids. So the danger fewer. You could take, instead of trying to eat 200 grams more protein, you could just have a few scoops of essential amino acids. But the danger then going back to the OZemic conversation is if you're going a caloric deficit this fast, many people are not aware that they need to increase Essential amino acid. And protein. Yeah.

So they're not really, the fundamental is increasing your essential amino acid consumption. And the way of doing that through whole foods, the way of doing that through protein is through eating whole foods. You know, you could be, you could be eating protein powder, et cetera. But so I think that's the issue with these, with these drugs in terms of it potentially causing issues for people is it's a very aggressive weight loss based off of intense, reduction in calories. They're eating way less calories, but they're not changing their overall nutrition. They're not increasing the amount of protein they eat or they're not adding in essential

amino acids as a supplement. And so therefore, they're eating away at tons of muscle at the same time. And here's maybe an even bigger issue. And it goes to your question around like losing hair, et cetera. So our hair, our skin, our nails, like all these fundamental parts of our body also come from consuming essential amino acids, from consuming protein. And if you go below the recommended daily allowance, when you're not in a caloric restriction, you will start to have hair loss, skin issues, like really significant problems. So if you're on really aggressive caloric restriction, like you're eating way less, and I'm saying chloric restriction, but really you're taking the drug and then you're just not hungry, right? So you're not having to restrict that much. Like the drug's

kind of doing it for you. You're suddenly not hungry. You're eating way less. But you're not ensuring that even getting this base line of protein, not only you're going to lose muscle, you're going to have skin issues, hair loss, you're going to have all these other host of issues. And maybe at first, you're just so excited that, like, you know, you're losing so much weight and you're losing so much fat that you're just stoked on that. But over time, it could take a real toll on not just your lean muscle, which is important for staying active, having a good metabolism, living a long time, but it'll also impact just immediate things like skin, hair, nails, etc. Yeah, I mean, for people that are wondering and thinking about this as a visual perspective,

we're really good as humans. I just talking about another podcast, really good as humans are kind of like not thinking about the long term and just saying like, okay, what's happening in the next month, a few days, week. But we all see elderly people that are hunched over, muscles completely depleted, look like skin and bones. Like, you can, you see those people, but people don't realize that can be you way faster than you think if you don't do these things.

That's a gray visualization. You can be that way earlier on regardless of your age if you let this happen. And I think like it doesn't mean, that doesn't just happen to 60, 70, 80 year olds. Like that could happen 40, 50s. You can happen way earlier. So for people wondering your visual if you don't want that to happen if you consider this kind of stuff. I've absolutely seen people in their 40s that look like they're in their 50s,

late 60s because of not thinking about their day. essential amino acid intake through protein or through supplementation. And it's worsened, again, if you do aggressive dieting, whether it's with the support of drugs or without the support of drugs. So talk to me about this. Say you're going to lose weight, you. How many amino acids are you taking a day if you're going to lose weight? And I'm talking, I want you to tell us in the supplement form and in the powder form. So if I want to lose weight, I'm going to take your question of me if I want to lose fat. Okay. Right. So if I want to like get cut. Like right now, That's like not a goal for me. Like I'm pretty happy. I'm like mid teen. I'm mid teen body fat percentage.

Go watch the YouTube guys. But he's married. So sorry. Go ahead. What how many are you taking? But I was going to say, but I've got like almost 100 pounds of muscle. Like I'm more interested in trying to be strong and fit and like be good at kickboxing and do things like that. But if I was like, man, we're going to Costa Rica in a couple weeks. Like it'd be pretty cool. Like I want to just like look cut, you know? So ideally I'd want to lose like 10 pounds of fat. If I lost 10 pounds of fat, it would make, it would look significantly different on me.

So if I were going to do that, what I need to do is I need to cut about that's 35,000 calories. Because how many calories are you out? 3,500 calories times 10, times 10 pounds. But I want it to be all fat calories. Okay. And so however aggressive I want to be in that, if I want to do that in a week, like 3,500 calories a week for 10 weeks or 7,000 calories. I'm going to call you if I ever need to lose weight.

This math is like, I'm like, oh my God. What you're saying is basically 3,500 calories is basically 1 pound. So if you cut 30, if I'm really optimized and I'm, I'm going to get to the aminos, if I'm optimizing my protein and my amino acid intake. And so for basic math, if someone wants to lose one pound in seven days, they could cut 500 calories per day. Yes. So just so it's, okay. Yes.

And ideally, if you're already eating a lot of protein, if you cut 500 calories per day, and then you up your essential amino acid intake or protein intake, like you ate that much more protein, you would ensure that you were only losing fat and not losing any muscle. Got it. Yeah. So what I would do is honestly just to be like super safe. I mean, I would like overdo it. I have unlimited amino acid supply. And you're like Charlie and the chocolate factory of amino acid. And it's been deemed safe for 20 servings per day for extended use. So that's like a, I mean, that's a lot of servings. I don't know. God. You're making me want to just hang on. That's a lot of serving. So I mean, I would I would probably take three servings at a time because one serving, like one serving at

time, which is five grams of essential amino acids, is, if you take that, it's good. It works. But up to three times that amount. So if you take up to three servings at a time, it creates that much more benefit. Okay. We're doing it right now. Three times the amount is three times as good. So I would do that and I would probably do it six times a day. But so that's like a lot. That's six scoops, right? No, that's like three scoops six times a day. Jeez. Wow. But you don't have to do that much. I think for like, yeah, I'm saying like, I have unlimited I can do whatever I want to do. And like, I'm really trying to aggressively cut these other calories.

Like, I want to lose two pounds of fat a week or three pounds of fat a week. Like, I would do that. But it wouldn't be sustainable for a long time. And for a lot of people, like, that's a lot of, it's almost like a clinical dosage amount of essential amino acids. But I think if you take three servings or one to three servings at a time and you take it two to three times a day, you're more than going to surpass that need for the increased amount of essential amino acids.

if you're already eating a decent amount of protein in every meal. Like if you eat three meals a day and they have a good amount of protein and you're eating some vegetables and you kind of cut out the extra fat, dressings, you know, cheap like carbs, etc. And that's how you're getting to the lower caloric amount. And then you take the key on aminos, you know, three times a day and you can take it up to three servings at a time. You are going to protect all that muscle and you're going to only lose fat.

And you might even put on muscle. Like so a guy in my office who has been with us for years, but finally got really, really serious about like macro and calorie counting because he injured his shoulder. He couldn't exercise. For three months, he was really diligent about tracking what he ate every day. And he cut his caloric intake. He did not exercise during this period. Like I can't even emphasize how crazy this is. He didn't exercise. And in three months, he lost 25 pounds of fat and he gained net lean muscle because he was taking like three servings of kionomino's like three times a day.

Like he was just ensuring that every three hours he was taking, he was getting essential amino acids in his body. He was stimulating new protein synthesis. He was maintaining his muscle. And then he was not overeating, you know, food that would cause him to get fat, like cheap carbs, etc. And he was just, and he wasn't like starving himself. He was eating well. But literally 25 pounds of fat maintained all of his lean muscle gained a little bit. I think one of the benefits of some of these Ozzympic conversations.

And, like, again, it could be a tool, is that. For a long time, I feel that if people in the fitness and health industry said, if you want to lose wage, you got to cut calories. Like, that was like, how could you say that? Like, how could you tell me that I have to stop eating as much as I'm eating? And I think what Ozempic has done is it's opened back up the conversation of, hey, you do this and it makes your appetite suppress. You're cutting calories essentially, and maybe in an extreme way, which is giving people, you know,

success when it comes to losing fat. Obviously, the muscle conversation needs to be there. But I've always personally, again, felt that people are. overcomplicate this subject, which is if you want to lose fat, that likely involves cutting your caloric intake. It fundamentally does. It fundamentally does. Like, there's no other way around. Like, it's just... Yeah. But the drugs can help people to do that if it's, if it's really hard. Like, if the motivation's hard, if the discipline's hard. If, like, emotional eating things are tied up with it, like, it can help. But the reason it works is because it you eat less.

Yeah. I mean, it's like... If you don't eat enough protein, that's the biggest risk. of the stuff, you'll long term you'll be in trouble because you'll eat away not only the fat, you'll lose not only the fat, but you'll lose the muscle. And then the face, it doesn't look good. The face, especially the face. That's what I worry about is like the muscle and the face going away. I know that's weird. And even just like the quality of the skin, I think like what people don't get, when you think about people getting older, I think it's a great visual. As you get older, what happens to your skin, right? It sags more. It gets more dry. Right. It doesn't look as like youthful and springy.

Like how it looks when you train, when you muscle train. It looks like tight to the skin, tight to the muscle. And the reason for that is because as we get older, our body's not prioritizing, rebuilding all those proteins, right? It's just trying to like survive, right? And so that's why it's so important to think, like, in the context of taking a drug like this, where you're depriving yourself of these proteins, you're provoking that same kind of thing in your body then.

your body's not able to prioritize maintaining the quality of your skin because it's just trying to use the protein literally just to help service the rest of your body in terms of energy needs. Whereas if you can get in enough of those essential amino acids, then it can sustain the quality of your skin. And this is one of the things as you get older, starting to supplement with something like Keonaminos will actually help you maintain more of the tightness of the skin, the quality of the hair of those things, because you're basically counteracting. you're trying to overcome the fact that your body doesn't want to use protein as much for that, right?

It's just like it's not trying to keep your skin as tight. It's not trying to do that. And you're communicating to the body, no, I want it to. I'm giving these essential amino acids because I'm trying to stimulate it to help rebuild the skin, to help rebuild older tissues in my vital organs, to help rebuild the muscle. Like you're actually communicating to it that you want it to rejuvenate all those proteins. Yeah, I think, you know, it's so we were talking on an episode right before this. And I think sometimes like the bodybuilding community gets shade, obviously because there's a lot of people about it, maybe gone too far and abused or things. But a lot of these early bodybuilders were on to a lot of things that I think are very relevant, you know, like basically losing fat and putting on muscle in the proper ways to do that. Like a lot of the supplementation that these guys discovered early on, maybe not to the extreme levels is very relevant. And I think to your point earlier in the episode, some people see, especially maybe women, Lauren used to do this, would see guys like that. I don't want to bulk up.

You don't have to go to that extreme. Those guys have to work so hard. But there's certain things and practices they do with it's with caloric intake and with supplementation that has been spot on for years and years. I think they've been ahead of the curve in a lot of ways. Totally. I mean, I think they're, well, I think specifically for trying to construct your physique, that's all they do, right?

When you think about different types of athletes, bodybuilders, like, their whole thing is like they're trying to construct their physique to look a very specific way. So you don't have to follow all of their advice. Like, if you don't want to get jacked, then like, don't do the things. make you get jacked. But if you want to control for body fat percentage, like, those, those men and women have very low body fat percentage. And they know how to get there. And it's, I always find it funny, though, people say, like, you don't want to get, yeah, it's like, so easy to get jacked. I think that's what, it's so. It's like, it's hard.

It's, like, you can't. Whenever I hear, like, my buddies, like, yeah, I'll work out, but I don't want to get jacked. I'm like, what are you talking about, man? Like, you're not going to get jacked working out twice a week for 30 minutes. That's an excuse, though. That's just an excuse that they're saying so. But, like, that's what these guys are. I think it's a resist. I think it's like a resistance to the execute. I really do think so because it's like, I don't, or I don't want to be one of those rich people driving one of those cars. That's an excuse not to execute. I have a random question that I want to just ask you on air because whenever I post this on my Instagram story, people go wild. So I always post Keon coffee on my story. It's what I drink every single day. I like ran out before and had to like walk down to the local coffee store and it's like disgusting to me.

And I really didn't even know I was a coffee snob until Keon. But I think one of the reasons that I personally like it so much is because it tastes really clean. And I know it's one of the only coffees out there that doesn't have mold. Can you speak on why you saw white space there and what actually is in the coffee that we're drinking? Yeah, I love that question. And to even slightly reframe it, it wasn't like there was white space and I wanted to capture this part of the market. it was I wanted to drink awesome coffee and I didn't want chemicals in my body or other gross stuff. You drink coffee every day.

Like how unique that you would want great coffee. Yeah. So I think the what happened like I'll describe what we do to ensure the coffee is of the quality that it is. And you'll paint the picture of what's not happening in other coffees maybe you drink. So the first thing is when you go and you source the green beans, you basically, are able to source whether it's like specialty grade or not. And specialty grade is the quality of the actual green beans like size, if they're similar or not, if they're broken, et cetera. And the more attention that's put into the actual farming of those beans will determine whether it's specialty grade or not.

And I think it's less than like five or three percent of all coffee in the world. Okay. It's specialty grade. After that, then it's, well, is it organic certified. And organic certified is, you know, third party certification that actually certifies at the level of like the farm. to see if they're using any chemicals on the farm or not. Then after that, it's really about, like, well, who's raising the coffee and what conditions? And then finally, once the coffee gets actually, like, grown and gets put into a drying situation, how is it dried? So coffee literally, as you can imagine, I mean, it's grown in places that don't have tons of money.

In some cases, it's just beans are just laid out all over the ground, right? Or laid out in these large drying situations, or you can use a mechanical dryer. So we specifically buy coffee. That is all specialty grade, organic, from very select farms that make the highest quality coffee and then only use the machine drying process. The machine drying process ensures that you don't just have wet coffee beans sitting there and then could potentially grow mold on them. So it's really like an operational thing that you have to qualify a farm for besides just like test for later. Then once the coffee beans are actually, you know, grown, and and dried, then they have to pack them into some type of bag. Something that we learned early on

is that you can get a certified organic coffee bean that actually gets put into a green coffee bag. Have you seen those big coffee sacks? You know what I'm talking about? But that was used for a non-organic coffee previously. So it's got pesticides all over it. So if you actually were to test that same coffee, which we had done before, and it had pesticides on it, we're like, why is this coffee a pesticide? It's supposedly organic. And they had to track it down because we were so neurotic about making sure it was like the perfect coffee. And they're like, oh, I guess it's from these sacks. We didn't even know. And I mean, like, we're like, I'm pretty new to the coffee business, like 2017. So it meant like organic coffees for a long time

until we had asked. People, they could be packed in a bag that's like got pesticides all over it. So your bags are clean now too. Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, we've never sold a coffee that has had that situation. We uncovered it in testing because we're testing at the green bean level. We're testing once it's been stored. We're testing again, you know, upon final production. for things like pesticides, cleaning chemicals. Because also, like, even when you're, like, roasting the coffee on machines, there's the risk that someone cleans the machine with some kind of, like, chemical, right? And then the, like, a cleaning, I mean, just think about, like, a cleaning solution.

Like, if you don't hire the right cleaning company to clean the roasting machine. So we've just been, like, very specific and neurotic at every stage to make sure it's specially grade organic, machine dried, but the testing occurs for pesticides and other chemicals, mold, et cetera, at the green bean level, at the storage. level and then at the finish testing level to where you're just you're getting there's no chance of it not you know it's like we've we've minimized all the risk of their getting exposure any of these gross things so how many cups do you have a day i'm cutting back right now okay so i have cut back from like five oh geez to like two or three yeah so it's good coffee like it's weird like your coffee's

clean though and i it is good coffee i can do two cups of yours until sensitive and be fine but like that's all. I get jittery if I do more than a cup and a half. But if I could and it didn't make me like coffee in general jittery, I would do three. I get it. The jittery thing is probably like the biggest, that's the biggest difference that people notice. Like that's like the like I can tell you all the stuff about how it's clean and it's tested for all these things. But when you drink, drink it, it is really remarkable how much less jitters you get from another coffee. I could not drink that much coffee. It's funny. So similarly, sometimes I'm out and I'm like, I want to get a coffee. I'll go to the local coffee shop.

And it's like a good roaster in Boulder and they're nice people. It's organic. I get it. And like literally one cup and I'm kind of like, like, oh. Also, can I just go off because I feel like you'll appreciate this? Do you get this beautiful organic coffee at the coffee store? But then you get it in a cup that has plastic lined in it with the plastic lid and the microplastics all melt in it.

And then you're drinking microplastics. Like it's just like on and on and on and on and on. You know? Yeah, I get it in the ceramic mug. Oh, excuse me. Oh, sorry. Look at the sign up for you. Also, Lauren, I'm going to want up you two.

If I ever go to a coffee shop, I always get just an iced Americano because I don't trust being in that either. Yeah, but you're getting it in a plastic cups. So, Angela still wins. But at least it's not melting. Yeah, but you get the straw. See, I actually, sorry guys. I actually have silicone straws that I bring places. So while you guys are drinking out of your weird microplastic, I'm drinking my silicone straw.

I'm drinking my silicone straw. I transfer it into a clay jar that I've made by hand. Okay. Can we do a huge giveaway of all of our favorites? favorites. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, guys, go follow at Kian on Instagram. I really, really, really love their coffee, the mango aminos, and I'm really into these supplements. That's because this is an easy way to get them. You can just take them. The capsules. The capsules. But, but every single day without fail, and you guys have seen this for the last two years, I take a scoop

of the mango aminos with a scoop of the creatine. I froth it up in my surroundings. ceramic mug with no lead, and I drink it during a workout. So definitely try that. And then I also like the mango travel packets because I travel a lot and it's easy to just throw in my carry-on. Where can everyone find you? Is there a code to shop? I think the best place to go to is just get K-E-T-K-I-O-N.com slash skinny. Okay. And everything we've talked about should be on there. And it should be 20% off. 20% off. That is so generous. I feel like you can come back. time because there truly is so many different layers. It's like an octopus. I'm not quite sure what tentacle to go to. I liked. I've never heard that one. I thought, I thought you were going to,

when you started with O, I thought it was onion. No. It was octopus. Yeah. Yeah, you're an octopus. I'm an octopus. She's unique. So two tentacles that's far. There's six left. Yeah, we've got. There's six left. So you can come. I actually have so many more questions about health and wellness, but that's all the time we have for today. So at Keon on Instagram, you guys, at get keon.com.com slash Skinny. Check out the mango aminoes. 20% off. That is very generous. Angelo, can we go stock you on Instagram or are you private? What's in your bio? I have to go check what's in my bio. Is it say amino guy? You know what's funny is they literally call me Amino Keeley at work? Like, that's my nickname. Love it. Yeah. So I'm not private. If you work hard enough, you can find me.

Okay. Oh. All right. Thank you. Thank you.