Kind: captions
Language: en
what do you begin to learn that you
think
is like revolutionary knowledge well I
used to think that dementia was an old
person's disease right I I like many
people didn't didn't care about it
Alzheimer's disease was something that I
thought was decades into the Future
something only old people get a natural
part of aging
um
you know age-related senility was
something that was considered a par for
the course of just getting older but
what I learned is that Alzheimer's
disease begins in the brain 30 to 40
years if not longer before the first
symptom whoa yeah there are biomarkers
evident on brain scans now with you know
the hyper Advanced scanning technology
that we now have access to that have
shown signs related to Alzheimer's
disease evident in the brains of 20 year
olds so whoa yeah
so I mean this is something that might
be a lifelong Cascade by the time you uh
is this something I could get checked
for right now
well there are genetic risk factors for
developing Alzheimer's disease
um so the most well-defined of them is
the apoe4 allele which is a variant of
the apoe gene that you inherit one copy
from your mom one copy from your dad but
your thesis if I have it right is
basically okay you may have the allele
the gene but that doesn't mean that it's
inevitable 100 what could I do to my
brain to see if I have any of the
precursors of Alzheimer's well one of
the top things that you can do is make
sure that you are insulin sensitive
because peripheral insulin resistance
which is insulin resistance is the
Hallmark of type 2 diabetes pre-diabetes
it can
precede actually the um the appearance
of chronically elevated blood sugar and
so it's been shown that that is actually
very closely related to your brain's
ability to create energy so this is
actually one of the defining features of
Alzheimer's disease and it might be the
one of the earliest uh things to go awry
in the brain metabolic dysfunction in
the brain and it seems to be very
closely tied to the body's metabolism so
I would go to the doctor and have them
run what test your fasting blood sugar
and your fasting glucose very important
and with those two biomarkers that any
physician can check they can determine
your level of insulin sensitivity okay
one thing you've talked a lot about in
the book and in your talks and I love
this is so I hear Alzheimer's I think I
know all about this amyloid plaques man
that's the problem
I just recently had my cholesterol taken
I like to think I am healthy and my
doctor literally wanted to put me on a
Statin yeah and I was like whoa whoa
whoa
um I know enough to be dangerous when it
comes to cholesterol walk us through the
the
the relationship that you've talked
about that exists between potentially
what amyloid plaques are and potentially
what cholesterol really is yeah that's
really interesting so Alzheimer's
disease was first named in 1906 by a
German physician named Alois Alzheimer
but
ninety percent of what we know about the
disease has been discovered only in the
past 15 years
the only way up until very recently that
it could be diagnosed with black and
white certainty was on death they would
open up the brain of a cadaver and they
would examine the brain they would
notice a dramatic brain shrinkage
and they would notice
Hallmark plaques and tangles in the
brains of these patients
the plaques were an aggregation of
misfolded proteins the protein is called
amyloid beta and so the amyloid
hypothesis that these plaques build up
in the brain of a person with
Alzheimer's disease has been The Guiding
um
path what it now turns out thanks to you
know Advanced scanning technology
that amyloid might actually be there at
the scene of the crime
but in fact at least initially an
innocent bystander
um
because you know if we now have scanning
technology that allows us to see things
that are happening in the brain well
before the presentation of symptoms
um that might actually be more initial
factors in the Cascade that will
ultimately create Alzheimer's disease
it's LED researchers and scientists to
take a step back and ask what is causing
our brains to become landfills for this
amyloid plaque
and so as I mentioned earlier one of the
burgeoning theories that now seems to be
displacing at least from my perspective
this amyloid hypothesis because you know
drug trials that have sought to cure the
disease have a 99 percent
99.6 fail rate yeah
so the question is what starts first you
know is there is there something that we
can measure in the body or brain that
begins before this buildup of amyloid
plaque that we can intervene and say
um you know by taking these steps you
might prevent this disease from
happening well one of the if not the
earliest measurable thing to happen in
the brain is a reduced ability by the
brain to create ATP out of glucose
so the brain has a few uh fuel
substrates that it can use to create ATP
which is the energetic currency of the
cell
and energy for the brain is really
important in fact 25 of your metabolic
rate is used to satiate the energy
requirements of the brain so 20 you know
every one out of every four breaths that
you take
a fourth of all the calories you eat is
going for your is being used by your
brain to create energy so any sort of
outage in the brain in terms of its its
ability to create energy is going to
create problems
just as a as an anecdote you know a
newborn uh human their brains require 90
of their base metabolic rate whoa yeah
so that a newborn human baby
90 of its oxygen all the calories that
it's that it's using is going to help
its brain develop because actually human
babies are born half-baked we continue
our develop actually in the real world
this is one of the reasons why humans
are so smart and we've been able to
build what we've been able to build
because we complete our cognitive
development in the presence of
of you know other other people
it's called the fourth trimester right
that's one of the reasons why a baby a
newborn human baby is so fat because the
fat that a newborn baby comes packaged
with is actually an energy reservoir for
the developing brain I've heard you call
it a Mophie it's your brain I love that
it's a Mophie for the brain it's been
shown that the brain's ability to use
glucose is diminished by about 50
percent in the brains of patients with
Alzheimer's disease so there's this this
really Stark metabolic uh problem that's
occurring in the brain
and thanks to functional MRI scans
and pet scans we've been able to see
that
um
there's a a deficit an energetic deficit
in the brain that's evident from very
early in life
um and it's related to the this uh Gene
that seems to put people at higher risk
for the the disease in
the Western sort of uh environment food
environment so you see that deficit in
people that have that allele yeah not
necessarily across the board there's
about a 10 percent uh reduction in the
brain's ability to generate ATP out of
glucose from very early on and you've
interviewed the woman that coined the
phrase Diabetes Type 3 which is what
Alzheimer's is often referred to as I
want to walk through this process
because oftentimes people talk about it
at a really high level and and I want to
drill down so
um why is it called we'll start with why
is it called
Diabetes Type 3. well if you have type 2
diabetes which 50 of the US population
is now either diabetic or pre-diabetic
your cells have an inability to respond
to insulin which is the hormone that
allows glucose entry into those cells
where the cell uses fuel to be used as
fuel yeah so basically you have despite
an abundance of fuel in circulation
because blood sugar you know is
chronically high in a person with type 2
diabetes your cells essentially starve
because they have an inability to
respond to insulin and therefore glucose
has a much more difficult time getting
into the cell where it can be used to
create ATP which again is the energetic
currency of cells
so in the brain a researcher out of
Brown University who have interviewed
Suzanne de la Monte has coined the term
type 3 diabetes to describe Alzheimer's
disease because there's a similar
inability of the brain to create energy
even though and oftentimes this is the
case there is an abundance of fuel in
the body
you know and people
that are overweight you know people that
are carrying fat around their
midsections your average pound of fat
has about 3 000 backup calories of the
brain will happily use for fuel but the
brain is unable to because most people
on the western you know diet plan are
eating about 300 grams of carbohydrates
per day carbohydrates cause insulin to
become chronically elevated and Insulin
acts like a one-way valve on your fat
cells so fat is we you know we're really
good at storing fat
but in an overweight person in the
modern food environment that the ability
of fat to be burned is basically blocked
sugar is one of those things that Like
Oxygen you know oxygen oxidizes things
it ages you you slice an apple leave it
you know there on the counter you'll
notice it starts to turn brown the same
way that we need oxygen it also is
what's killing us and the same thing
goes for sugar
we need a certain amount of sugar I mean
the brain still has about a 40 percent
uh energy requirement for glucose but
sugar is also very damaging it's
glycotoxic you know I mean it damages
your proteins this is one of the reasons
why type 2 diabetes is so damaging
because at that point your blood sugar
has become chronically elevated
glycating all of the proteins that make
you you and we tend to think about
protein as a nutrient in terms of its
ability to help us grow bigger muscles
but we are made of protein actually the
protein that that Aggregates and forms
the plaques that characterize
Alzheimer's disease that's another
protein that can become glycated and
when this happens when it when it gets
bound to sugar in the molecular sense it
becomes less easily able to be flushed
away which is something that our brains
actually do when we sleep our brains
actually clean themselves of these of
these proteins that can aggregate over
the course of the day so one of our best
performing episodes of Health Theory
ever was on sleep which I was totally
surprised by I did not think people
really cared that much about sleep nor
did I honestly know how detailed and
important sleep is why is it that you
think sleep is important it's so
important I mean there's a newly
discovered system in our brains called
the glymphatic system which when we're
sleeping actually swooshes cerebrospinal
fluid all throughout essentially
cleansing it of these proteins that
aggregate over the course of the day
they've shown that on one night of bad
sleep there's an increased level of
amyloid measurable in csfs cerebrospinal
fluid but then also
you know I think dietary change for most
people is one of the most difficult
things to do
and it's particularly difficult when we
have our hormones working against us so
sleep I think is so profoundly important
because it acts like a master regulator
of our hormones
um it helps to
you know make sure that uh
we don't need to use our willpower very
often because you know willpower is sort
of like this muscle that we need to use
in order to fight off cravings and
things like that but with good sleep our
Cravings diminish I mean they've shown
that even on one night of poor sleep
you
consume an excess of calories the
following day anywhere between three and
five hundred calories I've actually
noticed it's a little off topic but I
once one of the
um major breakups I had in my life I I
noticed that I would feel way more
sensitive to it when I was under slept
you know you become less able to
contextualize emotions when when you're
under slept on just one night of bad
sleep a metabolically healthy person
will be essentially pre-diabetic the
next day
temporarily well yeah you become more
insulin resistant
um
so
yeah sleep sleep I think is one of those
things that today we romanticize being
busy but it's sort of like the one thing
that lifts all the boats in your Harbor
you know and yet we tend to undervalue
it
um you talked on your Instagram uh about
do you want to live for a really long
time or extend your life forget exactly
how you worded it which got my attention
and then you said prioritize
de-stressing yeah is that tied to sleep
like what what do you mean by that
while stress is an indiscriminate killer
and today you know so many of us
are losing sleep due to stress it's one
of the reasons why one in six adults now
is on some kind of psychiatric drug one
in six yeah yeah is on or has used
um well we're definitely self-medicating
and uh and it's not good I mean chronic
stress is a major major problem wow yeah
give me some tactics how do how does one
de-stress
you know I think meditation is really
important
um you know I'm one of those people that
uh I was trained to meditate
um I think this is really important I
think you know being being taught how to
meditate is as important as being taught
how to do yoga you know we don't come
out of the womb knowing how to do a
downward dog and to hit you know any of
the number of yoga poses that we're
taught to do with a good yoga teacher
um having a good meditation teacher is
very
um I think is critical to knowing how to
de-stress I also think
um
you know knowing knowing what chronic
stress is and knowing what it isn't uh
is really important you know so in my
book I differentiate between chronic
stress and acute stress which acute
stress is very beneficial it's you know
what we do in the gym we stress our
bodies chronic psychological stress is
really toxic it's working under a boss
that you hate it's being stuck in a
relationship that's gone sour by
de-stressing and by
um you know doing physical exercise and
things like that you actually increase
your resilience to stress cortisol sort
of gets a bad rap because it's related
to stress but it's actually a really
important hormone it's about his chief
waking hormone so for about 45 minutes
after you wake up cortisol is the
highest that it's really meant to be
throughout the day it's part of the
body's natural circadian hormonal ebb
and flow and in that in that window
for about 45 minutes after you wake up
that's a great fat burning window you've
got that cortisol Spike which is really
working to liberate stored fats stored
sugars
um for use by your body as fuel it's
immense is a way of you know allowing
fuels to become accessible so that you
can use them and Carpe Diem right Seize
the Day within that window it's
particularly dangerous to consume
breakfast in its most standard American
form which is usually rapidly digesting
carbohydrates from oatmeal granola bars
things like that because that causes a
spike in insulin but going back to
stress this is why consuming carbs in
the context of chronic stress is so bad
because you've got cortisol chronically
elevated due to chronic stress and then
we're continuing to keep our insulin
elevated with the carbohydrates that
we're consuming so this not only helps
redistribute our weight from muscle to
fat
but also our our visceral fat which is
the most inflammatory kind of fat that
wraps around our internal organs
actually has about four times the
cortisol receptors whoa on it so this is
actually why when you look at people
that are chronically stressed out they
their bodies take on a very uh
particular shape it's totally different
from run-of-the-mill obesity where
people are just eating lots and lots of
calories and not necessarily chronically
stressed out somebody who's chronically
stressed and eating lots of carbs in
particular
they usually have skinny arms and skinny
legs but a bulging midsection because
their visceral fat is just soaking up
all the excess carbs that they're eating
because of the presence of chronically
elevated cortisol that's so weird no
idea I always thought that was just like
oh some people that's how they put on
fat I like to think of stresses ah it's
sort of invisible and it doesn't really
have any lingering effects but when you
see that it can play out into an actual
body type yeah that's when it gets
really crazy yeah now one type of stress
you've talked about that is really
useful to go a little bit deeper thermal
stress I've never heard of that before
what is it exactly and how do we
leverage it
so you know we've we are our bodies were
you know we're the ultimate performance
machines right we all evolved chasing
our food
um and and really being honed to perform
physical bouts of uh exercise but
thermal exercises another form of
exercise that
we also had for the vast majority of our
Evolution and I think chronic climate
control
you know something that we've developed
you know with air conditioning and heat
and things like that really has been to
the detriment in many ways of our of our
health
um
so we can look at research that was
performed recently out of Finland
that I think is very compelling they
found that people who used saunas four
to seven times per week had a dramatic
risk reduction for Alzheimer's disease
about 65 percent risk reduction for
people that use sauna four to seven
times per week
really I mean there's no drug on the
market that'll cut your risk of
developing Alzheimer's Disease by 65
percent Finland is the sauna capital of
the world so in Finland there's on
average one sauna per household in
Finland it's like taking a shower in
Finland it's so embedded into the
culture in fact there's a great
documentary called steam of Life which
documents all of the weird ways in which
people in Finland will you know create
like phone booths abandon phone booths
into saunas things like that it's very
strange yeah so they found that in this
population that saunas really seemed to
play a protective role in terms of of
vascular function
um it also was related to a
dramatic risk reduction for high blood
pressure
but then also for for dementia seems to
really uh help promote what's called
vascular compliance and reduce high
blood pressure so what coincides with
Alzheimer's disease is also vascular
dysfunction
um
of all of the micro capillaries that
provide you know blood fuel nutrients to
the brain and so anything that's good
for the heart is going to be good for
the brain and sauna seem to really be
good for the heart as well what about
like cold showers and stuff yeah those
are all great
um
you know they are really good in terms
of really dialing mental acuity I mean
you can feel it instantly take a cold
shower there was a really great study
performed where people with type 2
diabetes
um were told to uh basically turn the
air conditioning down on low to about I
believe it was 60 or 66 degrees
Fahrenheit for six hours a day so I mean
that's not freezing it's cold but it's
not freezing and there was about a 25
percent increase in their insulin
sensitivity
not changing their diet at all or doing
any additional physical exercise just
exposing themselves to colder
temperatures
they showed a dramatic increase in their
metabolic health
again insulin resistance is the Hallmark
of type 2 diabetes I'm so surprised by
that yeah cold stress heat stress all
very beneficial
so I try to compel people to get out of
their comfort zones in in the thermal
sense you know it's really good for
creativity getting out of your comfort
zone but it seems to be the case as well
in terms of temperature that is really
interesting and I hate you for it
because I hate being cold so I'm like
what do I begin to tell you yeah so do I
actually but um but you know I think
it's one of those things that
um
seems to be really beneficial you know I
uh
I go to my mom's house occasionally and
the heat is always blasting it's like
always uh
like super warm in that apartment not
like sauna level temperature but just
always you know my mom doesn't like to
be cold she doesn't like to be hot she
likes to live only within that narrow
range of her Comfort glad you brought
your mom back up I wanted to talk a
little bit more about something you said
that I thought was so beautiful
so I grew up in a morbidly obese family
and I really struggle with I know what
they need to do but that's very
stressful for them emotionally and I
don't want to stress that relationship
out and you said something similar about
your mom and you said I don't ever want
her food choice to damage the
relationship that I have with her yeah
how do you deal with that what advice do
you have for caregivers loved ones of
somebody that's going through dementia
it sounds cliche to say you can lead a
horse to water but you can't make a
drink so I think at a certain point
um
you've got you should you should teach
you know I think that's
one of our missions here on Earth as
empathetic and compassionate beings is
to
lead you know lead your neighbor lead
your loved one to a greater vision of
life you know that's what you're doing
with the show I think
you can't do it with Force you can't do
it with aggression you've gotta you've
got to be I think a bit more gentle and
when it comes to loved ones and
especially people that are suffering
with chronic diseases and that you know
you don't know what they're going
through psychologically I think it's
really important to um
to provide the information but then to
to step back and detach at a certain
point at a certain point with my mom
I would get very emotionally wound up in
what my mom was eating and I would
become upset if I went to her house and
I saw that she had an open bag of chips
or you know
cookies or whatever you know whatever
and
um I didn't want that to interfere with
the time that I was spending with my mom
you know I would never want to do that
and I I value so much the time that I
spend with my mom and
um I know that I'm really neurotic when
it comes to nutrition and health but I
don't you know I don't judge other
people
in your book you do a great job of not
spending a lot of time demonizing
anything but instead really being quite
prescriptive about okay if you want to
upgrade yourself which is like the big
tag in your website which I absolutely
love so if somebody wants to upgrade
themselves knowing that every word
that's about to come out of your mouth
comes with compassion and knowing that
there's a lot of individual variability
and you get all of that but like in a
nutshell for somebody that wants to
upgrade themselves what should they eat
and not eat yeah
so you know opt for foods that are
nutrient dense
um one of the easiest things that I
recommend that people can do every
single day is to consume what I call a
large fatty salad
um
I think it's one of the best ways to
really check off so many of your
nutritional boxes to get an abundance of
dietary fiber that the microbes that
live in your large intestine love to
consume and when I say fatty I don't
mean you know throwing on tortilla
strips and cheese and ranch dressing I
mean
you know taking a bowl of dark leafy
greens
kale spinach which are you know top
sources of magnesium which 50 of people
do not consume adequate amounts of
folate
um arugula arugula is a top source of
nitrates dietary nitrate really
important in terms of increasing blood
flow to the brain one single high
nitrate meal might actually improve
cognitive function it's that powerful
um dousing those dark leafy greens with
extra virgin olive oil which research
has shown out of Barcelona Spain the
pretty Med study you can consume about a
liter a week
to better cognitive function cognitive
Health cardiovascular health and it
might even help you lose weight because
it's so anti-inflammatory actually
there's a compound in extra virgin olive
oil that is as anti-inflammatory as
low-dose Advil but without any of the
potential for negative side effects
and importantly
you need to have fat in that salad
because fat allows many of the most
important nutrients in the salad to
become bioavailable so I talk a lot
about in this book which I think is
bringing you know especially
um you know there's a lot I think
actually that there's a lot of new
information that I bring to the
conversation but I talk particularly
about
carotenoids and how research has shown
out of University of Georgia that by
eating uh lutein and zeaxanthin by by
supplementing with these carotenoids you
can actually boost visual processing
speed by 20 even if you're young and
healthy so I mean these are young and
healthy people that are already
considered to be at the peak of their
cognitive prowess visual processing
speed is so important I mean think about
in terms of responding to visual stimuli
you know driving athletic performance
Sports Performance things like video
games video games yeah yeah absolutely
so
dark leafy greens are abundant in these
two carotenoids and they're only
absorbed through the digestive tract
when in the presence of fat you don't
absorb any of them unless you're
consuming them with fat so like that fat
free dressing throw that in the trash
extra virgin olive oil you know is super
key eating a large fatty salad
I think it's just really key people tend
to think about salads in terms of like
weight loss I want to lose weight I'm
going to eat more salad but really in
terms of the brain
it's powerful you also get the benefit
of I mentioned dietary fiber we now know
that you have microbes that live in your
large intestine that when you consume uh
fermentable soluble Prebiotic fiber
which is found in abundance in that in
that bowl of greens the microbes churn
out a compound called butyrate which is
profoundly anti-inflammatory it is
really you know beneficial in terms of
the gut ecosystem it's been shown to
boost levels of uh
growth factors in the brain which
promote neuroplasticity which is your
brain's ability to change over time very
important stuff
in terms of Lifestyle you know I advise
as I mentioned not eating for an hour or
two after you wake up people today are
really obsessed with intermittent
fasting which I think is you know really
great at the very least it it I think
has awakened people to the necessity to
bring back balance in terms of being fed
and being fasted but I don't get hung up
over the hours I think it's just really
important to honor the body's natural
circadian inclinations you really want
to like after that one two or three hour
window eat your food and then stop
eating for two to three hours before bed
again you know we talked about the
glymphatic system it's a newly
discovered system
but you know it's been theorized that
eating soon before bed might interfere
with that
um that that cleanup process
and then you know I try to
eat a uh a low carb diet I try to avoid
um dense sources of carbohydrate with
the exception of occasionally eating
them in the post-workout window
um
if you're going to eat carbs throughout
the day you really want to concentrate
them into one meal
um it seems that when you consume your
carbs concentrated into one meal less
insulin is required to clear those carbs
from circulation that glucose from
circulation as opposed to if you were to
spread them out over the course of the
day which makes that that old advice to
eat six small meals throughout the day
particularly bad because insulin seems
to be able to Compound on itself
so rather than eating you know
uh 30 grams of carbs at lunch 30 grams
of carbs at dinner 30 grams of carb set
breakfast concentrate them into one meal
and there's less of an you know insulin
AUC so less less insulin being
stimulated to clear that glucose which
is important because as we talked about
earlier glucose is very damaging when
it's uh in the blood it glycates those
proteins that is really interesting
everything you've said is really
interesting I mean yeah I a major nerd
for this kind of stuff whether or not
you're concerned about your risk for
disease in the long term you know the
all these things actually help you feel
great in the here and now you know we
talked about visual processing speed
just in terms of your overall energy
levels feeling less beholden to your
hormones into your you know food
cravings I think is really important
um
and these are all ways of really kind of
I think helping stack the odds in our
favor you know
um
because when it comes to nutrition what
I've found is that the mainstream
medical system has very little to offer
and nutrition really is so important
when it comes to
preventing you know all of the diseases
that I think we're seeing Skyrocket
today I mean 60 according to the World
Health Organization
chronic diseases now account for 60 of
deaths worldwide
the truth is hitting your career goals
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description alright my friend back to
today's episode what's the best place
for people to find you online
uh definitely
um Instagram I'm pretty active on
Instagram
um people can go to my website and join
my newsletter which um
you know I uh put a lot of time into
um
and uh yeah I mean genius Foods really
is I think I've been able to synthesize
you know much of if not all of what I've
learned into the book amazing
if people are only going to make one
single change in their life to have the
biggest impact what change should they
make
man that's a good question
[Music]
um
you know we've already talked about
nutrition so uh I'm gonna throw you a
curveball and I'm gonna say I think that
people really should uh to one another
you know I think that's so important
teach one another to help you know
um be a shoulder for
for others especially that are less
fortunate
um to to give back
whether it's charity whether it's just
to be more diligent and and deliberate
about your social media use by posting
things that are less inflammatory more
helpful when I see suffering I'm
profoundly affected by it and there's a
lot of suffering going on in the world
both in terms of health
um food scarcity things like that so
just you know do your do your part I
think everybody should try it because if
you're anything like me and for decades
you're eating damaged fats and those
damaged fats are causing inflammation so
I have a high inflammation response
strike two in the my desire to live
forever High inflammation response so I
have uh there's a name for it is
something graphia on the skin so you can
write in my skin not as much now but
when I was younger you could take your
fingernail and write your name and it
would welt up on my skin so I have like
a very high inflammation response which
explains the wrists but I was eating
damaged fats I had no concept that like
trans fat was a thing all
you ready for you want to hurt a little
do you hear how I grew up I do actually
so thank you uh so my mom didn't want me
she wanted me so I argued about food I
had like real food trauma as a kid and I
was a super picky eater
and so finally at 13 my mom was just
tired of arguing with me about it so she
said fine you can make your own food so
I wanted to make chicken nuggets because
of course we had a deep fat fryer in the
house as you do in Tacoma and uh she
said no way you can't have chicken
nuggets they're not good for you but you
can't have turkey nuggets and french
fries so I ate deep fried turkey nuggets
and french fries almost every night for
five years wow from the time I was 13
until I graduated high school and
that of course was exactly why I was
inflamed and then I go to college and
don't know any better so I keep eating
bad food like when I first went low carb
I would go to Panda Express I would get
orange chicken but no rice because I had
no concept that Sugar could hide in a
sauce that didn't make sense to me so I
had just
I had years of in taking things in
places that I didn't realize I was in
taking them so getting your fat Source
right not taking in damaged fats getting
healthy fats I think for a lot of people
that struggle with inflammation it is
admittedly a game of not eating a lot of
things but then because I went for two
years literally
dude this is so close to Accurate that
I'll just make this statement all I ate
was steamed broccoli and boiled chicken
breast so I'm not the guy that's like
I'm eating chicken and broccoli I don't
understand the problem and then you
watch me eat it and I've got orange
sauce on it and you know I'm putting
like all these different sauces and
dressings and it was boiled chicken
breasts and steamed broccoli and I got
shredded shredded so I've seen the
photos on your Instagram
it worked from that perspective but from
a joint inflammation perspective it was
a nightmare so for sure it was the
addition of fat because I had already
removed all of the pro-inflammatory
stuff so this was a deficiency in either
just the fat or whatever all the other
things are the red meat contains and
maybe that's it maybe it maybe it's not
the fat but
well there's no there's no doubt that
certain fats are good for you so I guess
I should clarify I'm not I'm not against
high fat at all because I am very
interested in a ketogenic diet and in
fact I think I advocate for seasonal
ketosis
um or or at the very least intermittent
ketosis whatever that means to you I
think it's important to you know on a
maybe daily monthly seasonal basis to uh
you know allow your brain access to
ketones which are you know a quote
unquote super fuel that can supply 60 of
your brain's energy which
um you know is now being studied for
it's been used for over a century for
you know to treat hard to treat epilepsy
and now it's being studied for
its efficacy in improving memory and
Alzheimer's disease patients and and
things like that uh but
I'm not a pro I'm not very big on the on
lots of added oil in the diet which I
think you know once people started
becoming becoming interested in high fat
diets you know now suddenly the
pendulums Swang in the other direction
where people were is that that you were
all about olive oil I am so to a point I
think it's important to integrate olive
oil into your diet I'll use you know a
liter a week I use it fairly liberally
but when it comes to like throwing
coconut oil in my smoothie or butter in
my coffee I do occasionally enjoy butter
in my coffee I like the taste but um but
you know I think it's important to
remember and we've been saying this in
the fitness Community as I'm sure you
know for for years don't drink your
calories you don't want to do the same
you want to basically adhere the same
adhere to the same advice when it comes
to oil too because oil is not a very
nutrient-dense food it's very calorie
dense it's not nutrient dense but I
don't make any restrictions on the fats
naturally contained in Whole Foods so
nuts seeds grass-fed beef dark meat
chicken things like that that's do you
eat
uh well I'm actually I mean people will
debate about phytic acid and things like
that but I'm what do you eat well I like
almonds almonds are a great source of
magnesium and vitamin E I like them raw
okay I'm not too concerned with the with
the you know phytate in Almond skins or
you know anything like that I'll try to
soak them you know when I have the
opportunity but often you soak them if
you soak them they're gross they become
gross what do you do with them do you
dry them
because like my wife when she went
through the whole microbiome disaster
the doctor was like Hey try soaking the
almonds and it was [ __ ] gross she was
like I'd rather they could not eat them
they can get slimy the last time I did
it which was a few weeks ago I soaked
them and then I tossed them in olive oil
and then a little bit of sea salt and I
roast and I roasted it they were still
wet
they actually came out really good
um if you if you just soak them they can
become I think a bit slimy but you soak
them and then get rid of the Slime by
just putting olive oil on them I don't
understand I keep waiting for some
drying process yeah no drying have you
ever had to remember sprouted nuts maybe
that's what I think maybe that's what I
did well I was sprouted and that's I'm
almost certain go through a drying
process at least when you eat them
they're dry so I soak them in a jar and
then you pour out the liquid and then
they they dry during the last for how
long
I think I did it for three days okay
maybe we just did it wrong but they were
gnarly now sprouted nuts which I think
they sprout by soaking uh but it's by
the time they are packaged they're dry
and delicious and this is one of those
where I would not have believed so if
you take
pecans that have been just they do every
bad thing to them you can imagine they
put all the wonderful delicious and
deadly oils on it which tastes [ __ ]
awesome I actually like the sprouted
pecans better so it's one of the few
times where the thing that I like better
is actually better for me uh but I get
down with sprouted nuts so what else
you've got almonds that you soak uh yeah
although I'll often if I'm if I'm
traveling and I buy you know I'll
occasionally buy a bag of raw almonds so
I'll eat them like that uh I'll use
slivered almonds as a condiment
sometimes I'll throw them into a salad
but I get a lot of fat from I ate a lot
of red meat I ate a lot of fatty fish
ate a lot of dark meat chicken so wait a
second I want to go back to the nuts you
only eat almonds So when you say nuts
macadamia nuts are great because they're
very high in monounsaturated fat uh I've
been eating a lot of Brazil nuts lately
for the selenium I can't deal with those
I love those actually I used to not what
does selenium help with selenium is an
important antioxidant in the brain
it's crucially important and it's also
crucially important for thyroid health
so it actually helps can you eat too
many Brazil nuts yeah I heard that
somewhere yeah so how many are you
eating a day uh three to four you want
to be kind of conscious of of your you
know selenium intake it's similar to
vitamin A you don't want to like over
consume retinol which is you know the
active form of vitamin A super weird
vitamin A Story is it true that polar
bear liver yeah has some like obscene
amount it'll kill you vitamin A okay
that's what I heard like there was some
crazy story about these guys trapped in
a cabin in like Antarctica do you hear
about this polar bears are evil man wow
straight evil have you they're like the
fact that they're on Coca-Cola as like
the sweet cuddly thing those
[ __ ] are wildly intelligent and
they will [ __ ] you up doesn't surprise
me and so there's this whole story about
these guys trapped in the polar bears
would trick them and they oh god what
they do they would have like one
standing out front and then the other
one would actually attack through the
back door I don't remember the story
well but the punchline is they finally
kill these things they're so like raged
out about how they had been picking them
off one by one they eat the first and
they but then one of them like dies or
something from eating the liver because
there was toxicity of vitamin vitamin A
toxicity yeah it's uh it's super
concentrated in bare liver
um that's so weird That's So Random so
random but well I mean it's not that
unusual because actually that's one of
the reasons why liver from beef or
chicken I know other animals have that
same level of toxicity well it uh I
don't know I don't know exactly what my
hypothesis would be that bears are going
to store a lot more stuff in the liver
which is a storage organ because they
hibernate
so maybe they're storing vitamin A and
all I mean you store vitamin B12 in your
liver you store all kinds of things it's
a it's a storage organ for you know
choline for different nutrients I just
read something and it may have been in
your book I just came across it but
forgive me if it wasn't in your book
talking about
bears and they have some specific
reaction because of their need to
hibernate they don't have the muscle
wasting they store something in their
fat no it wasn't a new bug no I'm not
gonna be able to help me I don't
remember the exact fact so it's pretty
interesting about something that Bears
um oh God this is a waste because I
can't finish this off but it was
something the mechanism by which Bears
spare their muscle there was something
for us to interest in terms of amino
acids I mean growth hormone is pretty
probably pretty conserved throughout the
animal kingdom or at least among mammals
and growth hormone one of the things
that that helps to do is to preserve
lean mass during a fasted State it's one
of the reasons why growth hormone
becomes pretty sharply elevated when
fasting
um fasting is interesting you go pretty
deep on that in the book yeah he went
into that if I remember right in the
timing section in the timing section
yeah because I have a section where I
talk about our relationship with time
and light but also food so light is the
primary time Setter that our brains use
to you know to to get a sense of what
time of day it is which is important for
the you know operation of pretty much
every system in the body you talk about
there being ancillary clocks which I
thought was really interesting so it's
not just the light it's it's also food
yeah it's also food food is a Time
Setter because we have peripheral clocks
um the master clock in the brain is
called the suprachiasmatic nucleus and
it's housed in the hypothalamus which is
a very primordial uh region of the brain
and within that structure which controls
everything from Hunger to our drive for
sex it's at the base of the brain
essentially which is where you'll find
things that govern you know aspects of
our behavior that are important for
survival is it in is it in the
hypothalamus yeah I see wrapped inside
of it yeah it's a little chocolate chip
sized uh region in that area and it
interfaces directly with our eyes
with proteins interesting in our eyes
called melanopsin proteins which are
light sensing but they're not involved
in vision
and that's pretty much our body's Master
uh clock setting apparatus so when we
perceive light at an intensity of about
a thousand Lux or higher that sets off
the 24-hour Rhythm that guides
essentially you know the Run of show for
uh you know every system in the body
um
I had the the privilege of interviewing
uh Dr Sachin Panda who's a luminary in
this field over at the Salk Institute
for biological aging and he was part of
the team that um that discovered the
melanopsin protein it's very interesting
because uh there's only a few of the you
know of of these proteins in the eye in
the retina and they are really there to
kind of interface with that with that
Master Clock system and I think that's
just another area of our biology where
uh Modern Life really you know seem
tends to do a disservice to us thrusting
us all into a Perpetual state of jet lag
that's an interesting way to say it what
time do you eat your last meal I try to
eat my last meal about two to three
hours before bed I think you're making a
mistake why what are you what's your so
I have a hypothesis you this is one of
those things that are you saying I
should be eating weight earlier oh yes
yeah so I eat my last meal at 2 p.m I'm
done chewing at 2 p.m so this all
started I could
um eat and go to bed literally within
seconds and have no digestive problems
whatsoever my wife used to say I really
think I need time between my last meal
and when I go to bed and I was like that
doesn't make any sense and she was like
no I really feel like that sometimes
because she four years ago just got
debilitated with digestive problems and
it was crazy it was emergency rooms it
was like what the [ __ ] is happening it
was malnutrition are you gonna die like
I was really scared so we start looking
at everything aspect and she has this
gas like oh I think that and people
aren't talking about this yet at least
not like the way that it's being talked
about now where you you can't avoid
hearing about this
um you hadn't written your [ __ ] book
yet so let's start with that thank you
for letting her suffer no I'm kidding
um so she starts talking about like hey
I think timing really matters it didn't
make sense to me and she starts doing it
and making me stay up for three hours
because I'm not gonna go to bed and
leave her hanging so like if we're on
vacation or something she would say Hey
you know is there any way like if
because she likes to eat actually quite
late is there any way that we can stay
up like if we did nine we stay up till
midnight yeah of course baby we'll do it
and she was like I really think it's
helping and so it just naturally put me
on that same rhythm
and I thought huh that's interesting
like now even when I go like hardcore I
don't get an upset stomach so like at
Christmas time I go off the rails I'm
having a lot of ice cream all that and I
wasn't sure is it the intermittent
fasting because if I'm eating bad and I
make sure that I fast for at least 16
hours I'm golden I can get away with
murder and so I thought well is it the
the length of fast or is it the number
of hours because I find it much easier
just if I'm going to clock because I
when I'm really in it I try to do
20-hour fast daily and that I feel I can
stay lean easily it gets a little hard
the last hour or two admittedly is like
I have to like focus and alter My
Lifestyle so I'm not trying to do
something really cognitively demanding
for the last two hours but like I find
that's a that's a good Rhythm for me 19
to 20 hours and so I started wondering
though like I definitely feel better I
can get away with more
um but is it the length of fast is it
the number of hours because if I'm gonna
go that long I find it easier to eat my
last meal late rather than trying to
wake up and go six hours or seven hours
without eating and because I wake up so
early like I'm usually awake between
three and four a.m so with no alarm it's
just when I wake up I go to bed at nine
I wake up
um and so this Christmas when I went off
the rails again but this time I said
okay I'm not going to worry so much
about length of fast but I'm really
going to be hyper conscious about
clocking five hours before I go to bed
dude Cash Money felt amazing yeah so I
really want my wife like if I feel a
benefit and I'm somebody that's got a
pretty robust digestion I want my wife
to try five hours I actually think most
people think they're being just a rock
star at three
I have a gut instinct that you're
actually better like four and five hours
before bed well I think you're probably
right I think that the ideal time to
stop eating would probably be around 7
P.M I mean it depends on the time is
that ideal is that a sunset thing yeah
yeah because well you know I think we're
diurnal creatures right we're diurnal
we're meant to you know eat and do most
of the things that we're gonna do that
are going to require the greatest energy
expenditure during the day
um and you know we know that as Knight
approaches and the sun begins to set and
melatonin levels start to creep up and
cortisol levels start to drop that uh
daylight Associated activity sort of is
you know becomes less supported in the
body and that includes digestion and
metabolism and that's one of the reasons
why we become less insulin sensitive
sensitive later in the day but also
digestion
um falters to some degree I mean
peristalsis slows which is the transit
of you know uh food components through
the through the GI tract so I think
it's probably you're probably better off
stopping eating by like six to seven pm
and in fact the few but the the growing
body of research in humans is being done
with early time restricted feeding also
seems to back this up that when we eat
you know earlier dinners it seems to be
the to the benefit of our metabolic
Health independent of weight loss now
for somebody like you who's eating only
within a four hour window it's almost
impossible I think within those four
hours to over consume calories so I mean
you're my friend come over I'll show you
how really do you not know about
slippery Foods homie I'm interested well
what are you eating whole mental
processes like the the reality is I in
my four hour window I don't overeat and
because if I overeat then I I can still
put on fat for sure in a four hour
window no problem I could I could if I
wasn't cognizant of
um what I'm eating I could easily clock
and I'm talking every single day of my
life I could easily clock
in that four hour window four thousand
five thousand calories that'd be pretty
easy I'd have to have ice cream there's
no question so this was uh the term
slippery Foods comes from the um gastric
bypass Community or lap band Community
where they have a smaller amount of
space so they get tricky like the ones
who sort of give up on staying on the
straight narrow
um realize that if you eat things like
ice cream that's like really sort of
liquidy that you can pack a lot of
calories well that makes sense because
ice cream is an ultra processed food
it's an ultra processed foods are
defined in part because of the fact that
they are so calorie dense and it's one
of the reasons why we see the Obesity
epidemic that we're now seeing because
these Foods you know essentially
short-circuit our brain satiety
checkpoints so if you're trying if
you're trying to eat for example the
genius Foods you know super nutrient
dense foods within that four hour window
which we know are the foods that are
going to be the best for you
um you know which unfortunately doesn't
include ice cream in that and under that
umbrella
I think it's probably going to be pretty
difficult to over consume calories so I
mean that is a good way of of basically
uh
drawing a Line in the Sand and and
maintaining some level of of calori