May 16, 2024 • 45 mins
Step into the world of quadrobics and find out why this ancient form of movement is making a modern-day comeback as your new fitness best friend. As I take you through the paces of these dynamic crawling patterns, you'll learn about the staggering benefits they bring to joint mobility and body stabilization. But let's keep it real: these exercises come with expectations that need tempering—after all, not everyone can attain the advertised body types. And that's just the tip of the iceberg; we also unravel the complex ties between diet choices, our health, and the environment. Ever wondered if carbs are truly the villains they're made out to be? Prepare to have those myths dismantled as we discuss their critical role in muscle recovery and growth.
From climbing trees to rolling in the grass, who knew child's play could be the workout you didn't know you needed? Recollecting playful moments at the park, we explore how these energetic activities can seamlessly integrate into a robust fitness regime. Transitioning from physical to nutritional well-being, I open up about my personal evolution from a plant-based diet back to embracing meat, and the surprising performance outcomes that followed. With meat consumption under the microscope, we'll navigate through the environmental and health impacts, finding that sometimes, moderation truly is key. But it's not a one-diet-fits-all world out there; as a trainer, I've noticed the starkly different needs of each client, and some of them share their stories of dietary adjustments that have led to significant health improvements.
Finally, we champion the misunderstood carbohydrate, shining a light on how these nutrients are not only beneficial but essential for anyone looking to build muscle or enhance their performance. I'll recount how my own physique underwent a transformation by welcoming more carbs onto my plate, alongside the success story of Taylor, a client whose bodybuilding triumph is a testament to this approach. And for those who like to push the envelope, we take a look at the extreme potato diet, which may not be for everyone but certainly offers food for thought. As we wrap up, I hope you're feeling inspired to reexamine your own nutritional balance and make informed choices that support both your body and your goals.
Producer: Thor Benander
Editor: Luke Morey
Intro Theme: Ajax Benander
Intro: Timothy Durant
For more, visit Simon at The Antagonist
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
Here's your host, simon DeVere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle
, the place we study the history, science and philosophy behind
everything in health and fitness.
(00:25):
Today, I am Simon DeVere, andthere's nothing new except all
that has been forgotten.
All right, we're going to runthrough a few stories that I saw
out there within the last week.
Today, I want to examine andevaluate the new quadrobics
(00:45):
trend and term.
I want to explore what theright approach to eating meat is
in an area where we obviouslyhave carnivores, and vegans was
the right approach for those ofus that fall somewhere in
between.
Vegans was the right approachfor those of us that fall
somewhere in between.
And I actually want to tell astory about adding carbohydrates
(01:08):
might actually improve yourphysique.
And I want to finish up withone of the most extreme diets
that I've ever done.
It's actually going to tie intothe last one, but yeah, anyway,
don't need a big, heavypreamble, as is kind of a
standard of the genre these days.
I got nothing to sell, so let'sjump right in.
(01:29):
So I saw an article poppingabout a new fitness trend
quadrobics.
Admittedly, I had a hard timegetting past the name, but yeah,
once I saw what they were kindof talking about with quadrobics
.
It was hard to again not beannoyed, because this is what
(01:51):
we've called here in the pastcrawling patterns.
So, yeah, apparently now thishas been turned into a trend
called quadrobics, and sincethis is maybe going to be
circulating, I went and lookedat the term on Google Trends.
(02:12):
So we're looking at like a 700%increased in search interest
for the term and yeah, so thoughthis is going to look like a
new fitness fad, it is in someways, with the explosion of a
search term like that.
I did want to evaluate it, justbecause it actually looks like
(02:34):
something that I've already seenunder a different name there's
nothing new, except all of ithas been forgotten.
I think we usually say here.
There's nothing new except allof it has been forgotten.
I think we usually say here butyeah, without showing my hand,
I kind of feel like that's whatwe're seeing here in this new
quadrobics trend.
When I was trying to find whowas the first person to use the
(02:56):
term, I found a YouTube videogoing back as far as 2015.
And it's kind of explained as aform of expressive bodyweight
exercise designed to promotephysical activity by
incorporating movement on boththe hands and feet
simultaneously to 2015.
(03:27):
People have been doing thisforever.
There actually has been alittle bit of science looking
into these type of movements andthe relatively recent studies.
2022 randomized controlledtrial that was in the Journal of
Strength and ConditioningResearch.
They were investigating novelquadrupedal movement.
In their study, novelquadrupedal movement in their
(03:50):
study noted improve active jointranges of motion and said that
it was a viable alternative formof training to whole body
stabilization and flexibility.
Another study, also in 2022, wasmeasuring the caloric
expenditure of quadrupedalmovement, was measuring the
caloric expenditure ofquadrupedal movement.
In this study theycharacterized it as animal flow,
(04:12):
but they compared it against atreadmill walking and were
evaluating caloric expenditure.
Treadmill walking was actuallybeating out the animal flow in
terms of caloric expenditure.
So, like I always tell you here, don't sleep on the power of
walking.
But no, it obviously still hadgood benefits in terms of
(04:35):
caloric expenditure, but thatmight not be the best reason to
include this in your program.
And then we had a 2015 clinicaltrial comparing treadmill
walking versus calisthenics likesquats and lunges.
So, but uh, not surprising thatcalisthenics would be a little
(05:05):
bit more intense than thanwalking.
I think for most people squats,pushups, lunges, stuff like
that.
Um, obviously would be.
Um.
So, that being said, thatthat's kind of the the
scientific literature that wehave on the topic.
Um, simple fact that it doesn'tburn as many calories as
walking.
Necessarily, I wouldn't reallyworry too much about the main
(05:28):
reason to do this I think it'sback to the first one is that
really can improve your activerange of motion.
So, yeah, just to sort of evengive you a verdict, quadrobics
does actually have real value.
There's nothing I love doingmore than shooting down a new
(05:48):
trend.
So it's a little bit cringy theterm and it's always annoying
when people claim to inventthings people have been doing
for a long time.
Um, it's probably a prettydecent idea actually.
Um, you know little littlecliche that we use often, but
motion is lotion.
That's at least how I think ofthe crawling patterns.
I like to use them in warmups,cool downs or recovery days.
(06:14):
Those are great times, for,again, I've more used crawling.
I got into this through AnimalFlow, tim Anderson's original
strength.
But motion is lotion, movementis movement.
You can't really go wrong.
I would worry less about doingprograms and progressing in the
(06:37):
same way that you would in theweight room, which, well, and
actually I had that actuallylisted even in my um.
So, yeah, even though verdictgood, I like it in warmups, cool
downs, recovery days, asmentioned um, there are some
drawbacks.
Namely, it would be that it'snot actually suitable for all
body types.
Um, like almost all fitnessproducts, they're they're
(07:01):
marketed with a specific bodytype that this workout alone
would not produce.
So when I see the quadrobicsand the animal flow mobility
things advertised online, I tendto see lean and muscular yoga
bodies, if you will, to use aterm.
I think that's going to atleast evoke the image that we're
(07:22):
going for.
Typically, those are the peoplemarketing and promoting these
products, and so if you're doingone of these things, thinking
it's going to give you a bodylike that person, that's about
as likely as if you were to pickup basketball and then suddenly
get as tall as LeBron James.
I will say that there's a lotof self-selection going on
(07:45):
whenever you look at any sportand the type of athletic bodies
that are successful in thatsport.
The sport doesn't produce thatbody, it selects for that body.
So, again, I do see some lean,aspirational physiques marketing
these products.
I'm totally fine to co-sign itfor a lot of reasons, but
(08:07):
physique wouldn't be one of them.
You know again, you know I likethe warmups, cool downs,
recovery days, morning routineis a great time to do it that
this is, you know, one of thereliable places.
I do it while I'm waiting formy coffee to brew.
But yeah, then probablyactually, if we're talking me,
all of those, all of the above,I do it in the warms, I do it in
(08:28):
my cool downs, I do it when I'mwaiting for my coffee and I do
it on recovery days.
I also have my clients do themthroughout their sessions.
So some of my favorite movementsand so obviously I see people
invent new terms all the timethese are probably not going to
be stable, but one of the justessential ones you got to have
(08:50):
in your mobility work or yourquadrobics Sorry, I still call
it mobility and crawling, butyeah.
So six point rock, that's justgetting down into a quadruped
position.
When you're in that position,though, if you're wondering
where the six, we got hands,knees, and then we're also
considering the points of yourtoes touching the ground.
(09:11):
So that's what makes up our sixpoints.
Six point rock, get intoquadruped position and then just
essentially move up and down ifyou were standing.
Your spine is actually movingparallel to the ground as such,
but this is what is so valuableabout this particular pattern is
that's what we're doing.
We are squatting, at leastdoing the same movements for
(09:32):
your ankles, knees and hips,while keeping your spine roughly
aligned with the floor.
It's a good sort of thing thatyou can guide to keep your spine
in proper alignment and this isa great way to warm up very
friendly thing for a lot of yourjoints but also can cue a nice
squat pattern.
You can build off of that sixpoint rock and then actually
throw that right into movementthat I like to call the rocking
(09:54):
pushup.
If you do know your yoga, whatyou're going to essentially do
with this is transition from achild's pose into, you know,
instead of going into up dog.
On the other end, let's justtake what they used to call the
girl pushup, where you'll justhit one from your knees.
Slide back into child's pose.
The point of this is notmuscular development.
The point of this is, again,motion is lotion.
(10:17):
Get your shoulders mobilized,get your hips mobilized.
The science on mobilizations,I'm going to admit, is a little
bit shaky.
Um, this is one of those that,in a way, though, I there's even
a trainer that I like who'svery evidence and science based,
but he happens to be a littlebit younger than myself.
He works with clients that aremostly athletes and also younger
(10:38):
, doesn't really believe in thestuff I'm telling you right now
the uh corrective exercise andmobility.
I've spent a lot of timeworking with people who are not
athletes over the age of 40, andthat's where this comes from.
We might not have studies onthat population, but I've seen
it, so I'm going to keeprecommending these types of
things.
So, yeah, rocking push-up, Ireally like You're going to go
(10:59):
from child's pose into a littlepush-up from your knees.
Again, the goal here isactually reflexive strength
moving through your range ofmotion where we're not really
going to be feeling the burn inour chest.
That's not the point of thesepush-ups.
And then probably the singlemost valuable is probably going
to be the bear crawl.
To be honest, this is probablythe most valuable pattern that
(11:27):
you can do working on the ground.
It's obviously going to beconsistent with anything they're
doing in quadrobics, just theirdefinition of having your hands
and feet moving simultaneously.
That's exactly what the bearcrawl is, one of the things that
really hammered home theimportance of crawling was,
again, having a kid and watchinga child develop every single
requisite movement that a humanbeing can do through crawling
(11:49):
and moving around on the floor.
They actually transitioned fromthese little blobs that just
lay around all day to littlehumans that can do everything
big humans do.
So the proof of concept concept, anyway, what was definitely
hammered home watching a toddlerdevelop through nothing but
crawling Um, you know some ofthe other aspects, though, that
(12:11):
are going on with crawlingpatterns.
That, again, that this is goingto have value outside of
physique development or musclegaining, um, getting down and
using all of your limbs is goingto actually help with neural
connections and pathways, um,that are established in the
brain that are going to help youbecome more efficient at moving
and also get communicationbetween the left and right
(12:33):
hemispheres going on Anytimeyour right arm touches your left
leg or vice versa.
That's going to be an awesomefeature that you're going to be
able to get from that.
So, the better the brain thatcommunicate and process
information, the better the bodymoves.
This is one of the easiest waysthat you can just improve your
balance, proprioception andmovement.
(12:55):
Crawling is also, you know it'suniting your sensory system.
So it's going to help youintegrate the vestibular system
responsible for balance you canthink of all the fluids that are
rolling around in your innerear, um proprosceptive system,
your sense of space and yourvisual system, um and even
actually help improve hand-eyecoordination.
(13:18):
Um, I know I've just rattled offa bunch of benefits, but
possibly one of the biggest onesof crawling is going to be that
it's going to build yourfoundation of reflexive strength
.
Talked about that briefly onthe rocking pushup.
But to define that a littlebetter, reflexive strength is
going to be your body's abilityto anticipate movement before it
(13:38):
happens, or reflexivelyreacting to a movement after it
happens.
So this is again less thinkingabout like your muscles.
We're thinking more abouttendons, ligaments, joints.
These are going to be theconstituent things that you're
going to need to have goodreflexive strength.
Crawling is going to be and wasthe pattern that you use to
(14:03):
develop all that stufforiginally.
So it works for children and italso works for adults just as
well.
So, yeah, crawling similarlyyou know back to the child is
also the foundation of your gaitpattern.
So you're doing thecontralateral movement when we
are using opposite limbs,coordinating that movement and
(14:27):
basically your gait pattern isgoing to be built upon crawling
first.
Again, that is why we see inhuman beings, crawling before
walking.
Crawling can be a great resetfor the central nervous system
lower stress levels.
This is why I do think thatthis is a good thing to do
(14:50):
Recovery days and after workouts.
When I'm doing it after aworkout, that's how I'm doing it
is to try to get myself out ofthat fight or flight,
sympathetic, and I'm trying tocalm things down, get into that
parasympathetic and start to getthe recovery going.
Today actually is my recoveryday, it just so happens.
So that was kind of the seriesof movements that I did just
(15:15):
before going for a real easybike ride.
But I went out, looked likerocking, push-up, hanging from a
pull-up bar.
I did a little bit of crawlingand then, like I said, easy ride
.
That was what my recovery daylooked like earlier and,
admittedly, I actually want topoint you guys to somebody who I
think has the best informationon this.
(15:38):
Tim Anderson mentioned him uptop, but original strength he's
probably the person that Ilearned the most from on this
particular topic.
That's the stuff that I amusing in my sessions and on
myself.
So if you're interested in anyquadrobics, I would recommend
checking out some of TimAnderson's stuff, and I honestly
think this is the type of thing.
(15:59):
If you're looking for a classto get into, that's great, go do
it.
There's nothing wrong withfellowship and fun, but this is
honestly the type of thing thatyou can probably learn and
implement on your own.
I don't think that's a bigstretch on this one, because
there's really no wrongmovements.
Just get into practice doing it.
Just before I learned TimAnderson, I had actually gotten
(16:23):
exposed to some animal flow.
That was a popular class thatwas going around.
Um, you know, I have to admit,particularly having a kid, I see
a lot of these movements a lotmore regularly now.
Um, one other way you can getthe same benefit is, quite
frankly, just playing.
Um, this is kind of what I'mdoing at the park with my
daughter often hanging monkeybars, climbing, jumping,
(16:45):
crawling, rolling, jumpingaround like a monkey Shockingly
good workout.
If you do it at the park,you're going to remember all the
park implements being a loteasier last time you did it.
But no, it's also restorative,can fill the gaps in whatever
program or goal you're workingon.
And, yeah, even if you don'thave a kid.
(17:08):
You should make some time tojust go and move around like you
did when you were one.
I think there's a lot ofbenefits to doing that.
And yeah, with that one in thebag, though, I want to actually
take on one of the thorniesttopics that we could even touch
on today.
I don't even know why I feelqualified to answer this, but
(17:28):
we're going to attempt to answerwhat is the right approach to
eating meat.
So, obviously, we've got vegans, we got carnivores.
I think it's fair to assumethat most of us are somewhere in
between, but obviously, with somany people putting out
information, it can make itdifficult for people to
determine what is the right.
(17:48):
Call on me, so I will obviouslyanswer this definitively for
every single person on earthright now.
No, I actually want to say atthe top of this that I am not
going to be able to answer thisfor everybody.
I can explain my priors, myexperience and the way I think
about it, um, and that, I think,can at least contribute to how,
(18:08):
how others might be thinkingabout making the choice for
themselves.
Um, but yeah, in that spirit.
First, my priors I grew upeating a lot of meat when we
lived in Montana, we would buyour meat by the cow, keep it in
a large freezer.
So eating meat is deeplyingrained culturally in me.
Put it another way if I werecooking something and you ate
(18:32):
meat, that's what you would wantme to cook, though I ate a lot
of meat growing up, you know.
Admittedly, it was alltechnically grass-fed organic.
We didn't have that moniker todelineate it back then, but we
would literally get it from arancher and take it to a butcher
and so, yeah, I actually nevergot in the habit of eating
(18:53):
low-quality beef.
Didn't really have the optionwhen I was growing up.
Fortunately for me and yeah.
So I admit even now that when Igot into my adult life and now
I had to buy all my owngroceries.
Quality always has beenimportant to me and, given the
choice if I had to, I wouldactually eat less higher quality
(19:18):
meat if I was on a limitedbudget than buying more cheap
meat.
I have experimented at timeswith going completely
plant-based.
I've done it for differentreasons at different times.
One time I was doing it towatch Game Changers wanted to
(19:38):
unlock some performance.
That didn't work out for me.
So I'm not very convinced ofthat whole line of thinking I'm
more convinced for my own healthand for the health of the
environment, and though I stilleat meat.
Those are the arguments thatfor me are the most salient.
(20:00):
But yeah, when you actuallythis is kind of worth my
experience with going plantbased.
We did, I went and I got to seethe game changers and I was
hopped up on going plant based.
At that point I was doing itfor performance gains.
I've already been a consciousconsumer as it pertained to the
environment.
(20:20):
So I know I'm not perfect, um,but uh no, the you know
certainly was just seeming as anadded bonus that that going
plant-based would reduce my uh,uh, the earth's reliance on
producing things for me toconsume.
So that was just an addedBennett.
But I'm not, I'm not gonna lie.
I was doing it to try toincrease my performance and
(20:41):
honestly, that's not how itworked out for me.
It was not a game-changingprotocol.
I actually relied more on myprotein powders than when meat
was in my diet.
Protein powder is technically aprocessed food.
I don't want to like fearmongeraround that.
It's still a high-quality food,but I still do just generally
believe that if I could begetting that protein from a
(21:02):
whole food source instead of aprocessed food, that that would
be net positive for me long run.
And then last issue that I hadmaintaining it for the long haul
was that meat is actually justvery satisfying and it's easier
psychologically for me to be onfewer calories while there is
meat in my diet, particularlymeats that have fat.
(21:24):
So, yeah, the fact that a lotof the proteins that I was
getting while plant based didn'thave the same amount of fats
that I was typically getting.
I just found it psychologicallyharder to stick to caloric
total.
So that's obviously not my goalat all times, but that's just
my honest feedback on when Simongoes plant-based, simon tends
(21:46):
to eat a little bit more.
Performance-wise, I didn'tnotice any huge edge actually
meat eating or plant-based.
It's not like my workoutnumbers actually change, as
we've talked about here.
I think it's way more important.
What your total calories, whatyour carbs, what your protein,
what those look like, are a lotmore important than the other
(22:10):
aspects, even though the otheraspects may get more attention.
If you're controlling for thosevariables in your diet, I don't
think you're going to noticemuch of a difference when you
switch back and forth betweenplant-based or meat eating.
Just being honest Now, just inmy experience as a trainer, I've
(22:33):
seen a number of meat eaterswho needed to eat less meat or
higher quality meat.
Also, on the other end, I'vealso seen people who were
plant-based, who actually neededto reincorporate some meat, and
the latter it was almost alwayslike anemia or some nutrient
(22:56):
imbalance that could just bemost efficaciously solved
through just incorporating alittle bit of meat.
Sometimes it wasn't like theywere trying to, you know, throw
out the baby with the bathwater.
So now, all that just brings meto.
You know what's the right way?
Well, there isn't one, and itdepends Just to reach for a
(23:21):
philosophical angle.
Peter Singer, I think, isprobably the most well-known
philosopher who is arguingagainst meat consumption.
His book Animal Liberationargues that the ability to
suffer is the vitalcharacteristic that gives any
being the right for equalconsideration.
So thus, um, well, animals arecapable of suffering and thus
(23:45):
should be considered in ourdecision-making.
Eating them is unethical.
Um, michael Pollan not really aphilosopher, but um, he's got a
booknivore's Dilemma that, Ithink, at least, contributes to
the conversation.
Pollan suggests that humans arenaturally omnivorous and that
eating meat is part of thenatural cycle of life and death.
(24:06):
That being said, he doesadvocate for reform in the way
meat is produced and consumed,emphasizing sustainability and
ethical treatment of animals.
Probably included him, because Ilike that view a lot, one of my
favorite philosophers.
But actually he's pretty funnyon the topic of nutrition.
But Friedrich Nietzsche in EkeHomo famously had a section all
(24:30):
about nutrition, he said.
I'm much more interested inanother question, a question
upon which the salvation ofhumanity depends to a far
greater degree than it does uponany piece of theological
curiosity.
I refer to nutrition.
But anyway, I find Nietzsche'sattempts at nutrition funny,
(24:52):
because he kind of just triedthe fad diets of his day.
There was one moment where hewas either vegan or vegetarian,
and then Wagner got them allinto meat.
So even though I am a fan ofNietzsche's work, when it came
to nutrition Nietzsche was theperfect example of the confused
postmodern eater that I've atleast tried to help out in some
(25:18):
ways.
But yeah, so I don't know,maybe if I'd been around in the
1890s I could have helped himarrive at a diet more consistent
with his own individual values.
But sorry, man, you missed meby a while.
You know, and admittedly one ofmy priors in this discussion too
(25:40):
is that I I've actually trainedand worked with people?
Um with different beliefs andpreferences, and I've always
gone into that Um just believingthat the methods that we use
should already be consistentwith people's values, that I
shouldn't need to change theirvalues um to be consistent with
the methods that I'm using.
So, in I actually don't thinkthat I've ever advocated
(26:07):
somebody who ate um meat to noteat meat, or vice versa.
I usually work um back fromtheir existing beliefs towards
their goals.
There's a few cases I alreadymentioned, and those were
typically not coming from me.
Those are typically coming fromtheir medical, their doctors,
(26:30):
whoever they speak to on that.
That's not a lane that I try torun for them.
So, yeah, any of those casesthat I mentioned, those changes
were actually being made inconjunction with others, not at
my sole discretion.
I do think, though, that, firstoff, that this entire discussion
, everybody in it it's a validand valuable discussion that
(26:51):
people are having.
I just don't think there's asilver bullet.
I don't think there's a onesize fits all or a cookie cutter
answer here.
If I'm speaking broadly, tothis abstraction, that is, 300
million Americans on average, Iwould say you guys could
probably eat less meat most ofyou, but it's not as strong as a
(27:13):
statement as it may first soundwhen you consider that that
cohort I mentioned just broadlyeats too much of everything.
So I would also tell them todrink fewer soft drinks.
And you know it's not as tougha statement as it sounds up top,
but no, I'm pretty comfortablewith that.
I think for most people, lessand better would be the best
(27:37):
strategy with meat, sincepresumably most people are
already eating meat.
If you're not currently eatingmeat and you're not anemic or
something, don't worry, I'm nottalking about you.
For most people, I think, lessand meaningful is that there
(28:00):
really is a difference betweenprocessed and unprocessed foods,
and in meats it's no different.
Processed meats are not healthy.
The animals that they come fromare usually raised in
industrial farms, and most ofthe practices as it pertains to
sustainability and environment,with processed meats in general
on average worse than yourunprocessed, these tend to be
(28:25):
the biggest polluters.
There's obviously still goingto be a significant carbon
footprint associated with anymeat consumption relative to
plant sources, so let's not lieor misrepresent that.
But there are certainly betterchoices within the subset of
meat.
(28:46):
They are not all created equal,even the difference, frankly,
between red meat and poultry.
If you're concerned with carbonfootprint carries a significant
difference.
So there's a lot of ways, ifyou're concerned with carbon
footprint carries a significantdifference.
So there's a lot of ways, ifyou're concerned about the
environment, that you can goabout decreasing your carbon
footprint.
Admittedly, I'm actually not theexpert on that.
I've obviously, like manypeople, made attempts to reduce
(29:09):
my own consumption of energy.
I just don't like waste.
Quick one on food.
I actually just hate food waste.
My opah was in a concentrationcamp in World War II.
His daily rations were corncobs someone else had already
eaten from, so anyway, I wasn'tgreat about it when I was a kid,
but we had a rule that if youput it on your plate you had to
eat it.
I spent many nights at thetable after everybody else had
(29:32):
already left.
So even though I wasn't good atthis as a kid, I grew into
really hating waste as an adultin general.
So I just don't think there's agood argument for wasting food.
That being said, I'm not anexpert on that, so I do kind of
want to keep my comments morefocused on the health and
performance component of thisand to that end I would say that
(29:56):
actually the scientificevidence does overwhelmingly
suggest that humans areopportunistic omnivores.
If you're trying to find prooffor your favorite diet, you'll
probably find it, because humanshave eaten just about every
diet you can think of.
Downstream from availability offood sources, at some point in
history, humans have actuallyhad the least amount of time
(30:18):
with abundant food, and I thinkthat's the issue that really
comes up in our food discussionsmore so than anything else, and
at least for those presumablylistening to a podcast I'm sure
there's other people out there,but in our world, abundance is
the bigger issue.
But anyway, guys, I actuallywant to now dive into.
(30:40):
This is so.
I came across this anecdote fromBusiness Insider this week, but
it's also an irrelevant examplethat came up for one of my
clients, and I might just filethis one under In Defense of
Carbs, part 2007.
How many of these have I donenow?
Business Insider articlebodybuilder ditched low carb and
(31:00):
started eating potatoes sixtimes a day.
He got in the best shape of hislife.
So the story was about a guy,mark Taylor, competitive
bodybuilder, who had eaten astrict low carb diet for decades
but consistently missed the topprize in his native Scotland
until he made one change eatingcarbs.
(31:21):
So before I get into Taylor'sstory, this is an anecdote
that's also relevant for aclient of mine who is in his
early 30s, soon to be father.
His training has focused fromthat kind of beach body
shredding focus to somedifferent goals.
He's also been eating more andjust kind of commenting on his
(31:41):
physique today that he actuallyfeels that he has been getting
more muscle he knows he'sgetting stronger because we're
seeing that in our sessions andhe was just saying that he
actually hasn't gotten as big infat as he expected with all
these crazy carbs he's beeneating.
And so I reminded him, or Ipointed him to this article and
I'm going to remind you guys ofthis today as well.
(32:03):
But this happens a lot actually, particularly if you've ever
been this type of person thathas pursued physique goals for a
really long time.
There's going to be a lot ofpeople out there that if you're
a fitness hobbyist, if you're anenthusiast, you've been chasing
fat loss a long time.
It's going to sound like thecraziest thing in the world, but
adding some carbs back mightactually help your physique.
(32:24):
So anyway, taylor's story andthe other reason why I find it
relevant is he makes this changeat 42, when a lot of people
have already said that yourmetabolism has shifted and
father time is just thoroughlywhooping your ass by now, and
you, just, you just can't addmuscle or do these things.
Um, so, at 42, he makes onechange Uh, he was a bodybuilder,
(32:46):
uh, so, so we don't have toworry about his work ethic, his
programming, his disciplinepresumably those were all the
same.
Uh, the change was adding thecarbs.
Um, many, particularly in thefitness enthusiast camp, still
believe that carbs are the enemyof leanness and make people fat
.
I'm going to say it again Carbsare not inherently fattening.
(33:13):
They play a key role in musclebuilding and recovery.
Most people, particularly myfitness enthusiasts, already
know the role of protein inmuscle building, but it
literally requires carbohydratesto take that protein that
you're supplementing, or ratherto get the amino acids break
that down and then reconstituteit into muscle fiber.
That process literally requirescarbohydrates, and actually on
(33:38):
a ratio of four to one, meaningfour grams of carbohydrates
every one gram of protein.
If you care about musclegrowing.
Um, that's the goals for somepeople when they're lifting
weights.
So if you want to see musclegain, you might need to fuel
carbs a little more than you'vebeen told by the fitness space.
I'm sorry, I'm a part of it but, yes, me and my brethren have
(34:01):
not done a good job.
All carbs are not created equal.
This is not a green light to goeat junk food, but Taylor used
potatoes.
In general, you want to focuson carbs that are going to
release energy slowly.
You might call these lowglycemic carbs.
You do have one little cheat orway out of that that we talked
(34:25):
about last week.
If you want to sneak somehigher glycemic carbs in there,
do that right after your workoutwhen your insulin sensitivity
is a little bit better.
But no, the reason I keepspending so much time on this
release I feel I do is that theanti-carb movement has had over
a decade head start on me hereand Taylor had an experience
(34:46):
that was very, very similar tomine.
He got interested inbodybuilding relatively young.
He started actually youngerthan me, 19.
I was still playing sports then, but he would do oats with
breakfast rice a little bitlater on and that was about it,
which to me sounds like thestandard basic bodybuilding diet
chicken, broccoli, brown rice,maybe have some oats in there.
That's kind of what everybodygets brought up on and it works.
(35:10):
It'll get you to a certainplace, but you're going to have
limits.
Yeah, taylor finally brought anutritionist in 2014.
She threw his diet out, addedcarbs to every single meal.
Then his physique took off andhe actually won his first
bodybuilding show over the ageof 40.
(35:30):
Prior to adding carbs, he waslooking at like a 2000 calorie
per day diet.
I've done those where you got2000 calories per day and then,
like you know, I actually walkaround close to 200 pounds, so
that needs to be like 200 gramsof protein, not a lot of
calories for much else left.
Super fun, love those days whenhe started adding carbs in.
It actually went up to 4,000and then eventually got as high
(35:53):
as 6,000 a day.
Those numbers sound crazy topeople.
I actually been out to dinnerwith some friends recently, and
there again, there's somefriends recently.
And there, there again, there'salways this perception of me
the trainer eats super clean andall of that.
Sometimes it can blow peopleaway to see the volume of food
that I eat.
And there again, the goodchoices.
(36:13):
I'm not lying to you guys whenI come up here, but sometimes
the amount can blow people away,and so I was just explaining
that over dinner last week thatyou know, believe it or not, I
actually around 4,000 calories aday, and a lot of that again
has to do with a lot of theprinciples that we talk about
here.
I wouldn't recommend just startthere, but if you follow those
rules that we talked about,carry the big rocks.
(36:34):
It really is not uncommon thatyou might have a maintenance
calories that could be aboutthat high while you're training,
of course, and I've just foundit a lot easier to maintain my
physique eating 4000 caloriesthan 2000.
Call me crazy, way, way easierfor me psychologically.
Takes a little work to set itup and get there, but, yeah, one
(37:00):
.
This story was obviously very,very similar to mine.
This was one that was touching,you know, a client and friend
of mine.
Um, in years of striving tofind the one and true perfect
diet, it also led me down thisexact same hole.
I used to be, you know, deathlyafraid of carbs for the exact
same reasons.
Um, I, I, I.
(37:21):
I almost feel like like myimposter syndrome as a trainer
comes from the fact of how manycarbs I eat and just the fact
that the public perception of ofwhat I do and what I actually
do is just so far off.
It almost makes me feel like afraud, um, but yeah, anyway.
Uh, I don't recommend that youagain start with 4,000 calories,
(37:42):
but if you've been in that kindof stuck in fat loss for a long
time, you really can build yourmetabolism into a very
different place where it canhandle a lot more calories.
Experiment just by adding somecarbs in, and particularly if
you ever get to a phase whereyou're focused on either adding
some muscle or a performancegoal in your program, just see
(38:06):
what happens.
Let it go for 30 days.
Don't be so strict on yourselfwith the carbs, and if
everything turns around and yourphysique blows up, then write
me a mean comment, but I reallythink it's going to be all right
, so you know.
What's funny, though, about MarkTaylor with his potatoes is I
have to admit that for me, thiswas actually one of the craziest
(38:30):
extreme diets that I've everdone, and I don't know if many
people know this one exists, butthe potato diet is actually a
thing, so when I came across it,it was marketed as like a detox
or a reset.
Admittedly, I didn't reallybelieve in those things at that
point.
I just found it interesting,and immediately.
At this point, I still justliked experimenting and trying
(38:54):
things out just to see how mybody would respond, basically
treating myself as a testsubject, if you will.
Um, but yeah, so.
So if you're listening to allthose benefits, uh, of adding
some carbs and thinking, youknow, like the typical American
thing, well, I'm just going totake that to its extreme and eat
nothing but carbs.
Well, like we always say,there's nothing new except all
(39:15):
that's been forgotten, that'salready been done.
Uh, the potato diet goes backactually to.
It's got its roots, ironically,in the Irish potato famine,
which I say ironically becauseyou wouldn't think that people
would base like a fad diet onthat.
Yes, some individuals didsubsist on little besides
(39:36):
potatoes, but obviously verydifferent circumstances.
It's hard to imagine somebodychoosing that as a diet.
The variation that I did was aweek-long thing.
Again, it was basically sold aslike a detox diet.
My physique, you know, didn'tblow up, so it helped me kind of
(39:56):
unlearn the low-car carb dogmathat I had.
But again, as it pertains to allof the claims that were made
about the benefits of the potatodiet, none of those manifested
at all, and whether it's thepotato diet or the grapefruit
(40:17):
diet or one of these diets thatare excluding an entire
macronutrient or an entire typeof food.
To me, all of these extremeapproaches should just
inherently raise red flags.
One of the biggest issues withany one of these approaches is
they are pointlessly exclusive.
(40:39):
There is no single food thatprovides all of the nutrients
one needs, and I see this exactsame style of thinking
manifesting in a lot ofdifferent diets.
People that are very into ketowill point to the fact that we
can produce ketones as the factthat you don't need
(40:59):
carbohydrates ever, and that'stechnically true, but that
doesn't mean that you arethriving or living the best
possible existence.
It's technically true that youcould subsist off potatoes for
some time.
It's technically true that youcan do a lot of different things
.
Whether it's a good idea orit's improving other markers of
(41:21):
your health is incrediblyquestionable.
So yeah, in general, anything Iwould consider extreme is
excluding either an entiremacronutrient or restricting
yourself to one food or type offood.
I can almost guarantee nomatter what variation of this
you're thinking about, if youactually do it for a long time,
(41:43):
it's almost certainly going tocreate nutrient deficiencies.
You may get some short-termsuccess in air quotes, because
it's going to be a successthat's defined after some
nebulous thing.
But I'm pretty sure that thisis actually going to be a time
period where you're going toactually start forming a lot of
(42:04):
long-term issues that you won'tactually even blame this
amendment on, because you'regoing to think of this time as a
successful one, not one whenproblems were starting to
compound Again.
I did this one for a week.
Wouldn't recommend it.
I think the biggest benefit Igot was what I was just talking
(42:25):
about.
Through trial and error, with alot of fitness things, I've
actually come to believe in alot less of them.
There really was a time when Ihad a big zest for
experimentation.
If there was a new product, Ialmost felt like it was my duty
to test it out, and I did.
I kind of used myself as a testsubject, you know.
(42:46):
Admittedly, it's that timeperiod that's kind of got me to
where I'm at today, where Iseriously doubt most of the
amendments.
If more of them had worked, Ithink I would be more excited
and more prone toexperimentation today.
I still remain open to the ideathat we might discover, um, some
(43:10):
new game breaking things.
Um, but sadly, most of the gamebreakers and there really are
game breakers, but they're.
They're called drugs and so youcan either choose to do that or
not.
But yeah, most of the stuffthat we know is game breaking is
banned by most competitiveagencies and yeah, your choice
(43:32):
to do that is a little differentalgorithm, if you will.
But anyway, guys, that's all Igot for you this week.
So just to quickly summarizequadrobics, if you guys see
those articles popping in yourfeed, I actually like this.
I don't like the term, I don'tlike them reinventing something,
but the series of movementsthat people are focusing on, I
(43:53):
say looks good.
I also think that this isprobably one of the easiest
things for you to do on your own.
Check out Tim Anderson OriginalStrength or just go to a park
and run around like you used towhen you were a kid.
I think you can figure this oneout the right way to eat meat.
I hesitate to try to answer this.
For everybody Vast majority ofpeople the best answer is
(44:16):
obviously going to be less andbetter.
Obviously going to be less andbetter.
Not a one size fits all.
There are no magic bullets, butthat's going to be the approach
, that for the most people thatare somewhere between carnivore
and vegan.
That's what's going to work foryou Carbohydrates.
I keep saying this and I'mgoing to keep saying it until
(44:39):
the paradigm shifts.
Carbs can actually improve aphysique.
So, again, if the paradigmflips, we'll change this all
around.
But yeah, for now I think westill need to defend
carbohydrates.
Let people know that they'renot the end-all be-all.
You didn't cheat, you're notdirty or befouled.
(45:00):
And then, yeah, just because Iknow I'm out here spouting all
my opinions, I did want to sharemy experience with potato diet.
I fall for extreme things allthe time Less frequency these
days, I admit, but again, it'sonly because so many of my
experiments didn't work out wellwhen I did it, didn't work out
well when I did it.
(45:20):
Anyway, guys, I alwaysappreciate you guys stopping in,
checking in on what I'm workingon here.
Thank you for the time, theattention.
Make sure to share these, getit out there.
And, yeah, keep lifting, keeplearning.
I'll do the same.
Welcome to the Mind Muscle Podcast.
Here's your host, simon DeVere,and welcome back to Mind Muscle
, the place we study the history, science and philosophy behind
everything in health and fitness.
(00:25):
Today, I am Simon DeVere, andthere's nothing new except all
that has been forgotten.
All right, we're going to runthrough a few stories that I saw
out there within the last week.
Today, I want to examine andevaluate the new quadrobics
(00:45):
trend and term.
I want to explore what theright approach to eating meat is
in an area where we obviouslyhave carnivores, and vegans was
the right approach for those ofus that fall somewhere in
between.
Vegans was the right approachfor those of us that fall
somewhere in between.
And I actually want to tell astory about adding carbohydrates
(01:08):
might actually improve yourphysique.
And I want to finish up withone of the most extreme diets
that I've ever done.
It's actually going to tie intothe last one, but yeah, anyway,
don't need a big, heavypreamble, as is kind of a
standard of the genre these days.
I got nothing to sell, so let'sjump right in.
(01:29):
So I saw an article poppingabout a new fitness trend
quadrobics.
Admittedly, I had a hard timegetting past the name, but yeah,
once I saw what they were kindof talking about with quadrobics
.
It was hard to again not beannoyed, because this is what
(01:51):
we've called here in the pastcrawling patterns.
So, yeah, apparently now thishas been turned into a trend
called quadrobics, and sincethis is maybe going to be
circulating, I went and lookedat the term on Google Trends.
(02:12):
So we're looking at like a 700%increased in search interest
for the term and yeah, so thoughthis is going to look like a
new fitness fad, it is in someways, with the explosion of a
search term like that.
I did want to evaluate it, justbecause it actually looks like
(02:34):
something that I've already seenunder a different name there's
nothing new, except all of ithas been forgotten.
I think we usually say here.
There's nothing new except allof it has been forgotten.
I think we usually say here butyeah, without showing my hand,
I kind of feel like that's whatwe're seeing here in this new
quadrobics trend.
When I was trying to find whowas the first person to use the
(02:56):
term, I found a YouTube videogoing back as far as 2015.
And it's kind of explained as aform of expressive bodyweight
exercise designed to promotephysical activity by
incorporating movement on boththe hands and feet
simultaneously to 2015.
(03:27):
People have been doing thisforever.
There actually has been alittle bit of science looking
into these type of movements andthe relatively recent studies.
2022 randomized controlledtrial that was in the Journal of
Strength and ConditioningResearch.
They were investigating novelquadrupedal movement.
In their study, novelquadrupedal movement in their
(03:50):
study noted improve active jointranges of motion and said that
it was a viable alternative formof training to whole body
stabilization and flexibility.
Another study, also in 2022, wasmeasuring the caloric
expenditure of quadrupedalmovement, was measuring the
caloric expenditure ofquadrupedal movement.
In this study theycharacterized it as animal flow,
(04:12):
but they compared it against atreadmill walking and were
evaluating caloric expenditure.
Treadmill walking was actuallybeating out the animal flow in
terms of caloric expenditure.
So, like I always tell you here, don't sleep on the power of
walking.
But no, it obviously still hadgood benefits in terms of
(04:35):
caloric expenditure, but thatmight not be the best reason to
include this in your program.
And then we had a 2015 clinicaltrial comparing treadmill
walking versus calisthenics likesquats and lunges.
So, but uh, not surprising thatcalisthenics would be a little
(05:05):
bit more intense than thanwalking.
I think for most people squats,pushups, lunges, stuff like
that.
Um, obviously would be.
Um.
So, that being said, thatthat's kind of the the
scientific literature that wehave on the topic.
Um, simple fact that it doesn'tburn as many calories as
walking.
Necessarily, I wouldn't reallyworry too much about the main
(05:28):
reason to do this I think it'sback to the first one is that
really can improve your activerange of motion.
So, yeah, just to sort of evengive you a verdict, quadrobics
does actually have real value.
There's nothing I love doingmore than shooting down a new
(05:48):
trend.
So it's a little bit cringy theterm and it's always annoying
when people claim to inventthings people have been doing
for a long time.
Um, it's probably a prettydecent idea actually.
Um, you know little littlecliche that we use often, but
motion is lotion.
That's at least how I think ofthe crawling patterns.
I like to use them in warmups,cool downs or recovery days.
(06:14):
Those are great times, for,again, I've more used crawling.
I got into this through AnimalFlow, tim Anderson's original
strength.
But motion is lotion, movementis movement.
You can't really go wrong.
I would worry less about doingprograms and progressing in the
(06:37):
same way that you would in theweight room, which, well, and
actually I had that actuallylisted even in my um.
So, yeah, even though verdictgood, I like it in warmups, cool
downs, recovery days, asmentioned um, there are some
drawbacks.
Namely, it would be that it'snot actually suitable for all
body types.
Um, like almost all fitnessproducts, they're they're
(07:01):
marketed with a specific bodytype that this workout alone
would not produce.
So when I see the quadrobicsand the animal flow mobility
things advertised online, I tendto see lean and muscular yoga
bodies, if you will, to use aterm.
I think that's going to atleast evoke the image that we're
(07:22):
going for.
Typically, those are the peoplemarketing and promoting these
products, and so if you're doingone of these things, thinking
it's going to give you a bodylike that person, that's about
as likely as if you were to pickup basketball and then suddenly
get as tall as LeBron James.
I will say that there's a lotof self-selection going on
(07:45):
whenever you look at any sportand the type of athletic bodies
that are successful in thatsport.
The sport doesn't produce thatbody, it selects for that body.
So, again, I do see some lean,aspirational physiques marketing
these products.
I'm totally fine to co-sign itfor a lot of reasons, but
(08:07):
physique wouldn't be one of them.
You know again, you know I likethe warmups, cool downs,
recovery days, morning routineis a great time to do it that
this is, you know, one of thereliable places.
I do it while I'm waiting formy coffee to brew.
But yeah, then probablyactually, if we're talking me,
all of those, all of the above,I do it in the warms, I do it in
(08:28):
my cool downs, I do it when I'mwaiting for my coffee and I do
it on recovery days.
I also have my clients do themthroughout their sessions.
So some of my favorite movementsand so obviously I see people
invent new terms all the timethese are probably not going to
be stable, but one of the justessential ones you got to have
(08:50):
in your mobility work or yourquadrobics Sorry, I still call
it mobility and crawling, butyeah.
So six point rock, that's justgetting down into a quadruped
position.
When you're in that position,though, if you're wondering
where the six, we got hands,knees, and then we're also
considering the points of yourtoes touching the ground.
(09:11):
So that's what makes up our sixpoints.
Six point rock, get intoquadruped position and then just
essentially move up and down ifyou were standing.
Your spine is actually movingparallel to the ground as such,
but this is what is so valuableabout this particular pattern is
that's what we're doing.
We are squatting, at leastdoing the same movements for
(09:32):
your ankles, knees and hips,while keeping your spine roughly
aligned with the floor.
It's a good sort of thing thatyou can guide to keep your spine
in proper alignment and this isa great way to warm up very
friendly thing for a lot of yourjoints but also can cue a nice
squat pattern.
You can build off of that sixpoint rock and then actually
throw that right into movementthat I like to call the rocking
(09:54):
pushup.
If you do know your yoga, whatyou're going to essentially do
with this is transition from achild's pose into, you know,
instead of going into up dog.
On the other end, let's justtake what they used to call the
girl pushup, where you'll justhit one from your knees.
Slide back into child's pose.
The point of this is notmuscular development.
The point of this is, again,motion is lotion.
(10:17):
Get your shoulders mobilized,get your hips mobilized.
The science on mobilizations,I'm going to admit, is a little
bit shaky.
Um, this is one of those that,in a way, though, I there's even
a trainer that I like who'svery evidence and science based,
but he happens to be a littlebit younger than myself.
He works with clients that aremostly athletes and also younger
(10:38):
, doesn't really believe in thestuff I'm telling you right now
the uh corrective exercise andmobility.
I've spent a lot of timeworking with people who are not
athletes over the age of 40, andthat's where this comes from.
We might not have studies onthat population, but I've seen
it, so I'm going to keeprecommending these types of
things.
So, yeah, rocking push-up, Ireally like You're going to go
(10:59):
from child's pose into a littlepush-up from your knees.
Again, the goal here isactually reflexive strength
moving through your range ofmotion where we're not really
going to be feeling the burn inour chest.
That's not the point of thesepush-ups.
And then probably the singlemost valuable is probably going
to be the bear crawl.
To be honest, this is probablythe most valuable pattern that
(11:27):
you can do working on the ground.
It's obviously going to beconsistent with anything they're
doing in quadrobics, just theirdefinition of having your hands
and feet moving simultaneously.
That's exactly what the bearcrawl is, one of the things that
really hammered home theimportance of crawling was,
again, having a kid and watchinga child develop every single
requisite movement that a humanbeing can do through crawling
(11:49):
and moving around on the floor.
They actually transitioned fromthese little blobs that just
lay around all day to littlehumans that can do everything
big humans do.
So the proof of concept concept, anyway, what was definitely
hammered home watching a toddlerdevelop through nothing but
crawling Um, you know some ofthe other aspects, though, that
(12:11):
are going on with crawlingpatterns.
That, again, that this is goingto have value outside of
physique development or musclegaining, um, getting down and
using all of your limbs is goingto actually help with neural
connections and pathways, um,that are established in the
brain that are going to help youbecome more efficient at moving
and also get communicationbetween the left and right
(12:33):
hemispheres going on Anytimeyour right arm touches your left
leg or vice versa.
That's going to be an awesomefeature that you're going to be
able to get from that.
So, the better the brain thatcommunicate and process
information, the better the bodymoves.
This is one of the easiest waysthat you can just improve your
balance, proprioception andmovement.
(12:55):
Crawling is also, you know it'suniting your sensory system.
So it's going to help youintegrate the vestibular system
responsible for balance you canthink of all the fluids that are
rolling around in your innerear, um proprosceptive system,
your sense of space and yourvisual system, um and even
actually help improve hand-eyecoordination.
(13:18):
Um, I know I've just rattled offa bunch of benefits, but
possibly one of the biggest onesof crawling is going to be that
it's going to build yourfoundation of reflexive strength
.
Talked about that briefly onthe rocking pushup.
But to define that a littlebetter, reflexive strength is
going to be your body's abilityto anticipate movement before it
(13:38):
happens, or reflexivelyreacting to a movement after it
happens.
So this is again less thinkingabout like your muscles.
We're thinking more abouttendons, ligaments, joints.
These are going to be theconstituent things that you're
going to need to have goodreflexive strength.
Crawling is going to be and wasthe pattern that you use to
(14:03):
develop all that stufforiginally.
So it works for children and italso works for adults just as
well.
So, yeah, crawling similarlyyou know back to the child is
also the foundation of your gaitpattern.
So you're doing thecontralateral movement when we
are using opposite limbs,coordinating that movement and
(14:27):
basically your gait pattern isgoing to be built upon crawling
first.
Again, that is why we see inhuman beings, crawling before
walking.
Crawling can be a great resetfor the central nervous system
lower stress levels.
This is why I do think thatthis is a good thing to do
(14:50):
Recovery days and after workouts.
When I'm doing it after aworkout, that's how I'm doing it
is to try to get myself out ofthat fight or flight,
sympathetic, and I'm trying tocalm things down, get into that
parasympathetic and start to getthe recovery going.
Today actually is my recoveryday, it just so happens.
So that was kind of the seriesof movements that I did just
(15:15):
before going for a real easybike ride.
But I went out, looked likerocking, push-up, hanging from a
pull-up bar.
I did a little bit of crawlingand then, like I said, easy ride
.
That was what my recovery daylooked like earlier and,
admittedly, I actually want topoint you guys to somebody who I
think has the best informationon this.
(15:38):
Tim Anderson mentioned him uptop, but original strength he's
probably the person that Ilearned the most from on this
particular topic.
That's the stuff that I amusing in my sessions and on
myself.
So if you're interested in anyquadrobics, I would recommend
checking out some of TimAnderson's stuff, and I honestly
think this is the type of thing.
(15:59):
If you're looking for a classto get into, that's great, go do
it.
There's nothing wrong withfellowship and fun, but this is
honestly the type of thing thatyou can probably learn and
implement on your own.
I don't think that's a bigstretch on this one, because
there's really no wrongmovements.
Just get into practice doing it.
Just before I learned TimAnderson, I had actually gotten
(16:23):
exposed to some animal flow.
That was a popular class thatwas going around.
Um, you know, I have to admit,particularly having a kid, I see
a lot of these movements a lotmore regularly now.
Um, one other way you can getthe same benefit is, quite
frankly, just playing.
Um, this is kind of what I'mdoing at the park with my
daughter often hanging monkeybars, climbing, jumping,
(16:45):
crawling, rolling, jumpingaround like a monkey Shockingly
good workout.
If you do it at the park,you're going to remember all the
park implements being a loteasier last time you did it.
But no, it's also restorative,can fill the gaps in whatever
program or goal you're workingon.
And, yeah, even if you don'thave a kid.
(17:08):
You should make some time tojust go and move around like you
did when you were one.
I think there's a lot ofbenefits to doing that.
And yeah, with that one in thebag, though, I want to actually
take on one of the thorniesttopics that we could even touch
on today.
I don't even know why I feelqualified to answer this, but
(17:28):
we're going to attempt to answerwhat is the right approach to
eating meat.
So, obviously, we've got vegans, we got carnivores.
I think it's fair to assumethat most of us are somewhere in
between, but obviously, with somany people putting out
information, it can make itdifficult for people to
determine what is the right.
(17:48):
Call on me, so I will obviouslyanswer this definitively for
every single person on earthright now.
No, I actually want to say atthe top of this that I am not
going to be able to answer thisfor everybody.
I can explain my priors, myexperience and the way I think
about it, um, and that, I think,can at least contribute to how,
(18:08):
how others might be thinkingabout making the choice for
themselves.
Um, but yeah, in that spirit.
First, my priors I grew upeating a lot of meat when we
lived in Montana, we would buyour meat by the cow, keep it in
a large freezer.
So eating meat is deeplyingrained culturally in me.
Put it another way if I werecooking something and you ate
(18:32):
meat, that's what you would wantme to cook, though I ate a lot
of meat growing up, you know.
Admittedly, it was alltechnically grass-fed organic.
We didn't have that moniker todelineate it back then, but we
would literally get it from arancher and take it to a butcher
and so, yeah, I actually nevergot in the habit of eating
(18:53):
low-quality beef.
Didn't really have the optionwhen I was growing up.
Fortunately for me and yeah.
So I admit even now that when Igot into my adult life and now
I had to buy all my owngroceries.
Quality always has beenimportant to me and, given the
choice if I had to, I wouldactually eat less higher quality
(19:18):
meat if I was on a limitedbudget than buying more cheap
meat.
I have experimented at timeswith going completely
plant-based.
I've done it for differentreasons at different times.
One time I was doing it towatch Game Changers wanted to
(19:38):
unlock some performance.
That didn't work out for me.
So I'm not very convinced ofthat whole line of thinking I'm
more convinced for my own healthand for the health of the
environment, and though I stilleat meat.
Those are the arguments thatfor me are the most salient.
(20:00):
But yeah, when you actuallythis is kind of worth my
experience with going plantbased.
We did, I went and I got to seethe game changers and I was
hopped up on going plant based.
At that point I was doing itfor performance gains.
I've already been a consciousconsumer as it pertained to the
environment.
(20:20):
So I know I'm not perfect, um,but uh no, the you know
certainly was just seeming as anadded bonus that that going
plant-based would reduce my uh,uh, the earth's reliance on
producing things for me toconsume.
So that was just an addedBennett.
But I'm not, I'm not gonna lie.
I was doing it to try toincrease my performance and
(20:41):
honestly, that's not how itworked out for me.
It was not a game-changingprotocol.
I actually relied more on myprotein powders than when meat
was in my diet.
Protein powder is technically aprocessed food.
I don't want to like fearmongeraround that.
It's still a high-quality food,but I still do just generally
believe that if I could begetting that protein from a
(21:02):
whole food source instead of aprocessed food, that that would
be net positive for me long run.
And then last issue that I hadmaintaining it for the long haul
was that meat is actually justvery satisfying and it's easier
psychologically for me to be onfewer calories while there is
meat in my diet, particularlymeats that have fat.
(21:24):
So, yeah, the fact that a lotof the proteins that I was
getting while plant based didn'thave the same amount of fats
that I was typically getting.
I just found it psychologicallyharder to stick to caloric
total.
So that's obviously not my goalat all times, but that's just
my honest feedback on when Simongoes plant-based, simon tends
(21:46):
to eat a little bit more.
Performance-wise, I didn'tnotice any huge edge actually
meat eating or plant-based.
It's not like my workoutnumbers actually change, as
we've talked about here.
I think it's way more important.
What your total calories, whatyour carbs, what your protein,
what those look like, are a lotmore important than the other
(22:10):
aspects, even though the otheraspects may get more attention.
If you're controlling for thosevariables in your diet, I don't
think you're going to noticemuch of a difference when you
switch back and forth betweenplant-based or meat eating.
Just being honest Now, just inmy experience as a trainer, I've
(22:33):
seen a number of meat eaterswho needed to eat less meat or
higher quality meat.
Also, on the other end, I'vealso seen people who were
plant-based, who actually neededto reincorporate some meat, and
the latter it was almost alwayslike anemia or some nutrient
(22:56):
imbalance that could just bemost efficaciously solved
through just incorporating alittle bit of meat.
Sometimes it wasn't like theywere trying to, you know, throw
out the baby with the bathwater.
So now, all that just brings meto.
You know what's the right way?
Well, there isn't one, and itdepends Just to reach for a
(23:21):
philosophical angle.
Peter Singer, I think, isprobably the most well-known
philosopher who is arguingagainst meat consumption.
His book Animal Liberationargues that the ability to
suffer is the vitalcharacteristic that gives any
being the right for equalconsideration.
So thus, um, well, animals arecapable of suffering and thus
(23:45):
should be considered in ourdecision-making.
Eating them is unethical.
Um, michael Pollan not really aphilosopher, but um, he's got a
booknivore's Dilemma that, Ithink, at least, contributes to
the conversation.
Pollan suggests that humans arenaturally omnivorous and that
eating meat is part of thenatural cycle of life and death.
(24:06):
That being said, he doesadvocate for reform in the way
meat is produced and consumed,emphasizing sustainability and
ethical treatment of animals.
Probably included him, because Ilike that view a lot, one of my
favorite philosophers.
But actually he's pretty funnyon the topic of nutrition.
But Friedrich Nietzsche in EkeHomo famously had a section all
(24:30):
about nutrition, he said.
I'm much more interested inanother question, a question
upon which the salvation ofhumanity depends to a far
greater degree than it does uponany piece of theological
curiosity.
I refer to nutrition.
But anyway, I find Nietzsche'sattempts at nutrition funny,
(24:52):
because he kind of just triedthe fad diets of his day.
There was one moment where hewas either vegan or vegetarian,
and then Wagner got them allinto meat.
So even though I am a fan ofNietzsche's work, when it came
to nutrition Nietzsche was theperfect example of the confused
postmodern eater that I've atleast tried to help out in some
(25:18):
ways.
But yeah, so I don't know,maybe if I'd been around in the
1890s I could have helped himarrive at a diet more consistent
with his own individual values.
But sorry, man, you missed meby a while.
You know, and admittedly one ofmy priors in this discussion too
(25:40):
is that I I've actually trainedand worked with people?
Um with different beliefs andpreferences, and I've always
gone into that Um just believingthat the methods that we use
should already be consistentwith people's values, that I
shouldn't need to change theirvalues um to be consistent with
the methods that I'm using.
So, in I actually don't thinkthat I've ever advocated
(26:07):
somebody who ate um meat to noteat meat, or vice versa.
I usually work um back fromtheir existing beliefs towards
their goals.
There's a few cases I alreadymentioned, and those were
typically not coming from me.
Those are typically coming fromtheir medical, their doctors,
(26:30):
whoever they speak to on that.
That's not a lane that I try torun for them.
So, yeah, any of those casesthat I mentioned, those changes
were actually being made inconjunction with others, not at
my sole discretion.
I do think, though, that, firstoff, that this entire discussion
, everybody in it it's a validand valuable discussion that
(26:51):
people are having.
I just don't think there's asilver bullet.
I don't think there's a onesize fits all or a cookie cutter
answer here.
If I'm speaking broadly, tothis abstraction, that is, 300
million Americans on average, Iwould say you guys could
probably eat less meat most ofyou, but it's not as strong as a
(27:13):
statement as it may first soundwhen you consider that that
cohort I mentioned just broadlyeats too much of everything.
So I would also tell them todrink fewer soft drinks.
And you know it's not as tougha statement as it sounds up top,
but no, I'm pretty comfortablewith that.
I think for most people, lessand better would be the best
(27:37):
strategy with meat, sincepresumably most people are
already eating meat.
If you're not currently eatingmeat and you're not anemic or
something, don't worry, I'm nottalking about you.
For most people, I think, lessand meaningful is that there
(28:00):
really is a difference betweenprocessed and unprocessed foods,
and in meats it's no different.
Processed meats are not healthy.
The animals that they come fromare usually raised in
industrial farms, and most ofthe practices as it pertains to
sustainability and environment,with processed meats in general
on average worse than yourunprocessed, these tend to be
(28:25):
the biggest polluters.
There's obviously still goingto be a significant carbon
footprint associated with anymeat consumption relative to
plant sources, so let's not lieor misrepresent that.
But there are certainly betterchoices within the subset of
meat.
(28:46):
They are not all created equal,even the difference, frankly,
between red meat and poultry.
If you're concerned with carbonfootprint carries a significant
difference.
So there's a lot of ways, ifyou're concerned with carbon
footprint carries a significantdifference.
So there's a lot of ways, ifyou're concerned about the
environment, that you can goabout decreasing your carbon
footprint.
Admittedly, I'm actually not theexpert on that.
I've obviously, like manypeople, made attempts to reduce
(29:09):
my own consumption of energy.
I just don't like waste.
Quick one on food.
I actually just hate food waste.
My opah was in a concentrationcamp in World War II.
His daily rations were corncobs someone else had already
eaten from, so anyway, I wasn'tgreat about it when I was a kid,
but we had a rule that if youput it on your plate you had to
eat it.
I spent many nights at thetable after everybody else had
(29:32):
already left.
So even though I wasn't good atthis as a kid, I grew into
really hating waste as an adultin general.
So I just don't think there's agood argument for wasting food.
That being said, I'm not anexpert on that, so I do kind of
want to keep my comments morefocused on the health and
performance component of thisand to that end I would say that
(29:56):
actually the scientificevidence does overwhelmingly
suggest that humans areopportunistic omnivores.
If you're trying to find prooffor your favorite diet, you'll
probably find it, because humanshave eaten just about every
diet you can think of.
Downstream from availability offood sources, at some point in
history, humans have actuallyhad the least amount of time
(30:18):
with abundant food, and I thinkthat's the issue that really
comes up in our food discussionsmore so than anything else, and
at least for those presumablylistening to a podcast I'm sure
there's other people out there,but in our world, abundance is
the bigger issue.
But anyway, guys, I actuallywant to now dive into.
(30:40):
This is so.
I came across this anecdote fromBusiness Insider this week, but
it's also an irrelevant examplethat came up for one of my
clients, and I might just filethis one under In Defense of
Carbs, part 2007.
How many of these have I donenow?
Business Insider articlebodybuilder ditched low carb and
(31:00):
started eating potatoes sixtimes a day.
He got in the best shape of hislife.
So the story was about a guy,mark Taylor, competitive
bodybuilder, who had eaten astrict low carb diet for decades
but consistently missed the topprize in his native Scotland
until he made one change eatingcarbs.
(31:21):
So before I get into Taylor'sstory, this is an anecdote
that's also relevant for aclient of mine who is in his
early 30s, soon to be father.
His training has focused fromthat kind of beach body
shredding focus to somedifferent goals.
He's also been eating more andjust kind of commenting on his
(31:41):
physique today that he actuallyfeels that he has been getting
more muscle he knows he'sgetting stronger because we're
seeing that in our sessions andhe was just saying that he
actually hasn't gotten as big infat as he expected with all
these crazy carbs he's beeneating.
And so I reminded him, or Ipointed him to this article and
I'm going to remind you guys ofthis today as well.
(32:03):
But this happens a lot actually, particularly if you've ever
been this type of person thathas pursued physique goals for a
really long time.
There's going to be a lot ofpeople out there that if you're
a fitness hobbyist, if you're anenthusiast, you've been chasing
fat loss a long time.
It's going to sound like thecraziest thing in the world, but
adding some carbs back mightactually help your physique.
(32:24):
So anyway, taylor's story andthe other reason why I find it
relevant is he makes this changeat 42, when a lot of people
have already said that yourmetabolism has shifted and
father time is just thoroughlywhooping your ass by now, and
you, just, you just can't addmuscle or do these things.
Um, so, at 42, he makes onechange Uh, he was a bodybuilder,
(32:46):
uh, so, so we don't have toworry about his work ethic, his
programming, his disciplinepresumably those were all the
same.
Uh, the change was adding thecarbs.
Um, many, particularly in thefitness enthusiast camp, still
believe that carbs are the enemyof leanness and make people fat
.
I'm going to say it again Carbsare not inherently fattening.
(33:13):
They play a key role in musclebuilding and recovery.
Most people, particularly myfitness enthusiasts, already
know the role of protein inmuscle building, but it
literally requires carbohydratesto take that protein that
you're supplementing, or ratherto get the amino acids break
that down and then reconstituteit into muscle fiber.
That process literally requirescarbohydrates, and actually on
(33:38):
a ratio of four to one, meaningfour grams of carbohydrates
every one gram of protein.
If you care about musclegrowing.
Um, that's the goals for somepeople when they're lifting
weights.
So if you want to see musclegain, you might need to fuel
carbs a little more than you'vebeen told by the fitness space.
I'm sorry, I'm a part of it but, yes, me and my brethren have
(34:01):
not done a good job.
All carbs are not created equal.
This is not a green light to goeat junk food, but Taylor used
potatoes.
In general, you want to focuson carbs that are going to
release energy slowly.
You might call these lowglycemic carbs.
You do have one little cheat orway out of that that we talked
(34:25):
about last week.
If you want to sneak somehigher glycemic carbs in there,
do that right after your workoutwhen your insulin sensitivity
is a little bit better.
But no, the reason I keepspending so much time on this
release I feel I do is that theanti-carb movement has had over
a decade head start on me hereand Taylor had an experience
(34:46):
that was very, very similar tomine.
He got interested inbodybuilding relatively young.
He started actually youngerthan me, 19.
I was still playing sports then, but he would do oats with
breakfast rice a little bitlater on and that was about it,
which to me sounds like thestandard basic bodybuilding diet
chicken, broccoli, brown rice,maybe have some oats in there.
That's kind of what everybodygets brought up on and it works.
(35:10):
It'll get you to a certainplace, but you're going to have
limits.
Yeah, taylor finally brought anutritionist in 2014.
She threw his diet out, addedcarbs to every single meal.
Then his physique took off andhe actually won his first
bodybuilding show over the ageof 40.
(35:30):
Prior to adding carbs, he waslooking at like a 2000 calorie
per day diet.
I've done those where you got2000 calories per day and then,
like you know, I actually walkaround close to 200 pounds, so
that needs to be like 200 gramsof protein, not a lot of
calories for much else left.
Super fun, love those days whenhe started adding carbs in.
It actually went up to 4,000and then eventually got as high
(35:53):
as 6,000 a day.
Those numbers sound crazy topeople.
I actually been out to dinnerwith some friends recently, and
there again, there's somefriends recently.
And there, there again, there'salways this perception of me
the trainer eats super clean andall of that.
Sometimes it can blow peopleaway to see the volume of food
that I eat.
And there again, the goodchoices.
(36:13):
I'm not lying to you guys whenI come up here, but sometimes
the amount can blow people away,and so I was just explaining
that over dinner last week thatyou know, believe it or not, I
actually around 4,000 calories aday, and a lot of that again
has to do with a lot of theprinciples that we talk about
here.
I wouldn't recommend just startthere, but if you follow those
rules that we talked about,carry the big rocks.
(36:34):
It really is not uncommon thatyou might have a maintenance
calories that could be aboutthat high while you're training,
of course, and I've just foundit a lot easier to maintain my
physique eating 4000 caloriesthan 2000.
Call me crazy, way, way easierfor me psychologically.
Takes a little work to set itup and get there, but, yeah, one
(37:00):
.
This story was obviously very,very similar to mine.
This was one that was touching,you know, a client and friend
of mine.
Um, in years of striving tofind the one and true perfect
diet, it also led me down thisexact same hole.
I used to be, you know, deathlyafraid of carbs for the exact
same reasons.
Um, I, I, I.
(37:21):
I almost feel like like myimposter syndrome as a trainer
comes from the fact of how manycarbs I eat and just the fact
that the public perception of ofwhat I do and what I actually
do is just so far off.
It almost makes me feel like afraud, um, but yeah, anyway.
Uh, I don't recommend that youagain start with 4,000 calories,
(37:42):
but if you've been in that kindof stuck in fat loss for a long
time, you really can build yourmetabolism into a very
different place where it canhandle a lot more calories.
Experiment just by adding somecarbs in, and particularly if
you ever get to a phase whereyou're focused on either adding
some muscle or a performancegoal in your program, just see
(38:06):
what happens.
Let it go for 30 days.
Don't be so strict on yourselfwith the carbs, and if
everything turns around and yourphysique blows up, then write
me a mean comment, but I reallythink it's going to be all right
, so you know.
What's funny, though, about MarkTaylor with his potatoes is I
have to admit that for me, thiswas actually one of the craziest
(38:30):
extreme diets that I've everdone, and I don't know if many
people know this one exists, butthe potato diet is actually a
thing, so when I came across it,it was marketed as like a detox
or a reset.
Admittedly, I didn't reallybelieve in those things at that
point.
I just found it interesting,and immediately.
At this point, I still justliked experimenting and trying
(38:54):
things out just to see how mybody would respond, basically
treating myself as a testsubject, if you will.
Um, but yeah, so.
So if you're listening to allthose benefits, uh, of adding
some carbs and thinking, youknow, like the typical American
thing, well, I'm just going totake that to its extreme and eat
nothing but carbs.
Well, like we always say,there's nothing new except all
(39:15):
that's been forgotten, that'salready been done.
Uh, the potato diet goes backactually to.
It's got its roots, ironically,in the Irish potato famine,
which I say ironically becauseyou wouldn't think that people
would base like a fad diet onthat.
Yes, some individuals didsubsist on little besides
(39:36):
potatoes, but obviously verydifferent circumstances.
It's hard to imagine somebodychoosing that as a diet.
The variation that I did was aweek-long thing.
Again, it was basically sold aslike a detox diet.
My physique, you know, didn'tblow up, so it helped me kind of
(39:56):
unlearn the low-car carb dogmathat I had.
But again, as it pertains to allof the claims that were made
about the benefits of the potatodiet, none of those manifested
at all, and whether it's thepotato diet or the grapefruit
(40:17):
diet or one of these diets thatare excluding an entire
macronutrient or an entire typeof food.
To me, all of these extremeapproaches should just
inherently raise red flags.
One of the biggest issues withany one of these approaches is
they are pointlessly exclusive.
(40:39):
There is no single food thatprovides all of the nutrients
one needs, and I see this exactsame style of thinking
manifesting in a lot ofdifferent diets.
People that are very into ketowill point to the fact that we
can produce ketones as the factthat you don't need
(40:59):
carbohydrates ever, and that'stechnically true, but that
doesn't mean that you arethriving or living the best
possible existence.
It's technically true that youcould subsist off potatoes for
some time.
It's technically true that youcan do a lot of different things
.
Whether it's a good idea orit's improving other markers of
(41:21):
your health is incrediblyquestionable.
So yeah, in general, anything Iwould consider extreme is
excluding either an entiremacronutrient or restricting
yourself to one food or type offood.
I can almost guarantee nomatter what variation of this
you're thinking about, if youactually do it for a long time,
(41:43):
it's almost certainly going tocreate nutrient deficiencies.
You may get some short-termsuccess in air quotes, because
it's going to be a successthat's defined after some
nebulous thing.
But I'm pretty sure that thisis actually going to be a time
period where you're going toactually start forming a lot of
(42:04):
long-term issues that you won'tactually even blame this
amendment on, because you'regoing to think of this time as a
successful one, not one whenproblems were starting to
compound Again.
I did this one for a week.
Wouldn't recommend it.
I think the biggest benefit Igot was what I was just talking
(42:25):
about.
Through trial and error, with alot of fitness things, I've
actually come to believe in alot less of them.
There really was a time when Ihad a big zest for
experimentation.
If there was a new product, Ialmost felt like it was my duty
to test it out, and I did.
I kind of used myself as a testsubject, you know.
(42:46):
Admittedly, it's that timeperiod that's kind of got me to
where I'm at today, where Iseriously doubt most of the
amendments.
If more of them had worked, Ithink I would be more excited
and more prone toexperimentation today.
I still remain open to the ideathat we might discover, um, some
(43:10):
new game breaking things.
Um, but sadly, most of the gamebreakers and there really are
game breakers, but they're.
They're called drugs and so youcan either choose to do that or
not.
But yeah, most of the stuffthat we know is game breaking is
banned by most competitiveagencies and yeah, your choice
(43:32):
to do that is a little differentalgorithm, if you will.
But anyway, guys, that's all Igot for you this week.
So just to quickly summarizequadrobics, if you guys see
those articles popping in yourfeed, I actually like this.
I don't like the term, I don'tlike them reinventing something,
but the series of movementsthat people are focusing on, I
(43:53):
say looks good.
I also think that this isprobably one of the easiest
things for you to do on your own.
Check out Tim Anderson OriginalStrength or just go to a park
and run around like you used towhen you were a kid.
I think you can figure this oneout the right way to eat meat.
I hesitate to try to answer this.
For everybody Vast majority ofpeople the best answer is
(44:16):
obviously going to be less andbetter.
Obviously going to be less andbetter.
Not a one size fits all.
There are no magic bullets, butthat's going to be the approach
, that for the most people thatare somewhere between carnivore
and vegan.
That's what's going to work foryou Carbohydrates.
I keep saying this and I'mgoing to keep saying it until
(44:39):
the paradigm shifts.
Carbs can actually improve aphysique.
So, again, if the paradigmflips, we'll change this all
around.
But yeah, for now I think westill need to defend
carbohydrates.
Let people know that they'renot the end-all be-all.
You didn't cheat, you're notdirty or befouled.
(45:00):
And then, yeah, just because Iknow I'm out here spouting all
my opinions, I did want to sharemy experience with potato diet.
I fall for extreme things allthe time Less frequency these
days, I admit, but again, it'sonly because so many of my
experiments didn't work out wellwhen I did it, didn't work out
well when I did it.
(45:20):
Anyway, guys, I alwaysappreciate you guys stopping in,
checking in on what I'm workingon here.
Thank you for the time, theattention.
Make sure to share these, getit out there.
And, yeah, keep lifting, keeplearning.
I'll do the same.
Popular Podcasts
Bookmarked by Reese's Book Club
Welcome to Bookmarked by Reese’s Book Club — the podcast where great stories, bold women, and irresistible conversations collide! Hosted by award-winning journalist Danielle Robay, each week new episodes balance thoughtful literary insight with the fervor of buzzy book trends, pop culture and more. Bookmarked brings together celebrities, tastemakers, influencers and authors from Reese's Book Club and beyond to share stories that transcend the page. Pull up a chair. You’re not just listening — you’re part of the conversation.
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!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com