June 14, 2025 • 24 mins
Have you heard the notion that diet does not matter for success in BJJ? While this may be true for some folks (potentially blasting gear) this more than likely is not the case for you. Why, in other sports do the best of the best spend so much time and money to keep themselves as healthy as possible? Think of Tom Brady, LeBron, GSP, what do they do when picking out their meals? We guarantee it's not McDonalds and Donuts.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
A good martial artist does not become tense, but
ready.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Essentially, at this point, the fight is over.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you pretty much flow with the goal.
Who is worthy to be trustedwith the secret to limitless
power?
I'm ready.
Diet does not matter for BJJ.
Who said this?
John Danaher, that's who saidthis, and we're going to get
(00:40):
into why.
This may be a genius or idioticstatement.
Danaher is the Isra-tel ofjujitsu In a lot of ways he is,
I'd say, well, actually, I'd sayhe's a lot better than Isra-tel
.
That's a fucking stupid thingto say, mate.
It's wild, right, but he wasstanding there amongst his boys
(01:01):
and they're all like, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter.
And he's pointing to Gordon.
He, he was standing thereamongst his boys and they're all
like, yeah, yeah, it doesn'tmatter.
And he's pointing to Gordon,he's pointing to Gary, he even
points to GSP, who's known to beone of the cleanest living
humans of all time, but whatever.
And then it's got a clip of MrIntelligence himself, big,
handsome Merengali, merengali,being like yo, I don't care
about my diet, what does thatmatter?
And I think the biggest problemin all of this is we're kind of
(01:24):
underplaying the role of dietin immune system.
Well tell me what is Danaher'scase.
His case is that in the sameway, he doesn't believe in
strength and conditioning.
It's almost as if your skilllevel is high enough, then the
diet won't matter.
And Gary Tonin very famouslysaid oh, if it's the difference
between eating a hamburger andeating a steak or veggies or
(01:45):
like, then your jiu-jitsu is notgood enough.
Like that's his strong heldbelief.
Yeah, but if we look at thehealth of DDS, we can see that
there are some health complaintsamongst these folks.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Okay, absolutely so.
But before we go in there,let's, let's look at the.
Let's look at the.
Okay, good, the logic.
Yeah, what's the answer here?
So, okay, I can see Tonin's gota point there.
I think it was when Tonin wasfighting Krohn Gracie right,
krohn, and also Kit as well.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Like it was an era of Polaris, yeah, but Kit was also
a hamburger eater.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
He was, yeah, but Krohn was considered like Sushi,
yeah, sushi, cleaner, eventhough if you watch that
Munchies Smoking weed, yeah, andhe's eating like he goes and
eats sushi at like two in themorning and like he's totally
seemed to have a pretty fuckedup kind of schedule.
But in any case, I remember alot of people in the jujitsu
community arguing about it atthe time being, like there's no
(02:42):
way some hamburger eatingmotherfucker who doesn't take it
seriously is going to be ableto do anything to Krohn.
He eats clean, he's disciplinedlike samurai spirit, like he's
fire blah blah and it's like.
You know I mean Totem 1, right,yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
yeah 100%.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And so you're like okay, in that individual case of
that works well for thatathlete.
You're like yeah.
I see the logic there.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think what this misses is in the short term,
when you're young and athleticand on steroids, you can pretty
much do anything you want.
So, yeah, you can live onhamburgers and you can do
whatever.
But what this misses is thatthere is a cost to pay for that
later and that's what you're notseeing Like.
That's it what is sped up here.
(03:29):
Like through the demands ofbeing a high level athlete and
pushing your body and notfueling it right, things do
break, people get fuckinginjured, people have immune
system collapses.
They develop all kinds ofissues.
Autoimmune stomach disorders ohmy God, get the fuck out of
here.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Autoimmune stomach disorders.
Oh my God, get the fuck out ofhere.
Imagine that I'm not doingenough steroids.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
That's why the fucking bacteria has overtaken
me, yeah, should have beeninjecting the growth hormone
directly into his stomach.
Really, I mean, that's theanswer.
No, I think the thing thatbecause people do respect John
Danaher as being this supersmart guy in terms of jujitsu,
his ability to produce champions, all of this when he says
(04:09):
something like this, people payattention.
People are like, well, fucking,danaher knows right.
That said, danaher knows a lotabout jujitsu and he's done well
to produce champions.
But if you look at the healthand longevity of their careers,
you got to maybe ask somequestions because I would say
GSP is the kind of exception tothe rule, even though possibly
(04:30):
when GSP was younger he may nothave eaten that well, definitely
later stages in his career.
You follow what he ate and whathe did.
He was a Puritan.
He's doing the ice baths, he'sdoing the water aerobics with
the fucking resistance.
He's doing all kinds of wackystuff to just be an absolute
fucking ninja, yeah.
(04:51):
But if you look at a guy likeGary Tonin, he's kind of like
the antithesis of that which isparties loves the strippers,
just down to grapple anyone atany time.
No fear, just his psychologyaround.
No fear, just his psychologyaround.
Jujitsu was.
I have the skill and the willto make it happen, but also if
we have a look at you know and Idon't, because I love gary
(05:12):
tonin, so I say this with fullrespect one of my favorites he
had gone through some stressfultime when he started to cut
weight and he started to do mma,and I don't know the exact
contributing factors, becauseobviously there could be a
genetic component, stuff likethis, but Gary's hairline ain't
what it used to be right.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, he was losing.
It looked like he had alopeciaor something.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Alopecia areata Right and huge chunks, like really
full on, and this is aninflammatory, immune response
right.
Basically, your body's immunesystem is attacking itself, and
I know this too.
Like I get eczema and also geta thing called iritis, which is
(05:53):
basically inflammation of theeye, and when my immune system
like when I'm not eating enoughand I'm having too much caffeine
, I'm not sleeping enough I willstart to feel these things.
My skin will flare up and I doget this thing.
It's kind of crazy where my eyewill literally almost double in
size, so I can't close my eyeor fully open it and I go a bit
blind in that eye.
Wow, and I basically have to,like, get rid of all caffeine,
(06:16):
sleep a ton, take a bunch oflike anti-inflammatories as well
as put anti-inflammatory stuffin my eye to get it to calm back
down.
And it is an inflammatoryresponse, and what we do know
for certain is that a lot ofyour immune system, and the
majority of it, is in your gut.
Yeah, and if we go to GordonRyan, who is considered to be
(06:37):
the greatest no-gi grappler ofall time, why is he kind of on
the bench?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Like often sidelined because of these gut issues,
because, I mean it wasmisdiagnosed.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
but they kind of got to the point where it is a
fungal kind of growth in hissmall intestine and it's from a
bacterial imbalance.
Where does that come from?
Diet guys, let's be clear.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, yeah, diet is a huge contributing factor.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It is a massive component of your gut health.
And I mean, obviously we're notgoing to go super hard into
microbiome and gut health and gofull hippie on you, but what we
want to talk about is more therole of diet in immune system
and the reason why and this iswhat I would say without going
too hard on it a lot of theseguys got away with shitty diets
(07:26):
is because of steroid use.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, I mean I think that we've spoken about steroid
use generally and I think thatthe issue there for a lot of
recreational users these days isthat they use it as a way to
mask all of the other shit.
They're not doing well, sotheir sleep is shit, they drink
too much alcohol, they don't eatparticularly well, they
(07:48):
probably don't lift as as askind of regularly as they should
be, but they're like yo, I'mjust going to pump steroids and
it kind of takes care of a lotof it and I feel good yeah.
I'm feeling good, I'm putting onmuscle mass, I'm still only
training once every sort of 15days, but yeah, you know.
And so while I don't actuallyhave a problem necessarily with
someone choosing to pumpsteroids, like you really should
(08:11):
be like sort of taking care ofall that low-hanging fruit first
Before you go there.
And so I think what's dangerousabout this kind of thing is
that for a lot of people, theywill hear this out of context,
and the context for Danaher is Iproduce the most winningest
jujitsu competitors in the world.
I don't care about anythingbesides that the skill.
(08:35):
All their job is is to be asgood at grappling as possible.
So whatever the fuck if theywant to, like you know, be at
the fucking strippers all nightand fucking burger.
Yeah, like I don't give a shit.
I don't, you know, strengthconditioning, I don't care.
Their performance on the matsis what matters and and we know
this that for the elite of theelite, in any sport, they often
(08:57):
have some really gnarly kind ofirresponsible behaviors which
almost, in a way, like allowsthem to be as good as they are
Right.
It's like this wildnesscontrasting kind of John Jones,
dark and light sort of shit,definitely, but but.
But when your everyday grappler, who is the majority of people
listening to the show, he's outthere like fuck, diet doesn't
(09:18):
matter, you're like fuck, yes,can't.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
You are not gordon ryan, thankfully thankfully you
know, maybe you just don't havethe liver enzymes to keep up
with his fucking stack, likeyou've got to think that it.
There's so much information outthere now about the downsides
of steroid use, as much asthey've shown that, like, if you
, if you are lower intestosterone and you take TRT
(09:42):
and it brings you to a normallevel, you will get a lot of
benefits.
But going above and beyond thegood level of testosterone, you
need to grow muscle.
There is way more negativesthan pros.
Even though you might be ableto roll longer, roll harder,
there is so many other effectsthat are really not well well
(10:04):
understood and actually it makesyou dumber that's what they've
shown because it actually itblocks your ability to use your
prefrontal cortex.
Really, yeah, because thehigher t levels keep you more in
your um kind of uh, your lizardbrain, lizard brain so it's
more, more fight or flight.
It's like either fight or fuck.
Yeah, like that's, that'sthat's where you're at.
(10:24):
I got that Danaher brain man,shit.
But what's funny is, for thebest part, like to be really
good at jujitsu.
You need to be able to think,yeah, you really need to be able
to like process and learn anddo all these things.
But for the best part, theseguys in Danaher's team, they're
already the best.
They've done all the learningand now it's all about just
execution and fucking staying inthe fire as long as possible.
(10:46):
But we see you guys fuck out.
And I think this is the thingthat's not talked about enough
is the role of food in terms ofimmunity support, because I'm
someone who's I've had my shareof staph infections over the
time and that's partly to dowith the immunity with my skin,
because I do get eczema and I dohave dry skin and it cracks and
(11:07):
it's easier to get infectionsand you know I always shower
after training.
It's not a question of that,but it's more along the lines of
if you are immune, compromisedin some way, it's harder.
Like health is that foundationfor fitness and performance?
And if you and it's typicallyhappens when people are cutting
weight.
It happened to Hodger Gracieand even with Gordon.
(11:28):
You know he's had a lot ofstaph infections that have
stopped him from competing.
Pulling out of stuff, um,cutting weight really thins out
the like.
Starving yourself and stilltraining hard thins out the kind
of mucus lining of your stomach.
It lowers your immunity as awhole.
Yeah, and typically guys haveto pull out of fights because
they either get injured or theyget infections because they're
(11:50):
immune compromised.
Yeah, having a shit diet is verysimilar and they've shown that
when people consume super highamounts of sugar, this also
suppresses the immune system.
There's so many things tosuggest that not even suggest
that show that actually eatingbetter just makes you less sick.
You know, so wild.
(12:12):
Imagine.
So, even though we can, we can.
You know you don't have to gointo like paleo, high carb, low
carb, none of that.
But if we just go right, youdon't want to to be sick so you
can be on the mat feeling good.
You know, no staph infections,uninjured.
You want to make sure your baselevel of health is is higher,
like this is.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This is a thing yeah, and I mean again just thinking
about the 99.9 of grapplers outthere.
Yeah, you know, life is alife's a bit of a struggle.
You know you're really fuckingbusy, you, nothing is ideal.
You want to do a lot.
We're's a bit of a struggle,you know you're really fucking
busy.
Nothing is ideal.
You want to do a lot, we're alltrying to do a lot, and so it's
like, well, you're going to needenergy for that, and the energy
comes from sleeping well, comesfrom eating well.
(12:54):
You know you're going to neednutrients.
That comes from eating well,like all this shit is, is
absolutely essential to supportyou in trying to be as
productive and as hungry tofucking succeed as you can be.
So, yeah, for, like the youknow, for the 31-year-old
grappler out there, that's likeworking fucking 12 hours a day
and, you know, trying to show upto JITS four times a week,
(13:16):
hearing diet doesn't matter, isjust it's really misleading it
is, but the thing is part of theand this is why I think that Dr
Mikey's core is good.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I think Danaher knew like this is going to get some
intention.
You know, like he knew this isa soundbite, People are going to
talk about this shit, Right.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
But, but he it's.
It is the same as what he saidabout strength training Right
when he got asked about that,where he said like I've not
really seen anything that's madea significant difference.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So seen anything that's made a significant
difference.
So then I don't really think itmatters that much and you're
like, fair enough at that level,except that your best athlete
pumps a ton of juice and lifts abunch of weights.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Oh yeah, but he was talking about which style of
strength training?
Right, and he's like I've seenthat work, I've seen that work.
He doesn't fucking know.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Like John Danaher is not an S&C, like he's not the
person to ask, in the same wayyou wouldn't ask Lachlan Giles
about S&C.
The guy doesn't lift, it's notpart of his life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, that's right.
But again he's not being askedlike what's your advice for
grapplers?
It's like for you, he's like itdoesn't matter what matters is
that they're in techniques?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It's because he doesn't fucking know, like, if
you look at his best grapplers,they all take steroids, they all
lift weights.
So the fact that John's like Idon't care, well, what do your
athletes do?
His athletes are not just abyproduct of his teachings.
They are also a byproduct ofthese other things they do which
is not attributable to him.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
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(15:01):
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Speaker 1 (15:34):
So I think this is where we've got to go, like
anything.
We've talked about this before.
We don't want to put too muchstock.
As much as we admire ourjiu-jitsu coaches and we and we
have our jujitsu heroes itdoesn't mean they're the best
people Like and it doesn't meanthey know everything.
They know the thing they knowand that's good.
And I think this has been athing for me even like talking
to someone who's really good atstrength conditioning, but maybe
(15:56):
their diet's shit.
I'm not going to take dietaryadvice from someone who's
smashing McDonald's like threetimes a day.
It's like I know that's notgood and I don't need to be a
dietician to understand that youknow.
So I think you can.
You can look at somebody andappreciate what they're really
good at.
The problem is when we holdthem up as like the fucking
prophet and if you've ever stoodnext to John Danaher, you you
(16:17):
feel like you might catchleprosy, like you.
Just he's an unhealthymotherfucker.
You could just look at John andbe like, oh, this guy needs
some vitamin D.
He needs to get out in thesunshine a bit.
He's practically see-through.
He is an unhealthy guy.
The whole energy of the guy isjust like Sith Lord there's
something Star Wars-ish.
(16:37):
Yeah, kind of slightly sunkenJune, kind of Dark rings under
the eyes.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
What are the bald guys?
Harkonnens guys, harkin the?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Harkinons, there is a bit of that.
You just see him emerge.
Oh, they're fucking coolwarriors and shit.
John no no, no, but the head ofthe Harkin like floating out of
the black oil bars, oh barrenfucking yeah.
Yeah, with the fucking fat neckand shit.
It's like you can see theevolution of John as he gets
more successful and just kind ofgets more kind of
(17:07):
Harkonnen-esque.
But to the side, how does thisapply to you?
Like, were you thinking aboutthis?
All right, is Danaher wrongabout this?
Yes, he fucking is.
It's so sideways, it'sridiculous.
What we probably neglect is weadmire many other athletes.
We look at other athletes andwe're oh what a great athlete,
whether it be like an eliteathlete from football or an
(17:31):
elite athlete from basketball oranything like someone who is
just the best at what they do.
And it's funny that in so manyother sports other than
Brazilian jiu-jitsu orsubmission grappling, they have
to be so dialed in To be thebest, to be like LeBron James or
to be a Steph Curry, or to belike the best quarterback and to
be a Tom Brady things have tobe so dialed in.
(17:54):
Now, obviously, a front roweror a defensive tight end or
whatever, they're strong as fuck, but they're like huge fat
units.
They're not necessarily thehealthiest, but if we look at
the absolute elite in a sport,their diet is dialed in, their
recovery is dialed in Becausethere's so much money around
those sports.
They are thoroughbreds and sothey do so many things to the
(18:16):
nth perfect degree, because ifyou don't, you can't be the
number one guy and, I think,because jujitsu is still not
quite in its full realization ofits development.
That's why you still have these.
I wouldn't say they'reexceptions, but you've got
people coming in displayingamazing jujitsu but then the
(18:36):
dark side of that is they kindof burn out because they haven't
looked after themselves and wehaven't seen somebody who has a
LeBron James-esque kind of 20years, 25, you know, like career
.
It's a good point.
The jujitsu careers are shortbecause we really burn our
bodies doing it, and so ifyou're someone who has struggled
(18:57):
with injury or you havestruggled with skin infections
and different things like this,you want to consider that this
could be related to your immunesystem and that maybe you know
you need to get a bit of bloodwork done.
Maybe there is an underlyingissue there and diet can make
that better or worse, dependingon your specific instance.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, shit, maybe you need to eat a salad every now
and again.
Yeah, you know, I mean, pick upan apple.
Yeah, maybe we're down the BigMac man.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, just, it's just one of those things Like, even
when you start getting into likeFODMAPs, which is just like if
your body can tolerate certainsugars, uh, my partner, ola, she
uh can, she can't tolerateoligosaccharides, which means
like onion, garlic, um, lentils,there's just certain things
that she she can't digest themwell, so when she has them she
(19:46):
feels sick and bloated and itaffects her really negatively.
You take those things out thediet, she feels amazing.
And this is just stuff that shedidn't know before and she had
to do a few tests to get it.
But now she knows it, shedoesn't eat those foods and she
feels great, and so it's worthdoing a bit of investigation for
yourself.
Do your own research to justknow where your body is at, not
(20:06):
just taking some general advicefrom from you know, dr John.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Dr John Danaher, dr John, dr Mike yeah, you know, I
think at the heart of this, likewhat's?
What can be problematic abouthearing something like that from
Danaher is that we look atthose people like Gordon Ryan
and Maren Garland and stuff like, oh, what are these guys doing?
Like, what they're doing on themats often guides what we're
(20:31):
doing right.
Oh, this is the fucking backattack sequence that Gordon uses
.
Cool, that's what we'retraining in the gym, that's
what's trending right now, andthat's all.
Cool, that's what we'retraining in the gym, that's
what's.
That's what's trending rightnow, and that's all really good.
But you also got to rememberthat for the most part, you are
not trying to be him.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
No.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And, like I said before, most people are really
busy.
Most people want to probablystay in jujitsu.
They just want to keep having agood time with it for the next
20 or so years, and so yourapproach right now is very
fucking different to what hisapproach is, and so when his
coach says something like that,it's like, yeah, he's not
talking to you.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
You know, or you know , or that's not what you needed
to hear, but confirmation biasis a biatch, that's right.
Burgers taste good.
They do, I fucking love it.
Sausage rolls taste good.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Bro, trust, I love fried chicken, I love a burger,
I love a chip, like the next man.
Milkshakes are good Fuckinglove me a milkshake.
But that said, I alsoresponsibly low-key, grudgingly,
but I know it's good for me.
I'm very lucky.
I have a wife who's veryadamant, slash, strict about eat
(21:36):
your fucking vegetables, wow,eat your rice, do this, do that.
And I mean I do.
It's not that something Iwouldn't do, but she's like
she's on my back about it, youknow, because she's like get
your prostate check.
You want me to, you want me tocheck that for you?
I'm like babe, no, it's okay,please, it's okay.
She's like I, I'm good, I'llget the health check.
(21:59):
You got blood tests for thosethese days.
Be relaxed.
You know, like the thing is.
She's so because she caresabout me.
She's like very and she's alsobossy kind of lady.
She's on my back about it and Ithink the thing is I love that,
I appreciate it.
But for you, if you're out thereand you don't have someone who
loves burgers and you don't givea fuck about a salad, right,
you're like danaher said, itdoesn't matter who gives a fuck,
(22:21):
yeah, and then like maybe garytonin comes out and goes or say,
craig jones comes out and goesfucking tobacco pouches am I
right?
The new zins like fucking getit in there, focus up.
You're like this isn't theperson you should be taking
health advice from.
Yeah, you know, just becauseyour favorite athlete fucking
vapes in the car before theycome into train doesn't mean
(22:41):
that's what you should also do.
That is not causal to theirsuccess.
If anything, they aresuccessful in spite of that, and
I think this is themisunderstanding.
It was always the thing, likewith the Diaz brothers right,
they always smoked weed andthey're great fighters,
legendary fighters.
And people are like, oh,fucking Diaz brothers, right,
they always smoked weed andthey're great fighters,
legendary fighters.
And people are like, oh,fucking Diaz brothers smoke weed
(23:02):
.
And you're like, yeah, but they, they also run marathons and
they, they do all this othercrazy shit.
You know they are notsuccessful at fighting because
they smoke weed.
They're successful at fightingin spite of smoking weed.
It's just, it's associative,it's not causal, and this is the
mistake we often make that wesee a behavior and we think
(23:22):
that's the reason why they'regood and it's not, and what we
want to do is just encouragey'all to be more healthy,
because we know that's going tosupport your training.
It's going to have you feelingbetter and you'll just enjoy
your life more, because gettingsick all the time is whack and
you don't need that Damn right.
There it is, folks.
So, yes, if you want to trainbetter, be better, be stronger,
(23:45):
all those things we've got anapp and we'd like to encourage
people to use it to help themstay healthy, stay on track,
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Let's get fitter and healthier,y'all Peace.
A good martial artist does not become tense, but
ready.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Essentially, at this point, the fight is over.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So you pretty much flow with the goal.
Who is worthy to be trustedwith the secret to limitless
power?
I'm ready.
Diet does not matter for BJJ.
Who said this?
John Danaher, that's who saidthis, and we're going to get
(00:40):
into why.
This may be a genius or idioticstatement.
Danaher is the Isra-tel ofjujitsu In a lot of ways he is,
I'd say, well, actually, I'd sayhe's a lot better than Isra-tel
.
That's a fucking stupid thingto say, mate.
It's wild, right, but he wasstanding there amongst his boys
(01:01):
and they're all like, yeah, yeah, it doesn't matter.
And he's pointing to Gordon.
He, he was standing thereamongst his boys and they're all
like, yeah, yeah, it doesn'tmatter.
And he's pointing to Gordon,he's pointing to Gary, he even
points to GSP, who's known to beone of the cleanest living
humans of all time, but whatever.
And then it's got a clip of MrIntelligence himself, big,
handsome Merengali, merengali,being like yo, I don't care
about my diet, what does thatmatter?
And I think the biggest problemin all of this is we're kind of
(01:24):
underplaying the role of dietin immune system.
Well tell me what is Danaher'scase.
His case is that in the sameway, he doesn't believe in
strength and conditioning.
It's almost as if your skilllevel is high enough, then the
diet won't matter.
And Gary Tonin very famouslysaid oh, if it's the difference
between eating a hamburger andeating a steak or veggies or
(01:45):
like, then your jiu-jitsu is notgood enough.
Like that's his strong heldbelief.
Yeah, but if we look at thehealth of DDS, we can see that
there are some health complaintsamongst these folks.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Okay, absolutely so.
But before we go in there,let's, let's look at the.
Let's look at the.
Okay, good, the logic.
Yeah, what's the answer here?
So, okay, I can see Tonin's gota point there.
I think it was when Tonin wasfighting Krohn Gracie right,
krohn, and also Kit as well.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Like it was an era of Polaris, yeah, but Kit was also
a hamburger eater.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
He was, yeah, but Krohn was considered like Sushi,
yeah, sushi, cleaner, eventhough if you watch that
Munchies Smoking weed, yeah, andhe's eating like he goes and
eats sushi at like two in themorning and like he's totally
seemed to have a pretty fuckedup kind of schedule.
But in any case, I remember alot of people in the jujitsu
community arguing about it atthe time being, like there's no
(02:42):
way some hamburger eatingmotherfucker who doesn't take it
seriously is going to be ableto do anything to Krohn.
He eats clean, he's disciplinedlike samurai spirit, like he's
fire blah blah and it's like.
You know I mean Totem 1, right,yeah?
Speaker 1 (02:56):
yeah 100%.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
And so you're like okay, in that individual case of
that works well for thatathlete.
You're like yeah.
I see the logic there.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
I think what this misses is in the short term,
when you're young and athleticand on steroids, you can pretty
much do anything you want.
So, yeah, you can live onhamburgers and you can do
whatever.
But what this misses is thatthere is a cost to pay for that
later and that's what you're notseeing Like.
That's it what is sped up here.
(03:29):
Like through the demands ofbeing a high level athlete and
pushing your body and notfueling it right, things do
break, people get fuckinginjured, people have immune
system collapses.
They develop all kinds ofissues.
Autoimmune stomach disorders ohmy God, get the fuck out of
here.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Autoimmune stomach disorders.
Oh my God, get the fuck out ofhere.
Imagine that I'm not doingenough steroids.
Speaker 1 (03:48):
That's why the fucking bacteria has overtaken
me, yeah, should have beeninjecting the growth hormone
directly into his stomach.
Really, I mean, that's theanswer.
No, I think the thing thatbecause people do respect John
Danaher as being this supersmart guy in terms of jujitsu,
his ability to produce champions, all of this when he says
(04:09):
something like this, people payattention.
People are like, well, fucking,danaher knows right.
That said, danaher knows a lotabout jujitsu and he's done well
to produce champions.
But if you look at the healthand longevity of their careers,
you got to maybe ask somequestions because I would say
GSP is the kind of exception tothe rule, even though possibly
(04:30):
when GSP was younger he may nothave eaten that well, definitely
later stages in his career.
You follow what he ate and whathe did.
He was a Puritan.
He's doing the ice baths, he'sdoing the water aerobics with
the fucking resistance.
He's doing all kinds of wackystuff to just be an absolute
fucking ninja, yeah.
(04:51):
But if you look at a guy likeGary Tonin, he's kind of like
the antithesis of that which isparties loves the strippers,
just down to grapple anyone atany time.
No fear, just his psychologyaround.
No fear, just his psychologyaround.
Jujitsu was.
I have the skill and the willto make it happen, but also if
we have a look at you know and Idon't, because I love gary
(05:12):
tonin, so I say this with fullrespect one of my favorites he
had gone through some stressfultime when he started to cut
weight and he started to do mma,and I don't know the exact
contributing factors, becauseobviously there could be a
genetic component, stuff likethis, but Gary's hairline ain't
what it used to be right.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah, he was losing.
It looked like he had alopeciaor something.
Speaker 1 (05:33):
Alopecia areata Right and huge chunks, like really
full on, and this is aninflammatory, immune response
right.
Basically, your body's immunesystem is attacking itself, and
I know this too.
Like I get eczema and also geta thing called iritis, which is
(05:53):
basically inflammation of theeye, and when my immune system
like when I'm not eating enoughand I'm having too much caffeine
, I'm not sleeping enough I willstart to feel these things.
My skin will flare up and I doget this thing.
It's kind of crazy where my eyewill literally almost double in
size, so I can't close my eyeor fully open it and I go a bit
blind in that eye.
Wow, and I basically have to,like, get rid of all caffeine,
(06:16):
sleep a ton, take a bunch oflike anti-inflammatories as well
as put anti-inflammatory stuffin my eye to get it to calm back
down.
And it is an inflammatoryresponse, and what we do know
for certain is that a lot ofyour immune system, and the
majority of it, is in your gut.
Yeah, and if we go to GordonRyan, who is considered to be
(06:37):
the greatest no-gi grappler ofall time, why is he kind of on
the bench?
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Like often sidelined because of these gut issues,
because, I mean it wasmisdiagnosed.
Speaker 1 (06:52):
but they kind of got to the point where it is a
fungal kind of growth in hissmall intestine and it's from a
bacterial imbalance.
Where does that come from?
Diet guys, let's be clear.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Well, yeah, diet is a huge contributing factor.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
It is a massive component of your gut health.
And I mean, obviously we're notgoing to go super hard into
microbiome and gut health and gofull hippie on you, but what we
want to talk about is more therole of diet in immune system
and the reason why and this iswhat I would say without going
too hard on it a lot of theseguys got away with shitty diets
(07:26):
is because of steroid use.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Yeah, I mean I think that we've spoken about steroid
use generally and I think thatthe issue there for a lot of
recreational users these days isthat they use it as a way to
mask all of the other shit.
They're not doing well, sotheir sleep is shit, they drink
too much alcohol, they don't eatparticularly well, they
(07:48):
probably don't lift as as askind of regularly as they should
be, but they're like yo, I'mjust going to pump steroids and
it kind of takes care of a lotof it and I feel good yeah.
I'm feeling good, I'm putting onmuscle mass, I'm still only
training once every sort of 15days, but yeah, you know.
And so while I don't actuallyhave a problem necessarily with
someone choosing to pumpsteroids, like you really should
(08:11):
be like sort of taking care ofall that low-hanging fruit first
Before you go there.
And so I think what's dangerousabout this kind of thing is
that for a lot of people, theywill hear this out of context,
and the context for Danaher is Iproduce the most winningest
jujitsu competitors in the world.
I don't care about anythingbesides that the skill.
(08:35):
All their job is is to be asgood at grappling as possible.
So whatever the fuck if theywant to, like you know, be at
the fucking strippers all nightand fucking burger.
Yeah, like I don't give a shit.
I don't, you know, strengthconditioning, I don't care.
Their performance on the matsis what matters and and we know
this that for the elite of theelite, in any sport, they often
(08:57):
have some really gnarly kind ofirresponsible behaviors which
almost, in a way, like allowsthem to be as good as they are
Right.
It's like this wildnesscontrasting kind of John Jones,
dark and light sort of shit,definitely, but but.
But when your everyday grappler, who is the majority of people
listening to the show, he's outthere like fuck, diet doesn't
(09:18):
matter, you're like fuck, yes,can't.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
You are not gordon ryan, thankfully thankfully you
know, maybe you just don't havethe liver enzymes to keep up
with his fucking stack, likeyou've got to think that it.
There's so much information outthere now about the downsides
of steroid use, as much asthey've shown that, like, if you
, if you are lower intestosterone and you take TRT
(09:42):
and it brings you to a normallevel, you will get a lot of
benefits.
But going above and beyond thegood level of testosterone, you
need to grow muscle.
There is way more negativesthan pros.
Even though you might be ableto roll longer, roll harder,
there is so many other effectsthat are really not well well
(10:04):
understood and actually it makesyou dumber that's what they've
shown because it actually itblocks your ability to use your
prefrontal cortex.
Really, yeah, because thehigher t levels keep you more in
your um kind of uh, your lizardbrain, lizard brain so it's
more, more fight or flight.
It's like either fight or fuck.
Yeah, like that's, that'sthat's where you're at.
(10:24):
I got that Danaher brain man,shit.
But what's funny is, for thebest part, like to be really
good at jujitsu.
You need to be able to think,yeah, you really need to be able
to like process and learn anddo all these things.
But for the best part, theseguys in Danaher's team, they're
already the best.
They've done all the learningand now it's all about just
execution and fucking staying inthe fire as long as possible.
(10:46):
But we see you guys fuck out.
And I think this is the thingthat's not talked about enough
is the role of food in terms ofimmunity support, because I'm
someone who's I've had my shareof staph infections over the
time and that's partly to dowith the immunity with my skin,
because I do get eczema and I dohave dry skin and it cracks and
(11:07):
it's easier to get infectionsand you know I always shower
after training.
It's not a question of that,but it's more along the lines of
if you are immune, compromisedin some way, it's harder.
Like health is that foundationfor fitness and performance?
And if you and it's typicallyhappens when people are cutting
weight.
It happened to Hodger Gracieand even with Gordon.
(11:28):
You know he's had a lot ofstaph infections that have
stopped him from competing.
Pulling out of stuff, um,cutting weight really thins out
the like.
Starving yourself and stilltraining hard thins out the kind
of mucus lining of your stomach.
It lowers your immunity as awhole.
Yeah, and typically guys haveto pull out of fights because
they either get injured or theyget infections because they're
(11:50):
immune compromised.
Yeah, having a shit diet is verysimilar and they've shown that
when people consume super highamounts of sugar, this also
suppresses the immune system.
There's so many things tosuggest that not even suggest
that show that actually eatingbetter just makes you less sick.
You know, so wild.
(12:12):
Imagine.
So, even though we can, we can.
You know you don't have to gointo like paleo, high carb, low
carb, none of that.
But if we just go right, youdon't want to to be sick so you
can be on the mat feeling good.
You know, no staph infections,uninjured.
You want to make sure your baselevel of health is is higher,
like this is.
Speaker 2 (12:31):
This is a thing yeah, and I mean again just thinking
about the 99.9 of grapplers outthere.
Yeah, you know, life is alife's a bit of a struggle.
You know you're really fuckingbusy, you, nothing is ideal.
You want to do a lot.
We're's a bit of a struggle,you know you're really fucking
busy.
Nothing is ideal.
You want to do a lot, we're alltrying to do a lot, and so it's
like, well, you're going to needenergy for that, and the energy
comes from sleeping well, comesfrom eating well.
(12:54):
You know you're going to neednutrients.
That comes from eating well,like all this shit is, is
absolutely essential to supportyou in trying to be as
productive and as hungry tofucking succeed as you can be.
So, yeah, for, like the youknow, for the 31-year-old
grappler out there, that's likeworking fucking 12 hours a day
and, you know, trying to show upto JITS four times a week,
(13:16):
hearing diet doesn't matter, isjust it's really misleading it
is, but the thing is part of theand this is why I think that Dr
Mikey's core is good.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
I think Danaher knew like this is going to get some
intention.
You know, like he knew this isa soundbite, People are going to
talk about this shit, Right.
Speaker 2 (13:32):
But, but he it's.
It is the same as what he saidabout strength training Right
when he got asked about that,where he said like I've not
really seen anything that's madea significant difference.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
So seen anything that's made a significant
difference.
So then I don't really think itmatters that much and you're
like, fair enough at that level,except that your best athlete
pumps a ton of juice and lifts abunch of weights.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
Oh yeah, but he was talking about which style of
strength training?
Right, and he's like I've seenthat work, I've seen that work.
He doesn't fucking know.
Speaker 1 (13:56):
Like John Danaher is not an S&C, like he's not the
person to ask, in the same wayyou wouldn't ask Lachlan Giles
about S&C.
The guy doesn't lift, it's notpart of his life.
Speaker 2 (14:06):
No, that's right.
But again he's not being askedlike what's your advice for
grapplers?
It's like for you, he's like itdoesn't matter what matters is
that they're in techniques?
Speaker 1 (14:18):
It's because he doesn't fucking know, like, if
you look at his best grapplers,they all take steroids, they all
lift weights.
So the fact that John's like Idon't care, well, what do your
athletes do?
His athletes are not just abyproduct of his teachings.
They are also a byproduct ofthese other things they do which
is not attributable to him.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
Right.
I've wasted a lot of money onexpensive electrolyte drinks
like Gatorade, like Powerade,that are really very ineffective
.
When I switched to Sodi, whichis a scientifically formulated
blend of electrolytes, Iactually noticed the improvement
in my jujitsu both performancebut also my recovery
post-training sessions.
And, to be honest, I get mad atmyself every time I forget to
(15:01):
take Sodi to training and I endup having to go back to the
corner store to buy the dilutedGatorade or whatever it is.
So here's the deal, guys If youwant to get the most out of
your training and get the bestrecovery, you need to get
yourself Sodi.
And the best part is, if you gothrough us and you use the
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(15:24):
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Get the electrolytes now, gethydrated, and you too will
notice the benefit on the mats.
Speaker 1 (15:34):
So I think this is where we've got to go, like
anything.
We've talked about this before.
We don't want to put too muchstock.
As much as we admire ourjiu-jitsu coaches and we and we
have our jujitsu heroes itdoesn't mean they're the best
people Like and it doesn't meanthey know everything.
They know the thing they knowand that's good.
And I think this has been athing for me even like talking
to someone who's really good atstrength conditioning, but maybe
(15:56):
their diet's shit.
I'm not going to take dietaryadvice from someone who's
smashing McDonald's like threetimes a day.
It's like I know that's notgood and I don't need to be a
dietician to understand that youknow.
So I think you can.
You can look at somebody andappreciate what they're really
good at.
The problem is when we holdthem up as like the fucking
prophet and if you've ever stoodnext to John Danaher, you you
(16:17):
feel like you might catchleprosy, like you.
Just he's an unhealthymotherfucker.
You could just look at John andbe like, oh, this guy needs
some vitamin D.
He needs to get out in thesunshine a bit.
He's practically see-through.
He is an unhealthy guy.
The whole energy of the guy isjust like Sith Lord there's
something Star Wars-ish.
(16:37):
Yeah, kind of slightly sunkenJune, kind of Dark rings under
the eyes.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
What are the bald guys?
Harkonnens guys, harkin the?
Speaker 1 (16:44):
Harkinons, there is a bit of that.
You just see him emerge.
Oh, they're fucking coolwarriors and shit.
John no no, no, but the head ofthe Harkin like floating out of
the black oil bars, oh barrenfucking yeah.
Yeah, with the fucking fat neckand shit.
It's like you can see theevolution of John as he gets
more successful and just kind ofgets more kind of
(17:07):
Harkonnen-esque.
But to the side, how does thisapply to you?
Like, were you thinking aboutthis?
All right, is Danaher wrongabout this?
Yes, he fucking is.
It's so sideways, it'sridiculous.
What we probably neglect is weadmire many other athletes.
We look at other athletes andwe're oh what a great athlete,
whether it be like an eliteathlete from football or an
(17:31):
elite athlete from basketball oranything like someone who is
just the best at what they do.
And it's funny that in so manyother sports other than
Brazilian jiu-jitsu orsubmission grappling, they have
to be so dialed in To be thebest, to be like LeBron James or
to be a Steph Curry, or to belike the best quarterback and to
be a Tom Brady things have tobe so dialed in.
(17:54):
Now, obviously, a front roweror a defensive tight end or
whatever, they're strong as fuck, but they're like huge fat
units.
They're not necessarily thehealthiest, but if we look at
the absolute elite in a sport,their diet is dialed in, their
recovery is dialed in Becausethere's so much money around
those sports.
They are thoroughbreds and sothey do so many things to the
(18:16):
nth perfect degree, because ifyou don't, you can't be the
number one guy and, I think,because jujitsu is still not
quite in its full realization ofits development.
That's why you still have these.
I wouldn't say they'reexceptions, but you've got
people coming in displayingamazing jujitsu but then the
(18:36):
dark side of that is they kindof burn out because they haven't
looked after themselves and wehaven't seen somebody who has a
LeBron James-esque kind of 20years, 25, you know, like career
.
It's a good point.
The jujitsu careers are shortbecause we really burn our
bodies doing it, and so ifyou're someone who has struggled
(18:57):
with injury or you havestruggled with skin infections
and different things like this,you want to consider that this
could be related to your immunesystem and that maybe you know
you need to get a bit of bloodwork done.
Maybe there is an underlyingissue there and diet can make
that better or worse, dependingon your specific instance.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Yeah, shit, maybe you need to eat a salad every now
and again.
Yeah, you know, I mean, pick upan apple.
Yeah, maybe we're down the BigMac man.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Yeah, just, it's just one of those things Like, even
when you start getting into likeFODMAPs, which is just like if
your body can tolerate certainsugars, uh, my partner, ola, she
uh can, she can't tolerateoligosaccharides, which means
like onion, garlic, um, lentils,there's just certain things
that she she can't digest themwell, so when she has them she
(19:46):
feels sick and bloated and itaffects her really negatively.
You take those things out thediet, she feels amazing.
And this is just stuff that shedidn't know before and she had
to do a few tests to get it.
But now she knows it, shedoesn't eat those foods and she
feels great, and so it's worthdoing a bit of investigation for
yourself.
Do your own research to justknow where your body is at, not
(20:06):
just taking some general advicefrom from you know, dr John.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Dr John Danaher, dr John, dr Mike yeah, you know, I
think at the heart of this, likewhat's?
What can be problematic abouthearing something like that from
Danaher is that we look atthose people like Gordon Ryan
and Maren Garland and stuff like, oh, what are these guys doing?
Like, what they're doing on themats often guides what we're
(20:31):
doing right.
Oh, this is the fucking backattack sequence that Gordon uses
.
Cool, that's what we'retraining in the gym, that's
what's trending right now, andthat's all.
Cool, that's what we'retraining in the gym, that's
what's.
That's what's trending rightnow, and that's all really good.
But you also got to rememberthat for the most part, you are
not trying to be him.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
No.
Speaker 2 (20:45):
And, like I said before, most people are really
busy.
Most people want to probablystay in jujitsu.
They just want to keep having agood time with it for the next
20 or so years, and so yourapproach right now is very
fucking different to what hisapproach is, and so when his
coach says something like that,it's like, yeah, he's not
talking to you.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (21:04):
You know, or you know , or that's not what you needed
to hear, but confirmation biasis a biatch, that's right.
Burgers taste good.
They do, I fucking love it.
Sausage rolls taste good.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Bro, trust, I love fried chicken, I love a burger,
I love a chip, like the next man.
Milkshakes are good Fuckinglove me a milkshake.
But that said, I alsoresponsibly low-key, grudgingly,
but I know it's good for me.
I'm very lucky.
I have a wife who's veryadamant, slash, strict about eat
(21:36):
your fucking vegetables, wow,eat your rice, do this, do that.
And I mean I do.
It's not that something Iwouldn't do, but she's like
she's on my back about it, youknow, because she's like get
your prostate check.
You want me to, you want me tocheck that for you?
I'm like babe, no, it's okay,please, it's okay.
She's like I, I'm good, I'llget the health check.
(21:59):
You got blood tests for thosethese days.
Be relaxed.
You know, like the thing is.
She's so because she caresabout me.
She's like very and she's alsobossy kind of lady.
She's on my back about it and Ithink the thing is I love that,
I appreciate it.
But for you, if you're out thereand you don't have someone who
loves burgers and you don't givea fuck about a salad, right,
you're like danaher said, itdoesn't matter who gives a fuck,
(22:21):
yeah, and then like maybe garytonin comes out and goes or say,
craig jones comes out and goesfucking tobacco pouches am I
right?
The new zins like fucking getit in there, focus up.
You're like this isn't theperson you should be taking
health advice from.
Yeah, you know, just becauseyour favorite athlete fucking
vapes in the car before theycome into train doesn't mean
(22:41):
that's what you should also do.
That is not causal to theirsuccess.
If anything, they aresuccessful in spite of that, and
I think this is themisunderstanding.
It was always the thing, likewith the Diaz brothers right,
they always smoked weed andthey're great fighters,
legendary fighters.
And people are like, oh,fucking Diaz brothers, right,
they always smoked weed andthey're great fighters,
legendary fighters.
And people are like, oh,fucking Diaz brothers smoke weed
(23:02):
.
And you're like, yeah, but they, they also run marathons and
they, they do all this othercrazy shit.
You know they are notsuccessful at fighting because
they smoke weed.
They're successful at fightingin spite of smoking weed.
It's just, it's associative,it's not causal, and this is the
mistake we often make that wesee a behavior and we think
(23:22):
that's the reason why they'regood and it's not, and what we
want to do is just encouragey'all to be more healthy,
because we know that's going tosupport your training.
It's going to have you feelingbetter and you'll just enjoy
your life more, because gettingsick all the time is whack and
you don't need that Damn right.
There it is, folks.
So, yes, if you want to trainbetter, be better, be stronger,
(23:45):
all those things we've got anapp and we'd like to encourage
people to use it to help themstay healthy, stay on track,
just go to the app store, go tothe Google Play store, download
it.
14-day free trial, get aroundit.
We'll see you in there.
Let's get fitter and healthier,y'all Peace.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!