August 26, 2024 • 65 mins
Ever wondered how to laugh through the pain while optimizing your well-being? Michael Donovan, a dedicated fitness expert with a rich background in cancer research at the National Institute for Health, joins us to share his disciplined approach to life and fitness. He offers valuable insights into the importance of personalized supplements, revealing how individual needs can vary significantly. Michael's journey from the NIH to focusing on public health and wellness programs provides a captivating narrative on the significance of habits and follow-through actions.
Discover the emerging trends in biohacking with a focus on Fatty 15 and Specialized Pro-Resolving Mediators, which are making waves, especially in military applications. We'll navigate the paradox of combining modern advancements with ancestral health principles, stressing the irreplaceable role of basics like sunlight, exercise, and nutrition. Michael also delves into the intricacies of balancing electrolytes and hydration, sharing his homemade hydration drink recipe and explaining the physiological principles behind electrolyte balance.
Finally, we explore the realms of exercise performance optimization through personalized nutrition, contrasting the needs of endurance athletes with those in strength-based sports. Michael discusses the environmental stressors affecting health, such as mold and EMFs, and offers practical tips for reducing exposure to these risks. By the end of this episode, you'll gain a comprehensive understanding of how advanced biohacking practices can supplement foundational health habits, providing a well-rounded approach to enhancing your well-being. Don’t miss out on Michael’s practical advice and inspiring journey!
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Introduction and Personalization of Supplements
00:52 Foundational Supplements: Protein and Caffeine
02:34 Creatine, BCAAs, and Other Essential Supplements
05:04 Debate on BCAAs vs. EAAs
12:18 The Role of Electrolytes in Performance
18:57 Optimizing Nutrition for Different Types of Exercise
28:10 CrossFit and Ironman: A Fitness Journey
28:35 Nutrition Strategies for Endurance and Strength
31:43 Mountain Biking: The Ultimate Challenge
34:10 Transition from CrossFit to New Adventures
37:39 Quickfire Questions: Health and Wellness Insights
42:20 The Impact of EMFs and Environmental Factors
52:40 Career Journey and Podcasting
56:38 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
FOLLOW OUR SOCIALS:
Guest: Michael Donovan
Website URL: https://www.michaeldonovancoaching.com/
HOSTS:
Richard Blake
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/The_Breath_Geek
https://richardlblake.com/
https://linktr.ee/RichardLBlake
Facebook: @TheOptimisedU
Andy Esam
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andyesam/
PODCAST:
Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/laughing-through-the-pain-navigating-wellness/id1726046369
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2TdW2qSWyVpXUyfKvNrBon?si=ff8aba9b92c24616
Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289623
Please leave us a review, like and su
Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
Webiste - www.TheBreathGeek.com
Please leave us a review, like
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello and welcome to another episode of Laughing
Through the Pain, navigatingWellness with me, andrew E Sam,
my co-host, dr Richard L Blake,and today he will be speaking to
Mark Donovan.
I hope he doesn't take too muchoffence.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Not Mark Donovan.
That's the bully from theInbetweeners, michael Donovan,
michael.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Donovan Donovan, mike Donovan.
Yes, we'll start that again no,I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think he'll be.
He probably doesn't know whothe in-betweeners are or the
show is, or who Michael Donovanis.
So sorry, who Mark Donovan is.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I haven't spoken to him.
The two times you've actuallyspoken to him, I've genuinely
been unavailable and you guyshave wanted to press on anyway,
so I hope he doesn't take toomuch offense the fact I've
missed both of them I.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I don't think he would take offense to that.
I think he would take events tobeing called mark donovan
though, even though that show istimeless, classic I mean it is,
but yeah, he is nothing likemark donovan.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thankfully he's very nice, very interesting guy and
um, selfishly, I suppose Ipreferred this episode being
that you hosted him so I've gotto find out more about him.
But uh, yeah, very interestingguy.
I could see why you get on wellum obviously very driven, very
uh.
Mindful of his routine,obviously a super fit guy yes,
(01:20):
very fit.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And uh, yeah, um, very, yeah, very, very, probably
very high in conscientiousness.
I took the Big Five personalitytest recently.
Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, yes, I need to get a job about it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay, well, supposedly the Big Five is well,
not.
Supposedly, a sort ofmeta-analysis of personality
tests was done and they foundthat the Big five was the most
accurate in predicting.
Uh, you know people's, you knowpersonalities, and they look, I
can't remember.
I think they looked atmyers-briggs, another one, and
then the um, uh, star signs, andthey found that star signs.
(01:57):
What do you think they foundwith star signs?
Do you think good, bad?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
not a great predictor of anything.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm gonna go yeah they found zero correlation
between person star sign andtheir actual uh, their actual
personality.
So I'm sure there'll be peoplewho want to move the goal posts
for that one and argue that starsigns are are useful and
accurate.
Um, I do find them accurate.
Sometimes I use the pattern appand that can be ridiculously
(02:25):
accurate, but it's just.
It's just much more than um,much more than just you know 12
personality types.
It goes into far more detailthan that, but I just think you
know the horoscopes you get inthe newspaper.
I think that's what they werelooking at.
They're they're pretty broadbrush and um full of barnum
statements and things like that.
But anyway, back to michael, Ireckon he's very high in
conscientiousness, um, which issupposedly the highest predictor
(02:50):
of success.
People high inconscientiousness, they tend to
follow through, they make plansand they follow through with
them.
So yeah, that's me analyzingmichael, but um, yeah, what do
they find out in this episodeother than he's a conscientious
guy?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I think that I think discipline is a key theme and,
um, maybe both of you like, interms of just um, let's call it,
yeah, habits, keeping to habits, um kind of yeah, as you say,
following through, I think is akey theme.
In terms of, just like, actionspeaking louder than words, I
would say that's what I tookaway.
Yes, what did you learn?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
most.
Um, what did I learn most?
Um, well, I learned that.
Um, it was a while ago since Irecorded this, so I'm I'm
reaching a little bit.
Um, I learned that michael is agreat podcast guest and I look
forward to many more of hispodcasts because he does a
podcast and you should checkthat one out after you listen to
(03:46):
ours.
So, uh, yeah, um, we talk a lotabout biohacking.
You know he's he's worked forthis sort of the, the national
institute for health in the us.
He worked on on cancer and, um,yeah, he's putting that
biohacking into good use as well.
So, um, yes, all right,listener.
Well, we hope you enjoy thisone.
Anything further to add, andy,before we let the listener?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
loose on on michael too much.
Don't cut me out, do not leaveme out yes, don't enjoy it too
much.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Just enjoy the intro and outro.
I think that's fair, right?
Yeah, okay, cheers, listener,want to be part of our growing
community?
Then follow us on instagram atthe breath geek and at andy esam
for behind the scenes content,updates, snippets and more.
Michael, welcome.
(04:42):
What are your thoughts onsupplements?
Are they necessary or helpful?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Great first question, richard.
I think anytime we talk about,I'll just say first principles,
I like to start with the bigpicture first, and I think when
we talk about supplements, thefirst thing I want to emphasize
is personalization, and eventhough I'm going to, I'll answer
that specifically.
I think, generally, if we zoomout, what works for me, what
(05:16):
supplements I shouldspecifically take, are not
necessarily the ones that youshould take.
Or anyone else that's listeningshould say I, you know I should
take those because that's whatMichael takes.
Anyone else that's listeningshould say I should take those
because that's what Michaeltakes or that's what Richard
takes.
With that said, I think the topones that come to mind that are
foundational are protein.
(05:38):
A lot of people have a hard timeeating enough protein,
especially if they're doing alot of exercise, has high
intensity, or just unable to eatenough.
It's really filling, right.
It's really satiating to eat asteak, right.
We can eat carbs all day, butfat and protein are really
(06:00):
satiating.
So protein is one that it'ssometimes really beneficial.
You can put it in a smoothie.
You know protein powder.
If you're like our friendGeorge, you can just take a shot
of a dry protein powder, youknow, and there's a variety of
protein sources.
A lot of times we think aboutmilk based protein sources and
animal based protein sources,but there's also a lot of vegan
(06:22):
based, especially proteinpowders that are great for
people that eat that way.
The second one that I wouldthrow out is caffeine, and we
don't even really think of thatas a supplement as much because
it's so ubiquitous.
It's, you know, in our in ourcoffee every morning.
But one of the things thatcaffeine specifically does,
especially for enduranceathletes, is decrease the.
(06:46):
It has more of a psychologicaleffect by decreasing the
perceived level of effort andour perception of fatigue.
So, while it does have somebenefits in terms of the
physiological side, it's reallykind of and we've noticed the
cognitive enhancement ofcaffeine as well.
Right, we're more alert, soit's more of the perception of
(07:09):
our intensity of effort.
And then creatine and BCAAs, orbranched chain amino acids, are
the other two that I wouldmention, especially as a fellow
CrossFit athlete or participant.
Creatine is great, there aresome cognitive benefits, but
really, you know it's beenaround popular since the mid
nineties, one of the mostresearched supplements, and
(07:34):
creatine is part of the creatinephosphate metabolic system,
which is short spurts of energyand so for strength and power,
creatine is a great one.
And then for decreasingsoreness after intense workouts
and increased recovery, branchedchain amino acids a lot of
people find are helpful.
And then I'll just mention afew others that I've taken over
(07:56):
the years.
Omega-3, if you're not eating alot of fish and things like
that and getting those, it'sgood to have that balance of
omega-3 and omega-6 in our bodyfor anti-inflammation and joint
health.
Electrolytes in general andthat's not just sodium, but
sodium, potassium, magnesium,these kinds of things.
(08:16):
So making sure, especially forendurance athletes, that when
you're sweating a lot you'rereplenishing electrolytes and
not just water.
And then all of the supplementsthat fall under the immune
system category, like vitamin D,vitamin C, zinc, glutamine.
(08:43):
These kinds of things areessential.
In areas where it gets reallycold and colds are going around
all winter, like Minnesota orColorado, it's good to sometimes
boost your immune system.
But those are things that Iwould take generally just in the
winter, when there's moreviruses and colds going around,
just to boost your immune system.
And then the final thing I'llthrow out is things that affect
(09:04):
the gut, because your gut healthis tied to your overall health,
and so probiotics could be goodas a supplement if you're not
getting that from food,especially fermented foods.
And then glutamine is also goodfor gut health and then when
there's times when you're goingthrough really stressful
(09:25):
experiences, things likeashwagandha and some other kind
of more Eastern supplements canalso, you know, mellow, mellow
you out and kind of suppress theagitation at high stress times.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay, Pretty comprehensive there.
So BCAAs, not EAAs is thatright?
Because I've been told, or I'veseen research, that BCAAs are
not that effective and actuallywe want essential amino acids
rather than branched chain aminoacids.
What's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I think it's.
I'm not super up to date on thelatest research on that and I
think, again, it depends whatyou're eating.
I wouldn't try to get all of myamino acids met by a supplement
, right hairs of whichsupplements I should take.
(10:22):
I would actually just look atthe quality of the overall food
that you're eating and try toget more from just whole foods
as opposed to supplements.
I think when the clients thatI've worked with over the years,
when they're like I'm eatingplantains instead of bananas
because they have less sugar,I'm like, if you're concerned
with that, I'm really happy thatyou're.
(10:45):
You know addressing the sugar,but relax because you're fine.
Like there's not that much.
You know we're not talkingabout processed foods and added
sugar and things like that.
So I think to me it's splittinghairs to really even go one
direction or the other in termsof the specificity of a
(11:06):
supplement like that.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Okay, fair enough.
Yeah, I take EAAs, especiallywhen traveling and especially
when I'm trying to cut, you know, lose a bit of body fat,
because I've not been trainingmuch recently.
So, you know, for beach seasonI've been trying to get into
shape.
Let me show you my ab.
No, I'm not going to show youmy ab.
I've been trying to get into,to shape.
Let me show you my ab?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
No, I'm not going to show you my ab.
I will just say, for thosegoing back to my grad school
days, that there's 20 aminoacids and there are some that
are essential and there's somethat are non-essential.
And essential basically meansthat we can't create, we can't.
They're essential that weconsume them in the diet.
That's what essential aminoacids means.
(11:48):
We can't make them ourselves.
So there are, uh, just overhalf of the amino acids that we
can actually make from the foodthat we're eating, and then
those that that we can't, wehave to get from our diet
because our body doesn't havethe ability to make them we have
to get from our diet becauseour body doesn't have the
ability to make them.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, okay, so, yeah, well, one
thing I should say aboutessential aminos is I take the
key on ones that Ben Greenfieldcalls them his Swiss army knife.
I have no affiliation codes forthis.
I'm not making any money, butNatalia, my wife, hates me
taking them because they'refermented.
I think essential aminos needto be fermented, so they
apparently make my breath smellexceedingly bad.
So, uh, yeah, if you're asingle man and you're on a date,
(12:34):
don't take the essential aminos.
Maybe that's where bcaa iscoming for the, for the, uh, the
single man or woman.
Um, okay, so you also mentioned, um, yeah, fish oil there.
Have you heard about Fatty 15?
Did you meet them at thebiohacking conference?
Fatty 15?
And a separate molecule isSpecialized Pro-Resolving
Mediators.
(12:55):
Have you heard of those as well?
Any thoughts on those?
Well, okay, no thoughts onthose, but apparently I'll give
you my thoughts.
Apparently, this is the newhotness in fatty acids.
This is the trend.
I guess it's sort of refiningfish oil down to this fatty 15
molecule, where there's been alot of research, apparently with
(13:15):
Navy SEALs, some kind ofmilitary people, and it's done
wonders for them, and similarlywith specialized pro-resolving
mediators.
So a lot of people are sort oftipping these supplements to be
the next cool guys in in thebiohacking world and it's funny
that isn't the biohacking world.
Like to be a biohacker, youhave to be, you have to be able
(13:35):
to spot the trends.
It's a bit like, I don't know,being like a fashion designer,
being like what's going to benew.
Are you know?
Is it?
Are we going back to skinnyjeans?
No, we're going to extra baggyjeans.
So it's a little bit like that.
Well, my hot take for thefuture hotness is going to be a
fatty 15 fatty acids.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I will just on that segue that I think what's funny
about biohacking is we're kindof going.
A lot of times people I have onmy podcast sometimes reference
back to our ancestral selves,our caveman, going back
thousands of years, all the wayback to the beginning, blocking
(14:20):
glasses and things like that.
Like, even 20 years ago, peopleweren't necessarily working.
The majority of people weren'tworking in front of a computer
right In the nineties, you know,late at night, right?
So we didn't need these thingsand so a lot of these things
won't.
There's kind of this contrastbetween, first principles of
going back to, like theancestral age and then things
(14:43):
that are necessary now, in thelast few decades, because our
society has evolved and we'reresponding to new things, and so
, whether it's, you know, moldin the environment,
environmental things or you knowEMFs or blue light, these are
things that are relevant now.
Right, you know a lot of theprinciples just getting sunlight
(15:04):
early in the morning, you knowI mean this is like this novel
thing, but we were doing thisfor tens of thousands of years
by default.
We just, you know, we were upearly, we walked outside and we
got the benefit of things.
And now we have technology,which is great to you know,
mimic, this right, but a lot ofthese, if we go back and that's
(15:26):
why I always take kind of a bigpicture approach, stepping back
we're really simulating whatwe've been doing for millennia
and we're just making it moreefficient or maybe more
effective.
But I think if you don't workon your computer late at night,
maybe you don't need to wearblue light glasses.
(15:48):
And if you're not doing likesuper heavy, intense exercise
and you're mostly walking orjust, you know, moving
throughout the day you'regetting 15,000 steps a day,
you're very active but you'renot doing like super high
intensity exercise, maybe youdon't need the supplements for
muscle recovery and rebuilding.
And you know, and I think wecan go overboard on the
(16:11):
measurement and the tracking andthe expectations of like, what
is this thing going to do versusjust common sense principles of
kind of living in balance.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
I think some, like you saidearlier, sometimes people get
too obsessed with splittinghairs or majoring in the minors,
when, if we're doing the basics, that really just covers the
main things, the basics being,yeah, getting fresh air, getting
sunlight, getting doingexercise, resistance, training,
those types of things, eatingwell not drinking caffeine right
before bed, those types ofthings eating well, not drinking
(16:44):
caffeine right before bed thosetypes of things are going to do
.
Maybe 95 of your progress isgoing to come from that and
maybe five percent is going tocome from the I don't know the
nad supplement or the, whateverit may be.
Um, oh yeah.
I want to go back toelectrolytes, because this is
another area I'm a little bitconfused about.
I love the electrolytes, I loverelights that's something our
(17:06):
mutual friend, george, put me onto and we just did an episode
with oryx salt, who were at thebiohacking conference last week,
and they do this amazing salt.
But sometimes I feel like themore electrolytes I drink, the
more electrolytes I need.
Is that something you've evercome across before?
Like, should we be drinking somany electrolytes?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
because I'm taking like 10 grams a day at this real
life stuff, sometimes 15 gramswell, I think this goes back to
another kind of first principleof biology and physiology of
homeostasis, right, so our bodywants to maintain a range, a
healthy range, whether it'sblood pressure, it's you's
(17:45):
electrolyte balance the listgoes on and on of things that
are maintained within a range.
And if you drink a gallon ofwater in the next hour, you're
going to be peeing for the nextseveral hours, right, if you
drink half a gallon with someelectrolytes in it, you're going
to retain a lot more of that.
(18:05):
And I think understanding thephysiology of electrolyte
balance and of hydration isreally important.
And for me, my drink to stayhydrated, my homemade hydration
drink includes chia seeds.
Hydration drink includes chiaseeds and includes some
electrolytes, some salt, like alittle dash of lemon, maybe a
(18:33):
little bit of maple syrup orhoney, because that helps in
absorption.
But the chia, if you ever likethe chia pet back in the day, it
kind of expands and any chiadrink expands into like a gel
and so that slows the filtrationthrough the kidney.
And so if you can drink like aliter or Nalgene bottle of water
(18:54):
with chia and a little bit ofsalt, and again, that's my
little homemade hydration drink.
But it's not electrolyte heavy,it's more adjusting the
filtration rate through thekidney, and I know some friends
who drink coffee and they putlemon tea in their coffee.
(19:16):
There's particularly thechocolate.
They like the taste, but italso slows the the filtration
through the kidneys.
So the caffeine that they'redrinking is kind of offset by
the salt and so they stayhydrated.
And so I think it goes beyondfrom a knowledge standpoint,
beyond just you know the amountof electrolytes, and again a big
(19:40):
picture has to be informed byhow much you're sweating Are you
a heavy sweater, are you alighter sweater?
And also the balance of sodiumand potassium.
When we talk about salt orelectrolytes, a lot of times we
just emphasize sodium, andthat's what we can easily put on
our food.
We're not dumping a shaker ofpotassium on our food, but those
(20:04):
are exchanged at the cellularlevel to a three to two ratio,
and so it's essential to haveboth sodium and potassium.
And then some of thesesupplements have magnesium as
well, which is also important.
So those are the major threeelectrolytes that we need to
consider.
And if you're eating a lot ofprocessed foods and just eating
(20:24):
out, in general a lot of food isvery salted or contains salt
for preservation.
So you know the assertion thatwe don't eat enough salt.
I think it really depends, caseby case, on you know what your
diet's like and if you'repreparing food, you're cooking
food at home and you're, youknow, paying attention to what
you're eating out, you may notbe getting enough salt, but the
(20:47):
majority of the population isgetting probably more salt than
they, than they realize yes,that drink sounds delicious.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Um, are you bottling and selling that?
because, yeah, I want some,although not in an algin bottle
though, because that's plasticand yeah more and more I'm
hearing the dangers of plasticand more and more it's getting
linked to cancer and heartdisease.
I saw an article yesterdayabout doctors thinking plastics
are causing this huge spike incancers in young people.
(21:18):
So I really wanted some plasticexpert to come on here and tell
me what to do about it, apartfrom just avoiding it.
Some plastic expert to come onhere and tell me what to do
about it, or apart from justavoiding it.
And um, yeah, that I used to dothe element in the coffee, the
chocolate one, but since meetingauric salt and samantha, um,
I've switched to.
They don't do a electrolyte, uh, chocolate one, but I think
(21:39):
they may be doing one soon.
But salt of the earth is whatI've found since then.
I don't know if you've heard ofthat, but it's, it's like a
natural version of the element.
So it comes with actual rawcacao powder and himalayan salt.
So it's it's not just likesodium chloride, it's, it's
mineralized salt and I put thatin my coffee and it's pretty
good actually.
And, yes, do you want to addanything there?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
no, no, okay, good all right.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So optimizing for exercise performance, so that
you know you.
Do you want to add anythingthere?
No, I'm good.
No, okay, good, all right.
So optimizing for exerciseperformance.
So you know, you said earlierabout supplements and I totally
agree that what the supplementyou need is going to be
different to what I need, andoften I was just in theater with
my wife's family and havingconversations with her cousins
and things.
They're like what supplementshould I take?
(22:24):
Or you know, so many people askme and I'm like, well, I don't
know, like what's gonna be abetter use of your time and
money than just going.
Oh well, I listened to a podcastand they said everyone should
take b12.
Um, well, are you deficient inb12?
Do you have too much b12?
Because I have had too much b12.
I got some injections, iv, andI got too much b12.
(22:45):
And then I got like restlessleg syndrome.
I was like what was going on?
And then someone was like, ohyeah, your b12 way out of range
and your blood.
So you need to be careful.
So that's why I say to peopleget a blood test, like a blood
test.
Maybe it costs like especiallyin spain, much, much cheaper.
You know, a few hundred dollars.
That's probably the same priceas you know, three bottles of of
supplements that you may justbe putting to waste.
(23:06):
So I think testing, you know,once a year is a really good use
of your money and then you caninvest in the products you need.
But on that, the generalpopulation need different food
nutrition supplements to highperforming athletes.
So what's your take onoptimizing for exercise
(23:29):
performance regarding nutritionsupplements?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think it depends on the type of exercise.
So if we're talking aboutendurance athletes versus more
strength-based athletes orhybrid athletes, there's the
aspect of what's sustainable.
And when we're talking about atraining program, if you're
training for a race, that's ayear out, keto is great for a
(23:59):
lot of people.
It's not sustainable for themajority, right?
So there's kind of what'soptimal versus sustainable.
And that's one of theattractive things about
supplements is it's easy to take, unscrew the cap and just take
a pill versus having thediscipline day in and day out
(24:20):
for months on end to eat acertain way or exclude something
.
Right.
And I think, again, broadstrokes, excluding any
macronutrient category is achallenge, whether you're trying
to, you know eat, you know zerocarbs.
I think you know when the paleodiet came out, which is again
(24:41):
like 20 years ago, they had afollow-up that the paleo diet
was similar to keto and you know, and emphasizing meats and
minimizing carbs.
And they came out with a sequelbook Paleo Diet for Athletes
that included carbohydrates,which emphasizes, over a certain
duration, the necessary, Iwould say, inclusion of
(25:05):
carbohydrate sources.
And that doesn't need to be, asso many triathletes and Ironman
athletes and mountain bikersand I'm not just singling out
triathletes, but use, you know,super highly processed they
couldn't be more highlyprocessed.
You know gels and and goos andbites and you know those kinds
of things.
That is is truly just pureglucose in its most processed
(25:30):
form.
And when you look I alwaysjudge an exercise program or
protocol or whatever by what theathletes look like.
I think that's a pretty goodmetric.
And when you look at especiallythose that have done it for a
year or more, and when you lookat CrossFitters versus Orange
(25:51):
Theory versus bar classes orPilates or whatever yoga, I
think there's whatever yourpreference for body type and
what you consider fit, I thinkfitness for me is defined as
being able to do a broad arrayof things and and there's a high
(26:17):
intensity element to that Imean you can walk every day and
be very healthy.
You can do, you know, pilatesand yoga every day and and
you'll be a specific type of fit, but you're not going to set
any records on a half marathonor a 10K or something if you're
not running right.
So I've gone on a little bit ofa tangent.
(26:38):
But to bring it back, I thinksupplements and nutrition need
to specifically support the typeof exercise you're doing.
And if you're doing musclebuilding, or I should say
strength work that is breakingdown muscles, you need to supply
it with the raw materials,which is more protein, more
amino acids, to rebuild.
(27:00):
And I think it's an importantprinciple to remember that you
build muscle during recovery,not while you're actually
working out.
Right, you're breaking thosemuscles down and you need to
give it the raw materials tobuild back.
And if you're doing more longendurance exercise like again,
(27:21):
cycling, running, triathlon, youknow things over an hour, I
would say, is probably the sortof threshold there you probably
need more carbohydrates and canyou do it on zero carbs?
Maybe, but that's a very smallportion of the population that's
(27:41):
going to be able to sustainthat level of overtraining if
you're not supplying your bodywith what it needs.
Because as soon as you increasethe intensity which could be
just going up a hill you switchfrom more aerobic to anaerobic
(28:03):
and glycolytic and you're goingto be burning carbohydrates,
right.
So you're, you know, as we sithere talking, we're in the fat
burning zone.
You know, it's not just thatlittle zone that's on the cardio
machines, right, it's anythingbelow that threshold.
We're mostly burning fat.
And then, when we go above thatthreshold we begin to burn
(28:24):
carbohydrates and you know ifyou are going, the longer you're
going, the more carbohydratesyour body needs and we can only
store so many carbohydrates inour muscle glycogen and liver
glycogen.
So when that's depleted you'regoing to crash if you don't have
a carbohydrate source tocontinue to supply the muscles
(28:45):
what they need.
You know exogenously throughwhat you're eating.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, and I think sometimes people get quite
puritanical about diet People.
You know exogenously throughthrough what you're eating.
Yeah, and I think sometimespeople get quite puritanical
about diet people.
You know the absence ofreligion people now believe in
diets.
You know, I am a vegan, I am acarnivore, like I am a Christian
or a Muslim these days, and Ithink that's not ideal for some
people.
And I follow this Instagramnutritionist and she's sort of
(29:14):
like a sports specificnutritionist and she will say
that you know, I feed myathletes sometimes like what is
considered junk food, you know,like children's cereal and
sweets like that beforecompetition.
Because these professionalathletes are training many hours
a day and their gut just can'tprocess 5,000 calories of sweet
(29:35):
potato and steak and things likethat.
They just can't get theircalories in.
So they need some ultraprocessed foods.
And you know, you look at thesepeople they're not.
You know they got, you know,single digit body fat and
they're functioning at an elitelevel.
And, yeah, maybe people wouldsay, well, what about their long
(29:55):
term health?
You know, what about the seedoils?
What about the inflammationthat's being caused by that?
Maybe that could be a problem,but I think the sugar in elite
athletes is potentially OK.
And our mutual friend George.
You know he hammers me becauseI eat ice cream.
I mean, I profess to be abiohacker and, you know, have
some nutrition background and Ilike ice cream okay.
(30:19):
But also sometimes when I'm,you know, going through a really
big phase of training and I'mtrying to put on weight, I do
this sort of like reverse dietwhere I'm trying to I add 100
calories per week until I canramp my metabolism up to like 4
000 calories.
It's you can't do that.
I can't do that on steak andbroccoli and brown rice.
(30:42):
I do it on partly ice cream andI think those I you know
there's so many good ice creamsout there these days.
They're just, like you know,raw milk, cream, egg yolk and
honey and I think that's fine.
Um, so there, get off my back,george and uh, this is a public
call out.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Please support me in my fight for ice cream everyone
I, I will, I will say, uh,before we move on that I, I
think one of the things thatgets overlooked, especially in
endurance training, is your bodydoes adapt.
We think when you're training,that the body's adapting to the
(31:22):
stimulus of the training, butyour body's also adapting
metabolically to what you'regiving it for fuel Right, to
what you're giving it for fuelright.
And so if you think of I justthought of this if you're
thinking of like an analogy of afire, right, it's not just the
flame, which would be theburning of the fuel, right, but
(31:47):
it's the quality of the logsthat you're building that fire.
And if you give your body thegels and the goos and the blocks
and those kinds of things alongthe way, you're training your
body.
Especially if you're doing thisfor months leading up to a race
, you're training your body toexpect and to preferentially
(32:07):
burn carbohydrates.
And if, during that time you'redoing it either fasted, or
you're burning or you're eating,you're consuming a more
balanced macronutrientcomposition, you're training
your body, your metabolism, evenyour digestive system, right
During that time to burn that.
(32:28):
And so we talk about, liketraining the way you race, and I
think that extends to nutritionas well, because you're
actually in training yourmetabolism along the way, and
it's not something wenecessarily emphasize or talk
about a lot when we talk abouttraining yeah, so you are
(32:49):
apparently an excellentcrossfitter.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That's what, again, our friend George told me.
One of the first things he saidyou know, michael used to do
CrossFit.
He's way fitter than you, whichwas nice, but you do Ironman as
well.
So that's right, you do Ironmanand triathlon.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I've done.
I used to race a lot of halfIronman.
I've never done a full Ironman,but the half distance was my
sweet spot.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Okay, nice.
So how do you approachnutrition for Ironman versus
CrossFit?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, again, I think I'll just say again, I emphasize
that I judge an activity bywhat the individuals look like.
And when I see, you know, whenyou line up at a race at the
amateur level, not at theprofessional level, because all
of them, as you said, havesingle digit body fat but you
see a lot of people who aretraining dozens of hours a week,
(33:43):
right, or, you know, a dozenhours a week, multi-sport,
multidisciplinary, and theydon't look fit, they don't look
in shape, you know, and a lot ofthat, I think, is due to what
they're eating while they'retraining.
And then also in recovery theysay look, I was out biking for
(34:03):
three hours.
You know I deserve to eat this.
You know I need to, I needthese calories and I think, in
my experience, even leading up,in the days leading up to a race
, I don't carb load, I just eatmore of what I generally eat.
Just, I just increase, as youwere saying, I just add, you
(34:23):
know, every day, a few hundredmore calories of what I'm eating
.
Already, you know, and it'sgenerally the majority of my
carbohydrates are justvegetables, fruits and
vegetables.
I don't really eat rice orpasta or any of that.
And but again, that's just mypersonal approach.
Some people, the day, you know,the days leading up to a race,
(34:48):
they thrive on that and probablyfrom trial and error, and you
know what you can digest,there's a lot.
I mean, that's a reallyimportant part of it, right?
But before we talk aboutmetabolism and you know, burning
the fuel, if you can't evendigest things and you know, go
into the race, you know you'renot going to be faster if you're
, you know, stopping at theport-a-potties all the time
(35:09):
along the race.
So there's a lot of componentsto what you eat.
But I think in general, reallythe only major tweak that I make
between the two activities is alittle more protein when I'm
doing strength building activityand again I just kind of
recognize I'm burning morecarbohydrate when I'm doing
(35:30):
endurance.
So I need a little morecarbohydrate and I'm burning a
little more.
Or I need a little more proteinand even fat when I'm doing
CrossFit and strength training,because I'm breaking down the
muscles and I need and I, you,just I'm really intuitive with I
don't measure or track what I'meating.
(35:51):
I just kind of know, afterdecades of exercising and
working out and racing, what mybody needs and you know I notice
, if I'm in a in a workoutsubsequent to some intense
workouts and I know where mybaseline should be, and if I'm
not there, I'm under recoveredAnother way of saying over
(36:11):
training and you know.
But I don't think I need toadjust my training as much as
adjust my nutrition to supportmy training.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Okay, and you're doing a lot of mountain biking.
I was at your house and you'rea pretty minimalist guy, but
apart from the fact that youhave how many?
14 bikes?
Speaker 3 (36:33):
minimalist guy.
Apart from the fact you havehow many 14 bikes?
12, I think at this point, 12,okay, um, so you do that's for
the whole family, though that'sfor the whole family, not just
all mine, okay well, you don'thave 12 children, so, yeah, just
the one at the moment.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So I think it's not.
Yeah, it's still a lot of bikes, but yeah, mountain biking,
apparently, that's, yes, that'syour thing now.
So what makes mountain bikingso challenging compared to other
sports?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
yeah, I, I love mountain biking because when we
talk about being in the zone orbeing in flow, the technical
nature to mountain biking forcesyou to be present, because if
you're not you can miss the rockright in front of you and go
over the handlebars.
And so I think there's thephysical component in terms of
(37:20):
strength and endurance that Ilove.
There's a mental component interms of being present, and then
(37:47):
there's the skill aspect of it.
And then there's the skillaspect of it and I am a little
more like you might ask what youknow how fast do you run?
What's your average pace?
And that comes into play withmountain biking as well.
Kind of look on Strava and see,you know they did that loop and
(38:13):
in that time you're kind ofevenly matched.
But there's also that technicalskill element to mountain
biking that you know whetherit's descending quickly or
climbing quickly, or you knowriding smooth, fast trail or
smooth, smooth trails, reallyfast or very technical trails,
that you have to go more slowly.
I love the diversity of it andyou know.
I'm here in Colorado now, andit's very different from the
East Coast riding and the WestCoast riding where you are in
(38:35):
California.
I went to grad school out there, and so the diversity of
terrain and elevation and thingslike that, all these things are
reasons I love mountain biking.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Nice.
Yeah, I don't do a lot of it,but maybe I should.
But you, you stopped crossfit.
Why did you stop crossfit?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I started doing crossfit in 2007.
I was at uc davis and I went fora hike with a friend of mine in
yosemite and he turned me on toit.
You know, not far from whereCrossFit was born, in Santa Cruz
area in California, and therewere probably less than 50 boxes
(39:17):
in the country around the world.
There were zero anywhereoutside of the US and I just
started doing the workouts on myown.
I think I actually was an earlyadopter of CrossFit because it
just felt really natural andcomfortable, because when I was
in high school I was a soccerplayer but my next door neighbor
(39:38):
was a football coach for thehigh school team and so he got
me in the weight room and I wasdoing cleans and box jumps and
pushing the sled and doing lotsof things that CrossFit
incorporated.
And so, being an early adopter,I enjoyed, you know, learning
skills like rope climbs andmuscle ups and things that I
(40:04):
would not have even been on myradar outside of CrossFit and it
says play a variety of sportsessentially or used to Used to
(40:25):
say that yeah, well, it's thedifference between CrossFit as
an exercise modality andCrossFit as a sport.
And if you want to excel in anysport we're in the Olympic
season right now they're notbalanced athletes, right,
they're specialists, and whenyou specialize in something, by
(40:48):
necessity you have to give upthe things that are not directly
applicable to that sport, right?
And I'm in a time, I think,especially with a toddler in my
life, that I really want to playand I want to try new things
and I want to expose him to newthings.
And my interpretation ofCrossFit over the years for me,
(41:13):
my personal interpretation of it, was more strength-based, and
so I still, as a mountain biker,I think snatches are one of the
best movements if done underguidance of a coach, and I don't
think every person should justgo out there and learn how to
snatch, but I think just that,even if you just spend time in
(41:35):
the starting position and doingsnatch pulls and things like
that, the shoulder retracted andhaving a good position in that
balances out being at a desktyping with our shoulders
rounded or biking with ourshoulders rounded, and so I
always feel so much more openand have better posture after
(41:57):
doing, you know, snatches, andso I think that I still do.
I still have a garage gym hereand I I do some movements, but
the egocentric competitionelement of so many crossfit
boxes just doesn't serve me atthis time in my life.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Fair enough, all right, I'm gonna do some quick
fire questions now, like you didfor me when I was on your
podcast.
So what are your thoughts onsauna?
Speaker 3 (42:27):
I prefer contrast therapies to doing heat and cold
, and that's not always possible, but I think that is the ideal
because there are some benefitsto just the heat and, from a
cardiovascular standpoint and amuscular and just to relax,
(42:50):
there are benefits to just thecold.
But I think the biggest bangfor the buck is to do both, and
here in Denver I just foundthere's a chain that's opening a
location that has both and youcan get an unlimited membership
or you can get several days, afew days a week or I think
starting at like eight times amonth, and that's a great option
(43:13):
.
It's cool that those businessesexist because not everybody has
the space or the money orwhatever to have a sauna and a
cold plunge in their house.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
But I think there there is some benefit to each,
but I think the biggest benefitis having that contrast yeah, I
looked into franchising a one ofthose type of things with sauna
, cold plunge, jacuzzi, um pmftype things, which what?
Do you know what the name ofthe company is?
Speaker 3 (43:43):
sweat house.
Okay, yeah, yeah, I have a callwith them.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, they look cool.
Yeah, um, okay, so you toucheda little bit on sauna and adding
the contrast, so the nextquestion is cold plunges so I'm
gonna, I'm take a big picture onthat.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
I think we can add body work like massage, red
light, hyperbaric oxygen therapyand all these sorts of things.
Are you doing it as a one-offor are you doing it as a regular
thing or are you doing it as aregular thing?
And I think I would even add,when we talk about cold plunge,
(44:27):
add skydiving.
There's a difference in yourresponse when you do it once a
month, once a year, once aquarter, once a week, versus
every day and people you knowWim Hof popularized, like the
breathing and the cold exposureand these kinds of things.
(44:48):
And I think there's coldexposure stimulates the release
of endorphins.
Cold exposure stimulates therelease of endorphins and so
you're going to feel more, youknow, a boost in your mood and
like mental clarity and thingslike that, and you can kind of
get addicted to that.
But is that the benefit you'regoing for?
(45:09):
Is it the reduced inflammationor the improved recovery and
these kinds of things?
Right?
And so, as a one-off, I'm notsure any of these things are
really that beneficial, butdoing them regularly into any of
the things that we've alreadymentioned or you're about to ask
me about, I think I would saytry it for two weeks every day,
(45:35):
whether it's breathing, whetherit's yoga, meditation, cold
plunge, sauna, any of thesethings.
It's just not really going tobe that beneficial as a one-off
right.
Massage, acupuncture,chiropractic, none of these
(45:56):
things are going to be superbeneficial in just acutely, but
chronically, because a lot ofthe things we face are chronic
right.
So so doing something acutelyto combat a chronic stress or
chronic, you know, limitation isnot, it just doesn't match.
(46:18):
So I think if you're dealingwith something acutely, you
could do something acute, right.
If you have a pain or something, then or you're you had a very
intense workout and generallyyou don't work out very
intensely.
Cold might be good or saunamight be good, right, but it's
even better if you can do itchronically okay, well, you've
(46:41):
ruined the quickfire roundsbecause you've covered all my
next questions.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Okay, well, fine, um, something you haven't covered.
But I'm noticing that you arewearing a wire to your
headphones and I think thinkthose are Bluetooth headphones,
so I'm guessing you doing thatfor EMF or non-native
electromagnetic frequencyreasons, mitigation reasons.
So what's your take onnon-native EMFs?
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, that was one of my major takeaways from the
biohacking conference that weattended this year when I
attended last year conferencethat we attended this year when
I attended last year.
You can get a device that kindof looks like a stud finder that
measures EMFs.
And I remember 15 years agowhen I was working in the
National Cancer Institute,specifically in their public
(47:32):
affairs division, there was someconcern around cell phones and
the electromagnetic waves, thatthey're having a cell phone and
I think it's really the jury isstill out.
I think the biohackingcommunity really emphasizes EMFs
(47:54):
and the scientific publichealth community really
downplays the long term effectsof EMFs and the scientific
public health community reallydownplays the long-term effects
of EMFs and I think the truth issomewhere in between.
And I think I mentioned earliermold.
And I think, as much as we cancontrol whether it's with our
(48:15):
diet, minimizing pesticidescontrol whether it's with our
diet, minimizing pesticides,eating organic food, if it's
more nutritious, eating localfood, maximizing the good stuff
and minimizing the bad stuff,and that's very oversimplified.
But if there's a risk, ifthere's any concern, why not
(48:35):
minimize it?
Because it's pretty easy to doright, using wire versus
Bluetooth, it's a simple thingto do.
So why not do the simple thingsand then really dive into the
things that are more complicatedif it really adds an additional
(48:56):
benefit?
But again, from a nutritionstandpoint, if you're not eating
healthy, let's not worry aboutsupplements.
If you're in an environmentwhere there's lots of mold
there's lots of, you live underpower lines and things like that
let's counteract thoseenvironmental hazards.
(49:19):
And one of the other things I'lljust this is a little bit of a
tangent, but when I was at theNational Cancer Institute, one
of the other hot things incancer at the time was charred
meat and the heterocyclic aminesthat were produced when you
char meat.
And most people that I knowprefer their steak medium rare.
(49:43):
But there is still a segment ofthe population that really
likes very cooked things andburnt ends and things like that,
and there is actually a verystrong correlation between lots
of consumption of charred meatsand processed meats and things
like that and a variety ofcancers, not just gi cancers.
(50:06):
So you know how we do somethingI think is as important as what
we do yes, those uh.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Is that the advanced glycation end products?
Is that the same thing as whatwas the word used?
Helio, something?
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Yeah, heterocyclic amines is the biochemical or
chemical term for what'sproduced and is the carcinogen
EMF.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yes, my take on it is I think it is a stressor and
it's a little bit like thatbathtub analogy.
You know, once we have, youknow we can have the bathtub
that we fill up with stress,physiological stress like EMF
and mold and pesticides, andthen there's a sort of tipping
point or an overflow point, andthen once we people get chronic
(50:55):
illnesses and then they can'ttolerate EMFs, but I think.
But I think yeah, again, it'snot black and white.
Yes, those power lines aregoing to be much worse for you
than a bit of dirty electricityfrom some old wiring in the
house.
And I've really geeked out onthe, the emf stuff and spent a
lot of money on it and, to behonest, I haven't noticed much
(51:16):
difference.
You know, I used to sleep underan EMF canopy.
I have the Leela quantumnecklace and you know other
things on my phone and my houseis hardwired.
But I can't say it's made anynoticeable difference to me as
well with those sort of quantumdevices like the Somavedic.
I'm sure that I'm not sure Ithink they work for some people,
(51:37):
but I was a part of their studywhere they they gave me a free
one for a few months and trackedmy HRV.
Absolutely no difference for me.
But I think other people didand did have some benefit and of
course there's always sort ofresponders and non-responders to
things.
But yeah, I don't think it'sblack and white.
I know Peter Atiyah says thathe thinks it's majoring in the
minors and it's not a big dealfor most people and maybe it's
(51:58):
not.
Maybe it's not a big deal formost people.
Maybe it's just a big deal forpeople who are sensitive or who
have reached that tipping pointor overflow of their bathtub.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
We just moved into a new house and my partner bought
a table lamps for side tablelamps for our bedroom and they
have the plugs in the, the lampsto things, and you know these
are typical in a lot of hotelsright, have side table lamps
that you can plug into and,again, just doing the simple
thing, like if there's anon-zero chance, right
(52:32):
Probability that these have someeffect, just plug your phone in
across the room, right, Insteadof having it right next to your
head charging all night.
You know, because theaccumulation, especially if you
are someone that may be highlysensitive to these things, night
after night, the accumulation,I mean eight hours a night for
(52:54):
365 days, that's a lot ofaccumulation If there is a risk
that can easily be minimized byjust plugging your phone in
across the room, because it'sreally the proximity to these
things.
And, again, if you have thisdevice, it's a fascinating thing
, it's maybe 100, 150 bucks.
And if you put it right next toyour TV, you know, right next
(53:21):
to your TV it is off the, youknow it is pinned all the way
and you can actually put it toyour skin and kind of see what
you've kind of retained.
So that could be an interestingexperiment.
Plug it, plug the phone in nextto your bed and see if you have
some residual effects from thatphone charging next to you
versus when it's across the roomyes, I have one of those.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
They've meters as well and, yeah, I used to travel
with it and things.
But I think that I guess it isone of those things that you're
just not going to see theeffects day to day.
It's going to be like you'regoing to notice this in 10, 20
years when, I don't know, maybeyou've got cancer, maybe you've
got other other diseases, butsuppose I think the mechanisms
(54:04):
are related to free activeoxygen species and free radicals
.
It's increasing the freeradicals, reducing your, your
antioxidants as well, and thenalso it's creating an influx of
calcium into the voltage gatedcalcium channel.
So these things are happeningat a cellular level.
Supposedly it's also sort ofdepleting nad and magnesium when
we're exposed to all these emfs, and yet maybe it's aging us
(54:28):
very slightly quicker and maybeas well with children.
You know, supposedly children'sskulls are five times more
permeable than an adult andperhaps this explains why we
have, you know, this anxiousgeneration who are, you know, so
so incredibly fragile.
If you read the work of, ofjonathan height, which I, yeah,
I want to read his new book, theanxious generation.
Maybe it's not, it is partlysocial media and being coddled
(54:53):
and things like that, but maybeit's just because they're the
first generation of children tobe exposed to so much emf.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Who knows hypothesis there that, yeah, well, maybe
we'll someone will work out inthe future yeah, I'm going to
throw out a fun fact from mygrad school days that sticks
with me two decades later.
I took a class on antioxidants,a reactive oxygen species,
oxidative stress and these kindsof things.
And when we talk about eating,one of the benefits of eating a
(55:24):
variety of fruits and vegetablesand things that are high in
antioxidants colorful foodsgenerally from a public health
standpoint, is that it's aone-to-one ratio of antioxidant
to reactive oxygen species, asyou said, ros, that you need one
(55:47):
antioxidant to pair with thatto remove it from the body.
So when we talk about thingsthat produce reactive oxygen
species you just mentioned somethat are kind of environmental
but also exercise the byproductof metabolism Digestion produces
.
You know it's kind of ironicwe're eating antioxidants but
(56:09):
we're also producing throughthat metabolism of those
reactive oxygen species, and soall of these are internal
stressors that can causemicro-inflammation if they're
bouncing around, and so wereally want to reduce
inflammation and theaccumulation of these radical
(56:31):
oxygen species, and one of thebest ways to do that is through
our diet and through what you'redescribing and minimizing the
environmental factors.
But I thought that was just aninteresting thing, that it's
literally a one-to-one ratiothat you need one of these good
molecules in your body to removethe bad ones.
(56:53):
And so the more exposure youhave, the more important.
And some people say, oh, Iexercise so much like it doesn't
matter what I eat, you know, Ijust need calories, you know?
Back to our earlier part of ourconversation, and that's
absolutely not true.
The more you work out, theharder you work out, the more
important your diet is, not theless important not the less
(57:22):
important, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
And you mentioned grad school days.
So what exactly were you before?
You were a full-time podcasterand, um, yeah, whatever it is
you you do now.
So you're a physiologist, right, and you worked for the
national institute of something,right?
Speaker 3 (57:34):
yeah.
So I studied physiology,nutritional neurophysiology, in
grad school.
I was looking at lab animals,rats and mice how the diet
influences the brain.
So we're first looking at aminoacids, how amino acid
deficiency is recognized in thebrain and then how the
difference in fat composition inthe diet affects expression of
(57:57):
brain peptides that are relatedto satiety satiation, feeling
full and how that then leads toobesity in those animals versus
staying lean.
And then I graduated back in2007, started at the National
Institutes of Health andtransitioned from a basic
(58:18):
science to more of anadministrative sort of on the
grant side and I was apresidential management fellow
in the federal government at NIHand really transitioned from
basic science to public health.
And I was working.
We helped launch the physicalactivity guidelines, the dietary
guidelines.
We helped launch the physicalactivity guidelines, the dietary
(58:50):
guidelines, and thentransitioned from public health
to health promotion anddeveloping and managing employee
wellness programs for federalgovernment agencies from the
federal law enforcement agencies, department of state, some
leadership training programsthroughout the federal
government.
I led the program at HHS, I ledthe program at NIH and along
(59:13):
the way I've also over the lastbeen doing a lot of performance
fitness coaching aligned with myendurance and endurance, racing
and triathlons, marathons,mountain biking and, yeah,
recently launched a podcast, theMichael Donovan podcast, so I
(59:34):
encourage you to check that out.
I'll just give a quick plug onthat while we're talking about
it.
That really what it is about,because that's what people
always ask.
What is your podcast about,michael?
And it's about really vocationand following your life calling.
(59:54):
It's also about me, and so it'spretty diverse, but I think
that's the one of the threadsthat that really ties a lot of
the guests together at thispoint is like, what is the thing
you can't not do?
What is the thing you must doin your life?
And these are people for decadeswho have been very clear on
(01:00:17):
that and draws together theirwhole life experience and the
multi facets of our humanexperience.
That kind of culminates in thegreat things that they're doing,
and so I would reference peopleto listen to our podcast.
When you were on my podcast aswell, and you know, I think it's
(01:00:37):
just that I'm kind of more of ajack of all trades, a
Renaissance man, than aspecialist, even though I have a
PhD, and as you do as well, andI think that's one of the
reasons that we're friends andcolleagues is that we, you know
we connect around a variety ofdifferent things, not just one
like narrow lane.
So that's that's what mypodcast is about.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Awesome, so it's the Michael Donovan podcast.
And where else can people findyou?
You're on Instagram.
Is that your main platform?
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
I would say that the best way to find me is just my
website,michaeldonovancoachingcom.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Okay, well, thank you very much, michael.
I've learned a lot.
I do want to ask more aboutwhat's causing cancer and things
like that, but I am aware thatwe are at time.
So thank you very much, michael.
Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Thank you, richard, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Welcome back listener .
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
I hope you enjoyed that and, shame to say, I did
obviously um rich reflectionsyeah, so you and I were just
discussing why someone likemichael or why the things
michael does.
I think like ice baths andsaunas, aren't more mainstream.
(01:01:58):
Given that he was working forthe National Institute for
Health.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Precisely.
He's a very credible name, avery credible person, a doctor,
and he is obviously so committednow to making let's call it a
little bit of a shift towardsbiohacking um, towards
biohacking.
I'm just, I suppose I'msurprised the shift isn't more,
(01:02:22):
um, more mainstream and more, uh, rapid, as more people aren't
just coming over quicker to thatway of thinking yeah, well, I
think a lot of people, um, a lotof people just like him.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Yeah, sorry, um, I think a lot of people rely on
their doctors and hospitals andGPs just for, just maybe, an
annual visit to the doctors, ifthat, and they don't think about
health.
They've got other things tothink about.
They've got their jobs andtheir careers and their kids and
things like that and theirhobbies, and health for them is
(01:02:55):
just a.
You know it's an afterthought,and health for them is just a.
You know it's an afterthought,and I don't want to get
conspiratorial about this, butyou've got to look at the
incentives for the big playersin health and because, um,
(01:03:18):
because they're sort of free touse and they've been around for
such a long time, so because ofour capitalistic society, which
I love, I like capitalism I'mnot saying we should find we
should go communist but becauseof the incentives that these
companies are beholden to theirshareholders, they need to make
profits.
They can't really make profitsfrom saunas, whereas they can
make profits from, uh, patentingmolecules and cancer treatments
(01:03:41):
like that.
So they're these big companies.
They don't put their, theirbillions of dollars into
research, into things like icebaths, breath work, saunas and
things like that.
It has to come from individualsand smaller companies and
private parties.
So that's why it's slower,because there's not as much
money to be made from itcompared to cancer treatments
and things like chemotherapy.
(01:04:01):
So yeah, I think it's a matterof economics, but that doesn't
mean it's not happening.
It is happening.
Loads of research is going intoice baths, saunas and things
like that.
But for these things, you know,you need a body of evidence,
need a movement, and thosethings take, take decades really
all right.
Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Well, hopefully, with this episode and more like it,
we can uh help speed up themovement and shed some light on
some pretty cool people.
Yes, mike seems to be yeah,cool guy.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
all right, well, thank you listener, thank
Michael often too, in the past,from when we were recording this
and thank you Andy.
And yes, where do they find us,andy?
Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
lblakecom, um, and on all good and bad podcasting
sites.
We're going to start anewsletter as well, so hopefully
you'll get subscribed to thatand, uh, you can keep up with us
that way.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yes, the newsletter is about to drop, so sign up on
my website.
If you go to contact, you canbe kept up to date with what the
podcast is doing and and muchmore, hopefully.
So, yes, all right then, cheers, listener, until next time.
Bye.
Hello and welcome to another episode of Laughing
Through the Pain, navigatingWellness with me, andrew E Sam,
my co-host, dr Richard L Blake,and today he will be speaking to
Mark Donovan.
I hope he doesn't take too muchoffence.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Not Mark Donovan.
That's the bully from theInbetweeners, michael Donovan,
michael.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
Donovan Donovan, mike Donovan.
Yes, we'll start that again no,I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
I think he'll be.
He probably doesn't know whothe in-betweeners are or the
show is, or who Michael Donovanis.
So sorry, who Mark Donovan is.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
I haven't spoken to him.
The two times you've actuallyspoken to him, I've genuinely
been unavailable and you guyshave wanted to press on anyway,
so I hope he doesn't take toomuch offense the fact I've
missed both of them I.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
I don't think he would take offense to that.
I think he would take events tobeing called mark donovan
though, even though that show istimeless, classic I mean it is,
but yeah, he is nothing likemark donovan.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Thankfully he's very nice, very interesting guy and
um, selfishly, I suppose Ipreferred this episode being
that you hosted him so I've gotto find out more about him.
But uh, yeah, very interestingguy.
I could see why you get on wellum obviously very driven, very
uh.
Mindful of his routine,obviously a super fit guy yes,
(01:20):
very fit.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
And uh, yeah, um, very, yeah, very, very, probably
very high in conscientiousness.
I took the Big Five personalitytest recently.
Have you heard of that one?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Yes, yes, I need to get a job about it.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Okay, well, supposedly the Big Five is well,
not.
Supposedly, a sort ofmeta-analysis of personality
tests was done and they foundthat the Big five was the most
accurate in predicting.
Uh, you know people's, you knowpersonalities, and they look, I
can't remember.
I think they looked atmyers-briggs, another one, and
then the um, uh, star signs, andthey found that star signs.
(01:57):
What do you think they foundwith star signs?
Do you think good, bad?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
not a great predictor of anything.
Speaker 2 (02:04):
I'm gonna go yeah they found zero correlation
between person star sign andtheir actual uh, their actual
personality.
So I'm sure there'll be peoplewho want to move the goal posts
for that one and argue that starsigns are are useful and
accurate.
Um, I do find them accurate.
Sometimes I use the pattern appand that can be ridiculously
(02:25):
accurate, but it's just.
It's just much more than um,much more than just you know 12
personality types.
It goes into far more detailthan that, but I just think you
know the horoscopes you get inthe newspaper.
I think that's what they werelooking at.
They're they're pretty broadbrush and um full of barnum
statements and things like that.
But anyway, back to michael, Ireckon he's very high in
conscientiousness, um, which issupposedly the highest predictor
(02:50):
of success.
People high inconscientiousness, they tend to
follow through, they make plansand they follow through with
them.
So yeah, that's me analyzingmichael, but um, yeah, what do
they find out in this episodeother than he's a conscientious
guy?
Speaker 1 (03:04):
I think that I think discipline is a key theme and,
um, maybe both of you like, interms of just um, let's call it,
yeah, habits, keeping to habits, um kind of yeah, as you say,
following through, I think is akey theme.
In terms of, just like, actionspeaking louder than words, I
would say that's what I tookaway.
Yes, what did you learn?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
most.
Um, what did I learn most?
Um, well, I learned that.
Um, it was a while ago since Irecorded this, so I'm I'm
reaching a little bit.
Um, I learned that michael is agreat podcast guest and I look
forward to many more of hispodcasts because he does a
podcast and you should checkthat one out after you listen to
(03:46):
ours.
So, uh, yeah, um, we talk a lotabout biohacking.
You know he's he's worked forthis sort of the, the national
institute for health in the us.
He worked on on cancer and, um,yeah, he's putting that
biohacking into good use as well.
So, um, yes, all right,listener.
Well, we hope you enjoy thisone.
Anything further to add, andy,before we let the listener?
Speaker 1 (04:09):
loose on on michael too much.
Don't cut me out, do not leaveme out yes, don't enjoy it too
much.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Just enjoy the intro and outro.
I think that's fair, right?
Yeah, okay, cheers, listener,want to be part of our growing
community?
Then follow us on instagram atthe breath geek and at andy esam
for behind the scenes content,updates, snippets and more.
Michael, welcome.
(04:42):
What are your thoughts onsupplements?
Are they necessary or helpful?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Great first question, richard.
I think anytime we talk about,I'll just say first principles,
I like to start with the bigpicture first, and I think when
we talk about supplements, thefirst thing I want to emphasize
is personalization, and eventhough I'm going to, I'll answer
that specifically.
I think, generally, if we zoomout, what works for me, what
(05:16):
supplements I shouldspecifically take, are not
necessarily the ones that youshould take.
Or anyone else that's listeningshould say I, you know I should
take those because that's whatMichael takes.
Anyone else that's listeningshould say I should take those
because that's what Michaeltakes or that's what Richard
takes.
With that said, I think the topones that come to mind that are
foundational are protein.
(05:38):
A lot of people have a hard timeeating enough protein,
especially if they're doing alot of exercise, has high
intensity, or just unable to eatenough.
It's really filling, right.
It's really satiating to eat asteak, right.
We can eat carbs all day, butfat and protein are really
(06:00):
satiating.
So protein is one that it'ssometimes really beneficial.
You can put it in a smoothie.
You know protein powder.
If you're like our friendGeorge, you can just take a shot
of a dry protein powder, youknow, and there's a variety of
protein sources.
A lot of times we think aboutmilk based protein sources and
animal based protein sources,but there's also a lot of vegan
(06:22):
based, especially proteinpowders that are great for
people that eat that way.
The second one that I wouldthrow out is caffeine, and we
don't even really think of thatas a supplement as much because
it's so ubiquitous.
It's, you know, in our in ourcoffee every morning.
But one of the things thatcaffeine specifically does,
especially for enduranceathletes, is decrease the.
(06:46):
It has more of a psychologicaleffect by decreasing the
perceived level of effort andour perception of fatigue.
So, while it does have somebenefits in terms of the
physiological side, it's reallykind of and we've noticed the
cognitive enhancement ofcaffeine as well.
Right, we're more alert, soit's more of the perception of
(07:09):
our intensity of effort.
And then creatine and BCAAs, orbranched chain amino acids, are
the other two that I wouldmention, especially as a fellow
CrossFit athlete or participant.
Creatine is great, there aresome cognitive benefits, but
really, you know it's beenaround popular since the mid
nineties, one of the mostresearched supplements, and
(07:34):
creatine is part of the creatinephosphate metabolic system,
which is short spurts of energyand so for strength and power,
creatine is a great one.
And then for decreasingsoreness after intense workouts
and increased recovery, branchedchain amino acids a lot of
people find are helpful.
And then I'll just mention afew others that I've taken over
(07:56):
the years.
Omega-3, if you're not eating alot of fish and things like
that and getting those, it'sgood to have that balance of
omega-3 and omega-6 in our bodyfor anti-inflammation and joint
health.
Electrolytes in general andthat's not just sodium, but
sodium, potassium, magnesium,these kinds of things.
(08:16):
So making sure, especially forendurance athletes, that when
you're sweating a lot you'rereplenishing electrolytes and
not just water.
And then all of the supplementsthat fall under the immune
system category, like vitamin D,vitamin C, zinc, glutamine.
(08:43):
These kinds of things areessential.
In areas where it gets reallycold and colds are going around
all winter, like Minnesota orColorado, it's good to sometimes
boost your immune system.
But those are things that Iwould take generally just in the
winter, when there's moreviruses and colds going around,
just to boost your immune system.
And then the final thing I'llthrow out is things that affect
(09:04):
the gut, because your gut healthis tied to your overall health,
and so probiotics could be goodas a supplement if you're not
getting that from food,especially fermented foods.
And then glutamine is also goodfor gut health and then when
there's times when you're goingthrough really stressful
(09:25):
experiences, things likeashwagandha and some other kind
of more Eastern supplements canalso, you know, mellow, mellow
you out and kind of suppress theagitation at high stress times.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Okay, Pretty comprehensive there.
So BCAAs, not EAAs is thatright?
Because I've been told, or I'veseen research, that BCAAs are
not that effective and actuallywe want essential amino acids
rather than branched chain aminoacids.
What's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (10:00):
I think it's.
I'm not super up to date on thelatest research on that and I
think, again, it depends whatyou're eating.
I wouldn't try to get all of myamino acids met by a supplement
, right hairs of whichsupplements I should take.
(10:22):
I would actually just look atthe quality of the overall food
that you're eating and try toget more from just whole foods
as opposed to supplements.
I think when the clients thatI've worked with over the years,
when they're like I'm eatingplantains instead of bananas
because they have less sugar,I'm like, if you're concerned
with that, I'm really happy thatyou're.
(10:45):
You know addressing the sugar,but relax because you're fine.
Like there's not that much.
You know we're not talkingabout processed foods and added
sugar and things like that.
So I think to me it's splittinghairs to really even go one
direction or the other in termsof the specificity of a
(11:06):
supplement like that.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
Okay, fair enough.
Yeah, I take EAAs, especiallywhen traveling and especially
when I'm trying to cut, you know, lose a bit of body fat,
because I've not been trainingmuch recently.
So, you know, for beach seasonI've been trying to get into
shape.
Let me show you my ab.
No, I'm not going to show youmy ab.
I've been trying to get into,to shape.
Let me show you my ab?
Speaker 3 (11:26):
No, I'm not going to show you my ab.
I will just say, for thosegoing back to my grad school
days, that there's 20 aminoacids and there are some that
are essential and there's somethat are non-essential.
And essential basically meansthat we can't create, we can't.
They're essential that weconsume them in the diet.
That's what essential aminoacids means.
(11:48):
We can't make them ourselves.
So there are, uh, just overhalf of the amino acids that we
can actually make from the foodthat we're eating, and then
those that that we can't, wehave to get from our diet
because our body doesn't havethe ability to make them we have
to get from our diet becauseour body doesn't have the
ability to make them.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah, yeah, that's right, okay, so, yeah, well, one
thing I should say aboutessential aminos is I take the
key on ones that Ben Greenfieldcalls them his Swiss army knife.
I have no affiliation codes forthis.
I'm not making any money, butNatalia, my wife, hates me
taking them because they'refermented.
I think essential aminos needto be fermented, so they
apparently make my breath smellexceedingly bad.
So, uh, yeah, if you're asingle man and you're on a date,
(12:34):
don't take the essential aminos.
Maybe that's where bcaa iscoming for the, for the, uh, the
single man or woman.
Um, okay, so you also mentioned, um, yeah, fish oil there.
Have you heard about Fatty 15?
Did you meet them at thebiohacking conference?
Fatty 15?
And a separate molecule isSpecialized Pro-Resolving
Mediators.
(12:55):
Have you heard of those as well?
Any thoughts on those?
Well, okay, no thoughts onthose, but apparently I'll give
you my thoughts.
Apparently, this is the newhotness in fatty acids.
This is the trend.
I guess it's sort of refiningfish oil down to this fatty 15
molecule, where there's been alot of research, apparently with
(13:15):
Navy SEALs, some kind ofmilitary people, and it's done
wonders for them, and similarlywith specialized pro-resolving
mediators.
So a lot of people are sort oftipping these supplements to be
the next cool guys in in thebiohacking world and it's funny
that isn't the biohacking world.
Like to be a biohacker, youhave to be, you have to be able
(13:35):
to spot the trends.
It's a bit like, I don't know,being like a fashion designer,
being like what's going to benew.
Are you know?
Is it?
Are we going back to skinnyjeans?
No, we're going to extra baggyjeans.
So it's a little bit like that.
Well, my hot take for thefuture hotness is going to be a
fatty 15 fatty acids.
Speaker 3 (13:51):
I will just on that segue that I think what's funny
about biohacking is we're kindof going.
A lot of times people I have onmy podcast sometimes reference
back to our ancestral selves,our caveman, going back
thousands of years, all the wayback to the beginning, blocking
(14:20):
glasses and things like that.
Like, even 20 years ago, peopleweren't necessarily working.
The majority of people weren'tworking in front of a computer
right In the nineties, you know,late at night, right?
So we didn't need these thingsand so a lot of these things
won't.
There's kind of this contrastbetween, first principles of
going back to, like theancestral age and then things
(14:43):
that are necessary now, in thelast few decades, because our
society has evolved and we'reresponding to new things, and so
, whether it's, you know, moldin the environment,
environmental things or you knowEMFs or blue light, these are
things that are relevant now.
Right, you know a lot of theprinciples just getting sunlight
(15:04):
early in the morning, you knowI mean this is like this novel
thing, but we were doing thisfor tens of thousands of years
by default.
We just, you know, we were upearly, we walked outside and we
got the benefit of things.
And now we have technology,which is great to you know,
mimic, this right, but a lot ofthese, if we go back and that's
(15:26):
why I always take kind of a bigpicture approach, stepping back
we're really simulating whatwe've been doing for millennia
and we're just making it moreefficient or maybe more
effective.
But I think if you don't workon your computer late at night,
maybe you don't need to wearblue light glasses.
(15:48):
And if you're not doing likesuper heavy, intense exercise
and you're mostly walking orjust, you know, moving
throughout the day you'regetting 15,000 steps a day,
you're very active but you'renot doing like super high
intensity exercise, maybe youdon't need the supplements for
muscle recovery and rebuilding.
And you know, and I think wecan go overboard on the
(16:11):
measurement and the tracking andthe expectations of like, what
is this thing going to do versusjust common sense principles of
kind of living in balance.
Speaker 2 (16:22):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
I think some, like you saidearlier, sometimes people get
too obsessed with splittinghairs or majoring in the minors,
when, if we're doing the basics, that really just covers the
main things, the basics being,yeah, getting fresh air, getting
sunlight, getting doingexercise, resistance, training,
those types of things, eatingwell not drinking caffeine right
before bed, those types ofthings eating well, not drinking
(16:44):
caffeine right before bed thosetypes of things are going to do
.
Maybe 95 of your progress isgoing to come from that and
maybe five percent is going tocome from the I don't know the
nad supplement or the, whateverit may be.
Um, oh yeah.
I want to go back toelectrolytes, because this is
another area I'm a little bitconfused about.
I love the electrolytes, I loverelights that's something our
(17:06):
mutual friend, george, put me onto and we just did an episode
with oryx salt, who were at thebiohacking conference last week,
and they do this amazing salt.
But sometimes I feel like themore electrolytes I drink, the
more electrolytes I need.
Is that something you've evercome across before?
Like, should we be drinking somany electrolytes?
Speaker 3 (17:24):
because I'm taking like 10 grams a day at this real
life stuff, sometimes 15 gramswell, I think this goes back to
another kind of first principleof biology and physiology of
homeostasis, right, so our bodywants to maintain a range, a
healthy range, whether it'sblood pressure, it's you's
(17:45):
electrolyte balance the listgoes on and on of things that
are maintained within a range.
And if you drink a gallon ofwater in the next hour, you're
going to be peeing for the nextseveral hours, right, if you
drink half a gallon with someelectrolytes in it, you're going
to retain a lot more of that.
(18:05):
And I think understanding thephysiology of electrolyte
balance and of hydration isreally important.
And for me, my drink to stayhydrated, my homemade hydration
drink includes chia seeds.
Hydration drink includes chiaseeds and includes some
electrolytes, some salt, like alittle dash of lemon, maybe a
(18:33):
little bit of maple syrup orhoney, because that helps in
absorption.
But the chia, if you ever likethe chia pet back in the day, it
kind of expands and any chiadrink expands into like a gel
and so that slows the filtrationthrough the kidney.
And so if you can drink like aliter or Nalgene bottle of water
(18:54):
with chia and a little bit ofsalt, and again, that's my
little homemade hydration drink.
But it's not electrolyte heavy,it's more adjusting the
filtration rate through thekidney, and I know some friends
who drink coffee and they putlemon tea in their coffee.
(19:16):
There's particularly thechocolate.
They like the taste, but italso slows the the filtration
through the kidneys.
So the caffeine that they'redrinking is kind of offset by
the salt and so they stayhydrated.
And so I think it goes beyondfrom a knowledge standpoint,
beyond just you know the amountof electrolytes, and again a big
(19:40):
picture has to be informed byhow much you're sweating Are you
a heavy sweater, are you alighter sweater?
And also the balance of sodiumand potassium.
When we talk about salt orelectrolytes, a lot of times we
just emphasize sodium, andthat's what we can easily put on
our food.
We're not dumping a shaker ofpotassium on our food, but those
(20:04):
are exchanged at the cellularlevel to a three to two ratio,
and so it's essential to haveboth sodium and potassium.
And then some of thesesupplements have magnesium as
well, which is also important.
So those are the major threeelectrolytes that we need to
consider.
And if you're eating a lot ofprocessed foods and just eating
(20:24):
out, in general a lot of food isvery salted or contains salt
for preservation.
So you know the assertion thatwe don't eat enough salt.
I think it really depends, caseby case, on you know what your
diet's like and if you'repreparing food, you're cooking
food at home and you're, youknow, paying attention to what
you're eating out, you may notbe getting enough salt, but the
(20:47):
majority of the population isgetting probably more salt than
they, than they realize yes,that drink sounds delicious.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Um, are you bottling and selling that?
because, yeah, I want some,although not in an algin bottle
though, because that's plasticand yeah more and more I'm
hearing the dangers of plasticand more and more it's getting
linked to cancer and heartdisease.
I saw an article yesterdayabout doctors thinking plastics
are causing this huge spike incancers in young people.
(21:18):
So I really wanted some plasticexpert to come on here and tell
me what to do about it, apartfrom just avoiding it.
Some plastic expert to come onhere and tell me what to do
about it, or apart from justavoiding it.
And um, yeah, that I used to dothe element in the coffee, the
chocolate one, but since meetingauric salt and samantha, um,
I've switched to.
They don't do a electrolyte, uh, chocolate one, but I think
(21:39):
they may be doing one soon.
But salt of the earth is whatI've found since then.
I don't know if you've heard ofthat, but it's, it's like a
natural version of the element.
So it comes with actual rawcacao powder and himalayan salt.
So it's it's not just likesodium chloride, it's, it's
mineralized salt and I put thatin my coffee and it's pretty
good actually.
And, yes, do you want to addanything there?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
no, no, okay, good all right.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
So optimizing for exercise performance, so that
you know you.
Do you want to add anythingthere?
No, I'm good.
No, okay, good, all right.
So optimizing for exerciseperformance.
So you know, you said earlierabout supplements and I totally
agree that what the supplementyou need is going to be
different to what I need, andoften I was just in theater with
my wife's family and havingconversations with her cousins
and things.
They're like what supplementshould I take?
(22:24):
Or you know, so many people askme and I'm like, well, I don't
know, like what's gonna be abetter use of your time and
money than just going.
Oh well, I listened to a podcastand they said everyone should
take b12.
Um, well, are you deficient inb12?
Do you have too much b12?
Because I have had too much b12.
I got some injections, iv, andI got too much b12.
(22:45):
And then I got like restlessleg syndrome.
I was like what was going on?
And then someone was like, ohyeah, your b12 way out of range
and your blood.
So you need to be careful.
So that's why I say to peopleget a blood test, like a blood
test.
Maybe it costs like especiallyin spain, much, much cheaper.
You know, a few hundred dollars.
That's probably the same priceas you know, three bottles of of
supplements that you may justbe putting to waste.
(23:06):
So I think testing, you know,once a year is a really good use
of your money and then you caninvest in the products you need.
But on that, the generalpopulation need different food
nutrition supplements to highperforming athletes.
So what's your take onoptimizing for exercise
(23:29):
performance regarding nutritionsupplements?
Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think it depends on the type of exercise.
So if we're talking aboutendurance athletes versus more
strength-based athletes orhybrid athletes, there's the
aspect of what's sustainable.
And when we're talking about atraining program, if you're
training for a race, that's ayear out, keto is great for a
(23:59):
lot of people.
It's not sustainable for themajority, right?
So there's kind of what'soptimal versus sustainable.
And that's one of theattractive things about
supplements is it's easy to take, unscrew the cap and just take
a pill versus having thediscipline day in and day out
(24:20):
for months on end to eat acertain way or exclude something
.
Right.
And I think, again, broadstrokes, excluding any
macronutrient category is achallenge, whether you're trying
to, you know eat, you know zerocarbs.
I think you know when the paleodiet came out, which is again
(24:41):
like 20 years ago, they had afollow-up that the paleo diet
was similar to keto and you know, and emphasizing meats and
minimizing carbs.
And they came out with a sequelbook Paleo Diet for Athletes
that included carbohydrates,which emphasizes, over a certain
duration, the necessary, Iwould say, inclusion of
(25:05):
carbohydrate sources.
And that doesn't need to be, asso many triathletes and Ironman
athletes and mountain bikersand I'm not just singling out
triathletes, but use, you know,super highly processed they
couldn't be more highlyprocessed.
You know gels and and goos andbites and you know those kinds
of things.
That is is truly just pureglucose in its most processed
(25:30):
form.
And when you look I alwaysjudge an exercise program or
protocol or whatever by what theathletes look like.
I think that's a pretty goodmetric.
And when you look at especiallythose that have done it for a
year or more, and when you lookat CrossFitters versus Orange
(25:51):
Theory versus bar classes orPilates or whatever yoga, I
think there's whatever yourpreference for body type and
what you consider fit, I thinkfitness for me is defined as
being able to do a broad arrayof things and and there's a high
(26:17):
intensity element to that Imean you can walk every day and
be very healthy.
You can do, you know, pilatesand yoga every day and and
you'll be a specific type of fit, but you're not going to set
any records on a half marathonor a 10K or something if you're
not running right.
So I've gone on a little bit ofa tangent.
(26:38):
But to bring it back, I thinksupplements and nutrition need
to specifically support the typeof exercise you're doing.
And if you're doing musclebuilding, or I should say
strength work that is breakingdown muscles, you need to supply
it with the raw materials,which is more protein, more
amino acids, to rebuild.
(27:00):
And I think it's an importantprinciple to remember that you
build muscle during recovery,not while you're actually
working out.
Right, you're breaking thosemuscles down and you need to
give it the raw materials tobuild back.
And if you're doing more longendurance exercise like again,
(27:21):
cycling, running, triathlon, youknow things over an hour, I
would say, is probably the sortof threshold there you probably
need more carbohydrates and canyou do it on zero carbs?
Maybe, but that's a very smallportion of the population that's
(27:41):
going to be able to sustainthat level of overtraining if
you're not supplying your bodywith what it needs.
Because as soon as you increasethe intensity which could be
just going up a hill you switchfrom more aerobic to anaerobic
(28:03):
and glycolytic and you're goingto be burning carbohydrates,
right.
So you're, you know, as we sithere talking, we're in the fat
burning zone.
You know, it's not just thatlittle zone that's on the cardio
machines, right, it's anythingbelow that threshold.
We're mostly burning fat.
And then, when we go above thatthreshold we begin to burn
(28:24):
carbohydrates and you know ifyou are going, the longer you're
going, the more carbohydratesyour body needs and we can only
store so many carbohydrates inour muscle glycogen and liver
glycogen.
So when that's depleted you'regoing to crash if you don't have
a carbohydrate source tocontinue to supply the muscles
(28:45):
what they need.
You know exogenously throughwhat you're eating.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
Yeah, and I think sometimes people get quite
puritanical about diet People.
You know exogenously throughthrough what you're eating.
Yeah, and I think sometimespeople get quite puritanical
about diet people.
You know the absence ofreligion people now believe in
diets.
You know, I am a vegan, I am acarnivore, like I am a Christian
or a Muslim these days, and Ithink that's not ideal for some
people.
And I follow this Instagramnutritionist and she's sort of
(29:14):
like a sports specificnutritionist and she will say
that you know, I feed myathletes sometimes like what is
considered junk food, you know,like children's cereal and
sweets like that beforecompetition.
Because these professionalathletes are training many hours
a day and their gut just can'tprocess 5,000 calories of sweet
(29:35):
potato and steak and things likethat.
They just can't get theircalories in.
So they need some ultraprocessed foods.
And you know, you look at thesepeople they're not.
You know they got, you know,single digit body fat and
they're functioning at an elitelevel.
And, yeah, maybe people wouldsay, well, what about their long
(29:55):
term health?
You know, what about the seedoils?
What about the inflammationthat's being caused by that?
Maybe that could be a problem,but I think the sugar in elite
athletes is potentially OK.
And our mutual friend George.
You know he hammers me becauseI eat ice cream.
I mean, I profess to be abiohacker and, you know, have
some nutrition background and Ilike ice cream okay.
(30:19):
But also sometimes when I'm,you know, going through a really
big phase of training and I'mtrying to put on weight, I do
this sort of like reverse dietwhere I'm trying to I add 100
calories per week until I canramp my metabolism up to like 4
000 calories.
It's you can't do that.
I can't do that on steak andbroccoli and brown rice.
(30:42):
I do it on partly ice cream andI think those I you know
there's so many good ice creamsout there these days.
They're just, like you know,raw milk, cream, egg yolk and
honey and I think that's fine.
Um, so there, get off my back,george and uh, this is a public
call out.
Speaker 3 (31:00):
Please support me in my fight for ice cream everyone
I, I will, I will say, uh,before we move on that I, I
think one of the things thatgets overlooked, especially in
endurance training, is your bodydoes adapt.
We think when you're training,that the body's adapting to the
(31:22):
stimulus of the training, butyour body's also adapting
metabolically to what you'regiving it for fuel Right, to
what you're giving it for fuelright.
And so if you think of I justthought of this if you're
thinking of like an analogy of afire, right, it's not just the
flame, which would be theburning of the fuel, right, but
(31:47):
it's the quality of the logsthat you're building that fire.
And if you give your body thegels and the goos and the blocks
and those kinds of things alongthe way, you're training your
body.
Especially if you're doing thisfor months leading up to a race
, you're training your body toexpect and to preferentially
(32:07):
burn carbohydrates.
And if, during that time you'redoing it either fasted, or
you're burning or you're eating,you're consuming a more
balanced macronutrientcomposition, you're training
your body, your metabolism, evenyour digestive system, right
During that time to burn that.
(32:28):
And so we talk about, liketraining the way you race, and I
think that extends to nutritionas well, because you're
actually in training yourmetabolism along the way, and
it's not something wenecessarily emphasize or talk
about a lot when we talk abouttraining yeah, so you are
(32:49):
apparently an excellentcrossfitter.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
That's what, again, our friend George told me.
One of the first things he saidyou know, michael used to do
CrossFit.
He's way fitter than you, whichwas nice, but you do Ironman as
well.
So that's right, you do Ironmanand triathlon.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
I've done.
I used to race a lot of halfIronman.
I've never done a full Ironman,but the half distance was my
sweet spot.
Speaker 2 (33:12):
Okay, nice.
So how do you approachnutrition for Ironman versus
CrossFit?
Speaker 3 (33:18):
Yeah, again, I think I'll just say again, I emphasize
that I judge an activity bywhat the individuals look like.
And when I see, you know, whenyou line up at a race at the
amateur level, not at theprofessional level, because all
of them, as you said, havesingle digit body fat but you
see a lot of people who aretraining dozens of hours a week,
(33:43):
right, or, you know, a dozenhours a week, multi-sport,
multidisciplinary, and theydon't look fit, they don't look
in shape, you know, and a lot ofthat, I think, is due to what
they're eating while they'retraining.
And then also in recovery theysay look, I was out biking for
(34:03):
three hours.
You know I deserve to eat this.
You know I need to, I needthese calories and I think, in
my experience, even leading up,in the days leading up to a race
, I don't carb load, I just eatmore of what I generally eat.
Just, I just increase, as youwere saying, I just add, you
(34:23):
know, every day, a few hundredmore calories of what I'm eating
.
Already, you know, and it'sgenerally the majority of my
carbohydrates are justvegetables, fruits and
vegetables.
I don't really eat rice orpasta or any of that.
And but again, that's just mypersonal approach.
Some people, the day, you know,the days leading up to a race,
(34:48):
they thrive on that and probablyfrom trial and error, and you
know what you can digest,there's a lot.
I mean, that's a reallyimportant part of it, right?
But before we talk aboutmetabolism and you know, burning
the fuel, if you can't evendigest things and you know, go
into the race, you know you'renot going to be faster if you're
, you know, stopping at theport-a-potties all the time
(35:09):
along the race.
So there's a lot of componentsto what you eat.
But I think in general, reallythe only major tweak that I make
between the two activities is alittle more protein when I'm
doing strength building activityand again I just kind of
recognize I'm burning morecarbohydrate when I'm doing
(35:30):
endurance.
So I need a little morecarbohydrate and I'm burning a
little more.
Or I need a little more proteinand even fat when I'm doing
CrossFit and strength training,because I'm breaking down the
muscles and I need and I, you,just I'm really intuitive with I
don't measure or track what I'meating.
(35:51):
I just kind of know, afterdecades of exercising and
working out and racing, what mybody needs and you know I notice
, if I'm in a in a workoutsubsequent to some intense
workouts and I know where mybaseline should be, and if I'm
not there, I'm under recoveredAnother way of saying over
(36:11):
training and you know.
But I don't think I need toadjust my training as much as
adjust my nutrition to supportmy training.
Speaker 2 (36:20):
Okay, and you're doing a lot of mountain biking.
I was at your house and you'rea pretty minimalist guy, but
apart from the fact that youhave how many?
14 bikes?
Speaker 3 (36:33):
minimalist guy.
Apart from the fact you havehow many 14 bikes?
12, I think at this point, 12,okay, um, so you do that's for
the whole family, though that'sfor the whole family, not just
all mine, okay well, you don'thave 12 children, so, yeah, just
the one at the moment.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
So I think it's not.
Yeah, it's still a lot of bikes, but yeah, mountain biking,
apparently, that's, yes, that'syour thing now.
So what makes mountain bikingso challenging compared to other
sports?
Speaker 3 (36:56):
yeah, I, I love mountain biking because when we
talk about being in the zone orbeing in flow, the technical
nature to mountain biking forcesyou to be present, because if
you're not you can miss the rockright in front of you and go
over the handlebars.
And so I think there's thephysical component in terms of
(37:20):
strength and endurance that Ilove.
There's a mental component interms of being present, and then
(37:47):
there's the skill aspect of it.
And then there's the skillaspect of it and I am a little
more like you might ask what youknow how fast do you run?
What's your average pace?
And that comes into play withmountain biking as well.
Kind of look on Strava and see,you know they did that loop and
(38:13):
in that time you're kind ofevenly matched.
But there's also that technicalskill element to mountain
biking that you know whetherit's descending quickly or
climbing quickly, or you knowriding smooth, fast trail or
smooth, smooth trails, reallyfast or very technical trails,
that you have to go more slowly.
I love the diversity of it andyou know.
I'm here in Colorado now, andit's very different from the
East Coast riding and the WestCoast riding where you are in
(38:35):
California.
I went to grad school out there, and so the diversity of
terrain and elevation and thingslike that, all these things are
reasons I love mountain biking.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Nice.
Yeah, I don't do a lot of it,but maybe I should.
But you, you stopped crossfit.
Why did you stop crossfit?
Speaker 3 (38:55):
I started doing crossfit in 2007.
I was at uc davis and I went fora hike with a friend of mine in
yosemite and he turned me on toit.
You know, not far from whereCrossFit was born, in Santa Cruz
area in California, and therewere probably less than 50 boxes
(39:17):
in the country around the world.
There were zero anywhereoutside of the US and I just
started doing the workouts on myown.
I think I actually was an earlyadopter of CrossFit because it
just felt really natural andcomfortable, because when I was
in high school I was a soccerplayer but my next door neighbor
(39:38):
was a football coach for thehigh school team and so he got
me in the weight room and I wasdoing cleans and box jumps and
pushing the sled and doing lotsof things that CrossFit
incorporated.
And so, being an early adopter,I enjoyed, you know, learning
skills like rope climbs andmuscle ups and things that I
(40:04):
would not have even been on myradar outside of CrossFit and it
says play a variety of sportsessentially or used to Used to
(40:25):
say that yeah, well, it's thedifference between CrossFit as
an exercise modality andCrossFit as a sport.
And if you want to excel in anysport we're in the Olympic
season right now they're notbalanced athletes, right,
they're specialists, and whenyou specialize in something, by
(40:48):
necessity you have to give upthe things that are not directly
applicable to that sport, right?
And I'm in a time, I think,especially with a toddler in my
life, that I really want to playand I want to try new things
and I want to expose him to newthings.
And my interpretation ofCrossFit over the years for me,
(41:13):
my personal interpretation of it, was more strength-based, and
so I still, as a mountain biker,I think snatches are one of the
best movements if done underguidance of a coach, and I don't
think every person should justgo out there and learn how to
snatch, but I think just that,even if you just spend time in
(41:35):
the starting position and doingsnatch pulls and things like
that, the shoulder retracted andhaving a good position in that
balances out being at a desktyping with our shoulders
rounded or biking with ourshoulders rounded, and so I
always feel so much more openand have better posture after
(41:57):
doing, you know, snatches, andso I think that I still do.
I still have a garage gym hereand I I do some movements, but
the egocentric competitionelement of so many crossfit
boxes just doesn't serve me atthis time in my life.
Speaker 2 (42:14):
Fair enough, all right, I'm gonna do some quick
fire questions now, like you didfor me when I was on your
podcast.
So what are your thoughts onsauna?
Speaker 3 (42:27):
I prefer contrast therapies to doing heat and cold
, and that's not always possible, but I think that is the ideal
because there are some benefitsto just the heat and, from a
cardiovascular standpoint and amuscular and just to relax,
(42:50):
there are benefits to just thecold.
But I think the biggest bangfor the buck is to do both, and
here in Denver I just foundthere's a chain that's opening a
location that has both and youcan get an unlimited membership
or you can get several days, afew days a week or I think
starting at like eight times amonth, and that's a great option
(43:13):
.
It's cool that those businessesexist because not everybody has
the space or the money orwhatever to have a sauna and a
cold plunge in their house.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
But I think there there is some benefit to each,
but I think the biggest benefitis having that contrast yeah, I
looked into franchising a one ofthose type of things with sauna
, cold plunge, jacuzzi, um pmftype things, which what?
Do you know what the name ofthe company is?
Speaker 3 (43:43):
sweat house.
Okay, yeah, yeah, I have a callwith them.
Speaker 2 (43:46):
Yeah, they look cool.
Yeah, um, okay, so you toucheda little bit on sauna and adding
the contrast, so the nextquestion is cold plunges so I'm
gonna, I'm take a big picture onthat.
Speaker 3 (44:00):
I think we can add body work like massage, red
light, hyperbaric oxygen therapyand all these sorts of things.
Are you doing it as a one-offor are you doing it as a regular
thing or are you doing it as aregular thing?
And I think I would even add,when we talk about cold plunge,
(44:27):
add skydiving.
There's a difference in yourresponse when you do it once a
month, once a year, once aquarter, once a week, versus
every day and people you knowWim Hof popularized, like the
breathing and the cold exposureand these kinds of things.
(44:48):
And I think there's coldexposure stimulates the release
of endorphins.
Cold exposure stimulates therelease of endorphins and so
you're going to feel more, youknow, a boost in your mood and
like mental clarity and thingslike that, and you can kind of
get addicted to that.
But is that the benefit you'regoing for?
(45:09):
Is it the reduced inflammationor the improved recovery and
these kinds of things?
Right?
And so, as a one-off, I'm notsure any of these things are
really that beneficial, butdoing them regularly into any of
the things that we've alreadymentioned or you're about to ask
me about, I think I would saytry it for two weeks every day,
(45:35):
whether it's breathing, whetherit's yoga, meditation, cold
plunge, sauna, any of thesethings.
It's just not really going tobe that beneficial as a one-off
right.
Massage, acupuncture,chiropractic, none of these
(45:56):
things are going to be superbeneficial in just acutely, but
chronically, because a lot ofthe things we face are chronic
right.
So so doing something acutelyto combat a chronic stress or
chronic, you know, limitation isnot, it just doesn't match.
(46:18):
So I think if you're dealingwith something acutely, you
could do something acute, right.
If you have a pain or something, then or you're you had a very
intense workout and generallyyou don't work out very
intensely.
Cold might be good or saunamight be good, right, but it's
even better if you can do itchronically okay, well, you've
(46:41):
ruined the quickfire roundsbecause you've covered all my
next questions.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
Okay, well, fine, um, something you haven't covered.
But I'm noticing that you arewearing a wire to your
headphones and I think thinkthose are Bluetooth headphones,
so I'm guessing you doing thatfor EMF or non-native
electromagnetic frequencyreasons, mitigation reasons.
So what's your take onnon-native EMFs?
Speaker 3 (47:10):
Yeah, that was one of my major takeaways from the
biohacking conference that weattended this year when I
attended last year conferencethat we attended this year when
I attended last year.
You can get a device that kindof looks like a stud finder that
measures EMFs.
And I remember 15 years agowhen I was working in the
National Cancer Institute,specifically in their public
(47:32):
affairs division, there was someconcern around cell phones and
the electromagnetic waves, thatthey're having a cell phone and
I think it's really the jury isstill out.
I think the biohackingcommunity really emphasizes EMFs
(47:54):
and the scientific publichealth community really
downplays the long term effectsof EMFs and the scientific
public health community reallydownplays the long-term effects
of EMFs and I think the truth issomewhere in between.
And I think I mentioned earliermold.
And I think, as much as we cancontrol whether it's with our
(48:15):
diet, minimizing pesticidescontrol whether it's with our
diet, minimizing pesticides,eating organic food, if it's
more nutritious, eating localfood, maximizing the good stuff
and minimizing the bad stuff,and that's very oversimplified.
But if there's a risk, ifthere's any concern, why not
(48:35):
minimize it?
Because it's pretty easy to doright, using wire versus
Bluetooth, it's a simple thingto do.
So why not do the simple thingsand then really dive into the
things that are more complicatedif it really adds an additional
(48:56):
benefit?
But again, from a nutritionstandpoint, if you're not eating
healthy, let's not worry aboutsupplements.
If you're in an environmentwhere there's lots of mold
there's lots of, you live underpower lines and things like that
let's counteract thoseenvironmental hazards.
(49:19):
And one of the other things I'lljust this is a little bit of a
tangent, but when I was at theNational Cancer Institute, one
of the other hot things incancer at the time was charred
meat and the heterocyclic aminesthat were produced when you
char meat.
And most people that I knowprefer their steak medium rare.
(49:43):
But there is still a segment ofthe population that really
likes very cooked things andburnt ends and things like that,
and there is actually a verystrong correlation between lots
of consumption of charred meatsand processed meats and things
like that and a variety ofcancers, not just gi cancers.
(50:06):
So you know how we do somethingI think is as important as what
we do yes, those uh.
Speaker 2 (50:16):
Is that the advanced glycation end products?
Is that the same thing as whatwas the word used?
Helio, something?
Speaker 3 (50:24):
Yeah, heterocyclic amines is the biochemical or
chemical term for what'sproduced and is the carcinogen
EMF.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yes, my take on it is I think it is a stressor and
it's a little bit like thatbathtub analogy.
You know, once we have, youknow we can have the bathtub
that we fill up with stress,physiological stress like EMF
and mold and pesticides, andthen there's a sort of tipping
point or an overflow point, andthen once we people get chronic
(50:55):
illnesses and then they can'ttolerate EMFs, but I think.
But I think yeah, again, it'snot black and white.
Yes, those power lines aregoing to be much worse for you
than a bit of dirty electricityfrom some old wiring in the
house.
And I've really geeked out onthe, the emf stuff and spent a
lot of money on it and, to behonest, I haven't noticed much
(51:16):
difference.
You know, I used to sleep underan EMF canopy.
I have the Leela quantumnecklace and you know other
things on my phone and my houseis hardwired.
But I can't say it's made anynoticeable difference to me as
well with those sort of quantumdevices like the Somavedic.
I'm sure that I'm not sure Ithink they work for some people,
(51:37):
but I was a part of their studywhere they they gave me a free
one for a few months and trackedmy HRV.
Absolutely no difference for me.
But I think other people didand did have some benefit and of
course there's always sort ofresponders and non-responders to
things.
But yeah, I don't think it'sblack and white.
I know Peter Atiyah says thathe thinks it's majoring in the
minors and it's not a big dealfor most people and maybe it's
(51:58):
not.
Maybe it's not a big deal formost people.
Maybe it's just a big deal forpeople who are sensitive or who
have reached that tipping pointor overflow of their bathtub.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
We just moved into a new house and my partner bought
a table lamps for side tablelamps for our bedroom and they
have the plugs in the, the lampsto things, and you know these
are typical in a lot of hotelsright, have side table lamps
that you can plug into and,again, just doing the simple
thing, like if there's anon-zero chance, right
(52:32):
Probability that these have someeffect, just plug your phone in
across the room, right, Insteadof having it right next to your
head charging all night.
You know, because theaccumulation, especially if you
are someone that may be highlysensitive to these things, night
after night, the accumulation,I mean eight hours a night for
(52:54):
365 days, that's a lot ofaccumulation If there is a risk
that can easily be minimized byjust plugging your phone in
across the room, because it'sreally the proximity to these
things.
And, again, if you have thisdevice, it's a fascinating thing
, it's maybe 100, 150 bucks.
And if you put it right next toyour TV, you know, right next
(53:21):
to your TV it is off the, youknow it is pinned all the way
and you can actually put it toyour skin and kind of see what
you've kind of retained.
So that could be an interestingexperiment.
Plug it, plug the phone in nextto your bed and see if you have
some residual effects from thatphone charging next to you
versus when it's across the roomyes, I have one of those.
Speaker 2 (53:43):
They've meters as well and, yeah, I used to travel
with it and things.
But I think that I guess it isone of those things that you're
just not going to see theeffects day to day.
It's going to be like you'regoing to notice this in 10, 20
years when, I don't know, maybeyou've got cancer, maybe you've
got other other diseases, butsuppose I think the mechanisms
(54:04):
are related to free activeoxygen species and free radicals
.
It's increasing the freeradicals, reducing your, your
antioxidants as well, and thenalso it's creating an influx of
calcium into the voltage gatedcalcium channel.
So these things are happeningat a cellular level.
Supposedly it's also sort ofdepleting nad and magnesium when
we're exposed to all these emfs, and yet maybe it's aging us
(54:28):
very slightly quicker and maybeas well with children.
You know, supposedly children'sskulls are five times more
permeable than an adult andperhaps this explains why we
have, you know, this anxiousgeneration who are, you know, so
so incredibly fragile.
If you read the work of, ofjonathan height, which I, yeah,
I want to read his new book, theanxious generation.
Maybe it's not, it is partlysocial media and being coddled
(54:53):
and things like that, but maybeit's just because they're the
first generation of children tobe exposed to so much emf.
Speaker 3 (54:58):
Who knows hypothesis there that, yeah, well, maybe
we'll someone will work out inthe future yeah, I'm going to
throw out a fun fact from mygrad school days that sticks
with me two decades later.
I took a class on antioxidants,a reactive oxygen species,
oxidative stress and these kindsof things.
And when we talk about eating,one of the benefits of eating a
(55:24):
variety of fruits and vegetablesand things that are high in
antioxidants colorful foodsgenerally from a public health
standpoint, is that it's aone-to-one ratio of antioxidant
to reactive oxygen species, asyou said, ros, that you need one
(55:47):
antioxidant to pair with thatto remove it from the body.
So when we talk about thingsthat produce reactive oxygen
species you just mentioned somethat are kind of environmental
but also exercise the byproductof metabolism Digestion produces
.
You know it's kind of ironicwe're eating antioxidants but
(56:09):
we're also producing throughthat metabolism of those
reactive oxygen species, and soall of these are internal
stressors that can causemicro-inflammation if they're
bouncing around, and so wereally want to reduce
inflammation and theaccumulation of these radical
(56:31):
oxygen species, and one of thebest ways to do that is through
our diet and through what you'redescribing and minimizing the
environmental factors.
But I thought that was just aninteresting thing, that it's
literally a one-to-one ratiothat you need one of these good
molecules in your body to removethe bad ones.
(56:53):
And so the more exposure youhave, the more important.
And some people say, oh, Iexercise so much like it doesn't
matter what I eat, you know, Ijust need calories, you know?
Back to our earlier part of ourconversation, and that's
absolutely not true.
The more you work out, theharder you work out, the more
important your diet is, not theless important not the less
(57:22):
important, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (57:22):
And you mentioned grad school days.
So what exactly were you before?
You were a full-time podcasterand, um, yeah, whatever it is
you you do now.
So you're a physiologist, right, and you worked for the
national institute of something,right?
Speaker 3 (57:34):
yeah.
So I studied physiology,nutritional neurophysiology, in
grad school.
I was looking at lab animals,rats and mice how the diet
influences the brain.
So we're first looking at aminoacids, how amino acid
deficiency is recognized in thebrain and then how the
difference in fat composition inthe diet affects expression of
(57:57):
brain peptides that are relatedto satiety satiation, feeling
full and how that then leads toobesity in those animals versus
staying lean.
And then I graduated back in2007, started at the National
Institutes of Health andtransitioned from a basic
(58:18):
science to more of anadministrative sort of on the
grant side and I was apresidential management fellow
in the federal government at NIHand really transitioned from
basic science to public health.
And I was working.
We helped launch the physicalactivity guidelines, the dietary
guidelines.
We helped launch the physicalactivity guidelines, the dietary
(58:50):
guidelines, and thentransitioned from public health
to health promotion anddeveloping and managing employee
wellness programs for federalgovernment agencies from the
federal law enforcement agencies, department of state, some
leadership training programsthroughout the federal
government.
I led the program at HHS, I ledthe program at NIH and along
(59:13):
the way I've also over the lastbeen doing a lot of performance
fitness coaching aligned with myendurance and endurance, racing
and triathlons, marathons,mountain biking and, yeah,
recently launched a podcast, theMichael Donovan podcast, so I
(59:34):
encourage you to check that out.
I'll just give a quick plug onthat while we're talking about
it.
That really what it is about,because that's what people
always ask.
What is your podcast about,michael?
And it's about really vocationand following your life calling.
(59:54):
It's also about me, and so it'spretty diverse, but I think
that's the one of the threadsthat that really ties a lot of
the guests together at thispoint is like, what is the thing
you can't not do?
What is the thing you must doin your life?
And these are people for decadeswho have been very clear on
(01:00:17):
that and draws together theirwhole life experience and the
multi facets of our humanexperience.
That kind of culminates in thegreat things that they're doing,
and so I would reference peopleto listen to our podcast.
When you were on my podcast aswell, and you know, I think it's
(01:00:37):
just that I'm kind of more of ajack of all trades, a
Renaissance man, than aspecialist, even though I have a
PhD, and as you do as well, andI think that's one of the
reasons that we're friends andcolleagues is that we, you know
we connect around a variety ofdifferent things, not just one
like narrow lane.
So that's that's what mypodcast is about.
Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
Awesome, so it's the Michael Donovan podcast.
And where else can people findyou?
You're on Instagram.
Is that your main platform?
Speaker 3 (01:01:10):
I would say that the best way to find me is just my
website,michaeldonovancoachingcom.
Speaker 2 (01:01:15):
Okay, well, thank you very much, michael.
I've learned a lot.
I do want to ask more aboutwhat's causing cancer and things
like that, but I am aware thatwe are at time.
So thank you very much, michael.
Speaker 3 (01:01:28):
Thank you, richard, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Welcome back listener .
Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
I hope you enjoyed that and, shame to say, I did
obviously um rich reflectionsyeah, so you and I were just
discussing why someone likemichael or why the things
michael does.
I think like ice baths andsaunas, aren't more mainstream.
(01:01:58):
Given that he was working forthe National Institute for
Health.
Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
Precisely.
He's a very credible name, avery credible person, a doctor,
and he is obviously so committednow to making let's call it a
little bit of a shift towardsbiohacking um, towards
biohacking.
I'm just, I suppose I'msurprised the shift isn't more,
(01:02:22):
um, more mainstream and more, uh, rapid, as more people aren't
just coming over quicker to thatway of thinking yeah, well, I
think a lot of people, um, a lotof people just like him.
Speaker 2 (01:02:34):
Yeah, sorry, um, I think a lot of people rely on
their doctors and hospitals andGPs just for, just maybe, an
annual visit to the doctors, ifthat, and they don't think about
health.
They've got other things tothink about.
They've got their jobs andtheir careers and their kids and
things like that and theirhobbies, and health for them is
(01:02:55):
just a.
You know it's an afterthought,and health for them is just a.
You know it's an afterthought,and I don't want to get
conspiratorial about this, butyou've got to look at the
incentives for the big playersin health and because, um,
(01:03:18):
because they're sort of free touse and they've been around for
such a long time, so because ofour capitalistic society, which
I love, I like capitalism I'mnot saying we should find we
should go communist but becauseof the incentives that these
companies are beholden to theirshareholders, they need to make
profits.
They can't really make profitsfrom saunas, whereas they can
make profits from, uh, patentingmolecules and cancer treatments
(01:03:41):
like that.
So they're these big companies.
They don't put their, theirbillions of dollars into
research, into things like icebaths, breath work, saunas and
things like that.
It has to come from individualsand smaller companies and
private parties.
So that's why it's slower,because there's not as much
money to be made from itcompared to cancer treatments
and things like chemotherapy.
(01:04:01):
So yeah, I think it's a matterof economics, but that doesn't
mean it's not happening.
It is happening.
Loads of research is going intoice baths, saunas and things
like that.
But for these things, you know,you need a body of evidence,
need a movement, and thosethings take, take decades really
all right.
Speaker 1 (01:04:21):
Well, hopefully, with this episode and more like it,
we can uh help speed up themovement and shed some light on
some pretty cool people.
Yes, mike seems to be yeah,cool guy.
Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
all right, well, thank you listener, thank
Michael often too, in the past,from when we were recording this
and thank you Andy.
And yes, where do they find us,andy?
Speaker 1 (01:05:01):
lblakecom, um, and on all good and bad podcasting
sites.
We're going to start anewsletter as well, so hopefully
you'll get subscribed to thatand, uh, you can keep up with us
that way.
Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Yes, the newsletter is about to drop, so sign up on
my website.
If you go to contact, you canbe kept up to date with what the
podcast is doing and and muchmore, hopefully.
So, yes, all right then, cheers, listener, until next time.
Bye.
Popular Podcasts
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!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.