Why Athletes Perform Better on Low-Carb Diets: The Hidden Truth!

Could you row 2,700 miles across the Pacific Ocean fueled by nothing but fat? In episode 812 of the Savage Perspective Podcast, host Robert Sikes sits down with Virta Health CEO Sami Inkinen, a man who did just that to expose the truth about sugar and carbohydrates. Sami shares his incredible story of going from a world class triathlete to pre-diabetic, a journey that led him to question everything about nutrition. He explains how he now helps thousands reverse type 2 diabetes and achieve incredible health, proving that you don't need carbs to thrive. This conversation will challenge everything you thought you knew about diet, metabolic health, and human potential.

Inspired to build a powerful physique using the right fuel? Join Robert’s FREE Bodybuilding Masterclass to learn the exact strategies for building muscle and getting lean without carbohydrates. Sign up here: https://www.ketobodybuilding.com/registration-2

Get Keto Brick: https://www.ketobrick.com/

Subscribe to the podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/42cjJssghqD01bdWBxRYEg?si=1XYKmPXmR4eKw2O9gGCEuQ

Chapters:

0:00 - Rowing 2,400 Miles on ZERO Carbs?! 

0:51 - The 45-Day Rowing Trip That Changed Everything 

1:50 - Why He Did The Impossible 

3:28 - How They Slept, Ate, and Survived at Sea 

5:32 - The One Question You NEVER Answer 

6:03 - The Moment They Almost Gave Up 

8:15 - The Secret to Overcoming Extreme Pain 

10:34 - He Did This With ZERO Experience 

12:05 - What The Middle of The Ocean is REALLY Like 

14:22 - From World-Class Athlete to Pre-Diabetic 

16:23 - The SHOCKING Truth About Carbs 

17:40 - Why "Calories In, Calories Out" is a Lie 

21:45 - Are Some Carbs "Healthier" Than Others? 

24:00 - The TRUTH About Long-Term Keto 

27:54 - How a Top Athlete FUELS for Performance 

29:34 - The Most Important Training Metric to Track 

32:38 - The Mission to Reverse Diabetes in 1 BILLION People 

39:10 - Why Isn't The Government Fixing This? 

40:24 - The Vicious Cycle Keeping America Sick 

44:06 - How The Virta Health Protocol Works 

46:16 - How They Get Patients to Stick to The Plan 

51:23 - Have We Lost Our Common Sense? 

57:09 - The Truth About Ozempic & GLP-1s 

1:00:35 - Why You SHOULDN'T Exercise for Weight Loss 

1:05:08 - The Tattoo That Proves This Works

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
You don't need sugar and Gatorade and all this sports
foods crap to exercise even at the high level and perform at
the high level unsupported from California in the summer of
2014, rowing from California to Hawaii, which is it's about 2400
nautical miles. It was 45 days and three hours.

(00:20):
The 16 to 18 hours a day that wewere rowing each day for 45
days, it's about the same amountof work in terms of calories
burned as running two marathons each day.
So we wanted to show that you can do that much work at a high
level with absolutely no sugar and carbs really for almost two
months nonstop. And we are live, Sami.

(00:43):
How are you, Sir? I'm doing very well, thanks for
having me as a guest. I'm excited to be chatting with
you, man. So you are the head honcho at
Virta Health. I definitely want to dive into
that, but I got to hear more about this rowing expedition
with your wife first. I mean, they sent me your one
sheet and one of the headlines was you rode with your wife for
45 days straight from San Diego to Hawaii.

(01:05):
Man, what was that like? Well, first of all, I have to
give a credit to my wife Meredith, to whom I'm I'm still
married. But it was quite a life
experience. We indeed hopped into a rowboat
unsupported from California in the summer of 2014.
And people always ask, like, wow, did you have a helicopter
following or something when you were rowing from California to

(01:28):
Hawaii, which is it's about 2400nautical miles.
So we ended up rowing 2700 nautical miles.
And the answer is no helicopters, no follow boats.
But yeah, we did that. It was 45 days and three hours.
So it's quite a trip. And still married to the same
woman. And it was, it was life
changing. I would say life transform.

(01:49):
What was the motivation for for doing that?
You just wake up one day and said OK, we're going to do
something extreme and this is it.
Yeah, well, I'm sure there is anelement of desire for adventure
to some extent. And you know, I've been an
athlete all my life and I I lovepushing my limits and so does my
wife. I think that was one part of it.
But then a second part of it waswe wanted to raise awareness

(02:13):
around dangers of sugar and poornutrition.
And specifically their thinking was, which we then executed.
The thinking was that we want toshow kids that you don't need
sugar and Gatorade and all this sports, sports crap to exercise
even at the high level and perform at the high level.
Suddenly if you, you know, play basketball for 30 minutes, you

(02:36):
don't need to drink 300 caloriesof sugar to do that.
So we wanted to show that we canexercise 16 to 18 hours per day.
By the way, the 16 to 18 hours aday that we were rowing each day
for 45 days, it's about the sameamount of work in terms of
calorie spoon as running two marathons, running two marathons
each day. So we wanted to show that you

(02:59):
can do that much work at a high level with absolutely no sugar
and carbs really for almost two months nonstop.
And so that was the element. So we raised money for charity
and then some research organizations that were
basically promoting this idea that sugar is bad for you for

(03:19):
the most part, and you can be healthy and even perform at a
high level without it. So what was like the specifics
of the actual rowing, like your what, what the boat consists of?
Like how did you sleep? Like you had to sleep at some
point. I had.
What's the mechanics there? Yeah.
Well, first of all, it, it was about 6-7 meter, 20 foot or so

(03:43):
boat made out of carbon fiber. And two people could be rowing
at the same time on the deck. And then you could sort of sleep
under the deck with an not airproof but waterproof cabin,
if you will, to sleep. And our basic routine was the 16
to 18 hours of rowing, of which about 12 hours together.

(04:05):
And then one was sleeping six hours and the other one was
rowing through night or whatever.
And then we would switch and theother one sleeps 6 hours.
So that was that's what we repeated for 45 days, days,
three hours. That was the setup and all the
food was packed vacuum sale and we could talk about what we ate,
but basically real food, no sugar, no carbs or very limited

(04:27):
carbs. And then water because you need
a lot of that, both sweating anda little bit cleaning.
We mainly desalinated from the ocean water because otherwise
you, you can do the math 45 daysto people you end up having, you
know probably like 1000 lbs or something like that of of water.
So we were able to desalinate from the also water.

(04:50):
That's wild, man. Like what what are you did y'all
like talk the majority of that time or y'all just like in your
zone just going through the motions like I would imagine at
45 days rowing alongside your spouse, like you got to you got
to be pretty close to your spouse to be able to do that.
Yeah, absolutely. And again.
By about 12 hours per day, we would roll at the same time.

(05:12):
So there was a lot of time to talk about the different types
of topics and you know, we pulled random things out of
thing. They're like, well, if you were
president of the United States, how would you World Peace and
like literally those kinds of topics.
And and then there was a one question my wife asked, which
unfortunately I answered because, you know, we were

(05:34):
feeling trying to fill the time and while drawing and questions,
some funny, some less. And the question she asked me,
she said if it wasn't me, which one of our friends would you
marry? Oh, you answered that question.
It's dangerous. And then of course, I entered
the trap and then answered that.So anyways, there were all kinds

(05:56):
of topics. That was one that I if I could
go back, I probably wouldn't answer.
Was there any point during that 45 day span where y'all were
both like totally over it? Like let's just not continue?
Or were y'all like committed from the get go and never
wavering? Yeah, I think the first quite
honestly, the 1st 10 to 14 days,almost two weeks were the

(06:18):
hardest and they were hardest for for really two reasons.
One was it was so stormy and probably, I'd say maybe 10
centimeters, like 25 foot waves.So first of all, we're very
stormy and Pacific Ocean, it's not dolphins and rainbows, it's
actually very cold. The Northern Pacific course in
particular. So that was one, it was stormy,

(06:39):
kind of cloudy, a little bit rainy, and very, very cold all
the time. So that was one reason in the
first two weeks, it was really scary, quite honestly.
And then a second reason was that the wind was coming more or
less from a West or northwest. So here's what happened for the
1st 10 days we made practically 0 westerly progress.

(07:01):
Why we just ended up all the wayto Mexico and the place where we
pushed off actually was Monterey, CA, so kind of on a
northern part of California. So we just went down for about
almost two weeks and I told my wife, I said we've we've made
like less than 10 miles off the 2000 plus to West.

(07:22):
We just made, I don't know, hundreds of miles South this
we're going to run out of food. This is just not going to
happen. And I was, I probably, I would
have given up if it wasn't for my wife, who I guess was more
stubborn and said, hey, even if we just make an inch a day, we
just keep going at it. And eventually kind of the

(07:44):
storms calm down a little bit and the wind became sort of
northerly northwest, always a level, the scope.
And so if you look at the route that we ended up rolling, it was
like straight down 1st and then slowly but surely we started
making progress towards W towards Hawaii.
And, and we made it. But then I'd say that was a
moment moment and then many hardmoments where I was about to

(08:06):
give up. And then all the time I
honestly, I did learn many life mantras that have been useful
ever since 1 was this too shall pass, shall pass.
And there's many moments you're like, there's no way I can this,
this, this sit. And then you realize our or day

(08:27):
or two days later, it's like, well, remember that thing.
And here we are two days later, we still keep going.
And then the other was you have to the ultimate way to overcome
pain, literally physical pain, which, you know, take a million
hour strokes over 45 days kind of physical pain all the time is

(08:48):
you absolutely give in to the feeling.
You surrender as long as you're meant to like, Oh my God, four
more weeks and then we can sleepin the bed or take a shower or
get real food. It's misery, right?
But when you surrender and say this is it, here we are, you
know, just embrace it. You can pretty much get through

(09:11):
anything. So.
There's like a certain piece with that man.
Like I, when I did my last competition prep, I, that was
the first prep I'd ever done where I also surrendered.
And it was the best prep I'd ever had because there wasn't
this like negative connotation around everything that I was
doing. I wasn't as bitter, I wasn't as
irritable. But like, there's so much peace
and power that comes from just surrendering to the elements and

(09:33):
just taking it as it comes. Like, as as strange as that
sounds, it's kind of counterintuitive, but there's
strength in that for sure. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And you know, I do a lot of sports, particularly cycling,
training and racing. It's an example.
You may do hard intervals and it's painful.
And if if you allow your mind tobe like, Oh my God, Oh my God,

(09:54):
this is horrible. It's kind of like people can
maybe relate to like if you jumpinto cold, cold water, you know,
nine people out of 10, the reaction, you start screaming
and I don't wait to get out of this and horrible.
And and then I don't know, one out of 10, you surrender and you
just accept it. It's just cold.
It's just freezing cold. And if you surrender and you

(10:16):
become a con, you can pretty much kind of get through
anything. But it is a very good point that
you mentioned. Did you have any like experience
in the ocean, like navigation, like how did you learn all this
stuff? Like what have you been sailing
before or what was the the experience there?
Yeah, well, I'm, I'm sure this sounds crazy, but I had

(10:38):
absolutely no rowing experience,no ocean experience, no
navigating experience, no experience of any kind being in
the kind of in the ocean. I mean, over the ocean, which
was part of the intrigue, quite honestly.
And I didn't mention earlier thethe place from where I kind of

(10:58):
personally discovered that, hey,the ocean is kind of a special
place. Was the book Unbroken by Laura
Hillebrand. And this was a movie made just
around the town. We wrote about this book
Unbroken words. Second World War Air Force folks
were shot down by the Japanese and they fell into the Paci in

(11:20):
the middle of the Pacific Ocean.And then they drifted in a
lifeboat kind of through the Pacific Ocean.
And then that story and all those kind of descriptions got
me very excited about this idea that, hey, maybe, maybe there
should be, could be a way to cross the Pacific Ocean.
And, and got me, got me kind of excited that what is out there,

(11:42):
what is out there in reality is a lot of empty space.
Let me tell you a lot of empty space, but there are very, very
special things, whether that's the phosphor essence like you in
the middle of the night, you take your oral strokes and you
just see like in the Disney movie, sparkles going in the
ocean. You know, some whales and sharks

(12:03):
following. And I would say probably the
most mind blowing experience. I thought I had seen it, but I
had not. When you're in the middle of the
Pacific Ocean and you look at the night sky in no kidding you
I, I'm pretty sure we saw 10,000times more stars than I've ever

(12:24):
seen. Even in the mountains in the
wilderness. It was like completely white
because there's so much light pollution in basically anywhere
else in the world. So it is a very special
environment, at least from my N = 1 kind of kind of experience.
But that's your question. I'll just quickly mention.
So I had absolutely no experience before ocean.

(12:45):
So it was sort of from zero to ready in six months training,
rowing, survival courses. We took a lot of the same
courses that sailors take with U.S.
Coast Guard navigation, how to use radio.
Because you, if you just push off and go and sort of try to

(13:06):
get to an ocean, you'll probablydie.
Like you have to learn a lot of things and you know, big boats
go and how do you communicate with them and how do you use the
survival equipment? And, and so we, we, it was
basically a full time job, six months to get ready to
potentially cross the Pacific and survive.
That's wild, man. My, my parents.

(13:28):
So we sail a lot in my family. My parents just bought a, a boat
to sail around the world and like, they retired two years ago
and they're going to sail aroundthe world, which is super
awesome. I'm excited to link up with them
at various ports. But there's something special
about being on the water, man. It's a totally different beast
than what most people are accustomed to on land.
Absolutely. And I, I often say there's a

(13:50):
reason there's 2 words. There's a lake and an ocean.
And yes, they both have. What about the two completely
different different animals? Totally, totally.
So what was the motivation for doing it all without
carbohydrates and sugar? Like I can totally resonate with
that. Like I'm in bodybuilding space.
Like what I'm trying to do with the ketogenic approach is far

(14:11):
counter to what everybody else is doing.
And I'm a big advocate for beingfat fueled and not relying on
glucose. It's not necessary to compete at
a high level and performance sports without carbohydrates.
So where did the catalyst for that to come for you?
Like what was the motivation? Yeah, well, there's kind of a
longer arc, but you know, I'm a,I'm a kid of a child of 1980s

(14:31):
and 90s and I kind of my mind iswired in a way that when
somebody tells me to do something, I do that times 100.
And so I'm, I'm a kid of 80s, nineties, and I was always told
that's bad cholesterol is bad and, you know, low fat dogma and
kind of lived and grew through that effectively then avoiding

(14:52):
all the possible fat I can simultaneously throughout my
life, I've been, you know, a drugs athlete and performed
pretty well to the point that when I get to America, I started
doing triathlons and I won the World Championships in, in my
age group in, in triathlon. I did the Hawaii Ironman World
Championships 7 times back-to-back.

(15:13):
And you know, as a as a recreational athlete was very
fast. Like people know Ironman's back
in the days, my fastest time was8 hours, 24 minutes, which is
like very fast on amateur. Now these days you it's not like
Olympic gold medal. But anyways, fast amateur.
The reason I thought I was very,very healthy.
You know, I'm eating, I have some supposed to eat.

(15:34):
And then I discovered that I'm pre diabetic and on my way to
type 2 diabetes despite being like a lean single percent, you
know, body fat running all thesetrial lungs.
And I was like, what the F? I guess that make any sense?
Like this is ridiculous. Like if I'm getting unhealthy
and metabolically sick, if I'm getting metabolic disease,

(15:55):
everyone's getting metabolic disease because I'm doing all
that right? Well, sure enough, everyone is
getting metabolic disease in America and most developed
nations. So that kind of led me to a path
of discovery. Like how can a guy in his
whatever, early 30, mid 30s, I guess, eating healthy,
exercising 10 plus hours of cardio the week become

(16:17):
metabolically unhealthy? This doesn't make absolutely any
sense. And so that sort of led me to
read a lot of research and booksand eventually I became
convinced that it's the fucking curbs.
If you marinate your body, your brain, your blood sugar
constantly into blood sugar spikes, probably nine people out

(16:40):
of 10 or 19 out of 10 will develop metabolic disease.
There's probably small percentage of people who
basically do anything and nothing happens.
But given I guess 60 plus percent of American adults now
have either type 2 diabetes or pre diabetes, if you take early
insulinar systems, probably 70%,basically 1 can be made sick.

(17:03):
So, so that kind of led me to this, this discovery, I guess,
if you will, and belief at the time, but now the data is so
strong like this, there's not much belief needed.
If you marinate your body, your blood sugar in excess blood
sugar, carbohydrates long enough, practically everyone

(17:24):
becomes metabolically unhealthy.And how do you fix that?
Well, you shouldn't be fixing food with drugs.
You should fix bad food with better food.
And I was like, OK, well, that'sit.
Let's try to do something about it.
Totally agree man, totally agree.
There's a lot of people in the evidence based community that

(17:47):
are totally of the opinion that you can consume carbohydrates.
You know, it's more of a mixed diet approach.
You just got to control for total caloric intake and if
you're not exceeding that, then there's no reason why one should
not consume carbohydrates. What?
What do you say to that push back?

(18:07):
Well, I think, you know, I was alean athlete who clearly wasn't
in excess calories because you know, I'm also a physicist by
training sudden occur in a nuclear power plant.
So I believe in the first and second level of thermodynamics,
which is calories in, calories out.
And so my answer to that is thatwhile N = 1 first myself, I

(18:29):
certainly wasn't eating excess calories for not to do my burn
because I kept my body fat fixed.
And let me tell you that was a lot of hard work because your
hunger and cravings all the timeand you're just restricting.
Yet I was still becoming metabolically unhealthy.
So that's me. And now there's we should
probably put legs into the studies, but there's been bunch
of studies among like 30-40 yearolds, recreational triathletes

(18:54):
who exercise a lot are relatively lean and like large
percentage of these people todayhave pre diabetes.
And as I've shared my story, so many people have reached out to
me and it's not like I'm promoting it everywhere, but you
know, it's online every anyone can read my kind of story and
how I ended up now starting my current company better help.

(19:16):
So many people have reached out to me who are like, I can't
believe this. I'm 33, I'm doing all this
exercise, I'm running a three hour marathon, whatever.
And I assisted blood work and I'm pretty diabetic.
My A1C is up and this and that. So, so my answer is this is
happening to millions of people.Like they think they lean, they
think they're doing the right thing, yet their menopause will

(19:38):
be unhealthy. Their blood sugar is up, fasting
insulin is up, the triglyceridesup, the inflammation with the
CRP, white blood cell counts up.Like how's that possible?
It's not just keeping your full calorie intake.
I'm sure if you also gain excessfat on top of that because
adequate tissue is inflammatory,it's probably makes things even
worse. But there's just so many people

(20:01):
out there who. May have kind of lean body
composition, but they're still metabolically completely
unhealthy. So I don't think it's just a,
you know, weight gain, it's associated, but the weight gain
is, is not the kind of binary factor whether you're
metabolically unhealthy or not. No, I totally agree.
I'll say one more thing. Actually, this is even better

(20:23):
and before we go into my currentcompany better help, you know,
we treat a lot of patients, mostof them are like BMI 3540 plus
and so we can reverse type 2 diabetes.
So get people's blood sugar downto normal level and completely
off of diabetes medications. Absolutely before substantial

(20:44):
amount of body weight, body fat is lost, which implies that
metabolic health may be associated with excess body fat.
But you can be metabolically, you can take a metabolically
unhealthy person, make the metabolically pretty healthy
before they lose a lot of weight.
And then also vice versa, you can have a lean person who's

(21:06):
very metabolically unhealthy. So it's not just the calories in
calories cell for sure. No, 100%.
Do you think there's a like somepeople want to consume
carbohydrates, but they're consuming more, you know, single
ingredients, naturally occurringcarbohydrates, you know, fibrous
foods, vegetables, natural fruits, things of that nature.

(21:28):
Do you think they're at the samerisk as someone that's consuming
a lot more sugar and hyper palpable processed foods?
Like do you think the the type of carbohydrate is a main
contributing factor? Is it just carbohydrate in
general that's leading to this metabolic syndrome?
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm not a doctorand I don't play one on the

(21:48):
Internet then and try to always be very evident space.
And quite honestly, I, I, I don't know fully, I would say so
I, I don't want make it inconclusive statements, but I
would say the following. Whatever has made you say
insulin resistant today, if you're in your 30s or 40s,

(22:10):
meaning you have elevated fasting part glucose and overall
glucose A1C and fasting insulin,I think you can tolerate very
little excess carbohydrates in any form.
And I, I know this 400% of fact because we treat people with
type 2 diabetes and pre diabetes, their body is already
at the state. So internal assistant that

(22:33):
oatmeal for most people is completely out of question or
like, I don't know, dehydrated fruits.
So if you ever instrument assistant at that point, you've
kind of lost the game already. Like you should really have to
go. And almost all, not all
carbohydrates, but like any excess amount in any form is

(22:54):
kind of out of the question. Now if you go to a 15 year old
child who is very insulin sensitive and their menopause
would be very healthy and menopause would be very
flexible. If they eat wholesome food and
no excess added sugar and no sodas and no juices, they can

(23:16):
probably handle that for a long,long, long, long time.
And some people may be forever. So I think it's very contextual
and where you are. But if your body is already
insulin assistant, it's almost like it's almost like amber and
any curbs is like drive boot andit just starts to fire.
So that's kind of how I see. But again, I will say I'm not

(23:37):
doctor so they don't take this medical advice and then also try
to be always very evidence based.
And so this is more of a anecdotes, but that's kind of
how I see it. That's why it's also tough to
say blanket statements like, oh,all the fruits are bad.
Well, probably not for every people, every person.
But again, if you're very interested in resistant your
type 2 diabetic eaten apples allday long, it's not going to be

(23:59):
good for you, sadly. Totally, totally.
I'm a, I'm a big advocate for sustainability, obviously with
any dietary protocol. You know, I've been doing keto
now for over a decade and I feellike, I feel like that's
optimal. That's why I do it.
But there's a lot of people thathave given pushback to long term
keto, long term carnivore, for fear that it decreases metabolic

(24:23):
flexibility by way of increasinginsulin resistance.
And I was trying to point out the difference between
pathological and physiological insulin resistance, but do you
have any thoughts towards that? Well, I have my any course 1
anecdotal personal experience. And then, you know, we have data

(24:45):
from, from our patients. I think the qualitative
thoughts, I would say whatever keeps you healthy, keep doing
that. And what we do with our
patients, you know, again, somebody may have had diabetes
for 15, type 2 diabetes for 15 years, they're on insulin.

(25:06):
We can reverse that in, I don't know, maybe six months.
They're completely off of insulin and then they are
following certain type of maintenance lifestyle
nutritionally and whatever that is that keeps them off of
diabetes. Medication is what should go low
and lipids low and everything but lipids at the right level
and everything's good. Like that's what you should be

(25:29):
doing. If the alternative is to go back
to develop type 2 diabetes again, why the heck would you do
that? And, and none of our maces want
to do like they feel awesome, they have energy, they're off
the drugs and they're like, I can't believe I lived with type
2 diabetes for 10 years and he had more.
So anyone arguing like, well, but you should be eating the bad
stuff so you'd be more flexible.It's just, that's ridiculous,

(25:51):
right I? Agree.
I agree. Take a perfect example.
This is not a perfect analogy, but you know, I grew up in
Finland. The Scandinavians have little
lactose intolerance. Like I don't really eat lactose,
maybe ate cheese, but I'm not going to drink a glass of milk
because my stomach's going to bemessed up.
So I just stopped eating milk ordrinking milk unless it's
lactose free. Like why would I make myself

(26:13):
feel miserable? So anyone telling me five years
in life but you, I think you'd be more flexible if your body
was used to lactose. Well, maybe, but listen, feeling
freaking awesome. I don't want to be messing up my
stomach by eating or drinking 3 glasses of milk.
And so, so I think that's one thing I'll mention there.
Then just the personally, anecdotally, I probably followed

(26:35):
pretty similar nutrition approach to years since 2013.
So how many years? There's 12 years.
I also raced bicycles again sortof recreationally.
And I'm in my late 40s and I objectively am fitter than I've
ever been in my life because sometimes people say, oh, if you
don't eat lots of sugar and carbs, you certainly can't

(26:58):
perform on a high intensity level.
And I, you know, cycling is kindof like lifting weights.
You have power meters so you canget a number of watts and how
much you lift weights, you know,the pounds like there is no
fuzziness around it, like you'vegot a number, it's not feeling.
And I don't know, I, I can perform at a better level than
than I ever have. And then if I need to eat

(27:20):
carbohydrates for some big 5 hour bike race, my body is just
perfectly fine processing them. So that this is my any course 1
anecdote which doesn't make science, so I'm not going to
write a book about it, but I don't know.
I think, I think it's, it's valid though.
I mean, I feel like, you know, people that are doing athletic,
you know, high performance endeavours, whether it be

(27:42):
cycling or lifting weights or rowing 45 days straight.
I mean, that's a pretty good test to the nutrition and how
you're able to perform. So like when you're doing a
cycling event, for instance, like how are you fueling?
Like are you, are you strategically timing certain
carbs? Are you having any of the goo
packets that they're typically seen on cycle runs?

(28:05):
Like how how how does how does that look for you when you're
doing an event? Yeah, I'd say, but by the way,
I'm sometimes hesitant to talk about very specific personal
attrition because people usuallytake it out of context and this
and that. And but I, I will share a few
things. I'd say generally in my life
outside of hard workouts and racing and drinks racing, I

(28:27):
don't really touch any visible carbohydrates.
Now I eat a lot of salads and this and that, but you know,
those are very low, low carbohydrate level.
Nothing. No rice, no pasta, no bread, no
wheat, no no nothing. And then when I do very hard
workouts, so I would say very low carbohydrate levels outside
of any of those. And then in like some races and

(28:48):
hard workouts during it, I just take whatever fast carbohydrates
I can take. And that's how I, I learn to
optimize my performance. And you know the body when
you're burning, let's see, 1200 calories an hour, you can throw

(29:08):
a couple 100 calories of carbs per hour and they disappear and
doesn't affect your metabolic health and life is good.
So that's kind of how I've optimized.
So I don't like if I do a three hour hard race or something, I
don't do that fasted. I do find that whether
psychologically or metabolically, it is helpful to
have a little bit carbohydrate stirring.

(29:32):
Have you ever or do you train like via like heart rate and
zone training? I just did a VO2 Max for the
first time like 2 weeks ago. So I'm kind of intrigued by that
style of training based off a heart rate, heart rate and VO2
capacity. So like when you're going
through a training block for a cycling event, like how are you
structuring your your training leading up to that?

(29:54):
Yeah. No, I absolutely.
I look at sort of three things for for levels, it's hydrate and
then cycling is an objective output measure of power, what's
accounts power, the bike your body is producing and pulling
through the bike and then perceived effort also three and
then you could measure lactate levels, which obviously tells a

(30:15):
lot of swell, which I've done sometimes.
But basically it's those 3 perceived effort, hydrate and
then and power. And then I have certain types of
intervals, you know, easy rides and sort of media tempo and then
some super hard stuff. But I use those three in
combination. Ultimately, physiologically, it

(30:38):
all comes down to perceived effort because if you just
cannot go faster, it doesn't matter what's your heart rate
number? What's your power number like
that's Max. And also if you want to do a
hard workout but not too hard that you recover the next day,
you still have to listen to yourperceived effort.
So I would say being very mathematically and quantifiably
oriented me as a person, I use perceived effort probably more

(31:00):
than anything else as as the measure.
And I've also noticed that in training, similar to perceived
effort, how you feel like when you wake up in the morning, for
example, is the best proxy for recovery and performance.
And I've used to every HRV resting heart rate, a number of

(31:21):
other things for like a recovery, But how you feel is,
is incredibly accurate. And I believe it's, it's because
we already have the best recovery machine or recovery
scoring machine. And that's called brain.
Like if you have like a, like a sickness coming and no number
has moved, guess what knows thatyour brain and your body.

(31:43):
Like, I don't know, I'm so sluggish.
I'm so tired. And, you know, a day later you
have a sore throat and day laterthan you in a bed.
And so I, I found that despite all the quantified self and all
the data that you can have, it'sincredibly important to be aware
how you're feeling. Yeah.
No, I, I totally. Agree, I'm very databased

(32:04):
analytical as well with like tracking all my macros and you
know training stats. But I've got the wearable on my
arm. But man, there's there's so much
to be said for just being in tune with your body, having mind
muscle connection, being aware of how you're feeling upon
waking. If you need a recovery training
intuitively based off of how you're feeling.
And I feel like with the popularity of a lot of these
wearables and data metrics, a lot of people are less in tune

(32:27):
with their body than ever. So like marrying both of those
together is is the key that we should all strive for I.
Could not agree more. So peel the curtain back.
On Virta Health man, talk to me about the origin story of that
and and what exactly the protocol is and who all that
serves. Yeah, well, it.

(32:48):
Ties back to a lot of the thingsthat I already said what led
into the role, but let me just give you the snaps of.
So Verna ALDI is the company where I'm the CEO and Co
founder. And our stated mission is to
reverse metabolic disease starting from type 2 diabetes
and obesity in 1 billion people.So reverse metabolic disease in

(33:10):
in 1 billion people. And we achieve that 100%
exclusively with nutrition. And we deliver this treatment
purely through lifestyle change.So we don't sell any food or
anything and we do it 100% virtually.
So we have full time employees for doctors, full time employees
who are coaches. And then of course, we use a lot

(33:31):
of software and algorithms to individualize and support our
patients to reverse their metabolic disease again,
nutritionally. So that's what we do.
In terms of how this came about,it's goes back to my story of
how did I get interested in nutrition?
How did this role came about? And kind of the the one moment

(33:55):
that kind of changed my interestor redirected my focus and
interest was when I discovered that I was metabolically
unhealthy and pre diabetic despite being a world class
triathlete, at least as an amateur.
And, you know, I did the role and obviously learn a lot
myself. And then I said this is
ridiculous. We have 150 million plus people

(34:19):
in America who are metabolicallyunhealthy.
And again, the best that humanity can offer is
prescribing drugs to treat symptoms as opposed to reverse
these reversible conditions. Nearly 40 million people have
diabetes, you know, dialysis, kidneys popping, losing
eyesight, people losing limbs, people dying from diabetes.
And this is a freaking reversible condition.

(34:40):
And so I said I can talk all daylong.
I can do these roles and bring awareness and raise money for
nonprofits. But if?
I can build a company. That has a very specific
solution to do just that, to reverse metabolic disease.
It's probably the fastest way toabsolutely have impact in the
world. And I am a huge believer that if

(35:02):
you have the right mission, right approach and the right
product, the for profit company and the American capitalistic
system is the best tool for change.
The reasons why companies work. And so I said let's freaking go
and build this company better health to solve metabolic

(35:22):
disease more broadly. And so that was about 11 years
ago and we spent a good sort of five years in clinical trial.
We actually run a large scale prospective clinical trial.
It took a long time to build theplatform and make sure we can
treat patients remotely successfully, safely and do it
cost effectively. And now Fast forward today, we

(35:43):
are we're still privately healthcompany.
We raised 360 million of investor money to build the
company. We have a couple of 100 million
in revenues. So like a large startup, but
small, big company growing more than 80% year over year.
And we work with more than 600 payers or plant sponsors.

(36:05):
So we work with large employers like United Airlines or U-Haul
health plans like Blue Shield ofCalifornia, government entities
like the Veterans Administration, some state,
municipal, city government organizations who pay the
treatment and then individual patients have have free access.

(36:27):
And we are about, I think we areless than 1000 employees, but
somewhere pretty close there. So, so that's what we've been
doing. And quite honestly, we've come a
long way and it's it's sort of adecent scale, but this is no
joke. Like it's still just day one and
it's just day one because the magnitude of this problem is
it's insane. Like it is just like America, I

(36:50):
don't know if your listeners know how big these numbers are.
America spends just America alone, 4 1/2 trillion dollars a
year in healthcare. So it's almost 20% of our GDP.
That's way more than military, education, anything combined.
And by the way, it's twice as much per capita as anywhere else
in the country ever in the world, whether that's which are

(37:12):
under Finland. So 4 1/2 trillion, easily about
half of that. So one to two, 2 trillion at
least goes to addressing metabolic disease and mostly
it's just addressing the end complications like dialysis and
heart attacks and or prescribingmeds to treat symptoms.
So what I want to do is say thisis ridiculous.

(37:34):
Enough of this bullshit. Like we can reverse most of
these conditions. We can save so much taxpayer
money, we can save so much moneyfor the economy, and most
importantly, we can kind of givepeople their lives back.
And then the typical kind of a basin we treat that Verta is
they're somewhere between 55 andI'd say 55 years of old kind of

(37:55):
average. We have men and women both, a
little bit more women. People are sort of 50 to 80 lbs
overweight, and they've had diabetes for many years like
that. They literally think this is it.
I'm not going to see my grandkids alive.
I've been on insulin for 10 years.
Like my doctor keeps telling me,type 2 diabetes, chronic and
progressive, let's just keep piling more drugs.

(38:15):
So we kind of slow down the progression and then we show up
and say, hey, this is ridiculous.
We can reverse that in three to nine months.
You get off of insulin likely, let's go, and on average that's
what happens. And so it's still day one, but
we make good progress. And honestly, professionally,

(38:37):
it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my life to be
able to a slight exaggeration like pulling people out of their
graves and say, let's go, it's awesome.
And to be paid for that. And it's a win for the patient.
Obviously it's a win for whoeverpays the healthcare bills they
employ or, or an insurance company because they save money.

(39:01):
And you know, it's a win for work as a company because
obviously we get paid, paid for the service.
So it's been quite, quite a journey.
No, it's it's awesome. Man, that, that is incredibly
fulfilling, I would imagine for sure.
What? Why do you think, especially in
our capitalistic, you know, country, why are there not other
companies doing this? Why is the government not doing
this? Like you would think everybody

(39:22):
would save so much more money, but that is not been the case.
Well, I will. Say I'm cautiously.
Optimistic. This is not bragging, but it it
was an honor. I was at the White House last
week with folks like Doctor Oz, who runs Medicare, and we were
invited to go there because the government wants to do this.
They want to lower Medicare and Medicare costs.

(39:45):
They want people to be healthy. They want better experience for
the beneficiaries. Now, obviously working with
governments, it's always complexand takes a long time and this
and that. So I'm cautiously optimistic
that we're moving towards towards a better direction.
But more fundamentally to your question, why the heck are we
here? Like why?
Why are we dealing with this? Metabolic diseases and treating

(40:07):
them on a symptoms level as opposed to solving them.
And why did this kind of spiral out of this out of control?
That is a good question. I don't think there was an evil
master plan behind it, but we'veended up in a situation where
all the entities that make moneyoff of this problem are big, fat
and happy, and there's incentive.

(40:28):
And what do I mean by that? Literally, this is what's
happening today in America and most of them, including my
native Finland now. Left hand.
Is feeding bad food that's making you unhealthy and it's
very high profit margin. Processed crab with lots of
sugar and carbs? Left hand is feeding that and

(40:49):
the right hand is feeding or giving very expensive drugs that
barely keep you alive so that you can eat more of this crap
with your left hand. It's a completely vicious cycle.
That's kind of where we are. And so we're kind of stuck.
The food companies make a lot ofmoney feeding you for that's
making you sick. And then you have this

(41:10):
healthcare ecosystem that makes a lot of money treating symptoms
to barely keep you alive. That's kind of where we are.
And then this broader healthcare, like in the US, it's
mostly based on fee for service.So when you have a heart attack,
guess who makes money? The hospital makes a ton of
money and the surgeon makes a ton of money.
When you have dialysis, which is, you know, at the end of

(41:30):
diet, type 2 diabetes, usually your kidneys pop up and you have
to go dial. It's ridiculously expensive.
And there's companies that make a lot of money from that.
So we have this whole system of like maintaining this problem.
And very few companies, hopefully Virdam will be one of
them is coming kind of from outside and say like, you know,
blow the whistle and say this iseffing ridiculous.

(41:53):
This doesn't make any sense likeI would think this stupidity and
solve this problem and and hopefully we on our way there
yeah from I mean I. I understand that everybody
profiting in that regard, but I,I would think from a, a business
model long term standpoint like all of your paying customers are
going to die. You know, like that's probably
not the best thing long term foranybody.

(42:16):
Well, This is why we have made amazing progress because we go
to the plan sponsors again, employers, Fortune 500
employers, we work with 500 plusemployers, not Fortune 5, maybe
it's 14,000. But anyways, big names, UPS,
United Airlines, U.S. Foods like this, the household
names, FedEx, big employers, they love us.

(42:39):
Why do they love us? Because it makes freaking common
sense. We make the employees healthy
and we save them money. And they are desperate.
Like the cost of healthcare in America is ridiculous, and
employers pay largely so they love us.
And that's why the economic model is such that we go to the
folks who pay the healthcare bills and say, hey, we'll come

(43:00):
in. We can make your employee
healthy. You save money, and you pay us
less than you save. So everybody wins.
And we also in our contracts, wehave 100% downside risk.
We say if it doesn't work, you pay nothing.
If it doesn't work, you pay nothing.
And by the way, this is how healthcare should be like.
If we don't make you healthy, you pay nothing.
But obviously that's not how theHealthcare is.
Mostly it's like, come here, we'll give you some pills and

(43:22):
some interventions and we bill you every time we do, whether it
works or not. So that's where the pressure is.
People who write checks for healthcare, who absolutely pay
the bills, which is largely employers and taxpayers by the
way, they are sick and tired of doing that.
And, and that's why our businessmodel is to go to them and say

(43:44):
we'll help you make money and make, make, make your people
healthier. It's still not easy.
Obviously it's very, very hard because everything's very hard.
But I do think we have the rightapproach to kind of parachute
in, do the right thing while helping people make money in the
process. Well, it makes.
Sense to me it seems like a muchmore viable solution long term,
especially what what does it look like for the patients?

(44:06):
So like if somebody like do individuals come to you directly
as well to work through vert or is it through their sponsored
healthcare plan? It is both.
Like anyone can, like if you have a listener and hopefully
this doesn't sign on marketing because it's not a major focus,
but if you're like, Oh my God, my family member is suffering
from diabetes, you can go to vertigo.com, vertigo.com and
literally sign up. And if your insurance or

(44:30):
employer doesn't cover yet, obviously we're working on that.
You can pay with your credit card.
So anyone can come directly likeany doctor's office.
But in the case of a health planor employer who covers murder,
it's very simple. We send information to them and
say, hey, your employer covers this diabetes reversal, weight

(44:53):
loss treatment and you can go here, go to betterhealth.com.
And then it's like a doctor's office put online.
You leave your health history and then you have pretty soon a
telemedicine visit with one of our doctors, very doctors who
are full time employees of of the very Medical Group.
And then you have that we kind of see your blood work and if

(45:13):
you're OK to join, usually you are.
Then we sent you a startup kit to your home that has all the
tools that are needed to track your biomarkers remotely.
Because we need to know that both for safety, to deprescribe
medications, so we get the bloodglucose, blood ketones, weight,
blood pressure, both for safety and then also to individualize
the treatment. Like as you probably know very

(45:35):
well from your biomarkers, you can kind of figure out what
you've been eating right or wrong pretty well.
And then we, our coaches who interface through the app so
digitally support and problem solve and give basically day,
daily guidance to our patients, like what to change, what not to
change and then basically guide the person towards better

(46:00):
health. Reversing diabetes so.
Sustainably to lose weight. That's kind of the the approach.
And I'm assuming it's it's more or less low carb ketogenic,
something that's going to minimize blood sugar volatility.
How do you, how do you deal withadherence like getting the

(46:20):
patients, especially if it's alldone remotely, like how do you
incentivize or ensure adherence on their part with the foods
they're consuming? Yeah.
Well, yeah, obviously 40 is kindof almost like a religion and
very personal everything. So you have to individualize
everything. Like 100% might often use this
kind of silly example that if someone's vegan by sort of core

(46:43):
and identity, you tell them to have bacon for breakfast, you
lose them immediately. It's just like try to change a
beacon who believes that's theiridentity.
Or maybe you're a vegetarian by religion.
Like we can't tell you to have bacon for breakfast.
A silly example. Of course, the other way around
as well. If you're like, I've been eating
burgers all my life, that's my thing.

(47:03):
Like tell them to become a vegetarian.
It's not going to happen. So, so individualization is key.
But to your question about adherence, the truth is that
while we fine tune our nutritionscience a protocol a ton,
obviously over the last 10 years, treating hundreds of
thousands of patients in America, the nutrition science
is 100 years old. Like it's 100 years old like

(47:24):
we've read all in like early 20th century.
It's like, Oh my God, there's like how to treat people with
type 2 diabetes. A lot of the details are there
like, oh, you reduce carbohydrates here and do this
and that. It's hundred 100 years old.
So what's missing, what largely has been missing to have impact
at scale before Verta was how doyou deliver and individualize

(47:47):
this type of treatment and like you said, ensure adherence cost
effectively. And you could say, well, let's
assign nutritionist to every person they follow and they kind
of handle is it obviously you can't do that because it's not
scalable, it's too expensive. So we've used basically
technology to solve that problemand I the kind of visual that I

(48:09):
use is we tried to make you as apatient feel and experience as
if the world's best doctor and nutritionist was in your pocket
24/7. Like anything you need.
You have a kids birthday, you take a picture, either AI or
coach gives advice like, oh, what should you eat that or
somebody else's birthday or you go to a restaurant like you have

(48:30):
no idea many like what should you eat or the weeks coming.
You have business travel, you'renot quite sure how do you solve
or you're you feel they saw thatyou buy Microsoft.
What's wrong? We'll problem solve.
So there's. No.
A1 sentence punchline. Now this is how we solve them,
Terence. It's been honestly quite trial
and error, but without technology and to be able to

(48:52):
digitally kind of 24/7 support and visualize 0% chance we could
do what we do at that scale. Of course, you, you know,
there's, there's Robert, there'sSammy, there's, there's always
the like, right, the 1% or 5% or10% of your like, let me give
you a couple of tips. And then off they go.
And they're super successful forthe rest of their lives.

(49:13):
That's not average. So to to deliver impact results
on average, then you need to have all the belts and whistles
that that that we built. But yeah, it's never easy.
It's that that work never ends. We are like constantly improving
the protocol and the software. And as we expand to different
larger and larger group of population, there's always

(49:34):
something new we learn. Well, I feel like a lot of I.
Mean just in clients that I've worked with, you know, like
they're typically coming to me because they have a specific
goal and they're willing to, youknow, adopt my protocol to reach
it. Like the general population is
trying to get healthy reverse type 2 diabetes.
They just are very, I mean, theydon't even know what a
carbohydrate is. Like they don't, they can look

(49:55):
at a plate of food and not be able to differentiate the
different macro nutrients. So like if they're able to take
a picture and then your softwarecan tell them what to eat and
what to avoid. Like I would assume that would
solve a vast array of questions for people right there.
You're right, You're right. Food.
Yeah. Foodie system.
It's both simple and complex. I've.

(50:16):
I've said this, that, you know, I studied physics, I worked in a
nuclear power plant, but. Making.
Nutrition work for the average person and solving that sort of
deterrence individual, I say. So it is harder than nuclear
physics because it's simple in concept, but then in practice,
it's like there's almost like thousands of micro decisions per

(50:39):
day for each patient. Like everyone's situation is
different. And then you get fired from your
job, you're depressed. And then you know what happens?
Like give me the cookie box. Like how do you?
And just so many different moms,dads, kids, although we don't
treat kids, but it's, it's just very, it's so complicated.
That's why food is way harder toimplement than a pill.

(51:05):
Like you don't have to do it, just remember to take the pill
so many times. Now I'm not saying treating
symptoms with a drug is the solution, but acid to deploy a
drug is way easier. It's very standardized and
that's why 40 is just, it's manyorders of magnitude more
complex. And it's interesting.
Yeah, it's, it's only in this. Species, though, the human

(51:27):
species, like you look at any other animal in the wild, they
all know what a species appropriate diet is.
They just consume that. They're all able to maintain a
healthy weight until human intervention comes into play.
But like humans, there's so muchpsychology involved.
Like they've got their societal norms, they've got their
preferences, they've got their dislikes and likes and
celebrations, and there's just so much noise in the equation.

(51:50):
Well, listen. Listen to this.
Imagine if someone had told you 100 years ago, let's say you
were, you were living in 1925. You know, it's like industrial
revolution, kind of very basic. Imagine someone had told you
then 1925 that after 100 years of progress.
So today, 100 years of progress,science and medicine, let me

(52:15):
tell you, the multi billion dollar companies 100 years from
now will teach us humans how to sleep well, how to eat well, how
to move and how to deal with ourown brains and thoughts so we
don't go crazy like meditation stuff you would have said I you

(52:38):
out on your mind like this in 1925.
This is all common sense, you'retelling me.
After 100. Years of progress.
People are making billions of dollars teaching people how to
eat, how to sleep, how to move, and how not to go crazy in their
own heads like you out of your mind.
If that happens, I would call that backwards progress.
And guess what? That is 100.

(53:00):
Percent fact today aura sleep tracking, sleep coaching sleep
it's this and that obviously Berta, you know, you know, we
are basically a healthcare nutrition company.
There's lots of, I don't know multi billion dollar, hundreds
of millions of dollars revenue like how to take care of your
mind meditation and you know, obviously this whole like how do

(53:21):
you move on coaching and fitnessindustries is is massive, but
most of these things were absolutely common sense.
So what has changed over the last 100 years is kind of what
you've described. We've created a default living
environment with. Food with.
Lights with how we work with ourdefault living environment has

(53:42):
nothing to do with how we evolved. 0 Animals don't really
have that problem unless you're a house cat or house dog.
And guess what? House cats and house dogs have
type 2 diabetes. It's true.
I think both. I want to make sure I don't.
I think it's both. I think cats are more likely.
I don't know which way it goes, but cats and dogs are obese and

(54:02):
have talked to diabetes. But anything that's kind?
Of is not in our default living environment.
Is, you know, they're just fine.And humans used to be just fine.
Now, obviously, we are kind of messed up.
Yeah. It's almost like the.
Like the root cause of all this is just too many options, too
much, too much frivolity in the world.

(54:25):
I mean, being able to have so many options and US gravitating
towards what is easy has createdthis complex problem that's
surrounded. By hardship.
Yeah, yeah. And.
As much as I, I'm a, I'm a capitalist, I'm a proud
capitalist. I think capitalistic system is
the best operating system humanshave figured out so far.

(54:47):
Absolutely. It also kind of can work
sideways. Like if you can make money
selling gambling and and bad food and I don't know, drugs,
alcohol, whatever to people. If if you can make money,
someone's going to make money and, and that's going to pull
your to the wrong direction and,and so.

(55:07):
You know I'm. I'm not saying regulation is is
the ultimate solution, but when you can make money off of
selling something that makes youfeel good, but it's actually
long term bad for you. And, you know, we could go from
cigarettes, alcohol, social media, like there's so many
things that are very, very profitable for their careers and

(55:31):
are absolutely objectively pulling people to the wrong
direction. It's happening all over the
place. And so, you know, the
capitalistic system can drive positive change, but it can also
make a lot of money and drive negative change.
And so, well, I'm, I'm proud that I'm, I'm, I feel that I
could say with an open heart andvery objectively that our

(55:54):
mission and our way to make money is objectively making
people better and healthy. And we only get paid if we make
people healthy. And that's why listeners, if
there's entrepreneurs, I would say harness the capitalistic
system to make money to do good.And it's 100% possible.
And, and I think you're doing the same.

(56:14):
It's freaking awesome feeling. When you build a successful
business, it creates jobs, it creates value, it creates
wealth, and every client you serve truly helps a human being
live a better life. It's freaking awesome.
It's it's ecstatic. I have to say it is incredibly.
Fulfilling and you can do so while maintaining your integrity

(56:38):
and being able to lay your head down at night and feel good
about yourself like that that islike there's no price that you
can put on that 100% it's it's. Awesome.
And it's like you wake up and you're like, I like working,
it's cool work and solve problems to build things.
And, and this machine that we'rebuilding and scaling is
objectively doing good. Is that story.
And then behind the scenes, we know that tobacco causes cancer.

(57:00):
Like, no, we're actually making people healthy.
It's freaking awesome. 100% man,it is.
Awesome. Do you have a take on like all
the popularity that's come out lately with around Ozempic?
The GOP ones? Like what?
What is your stance on that as it pertains to the patient
demographic? Yeah.
No, it's it's been a. Huge part of kind of our

(57:22):
conversation with our clients and it's been actually a crazy
tailwind for for our business, not because Verta makes money
off of the drugs or prescribing drugs, but it's been a tailwind
because employers and helpers and others are like, Oh my God,
we need to solve obesity. But just covering these drugs
clearly isn't going to work because it's too expensive.
You're losing money and how do we responsibly address obesity

(57:45):
and maybe cover these drugs comeand help us.
So it's been a good for our business.
In terms of my take, first, I would say we can't solve bad
nutrition with drugs. Like we just cannot solve bad
nutrition with drugs. I will say that like that's sort
of foundational thing. That's one.
Secondly, at the same time, the GOP one class of drugs is a way

(58:06):
better obesity and just to a large extent type 2 diabetes
drug as well than the previous generation.
Like any kinds of weight loss drugs in a previous generation
had huge amount of side effects and they really weren't very
effective quite honestly. So relative to other drugs
treating metabolic disease, the GLB ones seem to have a way

(58:28):
better like outcome and and and safety profile.
So that's sort of a good thing. That's a second.
And then thirdly, I would say, Ithink to address again metabolic
disease led by type 2 diabetes and obesity, but the other
symptoms of metabolic disease, we need a back of tricks to do
it at scale in America and elsewhere.
And I think the back of tricks largely involves 1 is sort of

(58:53):
evidence based nutrition treatments like that should be
the foundation. That should be the 80% solution.
If that's not enough and doesn'twork, yeah, let's use evidence
based pharmaceuticals. GLP wants probably one of the
best, if not the best in that category that this would be
there. And then maybe just maybe for
0.1% or 0.01%, maybe even something super invasive like a

(59:17):
bariatric surgery may be used for some.
But that's would be like the last reason.
So I always think when you have a huge problem like this idea
that one thing's going to solve everything is just sort of
silly. And so we always have to think
of like the back of tricks, but then be very clear.
What's the role of? These different tricks in their

(59:37):
back and this idea that some people are pushing, like, Oh my
God, GOP ones will solve metabolic disease.
We just need to put them into tap water and get the price down
is ridiculous. Like it's absolutely ridiculous.
Again, we can't solve bad nutrition.
We can't solve food or fix food with drugs.
We're back into the left hand feeds bad food, right hand feeds

(01:00:00):
some drugs that barely keep you alive so you can eat more bad
food. Meanwhile, the human body in the
Middle East rottening and everybody's making money around
them. It's ridiculous.
And so, so I'm excited and optimistic about GLP ones within
the category of drugs particularmetabolic disease, but with this
bigger picture of solving metabolic disease globally and

(01:00:23):
or nationally. They are one tool and it's
definitely not the tool in in myopinion.
If you think it's the tool, you're missing the big picture.
Yeah, no, I. Totally agree.
We got to throw some weight training in that pie chart too.
Those that's got to that's got to take up some percentages.
Fair. And I, I, I say like, if

(01:00:43):
anyone's like, well, is exerciseuseful or good for you 100% and,
and for most people in vertical,the older you become, I would
say making sure that you maintain, if not grow your
muscle mass is, is incredibly important and, and helpful.
We tend to in Alberta care we need, then tend to.
De prioritize. Exercise particularly early on

(01:01:06):
for evidence based reasons, because people have been kind of
told historically like, oh, it'slike if you have overweight a
new metabolic, we have it just exercise more and need a little
bit less. And the all the evidence is
pointing that like restoring your metabolic health and losing
weight, exercise can actually beparticularly initially can be

(01:01:28):
very counterproductive, counterproductive.
And so we usually introduce the exercise after we've gotten
someone who's very metabolicallysick.
Towards some metabolic health. And usually then the energy
comes back and they've lost someweight.
They're like, oh, I could start walking and what kind of
resistance training could I be doing?
And then we start to introduce. But it's never kind of, they're
like, all right, you 100 lbs on weight.

(01:01:49):
You never exercise. Like, let's go to the gym.
We don't start with that. Yeah, now that makes total
sense. I mean, I think of like all of
my aunts and uncles and grandparents that like totally
fit the bill for who your ideal client would be.
And it's like they're not going to be receptive to me
encouraging them to get a gym membership.
Like they eat every single day. So let's like fix that routine

(01:02:11):
habit. And if that habit has shifted in
the right direction, that compound is going to have the
biggest impact on moving the needle for sure.
Totally 100. Percent.
It's very cool man, I think. Verde Health is doing some
awesome stuff. I've been following y'all for
quite some time because y'all were involved in, you know, some
of the first conferences that I was speaking at when I got into

(01:02:33):
the space. So y'all been around for quite
some time and y'all making a massive meaningful impact.
So what you're doing is, is truly amazing.
And I just can't think enough. And like, this is the kind of
stuff that needs to be happeningin the world at scale.
Like y'all are like y'all are doing.
So I'm optimistic about y'all's meeting to the White House here.
They're getting government involved and on board with it.

(01:02:53):
I think that's that could be huge.
Yeah. Well, then yeah, thank you for
the kind words. It's never easy, but step by
step making progress. And if, if any of your listeners
like, hey, I, I'm in healthcare,health coaching or whatever, if
you want a job, definitely ping us.
We're growing fast and hiring and spread the word.

(01:03:14):
It doesn't have to be about Verta.
But if I, if I leave with a couple of thoughts, I would say
one piece of message that everybody needs to hear
including doctors is metabolic disease, particularly type 2
diabetes and obesity is reversible sustainably
nutritionally. Like just that message is very,
very important. It is possible with nutrition.

(01:03:35):
That's sort of the one message. And then two that there are
places and companies that can help you with that.
And again, it doesn't need to bebrought about if we get those
two things out that metabolic disease, particularly diabetes,
obesity ease and are reversible,I think we'll, we'll start to
make progress because way too many people don't know that.
And sadly, many primary care doctors have no idea the type 2

(01:03:58):
diabetes is reversible. And they usually learn through
our patients who happen to be their patient who go back to an
annual or quarterly checkup and say like I, you know, I'm off of
insulin and my A1C is, you know,5.6 from 8.9.
And then the primary care doctorgoes, wait, I've never seen this
in my correct. What are you doing again?

(01:04:19):
Like what's going on here? And so just getting the word out
there about metabolic disease and it being irreversible, I
think would would help make someprogress.
So I mean. Like the idea that it's not that
you're just genetically predestined to have type 2
diabetes, Like that's how so many people think.
And how hopeless is that? I mean, that's like, how could

(01:04:39):
you be motivated to get out of bed every day?
But like, if you believe that itis reversible based off of
interventions that you can control completely with the food
you put in your mouth, like that's empowering.
It takes some ownership, it takes some sacrifice, it takes
some, you know, work ethic, but that's empowering.
Yeah. And I I'll.
I'll mention this, hopefully this highlights for those

(01:05:00):
listeners who are like, well, I don't know how to type PWD.
It's like, sounds cool, nutrition helps, sure, not that
big of a deal. It is a huge.
Steal for a person who's been living with type 2 diabetes for
years, maybe decades to reverse that and not travel through
airports with insulin needles and sticking literally a needle
into your body multiple times a day and feeling tired and having

(01:05:20):
sleep apnea and whatever men Ed and it's it's like a miserable
existence. So I'll I'll give you an
example. We I have this vest that says
Burden, this logo, this spark here we have multiple patients
who have permanently tattooed this Verta logo in their bodies

(01:05:41):
after we reverse their type 2 diabetes, which to me is still
mind blowing. But I think it goes to show that
like these metabolic diseases are horrible.
And when people get out of them,like it's like winning the
ladder and getting their life back.
Like it is that bad and good when you get out of it I guess.

(01:06:03):
I feel like you got to get the tattoo.
Man I mean you're like Co fan like you should have that
tattoo. You're not the.
First one to tell me that, and Ithink it's more of a when as
opposed to if. I like it.
I like it. Well, I got one more question
for you, Simon. What's What's the next cycling
event or strenuous activity you've got planned for yourself
personally? That's.

(01:06:24):
That is a good question. Well, I do every week and I try
to do some, some long rides, butwell, I I will answer this in
roundabout way tomorrow as we are recording this on a Friday.
There's the Leadville 100 mile, Leadville 100 mile mountain bike
race in Colorado. I've done that the last couple

(01:06:44):
of years, but not doing it this year, but I'll mention that as a
inspirational event for anyone who's into and run sports.
I would highly recommend the Leadville 100 mountain bike race
and Mark to anyone who's doing it this year.
Nice. Nice, you've done that before.
In the past I've done that, including.
Last year and the year before and maybe four or five times.

(01:07:08):
Nice. Have you ever done the?
What is it? The The Ram race across America
Funny. You asked I I have done RAM race
across America one time in a four person team.
So those of you listening, you know, it's, it's from Oceanside,
CA to Maryland. So about 3000 miles nonstop.

(01:07:29):
If you're 4% team, obviously youdo about 6 hours, 24 / 4, six
hours a day each and you rotate kind of nonstop.
And we did it in, we won our category, but we didn't break
the world record. But it was like a six days and
some hours. Amazing experience.
And you see the whole thing likeyou smell, you see, obviously

(01:07:49):
you're on the bike, but that's awesome.
We did it a couple of years ago before COVID.
That's awesome. Man, very cool.
Well, you're a stud. You're a beast.
You're changing lives. Super inspirational, man.
Keep doing what you're doing. And it's Verta health.com frame
that needs to dive in and learn more, right?
They absolutely. Yeah, and thanks again for
having me. My pleasure, man.

(01:08:10):
Well, there's everything I can do.
Don't hesitate to reach out and let me know.
Thank you. Appreciate you, Tommy.