Dr. Nick Nwabueze | The Fittest Doc: A Journey Through Health, Longevity and CrossFit | July 17, 2025 Ep. 11 - The Low Carb Consultant

Episode Transcript
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(00:11):
All right, guys, we are rolling welcome back to the Low Carb
Consultant podcast. So I'm pretty thrilled today and
excited to host Doctor Nick AKA the fittest doc on Instagram.
And if you want to go check thisguy out on Instagram, look at
his page. He's absolutely jacked.

(00:31):
He's in shape. He pretty much is the fittest
doc for sure. So he's also a board certified
family medicine physician completing medical school from
The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
And he's known for, in my opinion, his no BS data-driven
approach. And doctor Nick blends
personalized nutrition, CrossFitand lifestyle medicine to tackle

(00:55):
root causes of fatigue, hormonesand metabolic health.
And today we are going to be diving into everything, diet,
exercise, performance and longevity related.
So again, Doctor Nick, I appreciate you taking the time.
It's a pleasure to finally meet you.
It's great to have you on, man. Yeah, thank you for, for
inviting me on Max. I I appreciate obviously the

(01:16):
platform that you have and sharing what you do and, and you
know, inviting me on. So I'm I'm glad to be here.
Absolutely. So maybe before we get into all
the fun stuff, right? CrossFit, working out, training,
everything, diet, you name it. Maybe before we jump into all
that, could you give the listeners who may not know who

(01:38):
you are quite yet, just a real brief background on yourself and
maybe what attracted you to yourcurrent line of work now?
Yeah, super brief A1 liner. I'm a mechanical engineer turn
into a medical doctor, and I like to, as you said, I like to
take a holistic approach to bothmy patients and my clients.

(02:01):
So yeah. Yeah, So just out of curiosity,
because I, I saw a podcast, I think you were on the Food Lies
podcast. So was there, was there, was
there a, were you like a man mechanical engineer?
Because that kind of reminds me of Ted Naman.
And I've had Ted, Ted Naman on in the past, but that almost

(02:25):
kind of reminds me of did you did, did you go to school for
medical mechanical engineering? And then did did you change or
like how did that work? Just out of curiosity.
Yeah, no, no worries. So yes, I went to Michigan State
University. I graduated, graduated with a
Bachelors of Science and Mechanical Engineering.
And so, so the, the transition, right, the, the explanation for

(02:45):
that story is that I got a full ride based out of, based off of
high school, you know, accolades.
I got a full ride for engineering could be any branch
of engineering, but the nuances that you had to, you had to, you
had to choose, you know, what branch of, of, of, of, of, of

(03:05):
engineering in terms of kind of civil, mechanical, chemical.
I chose mechanical and, you know, went through, loved
everything about it. I, I, I will admit though, I was
definitely terrified at first because especially as a high
school student, you have this conception of engineering in
your mind that is just impossible, that it's just a
whole bunch of math and that it is impossible to get through.

(03:29):
And, and it is true, it is a whole bunch of math right from,
you know, all the calculus, 123 differential equations, just
all, you know, so, so much math and physics.
But in as much as it is a whole bunch of math, I think that like
any, I don't know how you feel about teachers maths, but I
genuinely feel like teachers area unspoken force in our society.

(03:52):
Because think about it, I've literally thought about this.
I feel like a good teacher can get you from being intimidated
of a of a subject matter and, and being scared of it and
teaching it to you in a way thatyou understand it conceptually
and then can apply it right. So I think that's what happened
with me in engineering. It's something that I came to
love. Just the math that the science,

(04:14):
the, the, the physics and I graduated with a very high GPA.
But upon graduating, I you know,because I always, always,
always, even while in engineering, how to fascination
with a human body. So you know, I, I that paired
with some family history of somemedical problems and and

(04:35):
friends. I was like, you know what, I, I
really want to sure, I just graduated.
I have this degree, but this is also, this also qualifies me now
to apply to medical school because you can apply to Med
school with any undergraduate degree, could be an art history
major and apply to Med school. Obviously you do need to take,
you know, prerequisite classes. You do need to take the MCAT, at

(04:58):
least back then. I don't know what the
requirements are now. So yeah, I essentially decided
to to pivot and apply to Med schools.
Got accepted into a bunch, interviewed at a bunch, but I
really resonated with the Ohio State University and that was
the one that I, I chose to go to.
But truthfully, I, I, I fundamentally feel and people,

(05:21):
you know, observe it even on in my Instagram posts, right?
But I, and I think people observe it more strongly in the
gym. You know, I, I fundamentally
believe everything in reality has the underlying foundation of
numbers and physics and data. You know, I'm not, I'm
definitely not one of those mystical, you know, people who,

(05:44):
who believe in, you know, magic and, and just nonsense.
I'm a, I'm a very ground. I'm a very, I'm a person
grounded very much in reality. And I would say that that was
100% secondary to engineering and that that whole question of
my life, so much so that it, it absolutely has played, you know,
has had an indelible mark on me that, you know, most people who

(06:06):
know me, most people who know methere, there are some people,
for example, at the gym who are like, yeah, Nick, we have to get
you lifting, lifting weights without looking at your numbers,
right, Without looking at your velocity and your power output
here. And I'm like.
No, I'm keeping that. I need that data right?
So yeah. So yeah.
No, that, that, that's awesome. And maybe let let's talk about

(06:28):
that real quick in terms of transitioning over to like the
medical side of things because Iunderstand so you were on the
direct primary care side of things, correct?
That's the model. Yes.
OK. Like what are you seeing in
terms of typical patients comingin?
Like what are you normally seeing?

(06:49):
What are you consulting them on?What are you helping them?
Is it, is it mainly just like some of these people are obese,
they're pretty diabetic, they'reoverweight, they don't work out?
Is that kind of the standard thing and what you're typically
saying? I have a business that I started
in 2022, a business focus primarily on helping people
objectively improve their metabolic health.

(07:10):
Once I started that business, I still see patients, but I
definitely dialed back admittingnew patients.
I still have my current patientsin the direct primary care model
and the membership model. So what I can tell you is that
the overwhelming burden in this country and most primary care
doctors can agree with this. The overwhelming burden when it
comes to disease comes from chronic disease.

(07:33):
These are the things that you mentioned, right?
Diabetes, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, right,
which unfortunately a significant amount of the
country is afflicted by. So yes, you know, more often
than not there, there are rarities, obviously, when it
comes to, you know, genetic issues that, that, you know,

(07:55):
people are, are born with or, and afflicted with just by
nature of, of, of their lives. But those are definitely more
rare. The overwhelming majority, the
overwhelming burden rather is, is chronic disease.
And that's why, you know, that'swhy it's such a, it's, it's such
a, it's playing such a force in this country when it comes to
when it comes to morbidity and mortality.

(08:18):
And I think that it's something that, you know, more people, we,
we need to address in ways that do not involve I, I'm definitely
not anti medication. A lot of people like to think
that I am anti medication as thefirst response to whether it's
obesity or high blood pressure, high cholesterol.
You know, unless the person is in a place where their chronic

(08:41):
condition, like say for example,hypertension is, you know,
urgent, you know, emergency hypertension or, or essentially
something that can stroke them out, something that can kill
them immediately. I don't necessarily believe in
putting somebody immediately on medication, which unfortunately
I've seen a lot of the ways thatother medical doctors practice.

(09:05):
And more often than not, it's definitely one of, hey, you
know, your blood pressure's a little elevated.
I'm going to put you on a low dose of a medication and that's
just not, that has never resonated with me from even
while I was in medical school. Because I think, you know, many
people are aware, or hopefully more people are aware of the
fact that all of these medications have side effects.

(09:27):
And yes, because of differences in US, in all of us, you know,
differences between you and I Max and, and how we process
certain, certain, certain chemicals in drugs, right?
You may not. If you and I are put on, I don't
know, lisinopril for our high blood pressure, you may have a
adverse effect and I don't. But in as much as that may be

(09:49):
the case, I think that the, the best move of all, the best move
on their chess board is to minimize risk of adverse
effects, minimize risk of side effects.
And the the, the only way to truly do that is to address the
changes that are fundamentally needed.
Essentially, address the root cause such that the person

(10:10):
doesn't need a medication in the1st place and can live a life
where you know they don't need to be chronically burdened by
whatever their fundamental issuewas.
I mean, obviously that makes allthe sense in the world to me.
And yeah, it's like if we can fix, you know, and people always
say, I know this is a little cliche, focus on the root cause,

(10:31):
root cause. But it's like really at the end
of the day, it's like what you put into your body, how you move
those things can dictate all of the disease pathways like down
the line. And you can mitigate a lot of
really big problems just by taking better care of yourself
instead of going towards a medication or a statin, whatever
the issue is, whatever the medication does, you can fix a

(10:54):
lot of your issues just by earlyon taking better care of
yourself, eating well, right, moving your body the correct way
and you can mitigate all those things.
And Speaking of, of all of that stuff like let's jump into like
cross it diet, exercise trainingin regards to CrossFit.

(11:15):
So I've been involved in CrossFit since 2009, 2010.
That's when I first got into it.And you know, over the years, I
have definitely heard a lot of orthopedic surgeons, trainers,
physical therapists, just completely.
Shit. On CrossFit training, Yeah,
yeah. And so I was curious and we can

(11:38):
talk a little bit about that if you want, but in terms of, you
know, with your background, the way that you think and I can
tell the way your mind works, it's incredibly analytical.
What What specifically attractedto you attracted you to CrossFit
in the first place? Awesome.
Yeah, No, that's a great question.
So I started CrossFit in my first year of medical school.

(11:59):
You know, I was just like any other Med student studying 18
hour days, 16 to 18 hour days. And, and as much as I think
every Med student has that drive, especially when you're
put in an environment where other people are doing the same
thing, everybody's focused. She's.
Just like anywhere else in life,right?
Your environment dictates your your behavior inasmuch as that

(12:22):
was the case and I was, you know, putting into work that's
not really sustainable long termwithout some way to relieve the
stress, without some, some, somekind of pressure release system
where you can, something you cango to throughout the day and
just like not worry about that. And for me, my first year, I
tried, I tried to Krav Maga. I've always been into combat

(12:46):
sports. I have a black belt in
Taekwondo, some training in judo, jiu jitsu, but so I tried
Krav Maga in Ohio, in Columbus, OH at, at a studio or at a place
called Ohio Krav Maga and fitness.
And the and fitness portion of it was CrossFit.
And those guys were always trying to get me.
They, they literally saw me at the other side of the gym

(13:08):
practicing Krav and they were like, Hey, come join us.
Come, come, do CrossFit right? And I, I remember looking at
them like, no, why would I join?Like all of you look miserable
after your workout. You're all laying on the ground,
you're all staring at the ceiling.
You're all breathing so loud that I can hear you across the
gym. Why would I join that?
And then Max, as I'm sure happened with you, right, it

(13:29):
just took they, they got me oncethey they got me to join them
once and. What was the first workout?
Real quick what? What was your first workout?
Do you remember? I wish I remembered.
I wish I remembered. I I will now lie to you and tell
you that I do. But I, I, I simply, I simply.
I'll tell you what I do remember, Max.
I remember the feeling of. A modicum of worthlessness.

(13:55):
I felt a modicum of worthlessness, right?
Like I was literally like, I've I literally felt like I was
like, I'm like, OK, this doesn'tmake sense.
I train I'm fit yeah, I'm a Med student, but I'm fit.
I do crav right? I I love to spar and and blah
blah blah. But then I try this cross a
workout and I literally feel worthless Like this workout made
me feel like I am not fit at all, like I'm not worthy.
So it's like, this is interesting.

(14:16):
How did something kick my ass? This well, this doesn't make any
sense. So I, you know, now at this
point in Med school, I'm doing an hour of Croft, an hour of
CrossFit, Then I don't know how long.
I can't remember how long it took, whether it's a weeks or
months, But all I know is there was a point in time where I was
like, I'm a Med student. I don't have time for two hours
of working out everyday. I don't right.

(14:38):
So it's like I have to pick one.And and obviously I really love
combat sports, but there was a part of me that's like, you know
what, you need to think long term here, right?
After all the medical training is done, the rest of Med school
and residency training, which one of these two, between
CrossFit and Krav Maga or any other combat sport, which one do
you think is going to put you inthe best position to be fit

(15:02):
overall? And obviously I was like,
CrossFit wins, I'm going to stopKrav.
So that's that's how I got into it.
And I think the thing that kept me in it, and for anybody
listening to this, be prepared. When you start CrossFit, you
will feel worthless by virtue ofhow many movements there are and
by virtue of all the different things that there are to master

(15:26):
and by virtue of the fact that you can do none of them well,
whether it's Rd. climbs, bar muscle UPS, hand stand walking,
you can do none of these things.You can just watch.
With a slight. Degree of envy as other people
are doing them, but you're you're not going to be able to
do them. But I think that, you know, this
all comes down to, as you commonly see me post on
Instagram maps, this all comes down to to mindset.

(15:49):
And even at that age, I would watch people doing things that I
couldn't do. And instead of feeling jealousy
or envy or anger or like I just wanted to dismiss CrossFit and
never come back, I always felt inspired and always felt
encouraged and always in my mind, I was like, that's
awesome. One day I'm going to be able to
do that. And I just got to keep pushing,
pushing, you know, pushing forward till you get closer and

(16:11):
closer. So, you know, I think that my,
my mindset back then was definitely huge in helping me
get to where I am now where I can pretty much do anything in
in a CrossFit gym. Yeah, so a couple things there
and and IA 100% agree with you because one of the things that
attracted and I'll tell you whatmy first CrossFit workout was

(16:32):
because it absolutely annihilated me.
It was half Cindy with balls. So it was 5 pull ups, 10 push
ups, 15 wall balls, 20 lbs for guys, 14 I think for women.
And my, my girlfriend at the time, who's not my wife, she did
it with me. So it was only 10 minutes and

(16:53):
that was the intro workout. And I remember thinking to
myself, like, you know, I, you know, I, I've always worked out
at the time before CrossFit, andthis was like 2009, I was really
into P90X. That's what I was doing.
My wife was doing it too. We thought we were super fit and
I was about, I was about 3 rounds into this workout and it,

(17:15):
it was, it was this since that came over my body like my
shoulders, my arms, my forearms,my hands, my chest, my legs.
Everything was like going into, it was like going into a zone.
It had never gone into before. And I, I was like, Oh my God,

(17:35):
this is crazy. I could not leave that gym for
after a 10 minute workout. I couldn't leave the gym and
drive home for about 30 minutes and then my girl, my girlfriend.
Because you were shaking. Oh, shaking, shaking, like I
couldn't hold on to the wheel like my I couldn't see.
My vision was like blurried and it was like literally at that

(17:56):
moment where I kind of recognized like, holy crap,
there is something to pairing these major muscle groups
together and then performing these these exercises at a high
intensity. And that's what CrossFit is,
right? Constantly very functional
movements performed at a high intensity.
And that was the first time it ever clicked.
And I was like, this is it. And then going back to your

(18:18):
point, going back to the, the the thing that you said earlier,
when I joined CrossFit, what wasincredibly inspiring and
motivating to me was I was seeing and working out with and
I was like maybe 20, what was I,2526 at the time?
I was seeing 354045 year old women completely destroying me

(18:45):
in squats, deadlifts, running, everything.
And I was like, this is it, Thisis, this is it.
Yeah. So I don't know what your
thoughts are on that, but if that maybe rings any bells for
your for your for your first workout if it was similar.
I resonate entirely with that. In fact I remember.
So this is while I was in Med school, I wasn't at a higher
from Mcgon fitness anymore. I was at another gym CrossFit

(19:08):
Grandview, and I remember seeinga 6263 year old woman doing
perfect ass to grasp back squatswith obviously weighted, you
know, with a, with a weighted barbell.
And I remember thinking in my head like this is OK, I see all
all day, everyday, right? I see people in the hospital who
are who are Detroit fit, who are, who are, who have lost

(19:30):
their functionality, their independence at that age.
And then I see a woman here in the cross, the gym right to
imperfect beautiful ass grass squats.
And it's, it's this dichotomy that you're presented with that
you quickly realize, OK, well, the way that everybody else
thinks is the right way to age. That's clearly not the right

(19:51):
way. Right.
And I think, I think you would agree with me, Max, that, you
know, you, you, you probably feel healthier and from a
functional standpoint, more competent and more capable than
other people your age right now.And I think that, you know, that
has to do with the mindset shiftthat you undertook and
understanding the importance of functional movements.

(20:12):
And so, yeah, no, I, I completely agree with that.
I think that that's a, that's a beautiful thing we all come to
realize. And clearly your ego, because
your ego could have seen that, could have seen people 10 years,
20 years, 30 years older than you crushing you.
And then you could have taken such a hit from that.
In terms of your ego to say, hey, I'm never coming back here,
right? I just, I'm just, I'm going to

(20:33):
pretend like these people don't exist because some people do
genuinely do that. But instead of people like you
and I, we see, we see those people and we're like, you know
what? This is awesome.
There's something to this. I'm going to keep doing this.
And then, you know, here we are years later.
So yeah, I think it's a beautiful thing for sure.
Oh, for sure. And it's you know, it's it's

(20:54):
it's what they were calling at the time that the drinking the
kool-aid, it's what bit what basically sold you like, you
know, it's like seeing other people older than you being
fitter and better than you. It's like, OK, there's something
to this. It it makes.
Sense. But but that brings me back to,
you know, the question I initially asked you when, you
know, what specifically attracted you, you know, to
cross it. But you know, when going back to

(21:17):
like what other maybe orthopedicsurgeons, physical therapists,
other people are saying about CrossFit and because there is
some thoughts and ideas around CrossFit being detrimental to
long, yeah, detrimental to long term functional health as we get
older because of the intensity of the training.

(21:39):
I just wanted to get your, your thoughts on that in terms of
athletes working out over time and maybe even if you want to go
here too, because CrossFit kids is, is, is definitely blowing
up. You know, we're seeing these
athletes at younger and younger ages start CrossFit.
I'm just curious to see what your thoughts are on long term

(22:02):
functional health, people working out like this for long
periods of time. Like what are your thoughts on
that? Yeah, no, I, I completely
understand what you're referringto.
Many, many doctors for years nowcross, it has been slandered.
And I have always been of the opinion that it is not prostate
that hurts people, it is people's ego that hurts them,

(22:24):
right. Your inability to look at
somebody else who you and your mind think, oh, this person in
my CrossFit class is on my levelor I might be a little bit
better than them, right. And you then see that and move a
weight that you cannot move or you had not moved in the past
rather. And instead of simply taking
that as a learning opportunity and using that as motivation to

(22:47):
slowly get better, you and said want to put weight on the
barbell. Now that has no, no place being
on that barbell. You want to try movements and
you have no, no, no place. So I think CrossFit is a great
screening mechanism through injury.
Unfortunately, CrossFit is a great screening mechanism for
people who do not have control over their egos and let their

(23:11):
egos just absolutely drive theirbehavior.
I mean, me myself, I have literally never been.
I've been doing this since 2010,right?
15 years. I've never been injured
specifically from CrossFit, specifically from doing a
CrossFit workout. And oh, that the oh, my coach
injured me, right? I think that that's a cop out.
When people blame their coach, it's because they don't want to

(23:34):
take a lens and, and you know, put the lens on themselves and,
and take responsibility. Now when it comes to doctors and
people in healthcare, you know, lambasting prostate, more often
than not, in my opinion, that comes from a place of ignorance.
It comes from a place of they themselves have never ever tried
this methodology and as such they have no place to truly

(23:58):
speak on it. When you actually look at the
objective data, there have been studies looking into CrossFit
and comparing it to other training methodologies and it is
actually one of the more safe ones as compared to multiple
other training methodologies andsports.
So CrossFit actually, when you back up and you look at the data

(24:19):
is, is very safe, especially when coaches of your caliber,
Max are the people responsible for for guiding athletes.
Because I'm sure as how positivethat people like you, if you saw
an athlete in your class who wastrying to wait or trying to
movement that they have no placedoing, you would call them out.
You nicely call them out on it, right and say, Hey, you know,

(24:42):
maybe you shouldn't be trying butterfly pull ups yet.
You don't even have one strict pull up.
Let's let's get up, let's get a band right, and let's work on
your pull up strength and let's just be patient.
It'll take months of consistencydidn't work.
And I think that's another another issue here, right?
There's a lot of people who I see the value and delay
gratification. I always have across every every

(25:04):
element of life, whether that's schooling, whether that's
CrossFit, you know, I think thatthere is massive benefit to
delaying gratification, but a lot of people they want insta
gratification. And those are the people also
who are fundamentally putting themselves at higher risk by
engaging in something like CrossFit and refusing to change

(25:24):
their mindset. Like, like everything else in
life, I think it fundamentally comes on to mindset.
So, you know, that that speaks to to the medical, the medical
response to CrossFit, which right now I think it's funny
because for so many years CrossFit was the methodology
that was, you know, spoken poorly of.
And now I find myself speaking poorly of high rocks in that

(25:48):
manner. But.
But. I, I need to control myself
because I, you know, I, I, I rocks listen anything that'll
get people to move. I'm a fan of but I, I think
that, you know, I have my, my opinions of training
methodologies like like high rocks.
But ultimately, yes, you know, you know, we, we, I think that
when you back up and you look at, when you look at things like

(26:10):
CrossFit kids or just maintaining functional
independence, CrossFit is you really can't compete, compete
with the methodology like that. Just yesterday I was telling you
Max before, before we got on, I went to a local weightlifting
competition and there was an 18 year old there, an 18 year old
who was snatching 18 year old boy who snatched 240 lbs and

(26:34):
clean and jerked I think like three O 5 or 310.
What was his weight? Do you remember his weight?
I think he was 145 or 147 lbs. Oh my God, that's ridiculous.
Yeah, that's good. That's solid.
Wasn't he? So what's funny though, is this
kid just I didn't even know who he was until he came up to talk
to me. He so he sees me.

(26:55):
I walked past him and he's like,holy shit, man, you are jacked.
And I, I'm like, so I talked to him like that, you know, thank
you, blah, blah. So he's asking me my numbers and
I'm telling him, you know, my, my, my power snatch and my clean
and jerk. And he's like, wow, you know,
that's really heavy. Because I, the last time I did a
comp, I, I, I power clean 350 power clean push jerk 3:50 and

(27:17):
then I like in Paris match 285. So I told him those numbers.
He was surprised. But then later on when I finally
realized who this kid was and, and his numbers, then I talked
to him again and and he was, andI told him I was like, listen,
man, I know to you my numbers are impressive.
But here's the thing that you have that I don't have you have

(27:39):
time. I told him I was like, if I were
18 years old and I could move your numbers and you, I was
like, you don't even know manstren.
You don't even have that. You're 18 your body.
This is your body is not a bad yet right, and if you could
already do what you can do with 18 like by the time you hit by
age, you're going to be ridiculous, man.
You just got to keep it up. Keep doing this.

(28:00):
Don't don't get injured. Don't let your ego, you know,
drive you down the wrong path. So ultimately, I think things
are CrossFit kids is responsiblefor athletes like him, right?
And especially especially when we have an epidemic in this
country of pediatric obesity anddiseases being diagnosed in the
pediatric population, like fattyliver disease, like type 2

(28:22):
diabetes that have no place being diagnosed in the pediatric
population. So things like prostate kids, in
my opinion, is an absolute blessing.
And not just prostate kids any, any number of, you know,
activities or training methodologies that anything that
gets kids moving and gets kids off iPads and, and phones and

(28:43):
video games. And not that I'm against any of
those things. I just think that we need a
healthier balance in society. IA 100% agree with you and it's
wild. Like the people I used to work
out with in Las Vegas at Sin City CrossFit.
Shout out to my old business partners, Shane, TJ and Billy.
But it's funny, man, because like, you know, we were younger

(29:05):
then and people were starting tohave kids.
But now I have like I'm watchingex members that I've trained,
you know, they had like 5-6 seven-year old little girls.
Now these little girls are like off doing CrossFit kids and I'm
watching them compete in competitions.
And it's wild to watch like, oh Dang man.
Like like for for the people outthere that are freaked out about

(29:27):
the next generation, some of them are going to be savages.
Like some of them are going to be savages.
So I wanted to say I want to getto the the diet and the
nutrition stuff here in, in in asecond, but wrapping up this
like strength training and, and and, and all that type of stuff
right now. So I've heard you call

(29:47):
resistance training medicine, right?
And, and and I think that's kindof a good Segway from what we
were talking about just now to, to this.
But how do you, how do you specifically prescribe training
for like metabolic health when you're dealing with patients?
Like how do you tell them to work out?
Like do you kind of meet them inthe middle?

(30:10):
I'm sure it's a case by case basis based off like what
they're dealing with, age, weight, all those types of
things. I was curious on how that
typically works. Yeah.
Well, with my clients, the reason why I prefer going down
this subject matter of metabolichealth with clients is because
you probably know even with yourown experience with, with your
own primary care doctor that we have very, very little time in

(30:33):
the in the room with patients. You cannot counsel a patient in
a in a 10 minute, in a 10 minutepatient appointments especially
maybe you can counsel them, but you can basically use one liners
and you cannot elaborate. You can't give them a fully
featured plan. You definitely cannot receive
feedback and iterate upon that feedback.
So with my clientele, it's a long running relationship over

(30:57):
many months. Add with those people
specifically, I have the pleasure of truly imparting
change on them. And I think that to answer your
question, the first thing that Ido is meet people in the middle.
You cannot just sit here and say, hey, you have to start
CrossFit. Like I don't, I don't believe in
that. I, I in fact, don't even tell
people to start processing. I tell people, hey, we're going

(31:19):
to start with the kind of lowestbarrier to entry movements that
you find enjoyable. And I focus very much on
enjoyment because fundamentally,Max, you know, you and I know
what most people in society do not.
And that is that whether we're talking exercise, nutrition,
sleep changes, whatever the casemay be, if somebody does not

(31:42):
find an intervention sustainable, it is, in my
opinion, worthless, regardless of the, the, the, the, the long
standing data and research behind an intervention and its
efficacy. I don't care about that because
if if it's not sustainable for the person in mind, they're not
going to, they're not going to even if it gives them some

(32:05):
change, awesome. The minute that they stop doing
it because it's now sustainable,things will reverse.
So I think that so I think that,you know, the best approach is
never to tell people, hey, you have to CrossFit or you have to,
you know, lift weights or you have to powerlifter, whatever
the case may be, it's instead tous.
And hey, what is it that you enjoy doing when you were a kid,

(32:26):
right? Is skipping rope, swimming in a
pool, biking, whatever they enjoy doing.
That's how you that's how you kind of broach the subject and
get them back to doing what theyenjoy doing in terms of
movement. And then yes, as things go on,
what people will tend to notice is, okay, hey, I started, you

(32:48):
know, I don't know, walking around my neighborhood for, you
know, these many miles the doctor Nick recommended and I'm
seeing along with the other interventions, along with the
other changes that he recommended, I'm seeing
benefits. And then now at this time, I can
come in and say, hey, have you ever thought about resistance
training? Maybe not even with weights, but
with bands, you know, whether coached or uncoached or even

(33:12):
following a YouTube videos, which of which there are
plethora, right, YouTube videos concerning resistance training.
And now at this point, you already have much more credence
in their eyes because they have noted that the very low barrier
to entry movement that you got them in into has resulted in in
progress. So they're much more amenable to

(33:34):
listening to you, much more amenable to, you know, adopting
whatever you whatever you recommend.
But yes, ultimately is resistance training something
that I want all of my clients doing without a shadow of a
doubt, because when you look at it, you know, I do not think, I
think that I've never been a bodybuilder backs and I don't
know if you have ever been, but I, I think, you know, there have

(33:57):
been a lot of benefits to the for the, you know, secondary to
the bodybuilding era. But I also believe they, there
have been a lot of negatives too.
And one of the negatives is thatmost people, when you tell them
to, they need to put on lean mass and put on muscle.
They're first retort back to youis I'm not interested in being a
bodybuilder. I don't want to be bulky.

(34:18):
I don't want to be bulky, right?And I'm like, listen, I'm not a
bodybuilder. I'm not, you know, I, I don't
have any interest in that. But fundamentally, fundamentally
putting on lean mass and puttingon muscle mass, muscle, at least
in my opinion, is an endocrine organ.
It quite literally is secreting myokines like hormones that are

(34:39):
positive that are that are beneficial for every part of the
body. And muscle is the largest
glucose sink in the human body, right?
When you, when you, when people tend to eat pizza or, or, or
drink beer or eat candy, you know, the amount of muscle that
you have is absolutely a significant part of your

(35:00):
ability, your body's ability to maintain your glucose levels
and, and maintain your energy, your energy reserves, right?
When we talk about adipose tissue fat, when we talk about
glycogen, you know, the polymer form of, of glucose, you know, I
think that people often do not consider the effect of, of
muscle, the beneficial effect ofmuscle.

(35:22):
So I think that as we all get older, you know, you, you, I'm
sure you know, Max sarcopenia and dinopenia, the age-related
loss of, of strength, I'm sorry,the age-related loss of muscle
is sarcopenia and Dinopedia is the age-related loss of
strength. And I think that we need to do
whatever we can to mitigate thatand blunt it because it is, it

(35:43):
is inevitable, but it's something that we have direct
control over in terms of the rate, the rate of, of its
progression. And I think that all too often,
the people who are not focusing on resistance training, if you
were to do sequential DEXA scanson them year after year, they're
just losing more, more and more muscle.
And as they lose more and more muscle, their basal metabolic

(36:05):
rate, which is 1 component of their total daily energy
expenditure, that, that basal metabolic rate is getting
smaller and smaller, right? So they're essentially that
there's negative, there's a metabolic change that is
happening towards the negative side, right?
And then now these people, because as you get older, it's
not like your appetite changes, It's not like your appetite
lessens as you get older. For most people, their appetite

(36:28):
stays the same. So now you're essentially taking
in just as much energy through your appetite, but slowly over
time, as your muscle decreases and your basal metabolic rate
decreases, specifically due to muscle loss, but potentially due
to other circumstances as well. You're putting your body in a
place where it is much easier for you to gain visceral fat,

(36:51):
much easier to gain ectopic fat,much easier to gain subcutaneous
fat. And all of these 3 fats have
different effects on the human body towards the negative,
right? So I think that ultimately, you
know that the great, the, the, the, the great balancer of the
scales is muscle mass. And, and people need to focus

(37:11):
more on that through not just resistance training, but through
the rest of their lives, mitigating alcohol intake,
focusing on proper recovery, focusing obviously on nutrition,
on stress management. There are many different lenses
through which you can view optimizing not just muscle mass,

(37:31):
but metabolic health entirely. Well said.
Well said, man. I mean, I don't, I don't think I
could have said it any better. That was perfect.
And one thing I to go back and touch on when you're talking
about, you know, working with patients on diet transitions and
all those types of things, it's like it what popped into my mind
when you were talking, I don't know if you're a fan of Stan

(37:51):
efforting, but he's got a great,he's got a great quote.
It's like the best, the best exercise program is the one
you'll do the best. The best diet is the one you'll
stick to. That's what literally, that's
what literally popped into my head.
And yeah, that makes all the sense in the world to me.
And since we're on, let's, let's, let's transition to diet
here for a little bit because I remember when I initially

(38:15):
reached out to you. Do you do you remember what your
message back to me was? Yeah, because of your name.
Your name on Instagram has the word carnivore in it.
So yeah, I was like, you know, Iwas like, I I said to you, I was
like, I don't know why you want to interview me.
I'm not a car. I'm not.
Well, I am a carnivore, but I'm not solely a carnivore.
Yeah, no. And I, I, I think you reached
out, you said something back. It was like Max, you know, I'm

(38:36):
not low carb, right. And, you know, I think I said
something to the effect of, you know, low carb.
Yeah, well, this the podcast is really the when I started this
podcast, it was more about showing people like the, the
different perspectives from experts, doctors, trainers
around like what works best for overall health, longevity and

(38:57):
performance. But I read, I read somewhere
that you have experimented with keto and Paleo and intermittent
fasting and OMAD. So I've got a couple different
questions here. The first one is, so how has
your diet evolved over the yearswith, with specifically with

(39:19):
CrossFit and training? Because obviously when you're
getting deep into CrossFit and, and this was from my experience,
this is not how I train now, butI was definitely eating to
perform rather than necessarily care about how ripped or how
jacked I was or whatever the case was.
Like how has your diet evolved over the year to how you eat
now? Yeah, OK, so let's go back to

(39:42):
Med school. And when I was younger, I would
eat. I mean, there's, I'm sure
there's pictures online of this,but I would eat.
I listen, I still love candy to this day.
But back then I was like a glutton about it, right?
Walking around across the gym with like a 5 LB bag of gummy
bears, just being stupid. This is when I was in medical
school. And then, yeah, I think
somewhere in like 2018-2019 I experimented with keto.

(40:07):
It was, it was effective for me,but it wasn't sustainable,
right? And as we already talked about
that, that needs to be a key consideration.
So after about two months, I remember I was just really
craving A Snickers bar and I gave in.
I was like, oh, it's just one. I'll just have one stickers bar
and get right back on the keto train.
That's all it took was one stickers bar.

(40:27):
And I just, you know, went back to eating, eating a bunch of
processed carbs, garbage carbs. So you know, you know, keto,
like I said, right, I think ketowas effective for me in terms of
helping me lose weight at that time.
I think I wanted to lose like 15or 20,000.
It was definitely effective, butlong term it, it wasn't
sustainable. And then yeah, I essentially

(40:52):
slowly morphed into kind of doing what what you're saying
right now, right, which is eating to or eating with a
mindset of performance. And not even necessarily because
I consider myself a competitive athlete, I absolutely do not.
But I think that when you have the luxury of training in a way
such that you are depleting yourglycogen stores and then

(41:14):
repleting them with the way thatyou eat, right?
So you're going through depletion and repletion of, of
your glycogen sores, which I think is the fundamental way
things should be. Then in that case, you should be
eating, you should be eating carbs.
You shouldn't necessarily. I'm never going to advocate for
processed carbs in as much as inas much as I'll tell people just

(41:35):
so we're very aware aware here. I am not perfect.
There are definitely times whereI'm like, I want a cookie.
I'm going to go to Chick-fil-A or Jersey Mike's and get a
cookie, right? Or, or some candy.
But I do not think that that is the best way.
I, I think most Americans eat that way on the daily.
I eat that way on the like monthly, on the, you know, once

(41:57):
once every couple weeks a month.I'm like, yeah, I want this,
right. I cannot tell you the last time
that I had a full pizza that I ate literally a full pizza.
I don't do that anymore. So I think that ultimately
though, you know, eating in a way that that you know, reflects
your training and reflects the demands that you're training has

(42:18):
on your body is, is what's best.And you know, when you look at
carbohydrates and their positiveeffects on your, on your thyroid
output as well as their, does the fact that they, you know,
come with a lot of minerals that, that are useful for, for
the human body and human metabolism in addition to fat

(42:38):
intake. The biggest, the biggest that
the elephants of the, not even the elephants of the room that
the biggest slice of the pie, ifyou want to call it that, in my
opinion is protein. That's what should be maximized
and apportioned properly. And everybody.
And I'm very, very anal about that.
I don't necessarily go with the 1g per pound.

(42:58):
I like sit down and figure out. Just do the math.
Right. The lean body mass model, is
that how you kind of go about it?
Yes, absolutely. Yeah.
So if I, if I I quantify, I I don't use DEXA, I use very, I
use DEXA equivalent body composition assessment
methodologies. And then from that I now know

(43:19):
your lean body mass and then I know how much you currently
exercise. I know your age, I know your
gender. I can figure out your amino acid
demands. And then from there, if we so,
so you said you had a doctor Naaman on so you know about the
the protein leverage hypothesis.Yes, I do that's it's a it's
basically it's after I read the the PE diet 100% it it literally

(43:45):
and the way that book was laid out was so simple.
It was so effective, but it literally changed the way I
thought about food and my and not just like calories in
calories out, but like protein to energy and how I ultimately
how I want to eat for how I perform, how I want to eat and
how I want to leverage protein for how I ultimately want to

(44:06):
look. Because we all want to, yes, we
want to perform, we want to be able to lift and we want to have
energy, but we also want to lookthe part too.
Like that's, you know, part of why we do this.
And that like literally changed the game for me.
Yeah, yeah. No, it's, I mean, doctrine is
incredible. I read that book too years ago,
I think 20, 20 or 2021. And I was like, especially the

(44:28):
fact that he was an engineer too.
You can tell just reading it, I was like, I was like, this all
makes sense, right? It connects all the dots from a,
from a data centric standpoint, from a body composition
standpoint, you know, from a, from a biochemical and from a
laboratory marker standpoint. So it's, it's truly a, a, a
beautiful, a beautiful connection, a beautiful book.

(44:48):
And ultimately, yeah, that's I, I, I, I personally think now
that all macro nutrients are, I haven't been low carb for many
years. I eat all macro nutrients and
simply try to stay away from processed foods.
I do think though, and I would contend, I would make the
argument that when somebody specifically, because if you do

(45:09):
the math, if somebody, I can't remember, I did the math
recently, somebody needs to be like, I believe over 200 lbs
overweight to have essentially 1,000,000 calories of stored
energy on their body in the formof adipose tissue in the form of
fat. Well, so the reason why I bring
that up is to say that I think that when people are at a are in

(45:30):
a very poor body composition state, they need to eat
nutrition is beautiful because in reality, there is no best
way. There's only a best way based
off of your current body composition and where you want
to get to. And that's why it's very useful
to have a coach or somebody who knows exactly where your goals

(45:51):
are and then also knows all the underlying all the underlying
principles. Because somebody who's 2 or 300
lbs overweight, I am not going to have them eating like I eat,
right? There are there are nuances
here. There are different levers that
need to be played with. Now, the moment that that person
who's 200 lbs overweight gets totheir ideal body composition,
gets to the body composition that they want to be, then you

(46:14):
would change appropriately, protein would change, fat would
change, carbs would change, right.
So this is all I think that, youknow, when we look at, when we
look at systems, which is from engineering and both from
medicine, I, I very much like tolike to look at things through
the lens of our systems. You need to think about, you
know, balance, net positive, netnegative, and essentially just

(46:37):
the flow of energy through the system.
And when you're trying to lose weight, especially in a
sustainable way over many, many months, what you're actually
trying to do is you're trying tomove that system such that the
the flux, right, the the flux ofthe system is is is is in your
advantage is in a way that you wanted to to move.
And I think that's all too often, too many people don't

(47:00):
necessarily realize that that plans need to change.
Plans cannot say the same correct by by mere by mere
virtue of the fact that the human.
How many times have you heard back?
So, so I don't know what worked for me when I was 20.
It doesn't work now. It's so frustrating.
And I'm like, I remember, I hearthat so often from people.
I'm like, why? Why would you?
You are not the same person as you were when you were 20,

(47:22):
right? There are multiple systems in
your body that do not operate tothe same degree of efficacy.
And that doesn't mean that you can't achieve your goals, but it
does mean that you cannot achieve your goals doing the
same thing. You absolutely can't.
So yeah, that's that's that's how I feel about it.
Dude, I, I think you hit the nail on the head there.
So I 100% agree with you in terms of all that because like,

(47:45):
yes, my handle on Instagram is the low carb consultant.
You are on the Low Carb Consultant podcast and you know,
after I got out of the gym world, I got into the corporate
world and I started putting on weight.
I started, I was working a lot, not working out so much, putting
on weight. And so that started my own
health journey where like, just like you, I jumped on the keto
train and I did the carnivore train and I did the OMAD train

(48:09):
and I did fasting, intermittent fasting, like all these
different elements. And I did like, I was basically
one year keto, one year carnivore, one year.
Like I did a lot of these and mixed these different things
together all while working out. And then I got into like racing
and running marathons and half marathons and those types of
things. But what I noticed was in terms
of like, OK, like what is actually sustainable?

(48:32):
What, what I started to realize,like all these different diets,
whether you're high carb or low carb or keto or carnivore,
really I kind of look at them asjust tools.
There are more tools in the toolbelt that that's really how I
look at them. Like some days I'll have a high
carb day, some days I'll have a low carb, maybe a keto day where
we're doing more bacon and eggs or whatever it is.
Maybe on Sunday I'll fast. If I I, you know, I had a big

(48:54):
cheat day or a carb refeed on Saturday, I'm at fast on Sunday
and eat one meal a day. And I kind of mix these
different protocols and I flex these different protocols
together. But going back to the Ted Naman
approach and why everything really made sense and clicked
for me as well is because reallyit just says protein to energy.
If you just start kind of being aware of like, OK, the lever I
want and drive all the time is protein.

(49:16):
And I just need to be aware of like my carbs and fats and
what's coming into the body. Then I can, I can look the way I
want to look, perform the way I want to look, and then like use
the stored body fat I have on myframe as a fuel source as well
and still eat carbs and fat together in a normal range.
And that's just kind of how I ended up going about it.

(49:37):
But I, I wanted to jump to this part with you real quick in
terms of what people can take away from this podcast, because
I believe we're coming up here on time.
I'm going to do a time check. Yeah.
And I want to be respectful of what you got going on for the
rest of your day. What are maybe the two highest
impact items someone can take away today from this podcast to

(50:03):
improve energy, lean mass or labmarkers?
Well, I think the one, the glaring one that pops out at me,
I'm trying to think of a second one, but the glaring one that
pops out at me is the importanceof lean mass, the importance of
muscle mass, right? And you know, if you're not
somebody who's focused currentlyon strength training, on

(50:23):
resistance training, you, you need to start, right?
You don't need to start, you don't need to start at 100%, but
you need to start at 1% and figure out how to slowly ramp
that up for yourself at in doingso, I would strongly recommend
not comparing yourself to other people.
You can use, there's a this is anuanced statement.
You can use other people for motivation, but the moment that

(50:46):
you start comparing yourself to other people and then get in a
negative spiral in your head, that strength training becomes
maladaptive. You don't want it to become
maladaptive. You want it to, to, to, to be
beneficial. So I would, I would strongly say
again, it's a strength training,if you're the least fit like me
and you like Dave, you know, youcan use something called VBT

(51:08):
velocity based training to quantify your metrics.
And then truly, if you do that, then you'll basically be
comparing yourself to yourself over time.
So I think that that's definitely the the the first
one. I think the second one now that
we just talked about it is the importance of protein and the
fact that the fact that, you know, we have the human body has

(51:30):
storage. The modalities.
For fat we have storage modalities for carbohydrates
between post tissue and glycogenrespectively.
We do not have a storage modality for protein.
You know we have something called the amino acid pool, but
the amino acid pool is depleted and utilized every day and needs

(51:54):
to be needs to be need to be re refilled add muscle.
You know I am sure some people will say OK well you know
technically isn't muscle aid storage form of protein.
No, it is not Muscle is a functional functional
implementation of amino acids right of functional location of

(52:14):
protein. It is not necessarily a storage.
You ideally do not ever want to be breaking down your body
muscle and using that as energy.You would hopefully only ever
need to do that in starvation circumstances.
And I really hope the world never get to that place where we
have to all be breaking down ourbody muscle for for energy.

(52:36):
So essentially This is why each and every one of us in as much
as you may not know, it's each and every one of us has a daily
protein goal. A number that's given their lean
mass, their gender, their age, etcetera.
A number that you need to reach for.
Like mine for example, my daily protein goal is 200 and 72172g

(53:03):
to 278g daily. So, you know, I know my numbers
and, and my age. I've, I've noted because I, I've
consistently checked my body composition and my body
composition has slowly been adding on lean mast and it has
been since I don't take steroidsor do any of this TRT or any,

(53:26):
just any, any, any performance enhancing stuff you have to keep
in mind go and this goes back tothe first thing that we talked
about adding muscle. You need to keep in mind that
adding muscle, if you think losing fat is a slow process,
muscle is a very slow process, right?
And, and especially if you just refuse to, to go down the
performance enhancing to I grew out and you need to be not only

(53:50):
understanding of that, but comfortable with it, right?
So for me, for example, I've added on I think what 7 lbs of
muscle in the last couple years.Most recently when I tried, I
think I was like a 207 lbs of lean, lean body mass.
But I remember back when I quantified my composition and
like I believe it was 2017 or 18, at that time, I was 183 lbs

(54:13):
of lean body mass, right? So slowly over time, from my
2017 to 18 to most recently a 207, it's been a slow and
consistent journey. Not just resistance training,
but everything. I think when we think about,
when we think about muscle mass,we need to think about it from
the lens of metabolic health. So I, I disagree with people who

(54:35):
only look at it through, oh, it's just nutrition and
exercise, just strength trainingand getting in enough protein.
I disagree with that ardently. I believe instead it's about
the, the full, it's about the holistic approach.
So nutrition, movements, trust management, recovery.
And then there are two other components that I think are just
as important and that is mine mindset and how you think about

(54:58):
things because that determines your, your long term
consistency. And then lastly, toxin exposure
management, because we live in aworld unfortunately where even
the water you drink, right, if you're just drinking top water
or you're, you're consuming things quite commonly out of
plastic containers and microwaving things in plastic,

(55:21):
We live in a world just replete with with toxin.
So ultimately, when it comes to not just adding on lean mass in
a sustainable manner, but also improving your metabolic health
and moving all of your biomarkers from your fasting
insulin to your hemoglobin A1C to your homo IR to your fasting
glucose to your triglycerides, to your ASTALT, all the

(55:43):
different components of metabolic health, Ideally, we
want them to be moving. We either either want them to be
optimal. And notice I said the word
optimal. I didn't say within normal,
within normal limits. Oh, you know, normal labs.
I personally don't shoot for normal like with my with my cell
phone with my clients, I shoot for optimal.
I've. Heard you talk about normal lab

(56:05):
markers being garbage. Yeah, I'm just I'm I'm I'm not a
fan of them. I, I, like I said, right, I
think that there, there are other, there are other, there
are optimal lab values that should be, should be approached.
And I think that the beautiful thing about CrossFit and Greg
Glassman and he, he said this inthe past, is that when you're
doing the right things from a lifestyle standpoint, all of

(56:27):
these things that we talked about move in the right
direction. So your body composition will
move towards less fat, more muscle mass, better body fat
percentage. Your lab markers will move from
either outside of the normal range to within normal limits to
optimal your lifts in the gym from Cindy right to your to your

(56:49):
one Rep Max backs. Let's not even talk about one
Rep Max, let's talk about 3 Rep Max or five Rep Max right.
Your lifts and your workouts will move in in a good
direction. You know, ultimately all of
these things, I think the beautyof all of these things is that
they are objective. They're quantifiable.
You can put numbers on them and track them over time and that

(57:10):
objectively prove to yourself that you are improving.
You know, in as much as you willvery readily see the improvement
because you have a brain and youhave eyes and you can compare
yourself to other people of yourage and see the very stark
difference. Because we live in a country
where unfortunately, chronic diseases is prevalent, obesity

(57:31):
is prevalent. You know, any but anybody who's
the least fit, perspicacious, the least fit observance can
look at themselves and then lookat other people of their age and
be like, holy crap, I am aging very well, right?
Because most people in the society are not aging well.
And and you know that that's, that's obviously unfortunate for

(57:52):
them, but that's an opportunity for yourself to separate
yourself from the pack. Totally makes complete sense.
So I had some fun questions herebecause I know we want to start
wrapping up and getting you backto your day.
I had some some fun CrossFit questions that I wanted to ask
you First off. So First off, and this this
might frustrate you, you got 10 exercises.

(58:15):
You can do only 10 for the rest of your life.
And doesn't matter what order, no order of importance.
But what 10 exercises are you taking with you to do for the
rest of your life? And by that you mean 10
movements 10. Movements, yeah, 1010 movements,
sure, yes. So thruster, because I hate
thrusters and I'm a big believerthat when you find something in

(58:36):
Crosser that you hate, that's a sign you need to double down on
it. So thrusters, let's throw that
in there. Running I also hate.
Let's throw that in there. I think you, I think you
realized that weakness yesterday, correct?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I ran. I ran AI ran a. 5K yesterday and
you know the, the 5K that I ran yesterday it it showed me a

(58:58):
glaring weakness my heart, my lungs were fine during the 5K my
heart rate was like 165 but I was breathing through my nose,
not my mouth is closed felt fine, but my, my legs, right my,
my tibialis anterior and my Soleus muscle, which is a muscle
in your of your calves. They were both shouting at me.
So yeah, definitely need to do some more running.

(59:18):
So that's true. So thrusters running.
I would say a clean because I think that the clean is a
beautiful movement, right? You know you're going from
you're going from basically a deadlift to cleaning to catching
in a front rack to a front squatto standing it up It it
encompasses everything. So clean snatch, full snatch

(59:44):
also because I, I, that snatch is the one movement that has
frustrated me since I started CrossFit.
And now I am at the point after 15 years of drilling it and
changing things and, you know, observing and thinking I'm, I'm
at the point where I, you know, pretty much out lifting
everybody who I know with the snatch.
So it's AI, you know, I love that movement.

(01:00:04):
So that's for split jerk. Split jerk is a major weakness.
From Iraq, So taking it from Iraq or boxes?
I would say, I would say I'm slightly stronger from the rock
because my, my, all of my jointsare organized and it's
definitely harder for me to split jerk from the clean

(01:00:25):
because, you know, your body's under duress and you're under
stress and all that stuff. So yeah, I would say, I would
say doing it so, so, you know, clean and jerk.
So we could say that, but that would be #5 And then what else?
What else? What else?
Walking on my hands. So 6.
So hands down walking is something that I can do, but
right now I do it very, very poorly.

(01:00:46):
I'll do it and I'll most I can walk is maybe 5-10 feet.
So that's something else that I'd want to add on because I'm
not good at it. And so anybody should be able to
observe. There's a, there's a common
thread here. What CrossFit teaches you over
time is do not avoid the things that you suck at.
Drill them, right, like being inon them because because you

(01:01:08):
know, there's a sign there. Road climbs I think would be #7
for me, because Rd. climbs are very functional movement, right,
in terms of the fact that you will often need to use your
lower body and upper body in pair when it comes to pulling
yourself. And obviously, you know, it's
something that we hope we never have to use in life, but I feel

(01:01:29):
like that's something that couldquite literally save you if
you're competent at it. Sure.
That's seven right now. That's 7.
Yep. I'm.
Counting over here we got 7, so we're on 8.
OK, let's say so 8 something that my current gym programs a
lot that I'm a very big fan of our sled pushes.
So basically moving weights, pushing weights large.

(01:01:52):
I think the most I've ever pushed is £600 across turf.
And that's, that's a that's an awesome movement 9.
I don't even know how I forgot this one until now.
But the deadlift, I think the deadlift is something that, you
know, you don't need to have a 7or £800 deadlift.
But I think that being able to bend over and pick something up
in a way that is, is organized in terms of kind of your body

(01:02:16):
position and doesn't throw out. Like, I've never thrown out.
I doubt you've ever thrown out your back, right?
And I've never thrown out my back picking up.
How many times you hear somebodywho's in their 30s or 40s or 50s
say, oh, yeah, I picked up a pencil from the ground and I
threw out my back. I'm like, OK, that tells me.
That tells me a lot. Should should it be happening?
And then #10 what's #10 what's #10 to be honest #10 would be

(01:02:41):
between bench press and wall balls, because bench press.
Wall balls are kind of similar to thrusters though in a way.
Just but but OK, go ahead. These are your movement.
No, you're right. You're right, it's the same
movement, but. But then you could easily make
the argument that thrusters are very similar to cleans.
True. To be honest with you, out of

(01:03:03):
all of them I would say the thruster is probably the best
movement when you really think about it because you're
essentially a human piston. Like think about all the major
muscle groups you're using at one time.
Like how miserable are thrusters?
Absolutely. They suck.
They suck and that's why. That's why Fran Fran is so
competent. You know.
So OK, so then so that you make a good argument.

(01:03:24):
So then I would say that bench press, the only my only issue
with bench press is that I don'tnecessarily feel like it's super
fun. Like I can't think in my life
like maybe getting off, getting off the ground, But then if you
want to argue, OK, getting off the ground is your, is your, you
know, is your barometer, then I would argue just doing a
Burberry. But, but I think bench press is

(01:03:47):
one of those things that, you know, most people in cross, most
cross symptoms don't really pushthe bench press.
And my, my heaviest bench press that I've ever done so far in
CrossFit. And I, I should test it out and
try to go for another one at Maxsoon was 347.
And I remember, like I'm saying in my head, damn, I really want
to get to a £400 bench for us. But in the back of my mind I'm

(01:04:09):
like, I also don't need that. It's just one of these things I
want just because I like, I wantit, you know?
So yeah, I think that would be my turn.
All right. And then before we wrap up,
we'll, we'll go over favorite benchmark workouts and I'll
tell, I'll tell you mine if you want to, but favorite girl
benchmark workout. Friend for me really, because I,
I, I, yeah, I hit a 213 the lasttime I tested it.

(01:04:32):
And to be honest, so I'm, I'm 6 foot 2.
I don't think that it's possiblejust from an anthropometric
standpoint and anatomical standpoint, I don't think it's
possible for a man my size to move Fran faster than a 213.
But I'm going to go down trying.Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, I mean, and that's how I do.

(01:04:53):
I didn't know you were that tall.
I, I, I would 100% agree with you.
I think you know, CrossFit just because of maybe the sport, if
you want to say it like that, orthe movements and the amount of
calisthenics and body weights, handstand, push ups, pull ups,
like the people that are around five, 10185 are perfect, are
perfect specimens for CrossFit. Frasier Froning, you know, all

(01:05:19):
of these guys, you know, they, they all have that, that body
type. Yeah.
So my mine was Helen. I like telling a lot just
because. So with my body type type, I'm
not as tall as you, but I've gotlong arms, long legs.
So the thrusters always moved like murdered me.
Fran always murdered me just because I felt like I'm like

(01:05:39):
long and lanky and I'm probably 180.
So thrusters always murdered me.But like I could do pull ups
like crazy. Marcardio was crazy so and I
could hold on to a kettlebell well.
So it's like Helen was just a really good workout for me.
Here. Here's the next one.
What's your favorite hero wad? I feel like I should be shot if

(01:06:01):
I don't say Murph, but I mean, it's Murphy's also hellish.
Yeah, I'm going to say Murph. And you know what's odd, Max,
now that I think about it, because the gym that I'm at now
is not CrossFit affiliated, so we don't do.
I can't think of the last No, wedid Chad, we did Chad, but I'm

(01:06:21):
still going to say Murph. But we we I definitely haven't
because because of the agenda I'm at now is not like, you
know, they don't they de affiliated or whatever.
You know, I haven't done a a hero workout in a in a while,
but I think I think I think Murph.
I hate Murph because of the running, The, the, the either
the 20 rounds of Cindy or the 102 hundred 300, whichever way
you choose to do it, partitionedor unpartitioned, you know, you

(01:06:44):
get through that. But for me, the run, especially
if you put a 20 LB weight fest on me.
Yeah, especially with what I just told you about my my tibias
anterior. I dread the run.
Yeah, dread it so. Yeah, running with weights,
running with weight sucks. So my my favorite was Hollyman.
So Hollyman was 30 rounds of five wall balls, 3 handstand

(01:07:06):
push ups and then 1225 clean. So the reps it was, it was a lot
of it was a lot of rounds, but the reps were short where you
just kind of like in this, It was fun.
It was a fun perfect little rotation of 531531 boom, boom,
boom. And you got like you got to lift
some weight, you got some handstand push ups.
You feel you just felt super jacked afterwards.

(01:07:30):
You know what's so funny? I've only ever done I've only
ever done that workout once oncein my life.
And that that's a workout that I, I think I would really,
really enjoy. Another workout I've never done
but I want to do it is Have you ever heard of King Kong?
Oh wow, that's from like that's from like 2008 days God.
And I can basically. Tell you that.

(01:07:50):
The YouTube video, it's coming. I'm, I'm, I'm yeah.
What were what were their names that were doing the King Kong?
Let's oh, oh, I don't even remember their name.
Well, let's look it up real quick, because I know there's a
four O 5 deadlift in there. There's a muscle UPS and I'm
trying to I'm trying. To I think there's handstand
push ups in there. We'll see.

(01:08:15):
God, there was like a there was a good.
There we go in. Kong video of like the old
school CrossFit guys doing it. Yeah, it's 3 rounds for time. 1
deadlift at 455 lbs, two muscle UPS, 3 squat Queens at 200 and
52150 lbs, four hand to hand push ups, 3 rounds for time.
I feel like I would enjoy that. Like those are all weights that

(01:08:37):
are well within my capacity and you know, it's just, it's just
grind through and get it done. Yeah, yeah, I mean, those those
weights would be out of my capacity.
But I know that there's a famousif you if you're on YouTube and
you go like King Kong workout, there's like a famous workout
and the names are escaping me. It's not like Jason Kalipa.

(01:08:57):
It's like one of the even older old school guys, them doing the
the King Kong workout together. It's a great video.
They're just like just huge dudes moving weight.
I remember Khalifa doing it and I've also seen Neil Maddox doing
it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, this is awesome, Nick. It was honestly, man, a pleasure

(01:09:18):
to meet you, get to know you, chat with you, like, learn how
your mind works. You're clearly like a brilliant
dude, like in the CrossFit space.
Like it's like you're you're what what you're doing.
I I was going to tell you this earlier.
You being the type of doctor that you are, if if I was
sitting in a waiting room and you were walking in and you were
my doctor, I'd be like, holy shit, like I'm going to listen

(01:09:41):
to whatever the fuck this guy is, whatever is coming out of
his mouth. I'm going to listen to you
because you're you don't look like a normal doctor, but I'm
glad we got people that do look like you in the medical space,
man for. Sure.
Yeah, I've, I've literally had that happen on multiple
accounts. And, and I think there's,
there's always, there's always alesson there.
And the lesson is that whether you're a doctor, an accountant,

(01:10:01):
a lawyer, whatever the case may be, people do not resonate with
hypocrites. They simply don't, right.
So if you, if you are a doctor and you're sitting here and
you're telling me, hey, change your lifestyle, you know, go to
bed earlier, focus on your nutrition, go to the gym.
But you also then looks like somebody who doesn't do that.
You know I'm not going to listento you so.

(01:10:21):
Yeah. Yeah, good.
Well said. Anything real quick, Anything
new coming up to you, projects you're working on?
Want anything you want to talk about before we wrap up?
Yeah. But you know what, let's put
that in the show notes because Ijust got a notification on my
iPad. It says load device, storage
device, because obviously this is being recorded and it says

(01:10:42):
you should stop the recording and free up device data.
So I don't know how, how how much space this recording is
taking. So just so that we have that,
let's let's end the interview. I'll share with you kind of
information about potentially becoming my client or how I can
help you and you can put in the show notes guys for.
Listening to the Low Carb Consultant podcast.

(01:11:03):
We'll catch you guys on the nextone.
Thank you. Bye.
Bye.

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Dr. Nick Nwabueze | The Fittest Doc: A Journey Through Health, Longevity and CrossFit | July 17, 2025 Ep. 11

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Dr. Nick Nwabueze | The Fittest Doc: A Journey Through Health, Longevity and CrossFit | July 17, 2025 Ep. 11