Episode 11: The Power of Ketogenic and Carnivore Diets with Danny Vega

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Want to know more about ketogenic and carnivore diets? Danny Vega, is a fitness coach and online entrepreneur took a fascinating journey from powerlifting to bodybuilding, and ultimately discovered the ketogenic and carnivore diet.

Danny shares valuable insights on how to optimize diet and strength training for a healthier life. Trust me, your not gonna want tot miss this one!

Connect with Danny:

IG: @dannyvega.ms

FB: https://www.facebook.com/dannyvega05

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Primal Foundations podcast.
I'm your host, tony Pascola.
We will dive into what Ibelieve are the four central
foundations you need for ahealthy lifestyle Strength,
nutrition, movement and recovery.
Get ready to unlock your pathto optimal health and enjoy the
episode.
Welcome to the PrimalFoundations podcast.

(00:26):
I'm your host, tony Pascola.
Our guest today is Danny Vega,fitness coach, podcaster and
online entrepreneur.
In 2016, danny discovered theketogenic lifestyle, which
changed his approach to healthand nutrition.
Danny is an advocate for thecarnivore diet.
Danny, welcome to the PrimalFoundations podcast.
Thanks for having me, brother.

(00:46):
Yeah, thanks for coming on.
I want to set the tone of yourback story In 2016,.
How do you get into theketogenic diet and how do you
make your way over to thecarnivore space?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah, I got to back up to 2015.
I was competing in powerliftingat the time.
That was my obsession.
I got to the top 50 in myweight class in the country and
then I got to top 25 in the 220weight class.
I was training for a big meetand it was raw, with no wraps,

(01:24):
which is a big difference, justin sleeves.
I know now that I tore mymeniscus prepping for that meet.
I still was able to deadlift700 and squat 610 that meet, but
I couldn't even take my thirdsquat attempt.
Anyways, fast forward.

(01:44):
I end up the next year pullingout of a meet and I'm like you
know what I need to just gethealthy.
I'm banged up, my knees bangedup, started by doing a
bodybuilding diet, that's all Iknew.
It was my buddy who was abodybuilder and a powerlifter.
He coached me in super low fat.

(02:08):
By the end I was shredded.
I was miserable, shredded andmiserable.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
What were you eating?

Speaker 2 (02:14):
A lot of it was white rice, ground turkey, ground
beef, lots of things.
When you don't have fat to addflavor, I would do lots of mango
salsa on my rice and groundbeef Started above 400 grams of

(02:35):
carbs and went down super low onthe carbs.
It's such a terrible way.
When you cut the carbs and thefat, it literally you have no
energy.
What ends up happening?
A bunch of hormonal thingshappen.
Leptin starts to increase andyou start to develop that leptin
resistance and then you getthat insulin resistance.

(02:56):
It's all because your body isadjusting to this starvation and
it's just like pack on the fator we die.
You know what I mean, becausewhat ends up happening is
towards the end.
I was binging every weekend.
It was like a cheat day turnedinto a cheat weekend Right
around this time I'm stillgetting healthy.

(03:18):
My buddy Trevor from the gym atthe time he's a great friend now
, but we just knew each otherfrom the gym he was telling me
about this keto diet.
I'm like, what is this ketodiet?
He's like, yeah, you lower yourinflammation.
I'm like, wait, no carbs.
That's ridiculous.
That's absurd.
I guess that stuck in my mindbecause every time he'd see me
he'd check out these ketopancakes.

(03:40):
He'd show me all these things.
I guess I decided afterMemorial Day weekend of 2016
that, just for quality of life,I'm going to try this keto diet.
Maybe I'm already at my goal.
I'm already as lean as I wantto be.
What ended up happening in mycase is that I had the carbs low

(04:01):
already.
I just brought them a littlebit lower and added a bunch of
fat, literally two days in.
I was living in a house at thetime where we had two floors and
my bedroom was on the secondfloor.
I used to creep down the stepsevery morning.
It took an hour to get my bodygoing because I was just beat up

(04:22):
from squatting and deadlifting.
I played on AstroTurf incollege.
I remember walking down thosestairs.
After a few days I felt like aballerina.
I had some pep in my step.
That's what.
Initially with keto, I did theresearch of what is the keto

(04:42):
diet and I constructed, as Iwould with any other thing, what
my diet would look like.
I followed that.
When I noticed those effectswithin a few days, I told my boy
he was doing grad work here atUniversity of Tampa and I was
like send me everything you have.
He sent me 41 published papers.
I read through all of those.

(05:03):
I started looking for books.
I read the art and science oflow-carb performance, which to
this day is still probably topthree books for me Finney and
Volick classic.
It had everything that thetypical keto sphere at the time,
which was very small, wasmostly focused on weight loss

(05:23):
and disease people that weresick.
This had proteinrecommendations.
This had all this stuff.
I got obsessed with it.
Reached out to a guy, brianWilliamson, from what was the
podcast?
Oh my gosh, keto Vangelispodcast.

(05:45):
I was just like, look, I'm acollege athlete.
I used to be in strength andconditioning.
The keto diet has been awesomefor me.
If you ever want to do anythingabout, talk about that, I'm
happy to talk about it.
Little did I know that he wasstarting a podcast called the
Ketogenic Athlete.
He had me on, we hit it off andI become his co-host and that's

(06:06):
how it all started.
In August of 2017, he hadsomeone on which to this day is
one of my favorite people, amberO'Hern Carnivore, and she was
just talking about thiscarnivore diet.
I was like I always used tothink that I needed to hit all
my nutritional bases.

(06:27):
I got to get the fruits and thevegetables.
Here's this woman saying Idon't have to do that.
We ended up trying something wecalled it August surf and turf.
All we did was eat salmon andbeef all month.
That was before it really blewup.
We interviewed Dr Baker.

(06:47):
Dr Baker and I go way back.
We go back, like now, six years.
We had him on way before allthe.
A lot of people were keto for along time.
Then they did carnivore for me.
I was keto for a year.
I've been mostly carnivore onand off since 2017.
Obviously, I've learned a lot.

(07:07):
I've done a lot ofexperimentation, but pretty much
my baseline for most of thetime.
That's my long drawn out answer.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
It seems like that is a super common thing of.
I'm going to give this a whirland give it a try.
I want to take a step back totalk about that bodybuilder diet
.
We see that so much.
This is coming from somebodywho I wrestled all through high
school.
I was on a pretty tough eliteteam.

(07:37):
It's like we're really cuttingdown and we're really getting
low.

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Wrestlers are crazy.
I wrestled the most actuallyout of any sport in high school,
at least In college.
You got to throw some of theswimmers in there too, because
they're out of their minds.
They spend the day in the pool,but wrestlers like between the
cutting the workouts, just themental fortitude that it builds
at that age.
I don't think there's any othersport that comes even close.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
It's boxer.
You have boxers and all thosethings like that, but that's not
in the high school setting,yeah not in high school.
It's really tough.
You have your own clubs andthings like that or gyms.
We all knew that's.
All we knew is, hey, eat reallylow carb and don't eat fat.
I wish I would have known whatI know.

(08:26):
Now I'm looking back.
I would have been on weightevery week, I would have been
weight managing.
But you mentioned somethingthat is really clicked in my
head as soon as you said it.
You were on the style you'regoing really strict and all of a
sudden you would have thesebinge days and weekends.

Speaker 2 (08:44):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
Yep, and that's scientifically.

Speaker 2 (08:47):
That's starting to interrupt.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
No, no, no, go, go go .

Speaker 2 (08:49):
You know, the hedonic effect of carbs, of sugar, is
like up to 72 hours.
Once you binge that one day,the next, for up to like two
days later, you're going to becraving it again.
You're going to be better upthe fat.
Or just don't do it.
Just don't cheat.
I have my thoughts on cheating,I do something different, but
yeah, anyways, yeah.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
I've learned that just from wrestling, and even
when I was a kid, I have to bean upstainer of these things.
If I have it, it's got to bereal low.
A bite or two and call it quits, because life takes over.
You want to have your share ina dessert with somebody.
You're going to have a littlesomething, but that's it.

(09:31):
You have to really be diligentabout it Because, like you said,
you have one, two, three, fourbites.
It is a slippery roller coasterand with wrestlers, especially
with even bodybuilders, they getinto this really bad
relationship with food of justgorging themselves.

Speaker 2 (09:48):
Oh yeah, and, like you know, it's so sad.
I think the most prevalent isin bikini, because bikini is
pretty easy to step in, nothaving built that much muscle.
That's changing now.
Even the bikini look ischanging, but it's a good way

(10:09):
for people to get in, to gettingready for a show.
And then what ends up happeningis like if they don't understand
those pitfalls, the reboundafter, even if you're diligent
with your post show, like whereyou're ramping the calories up,
you're still going to reboundand not being aware of the
mental effects of that.
So what ends up happening isthey do these cuts and these

(10:29):
cuts are terrible.
I mean, the fact that peopleare eating 700 calories a day is
that's criminal, dude.
You just don't get that low.
That's crazy.
And then they get that hugeleptin rebound because now after
starvation the body's justgoing to be like a sponge and it

(10:52):
just wrecks you.
And then they end up saying youknow what?
I'm getting too big, I want todo another show.
Diet binge, diet binge, wildpendulum swinging all over the
place.
That's bad, yeah, and I thinkthat very low calorie diet.
I mean if you just look at thebig loser study, that was a
perfect example of that, youknow, like just eight weeks of

(11:16):
severe dieting and, you know,exercise over exercising.
Six years later their ghrelinwas still high, their metabolic
rate was still super depressed,super low.
So I find that, especially withwomen in that sport and
bodybuilding, keto is freakingmoney.

(11:38):
With men, I have my ownthoughts because there's also
the need to get massive and youknow it's just really, really
hard to do that with not havingthat insulin signal.
Yeah, we can talk about, likeyou know, the fact that you know
ketones are pretty anabolic,you know their muscle sparing,

(12:01):
but regardless, you know, youjust pack on a lot more, not
only because insulin is higher,but also the mTOR signal is much
higher with the carbs and youknow that's been proven in, I
think, cultures where, like,carbs alone don't build muscle,
protein alone does build muscle,but carbs and protein is much,

(12:23):
much greater effects, you know.
But if it's your typical personthat just wants to put on some
muscle and can be patient,there's no need, especially if
you have metabolic issues.
There's absolutely no need forcarbs in bodybuilding.
You know, that's just myexperience and I've had a lot of
athletes have done awesome withit.

Speaker 1 (12:42):
And what.
And, on that topic, what aresome of the recommendations for
it?
Again, you've specified youraverage Joshmo person just want
to get healthy and strong versusbodybuilder.
That's like, hey, this is mysport, this is what I want to do
.
What are some of therecommendations you give average
person looking to get healthyand strong versus bodybuilder?

Speaker 2 (13:05):
Yeah, it's like I look at this like everything is
like a decision tree and as longas you start to like go down
and know what to do at each,because there's people that can
do very well with a certainapproach, whether it be like
bringing in some strategic carbsor even you know certain
training things that you can do.
Some people can handle a lotmore volume.

(13:25):
Some people can can train.
Robert Sykes, my buddy Robert,I don't know if you know Keto
Savage, amazing human being,natural pro, one of my best
friends, and he, what was Igoing to say about him?
I was just talking about him.
Actually, I lost my train ofthought.
I completely lost it.

(13:46):
Dude, it's all good, it's allgood.
I brought him up and then I waslike no, but I think I was.
I was just talking about youknow, he's a natural pro, but I
brought him up for a specificreason Either way.
Oh, so, anyways, you asked meabout you know the difference
between Joe Schmo and oh, that'swhat it was that Robert can

(14:07):
train at a really high, lots ofvolume and lots of reps, and he
can.
He can pretty much train in avery, very glycolytic type of
training style where it's likelow rest, high reps, heavy,
intense, and he does really wellwith it.
But we had our genetics doneand we had it read on the air

(14:30):
and we have some key differences, even even in just you know our
muscle makeup.
You know type, more type oneversus more type two, things
like that.
And so the fact that he's nevercheated, he just doesn't cheat.
And it could be an argument thathe's so fat adapted that the
difference between his fuelpreference and even a fat

(14:52):
adapted athlete there's, there'seven a difference there.
So, like, if you look at thefaster study, for example,
there's a study where they sawfat adapted people how how much,
how intense can they go beforeit starts to kick over into more
than 50% of the energy usagesfrom carbs?
Right, your typical sugarburner, when they get to 55% of

(15:17):
their VO2 max, that's it.
They, they've, they're, they'regoing to start burning a lot
more sugar and they're going tostart burning a lot less fat.
Your fat adapted athlete islike 76% of your VO2 max.
So you get to spare all thatglycogen, those stored carbs in
your muscle, and you know itmakes it a lot easier because

(15:38):
you're operating at a muchhigher intensity using fat as
fuel.
But so the decision tree thereis if you're like me, I cannot
train high volume drop sets ifI'm just doing keto.
If I'm just doing keto and I'mnot bringing in carbs, then I'm
doing majority, like restinglike two and a half minutes,

(16:00):
training into, like, in like thesix to eight rep range,
targeting what you called, whatyou call myofibrillar
hypertrophy, which is associatedmore with strength, versus like
sarcoplasmic hypertrophy, whichis like that high volume
training, big ballooned upmuscle bellies, that's that's.

(16:20):
But the difference is that it'salso better to train that
myofibrillar, not just becauseit's more in line with the
ketogenic diet, but also becauseas you get bigger with muscle,
you also get stronger.
There's a drop off point withthe other type where you
continue to build muscle andthen it's not functioning,

(16:40):
you're not gaining strength,which who doesn't want to be
stronger?
But regardless, you could, youcould do a mix of both.
But, like, if you're a personwho number one when you're, if
you're just getting started withthe ketogenic diet, definitely
make sure that you're.
You're taking in a lot ofsodium, taking in a lot of
magnesium.
My recommendation is what's thelab?

(17:03):
So, oh my gosh, barton'scompany, upgraded labs, upgraded
formulas, so they do nanominerals.
You don't have to take like 800milligrams of of what do you
call it magnesium, because theabsorption is much better.
So magnesium, potassium andsodium, that first month, like

(17:27):
you got to do that anddefinitely don't watch your
calories like eat a lot Because,for example with me and this
has been shown also that whenyou are on a ketogenic diet you
increase mitochondrial andcoupling, which is just energy
escaping out of the cell.
Like the amount of energy goingin is nowhere near the amount of
energy going out, so you startto get this metabolic advantage.

(17:49):
So I was eating the same amountof calories when I first
started keto as I was before andI was starting to just melt and
I had to up my calories by like700 calories just to stop
because I was burning a lot moreand so that's important as well
.
And then just take it easy withthe training at first, because

(18:14):
you have to give your body sometime to get at least a little
bit fat adapted.
For me I noticed like at thethree month mark was when I
started to see my pumps besimilar to what they were before
and my energy was better, and Ihad this mix now of like wow, I
have a lot more endurance.

(18:34):
I could just do endurance stuffand I can still train hard.
So if you find that you'retraining like you're doing an
intense type of training, like abody building where you're
doing drop sets, you're doinghigh rep stuff, even if you're
doing high intensity, highintensity might work because
it's very short it's like 15minutes, so it may.

(18:57):
If you know how to push itreally really hard for one set
and it's very hard to do thatthen that would work.
But a lot of people don't dowell with that and then their
body gets overly stressed, theircortisol goes up.
Now they can't put on muscle,they can't lose fat.
They got to make a decisioneither change the way you train

(19:17):
to match your diet, which Iwould say keep that rest higher
two to three minutes, focus onsix to eight rep range, five to
eight rep range and push it hardand if not, then keep going.
And that goes for your proteinintake.
Play around with that.
That goes for a bunch of things, but for me I just noticed that

(19:44):
overall, if I want to just befeeling good, looking good, I'm
eating carnivore and I'm liftingand I'm doing a bunch of
walking and that's, for meperfect where I'm at now.
I'm 42 years old man, can't doit like I used to.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
And, man, it looked good for 42.
Appreciate it, and it's so.
I actually had somebody.
It's so funny, you kind ofmentioned this piece.
Somebody had reached out to meand they were asking me about
how much meat do you eat in aday?
I said for me I'm like 185pounds.
Two pounds of meat.

(20:21):
I like to do a steak, either aribeye or a New York strip, and
then I'll have a pound of groundbeef and then salted as I want,
some butter sometimes, and forme that's cool.
And they're like that's all.
I can't believe that.
There's no way.
It's not all.
One carnivore size fits all.

(20:42):
For me it just works and I eatmy fill and I'm satisfied.
But they couldn't fathom it.
But some people who are maybeeven smaller than me will get up
to three pounds, or some peoplethat might get a pound and a
half, maybe two pounds, andthey're like, oh, I can't even
down this.
So that's a good point of.
For you that works, for me, twopounds, boom, that's it.

(21:05):
You're pushing upwards of three, but you're way bigger than I
am.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
Well, dude honestly, honestly, I just think that the
key to so much in life is theability to just put in the work,
and it's not the hard, hardwork, like put in the care, work
where you're like, beintentional about what you're
trying and be proactive whenit's not working.

(21:31):
I just think it's weird thatpeople go to the gym year in and
year out and they look the sameand they don't wonder to them.
I mean, a lot of people maybedo, and you can find the answers
Like there's a milliondifferent reasons why.
Like maybe your training isjust your execution is bad.

(21:51):
You know, you're maybe going upin weight, you're maybe going
up in reps, but you're notfocused on execution.
And that's where I'm like laserfocused, because I can't handle
the volume that I used to.
So I have to truly standardizethat stimulus every time and go
deep in those sets so that I canget what I need to get to keep

(22:13):
the muscle, to add the muscle.
And then, of course, the dietis.
The majority of people justdon't think about the diet, or
maybe they do it the wrong way,they're getting misled, or
they're being told a veryunsustainable way, and then they
just think to themselves.
I'm sure someone thinksthemselves like I'm just not

(22:33):
built, like that person, theycan do this and I can't.
And they just don't know thatthere's another way, like, and
you know, with keto, keto's,where a lot of the rejects go
because people that things don'twork for them and all of a
sudden and I don't mean rejects,you know, it's disparaging I
just mean, like you know,nothing's working.
The doctors don't know, andthey try this keto diet and, of

(22:56):
course, when that happens, ofcourse they're going to be very
dogmatic and they're not goingto think anything else works,
because that's the only thingthat helped them.
There's other ways, though, andpart of that is I don't think
you ever need to be high carb,that's for sure, you know.
I think everybody should beeating a very you know, like

(23:16):
your podcast Primal, much morePrimal, much more traditional
preparation of food, actual food, and not this crazy stuff
that's been going on for thelast hundred years where, like,
our food, is a scienceexperiment.
It's crazy.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
So, anyways, the execution you talked about.
I think that's a great pointbecause you could be eating,
quote unquote, the right diet.
But the execution for yourtraining and you mentioned, like
I take two to three minutes inbetween my sets and that's
something that I preach recoveryis really big for me.

(23:55):
And taking a step back from themindset or this narrative that
I have to go hard all the timeand go all out because if I'm
not, then I'm not really workingout, yeah, that you know, like
we have people that are pushingin the gym and I have clients
that I personally trained that Ihave to, like, bring them down

(24:17):
a little bit and I was like hey,I know you can do more than
this, but we're really going tofocus on, you know, low rep
count, really smooth time undertension and really good form,
and that's the focus of theworkout.
And they're like well, I wasn'tsorry yesterday.
That should not be theindicator if you had a good
workout.
Yeah, of course, yeah.

(24:38):
If you're too sore to work outthe next day.
I did something.
I tell them I did somethingwrong.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Or they're not eating enough, or they're not sleeping
well too.
I mean, that's those otherthings too that we don't take
into account.
I mean, hopefully by now Iremember starting 2019, that was
the year that I really justzoned in on cortisol and stress
and the importance of recoveryand the importance of sleep and
the importance of like.
If you are that stressed,though, don't even start the

(25:09):
resistance training.
Start by walking.
Bring that allostatic load down, that stress buckets
overflowing.
You got to bring that stuffdown.
Don't be just throwing otherstuff.
Okay, I'm going to do fastingand I'm going to do just other
stuff, high intensity stuff andI'm stressed.
Of course, you're going to justbecome skinny fat.

(25:31):
You're not going to lose.
So the stress is huge, but theexecution man that's something
Ben Pekoski taught me.
My great friend Ben, he's anamazing human being and really
the smartest person in the worldwhen it comes to bringing
building muscle, and because ofhim that's why I've kept my
muscle on because SSI issomething he preaches is set up,

(25:54):
stabilize and initiate.
So if, for every exercise, youdo, set up perfectly for your
anatomy which is like if you'vegot really big chest, that you
shouldn't be going higher than30 degrees on the incline you're
going to start recruiting yourshoulders.
So that's the setup.
You may if you have long femurs, you don't want to set the bar

(26:15):
up high.
You want to do a low bar squatand use more.
That's me because I'm allfemurs and all legs and arms,
very small torso.
If you've got a longer torsoand you've got some short legs,
it's good to be upright like atraditional back squat, olympic
back squat.
So that's the setup.
The stabilize is just makingsure that the joint that is

(26:38):
moving is completely stable.
Nothing else is moving exceptfor the joint that's supposed to
move and everything else islocked.
And then initiate is the lastand most important and it's how
to start the movement.
If you know how to get acontraction of a muscle and
there's just bodybuilding, but Imean everybody wants to look
good, so this is for everybodyIf you want to get a contraction

(27:01):
in the length and position,everybody knows how to, let's
say, like with a fly, when I'mhere and the muscle is shortened
, that part is super easy.
Or a bicep curl when it'sshortened, everybody knows how
to get a contraction there.
But how do I get a contractionwhen it's in the lengthened?
How do I zone in on that?

(27:21):
And initiating it the right waytends to do that and this is
what I learned from Ben.
Like, for example, it's apretty Pretty much if I think of
every muscle that I do this for, yeah, like, if you're, it's
almost like you're flexing theantagonist of that muscle when

(27:42):
it's in its most length andstate and you will feel at the
insertion where that muscle,just like you're gonna I'm gonna
feel if I drive my triceps intothe preacher bench right before
and I flex them, I will feelthat contraction in the length
and position and now my job isto hold that the whole time.
Chase that hold onto its owninternet.

(28:05):
That's a big difference fromwhat people do and so, like
people unfortunately don't knowthat and if they did, they'd
save time.
They'd be able to not onlyfocus on what works and stick to
that and don't try to reinventthe wheel with a million
different things.
Just pick four exercises you'regonna do every day and do those

(28:27):
really really well.
But there's, it's just so muchbetter man, it really just.
And you also, you're gonna beless stressed.
You're also gonna learn becauseof the level of focus that that
takes.
It's this ability to go it'sreally good to make you
resilient because you're goinginto that sympathetic when

(28:50):
you're in that set, becauseyou're just putting everything
into it, you're focused on thebreathing, but you're also like
squeezing the crap out of thatmuscle and then you have to turn
it off completely in the restperiod.
And that becomes a superpowerif you learn how to do that.
Because now, instead of beingin that low level, stress during
your rest period because you'rejust on your phone.

(29:12):
That's a lot of people do thatand I will say I listen to music
a lot, so I'm not gonna say I'mnot on my phone, but I do.
If you can do that, you'll seethat you handle even stressful
situations in life better,because you'll have that ability
to go from sympathetic toparasympathetic and switch it
back on and off.

(29:33):
That's a big superpower.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So yeah people focus on.
I like to say people focus onthe flashy more because they see
it on Instagram, they see it onwhatever and YouTube, but it
really, and you hit the nail inthe head they're like let's
focus on X, five or sixmovements and get really, really
good at that.
I don't know if you're familiarwith the Strong First programs.

Speaker 2 (30:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
I had you'll love the .
I just had Fabio Zonan on.
He's gonna his podcast iscoming up.
He's the man, he's awesome.
I did a barbell certificationwith him.
But I have Brett Jones who's amaster instructor.
He's one of the head of theentire education of Strong First
and we were talking back andforth about like developing
skill and I was telling thestory about a college wrestling

(30:25):
room and we were cause we weregoing back and forth, he
wrestled, I wrestled, and whenyou go into a college wrestling
room you would think you'regonna see the special sauce,
you're gonna see all this coolstuff and it's gonna be really
like like elite, high tech, hightech, whatever You're gonna get
the, you're gonna get thespecial equation or whatever.

(30:47):
But it's, it's the most basicwrestling practice.
It's like we do the exact samething except they do it better.
They just do it really good,like a go behind a double leg,
and I'm sitting there watching.
You know I'm watching like Idownloaded every single college
wrestling room like coachingthing, cause I coached for a

(31:08):
while and I'm watching theselive wrestling practices.
I'm like we do the exact samething and it's just, but they do
it so good and just gettingreally good at the basics.
Versus I'm doing the flashykettlebell movement, I'm doing
the flashy, you know clean andsnatch, you know barbell work,
which is really hard to do inthe general population.

(31:29):
Doing an overhead barbellsnatch is really hard.

Speaker 2 (31:33):
I didn't even do that with my college athletes Like I
.
You know, when I went to VCUand I was the head strength
coach for basketball there, Ithey were doing some snatches.
I took that out, you know.
It's like I understand.
There's look, that's tripleextension.
You know, hip extensionimportant for jumping I get that

(31:55):
completely.
There's a million other waysthat we could do that without
risking.
Why can't so-and-so play?
Why can't he shoot?
Oh, cause he messed up hiswrist in the weight room.
That's the.
That is like that's a strengthcoach's nightmare, you know.
And that goes for, you know,even barbell lifts.
This is what I'll say.

(32:16):
Obviously, for me it was a hugepart of building who I am and I
was very focused on keeping, youknow, I was obsessed with
staying healthy, you know.
So my back I never had anyissues.
Plus, my coach was worked withStuart McGill, who is the back
expert.
He's the best and I learned alot about that.
But what was I going with?

(32:38):
That Totally lost my train ofthought again, man, at this time
of night, I'm just like-.

Speaker 1 (32:42):
Overhead overhead snatch, oh yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
So I was gonna say, like with barbell lifts, right,
you know even a squat.
You know I can obviously stillsee how important a squat is,
especially if you justunderstand what is the goal of
it Structural integrity.
You know, strong trunk strong.
If you have that strong core,that's where all movement is
generated from then, yeah, butthen someone like me I don't put

(33:10):
a bar on my back anymore.
You know I'll hit the hacksquat Also because if I'm
focused on building muscle and Iunderstand that there's gotta
be at least a little bit of mytraining to really hit that hard
, hard training.
You know that one set type ofdeal and I don't wanna have to
worry about if I fail I'm gonnaget hurt.

(33:32):
You know, if I fail on a hacksquat, if I fail on machines, I
can pretty much fail withoutrisking a catastrophic injury.
But then at the same time yougotta keep that structural
integrity, you gotta continue todo things that keep your trunk
strong and all that.
But yeah, like, just you haveto find the things that work for
you.
And then you gotta standardizethe stimulus.

(33:53):
Like, why are you gonna go upand wait?
You said you did four sets ofeight.
Can you tell me that you didfour sets of eight.
Did you do eight?
The last set?
You probably did four or five,and then, like you went
somewhere for the last three andyou didn't really do them, and
now you're gonna go up and waitnext week.
Why Muscles don't?
They don't sense load, theysense length and tension.

(34:16):
You know, increase the leverarm for that length to create
more damage and make sure thatit's that there's tension, which
is literally the contraction.

Speaker 1 (34:24):
So yeah, form is and developing skill is huge and
getting the I'm a PE teacher by,that's my main gig.
And I have the fifth graders inthe fitness center, all the
eighth graders, and one of thefirst things I tell them I go.
You know what?
The number one reason peopleget hurt in the weight room is
and they're like oh, they tripover the treadmill or they trip

(34:47):
over dumbbell.
I'm like no, and then I'm likeego.
Oh yeah, 100% is ego, because Iwanna put it over my head or I
wanna look cool with that bigweight.
It's like no, take a step back,get good at it, Develop the
skill, take your time.
This is a long journey.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
This is not.

Speaker 1 (35:06):
I'm not kidding, they wanna get fit next week.
They're looking at a mirror.
They're flexing, they're biceps.
I'm like you didn't get, youdidn't do nothing today.

Speaker 2 (35:13):
Man, instagram, that's.
I blame social media.
You know everybody's gotta be.
It's hurting.
You know the ability to buildmuscle, because people don't eat
in a surplus long enough toreally build muscle and then
they get impatient so they justget on a bunch of drugs.

Speaker 1 (35:29):
And.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I mean, I guess it's at this point.
You know the things are so badlike in our environment.
You know that low test is muchmore prevalent.
I heard the other day that the26 year old in 2023 has the same

(35:51):
testosterone as a 70 year oldin 2000, 2000, the year 2000,.
That was when I went to college.
That's wild.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
I heard another stat that I think it was from 19,.
The level of the average levelof male testosterone today is at
half of the average of the 60s.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Oh yeah, I would assume it's even less than that.
But yeah, definitely, yeah,it's wild On training.

Speaker 1 (36:19):
What is your thoughts ?
I'd like to get your take onthis Training Fasten.

Speaker 2 (36:25):
So I used to do it all the time.
I'm now not a fan of it anymore, just because last year I went
down the leptin rabbit hole.
I highly recommend it.
It is as profound to me as whatI found with keto, because
leptin is such a master hormone.

(36:46):
You know it's a satiety hormonethat's made in your fat cells.
It basically deals with everyhormone system in the body.
It deals with the steroidhormones, it deals with thyroid,
it helps you convert, you know,t4 to T3, you know it does all
this stuff.
And because of that, a lot ofwhat we do is feeding into

(37:10):
leptin resistance.
And then, of course, thedieting and regaining, and
dieting and regaining.
Every time you gain more fatyou're gonna start producing
more leptin and that's gonnastart flooding the brain.
And the leptin's job is to tellthe brain that you're full and
that it's okay to burn fat.
And when you start flooding thebrain more and more, because of

(37:30):
those rebounds, those up anddowns, you over time you develop
that leptin resistance.
The brain stops getting thesignal and now it tells your
body you can't burn fat and yougotta be hungry.
And so, because of that, leptinis a very circadian focused
hormone and we know thatcortisol is highest in the

(37:51):
morning.
It peaks at like six, six, 30,helps you wake you up and leptin
is lowest in the morning.
We also know that if you eatsomething, even if it's a low
carb, high fat food, like a highprotein, you know, with a
little bit of fat there's gonnabe an insulin bump because you
know it had.
Insulin's job is to shuttlethose nutrients in right.

(38:12):
And if we know that insulin hasan inverse relationship with
cortisol, you get a littleinsulin bump, you drive your
cortisol a little bit lower andyou're giving your body food
when your leptin is the lowest,which protects you for later in
the day, because then later inthe day your leptin is highest

(38:34):
at night.
You shouldn't be hungry atnight.
And I started to really thinkabout that and I started to add
basically, if you wanted to dofasting I was telling people
it's a lot harder to do it thisway, but it's a lot better,
you'll sleep better it'sbasically, instead of waiting
until lunch and training fasted,have a little bit of breakfast

(38:56):
and then have a post-workoutbreakfast and then eat dinner.
So it's just a matter and I saythat because a lot of people
train in the morning I train inthe morning.
So this morning I had leftoverstrip and chukai from yesterday
and I just had a bunch leftoverthat I very rare cooked it and I

(39:19):
just put it there and threw iton there and had that and then I
trained.
So that will help you bringyour leptin back and then it
also you'll burn more fatbecause you're just awake for
that time at night.
We know that it's also part ofleptin.
You're not supposed to eat atnight, like where our body, you

(39:41):
feed the body the same meal inthe morning and in the night.
You have a differentpost-prandial response.
That's been shown.
That's why and now also,training fasted depends on how
you're training.
I think training fasted the wayI mentioned, which I think is
appropriate for keto.
I think it's totally fine andthat's how I did it forever.

(40:02):
I'm only now doing this now andthis is, just, like I said,
where I'm at and I think I wouldrecommend it, just because so
much of what we do is drivingcortisol too high and it's
leading to a lot of the timewhere people just crash their
cortisol or they get thoseinverted cortisol patterns where

(40:23):
because every day you wake upand you have coffee on an empty
stomach when your cortisol ishighest and your coffee's
driving it even higher andyou're starting to really
generate a bunch of cortisolduring the day and then over
time, in the morning, when youwake up, your body is like no

(40:45):
cortisol and so now you'rewaking up groggy and tired and
then what ends up happening?
Throughout the day that stressbuilds that cortisol and now at
night you have your cortisol ishigh when it's supposed to be
lowest and you're tired andwired.
So a lot of what I do now is tocombat that, because that's
what most people are doing.
They're having their coffee,going to work, having lunch, and

(41:07):
I would just say think aboutthat.
Other than that, not reallyagainst training fasted unless,
like I said, you're verystressed.
That would be something that Iwouldn't add to that stress
bucket because it definitelywill so.
But you can totally operatefine, especially if you're fat
adapted.
For me it was always.

(41:27):
My pre-workout was literallycoffee and fat, whether it was
just butter or.
I've been doing keto brains nowfor like three, four years and
I love it.
It's MCT, alphagpc, l-theanineand and Lyonsmane, so it's

(41:48):
awesome Is.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Lyonsmane, is that mushroom?

Speaker 2 (41:53):
Yeah, it's an adaptogenic mushroom.
It's been shown to basicallyincrease BDNF and NGF, which are
help you grow new neurons,neuro growth factor and
brain-derived neurotrophicfactor, and it's improved mild
cognitive impairment in oldpeople.
It literally helps you keepyour neurons and keeps you know.

(42:15):
It's just a great and it's afreaking mushroom.
Those adaptogenic mushrooms areunreal man.
They all do some pretty coolstuff like and they're
adaptogenic because they kind oflike they work with your body,
like what you need.
They give you more of it, whichis wild.
Think about that.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
You called that so that you put all those things in
there all by itself, Like areyou or is it a one-to-one item?

Speaker 2 (42:42):
It's basically a powder, so the MC, you know,
it's basically it's like a kindof coconut flavored powder,
because it's derived fromcoconut, the MCTZAR, and then it
has like all of those things,those supplements in it and I
throw that in with my coffee andthe blender with butter not a

(43:02):
bunch, I used to, you know, twotablespoons of just now, it's
like you know, blend it anddrink it and when you know, when
you froth it up, it's got thatnice big foam.
That's what that was my.
I would have that like 30minutes before training, all the
time for years.
I'm talking about like probably, probably, like for five years.

(43:25):
So this, what I've been doingnow, is just a little bit
different.
It's just since since lastSeptember probably.
Yeah, I think it was likeAugust, September.

Speaker 1 (43:35):
Yeah, I go back and forth with when people asked me
about fasting, so I did.
I did an Ironman just like twoyears ago, and one of the big
things I wanted to do was Iwanted to do it fat adapted.
That was my big.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Thing.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
I got on keto.
I started started doingcarnivore Like after I was kind
of on carnivore keto and thenthe pandemic hit and I just
locked down the house.
You're ordering food, you'regetting, I was getting.
I was getting thick like withtwo Ks capital.
I was getting out in a good way.
And I was like man, I got to dosomething.

(44:13):
So there's, the gyms wereclosed, everything was closed.
I'm like, well, I can, I got abike, I can bike, I can run.
You know, there's a lake righthere.
I'm in Chicago, like I go swim,I can swing kettlebells, all
kinds of stuff, and I starteddoing a lot of just to push that
fat adaptation.
I started doing a lot of fasterrunning fast to workouts,

(44:34):
everything.

Speaker 2 (44:35):
And I would do cardio .
Fasted running is like awesome.
Like that's a little bitdifferent, though, yeah.
Yeah, I'm much more in favor ofthat, especially if you want to
train to.
You know, drive that fatadaptation for sure.

Speaker 1 (44:48):
And yeah, I talk to people about all the time.
I go on like I'll never forgetI went on an 18 mile run before
work one day and I had I had awater bottle with the elementy
electrolytes in it and that'sall I had and I ran, you know
whatever, and I didn't even haveI had a coffee before I left.
I get to work and I'm like allsweaty and like I got my bad,

(45:10):
like my little, like camel packthing, and the Dean of students
is like dude, what what are you?
Okay?
I'm like, yeah, man, I'm good.
He's like you are drenched.
I go, yeah, I just did 18.
He's like, before work, I'mlike, yeah, and I didn't even
have a lot, Like I didn't eatanything.
And then lunch, like we couldeat at the school you can go out
wherever.
Our school's got pretty goodfood and I didn't even have

(45:32):
lunch until like one or twoo'clock but I started running at
like five am, that's why thatis awesome.
Yeah, and it.
I tell people just like I havea never ending energy when I,
when I do those cardio endeavors, really didn't really eat too
much.
I had different things.
I think you I heard you even ona podcast talk about you can,
oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (45:53):
Yeah, I had like.
Did you have?
Did you have you can for theIronman, or was that before?

Speaker 1 (45:57):
Yeah, I did so.
I really I feel kind of stupiddoing it and it's like I go
against my own advice, but Ireally just tested, you can, on
the Ironman.
So my first oh dude on the dayof the Ironman.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Yeah, oh, dude, I did that once at a powerlifting
meet, so don't worry, I didexactly I don't ever try
anything on game day, but I didthat.
We all do it.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
We all do it.
I did, I would go.
My first like century ride Iever did was completely fast At
a hundred miles on the bike.
I had like I stopped to getcoffee or whatever.
But I don't know if you knowCasey Ruff for Balmous Body
Sounds very familiar.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Yeah, casey Ruff.

Speaker 1 (46:35):
Yeah, he's in the keto space and I reached out to
him and he's a cyclist and he'ssuper big on Carnivore and he's
like, yeah, try, you can.
If you're going to go that far,like if you want something, you
can's good, cause it's not,it's not a ton of carbs, it's
going to be slow releasing.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Hey, it doesn't.
It doesn't raise insulin oryour blood sugar.
I don't know.
If you know I did.
I did a lot of work with you,can and actually I didn't know
that.
Yeah, we did.
I basically designed kind oflike like an informal study
involving like a bunch of likebasically my keto friends, you

(47:13):
know, like people like you knowLogan Delgado, you know Goody
Beats, dr Finn fabulous, youknow Jamie and we basically were
all trained athletes, fatadapted athletes.
All of us had been on aketogenic diet at least a year
or two years and we basicallydesigned what to do.
We did like blood sugar andketone testing baseline before,

(47:36):
after and then it turned into apaper that you can release them.
Dr Jeff Volick basically wrotea white paper on our results and
, like you know from theresearch that they already have,
that it doesn't raise yourinsulin, it doesn't raise your
blood sugar, it just fills upyour glycogen stores, which is
exactly what you want, you know,usable carbs and.

(47:58):
But it's another thing to see itin action and it's like I even
had periods.
I got away from it because itdidn't work for some, but it
worked really well.
But I even had, like you know,for peak week strategy like
loading up on some U-Can and itworked really well for one guy
and for a few other ones I justkind of got away from it, just
cause it's already such acomplicated week that I didn't

(48:20):
want to.
And then I found other ways todo that, just with sodium and
increasing the calories.
Just basically refeed day 24hours before the show, sodium
bumping it up.
You start this like six weeksout.
You start trialing this to nailit so that you know exactly.
You know how much sodium shouldI add.
If I add too much, I'm going tolook wake up watery, you know,

(48:42):
and so we would take thepictures before, take them after
.
So, anyways, there's a.
I just get on these rants dudewith this stuff because I love
it.
I love it.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
I didn't know.
I didn't know you were feelingit.
But yeah, you can, I'm justshouting them out yeah, cause
it's so good and I, you know, Ionly needed, like I think I had
two in which it was 15 carbs, 20carbs, the other, like you know
.
So I do it.

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Oh yeah, those gels are awesome.

Speaker 1 (49:07):
Yeah, banana strawberry.

Speaker 2 (49:08):
Oh, fantastic yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
And I finished the race and I felt great and
somebody asked me they're likeoh, my stomach is killing me,
how many gel blocks did you have?
And I said I didn't have anygel blocks, I only had like 30,
I don't know 30 carbs.
They looked at me like I was,like my hair was on fire, dude
those people are gettingdiarrhea because of the all that
they just can't.

Speaker 2 (49:30):
After a while your body just can't intake the
amount that you need to sustainyou for that hour, like whatever
200 something calories of carbsor whatever you know.
Maybe that's probably like whatis that 50 calories or 50 carbs
?
You start to load that hourafter hour Oof.

Speaker 1 (49:48):
There's coaches.
There's coaches that wouldn'teven work with me because I told
them I want to do a carnivoreor fat-addactive First.
They said I was going to die.
They're like you're going todie.
So that was number one.
And then some recommendations Iwas getting from coaches was
100 carbs an hour.
They're like you have to eat 100carbs every hour on the bike,

(50:09):
because that's going to be theonly time you're really going to
get all your nutrition and Iwas like what?
That's insane.
But going back to the fastestthing I like.
The flip side of that is toyour point.
I find that for me, fastedcardio workouts in the morning I
don't.
I was to say I'm retired, I'mretired.
I did my Ironman, I'm retiredI'll do some cardio every now

(50:32):
and again and I'll just go on along run for fun.
That's not my main thing.
And I tell people I did theIronman not to be healthy.
I did it to complete it.
And it's just two differentavenues.
But now I find myself, if I'mgoing to do a lifting session in
the morning, I kind of enjoy.
Just I used to do everythingfast because I'm like I got to

(50:52):
be fat adapted, but now I enjoyeating a bigger breakfast.
I'll just do ground beef.
Like a pound of ground beef,that's a big one for me too.
Yeah, put it all in a bowl andnot only like, will I eat the
ground beef, but like you knowhow, like cocoa puffs.
At the end I'll just sip therest of the juice or butter or
whatever else is in there and Ifeel good and I'm actually
really not hungry that much.

(51:13):
Later I feel good in my liftsand I'm not super over full.
It's only a pound.
I mean, some people are likeit's a pound, it's a lot.
I'm like it's not a lot.

Speaker 2 (51:23):
They don't eat a pound because they're filling
themselves.
They can't even imagine,because they're having like
maybe six or eight ounces, butthey're having all this other
stuff.
That is like you know,carbohydrate.
For every carb you have, you'reholding on to three.
You know, for every gram that'sthree grams of fluid that
you're gonna kind of hold on to.
So your stomach will get realfull just from the volume.

(51:45):
You won't eat the mostimportant thing, which is the
meat.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
Yeah, and on that topic.
So what are some nutritionmisconceptions that you are
tired of correcting?

Speaker 2 (51:56):
I mean, I would say, obviously you know this, like
blind hatred for keto that isjust this shows ignorance.
You know, because I've done somany different approaches and
I'm always open to learningabout different things and like

(52:16):
it's just the fact that prettymuch everyone can benefit from
at least a period of ketothroughout the year.
You know, maybe, like if you'relucky enough that your season
is in the summer and your offseason is in the winter, even
better, because that's probablythe best time to do keto anyways
, because in the winter,traditionally, you know you're
not gonna have access to all thestuff you're gonna have in the

(52:37):
fall and the spring.
So, generally speaking, ifyou're in a cold enough climate,
you're gonna have to eatcarnivore.
You know, in the winter, or atleast closer to it, you know
there's only so much you canstore.
And just you knowpost-competition, you know if
you're banged up to lowerinflammation, so there's just a

(52:58):
bunch of, and then you startgetting into.
You know different endeavorsthat you can do.
So I guess the blind hatred forketo, that's one.
You know the stuff that used tobother me.
I think God has died.
You know, like, I'll tell youlike from 2016, when I started
probably till about like 2018,2019, I feel like that's when we

(53:20):
started to realize at least weas in like a society, because I
never did low protein I at thebeginning there were times that
I definitely played with it andeven, like in a cut that I did
with my buddy Robert, my proteingot down to 75 for the last
week and that was just hisapproach and it actually worked
awesome.

(53:41):
But it used to be that, you know, people would be like don't eat
too much protein, it's gonnaturn into sugar, and they're
talking about gluconeogenesisand it's like gluconeogenesis is
not just something that yourbody just says, hey, I'm just
gonna do this.
I mean, everything has a cost,you know, and it's expensive to
turn protein into sugar unlessyou need it.

(54:02):
You know If you need it, ifthere's a need, it's kind of
like so.
But then the benefits, on theother hand, of eating the
protein far outweigh the risk ofgluconeogenesis.
And if you feel that you'reafraid of the protein, then test
yourself post-pranduly, likethis much protein, and then test
yourself 30 minutes an hour andtwo hours and see if there's a

(54:26):
glucose response.
I did it.
I started with a pound, I wentto 20 ounces, I went to 24, I
went to 28.
And then when I went to twopounds in a sitting, I think
there was like a 15 point jump.

Speaker 1 (54:39):
And you're talking about with a glucose monitor?

Speaker 2 (54:41):
Yeah, with the glucose monitor and you know
like it's a demand-drivenprocess, so that used to be a
big issue that's gone.
I'm kind of you know, it's somany new people come in and it's
like I feel like the old-timer.
I was around when it started,you know 2016,.
You know, really was I justkind of stepped away last year,
even though I'm still friendswith everybody.

(55:03):
I still probably go to KetoConand I don't think I'll speak
just because I don't feel thatyou know I'm doing that and
involved in that much that Ihave anything important to say
because I'm not doing theresearch that I used to do, you
know.

Speaker 1 (55:18):
But all the stuff is important, man.
All the stuff is so, I think,and plus you're gonna get more
people that go.
This is gonna be my first yeargoing to KetoCon.
Actually, I just got my tickets.
Yeah, I wanted to go last yearbut I was doing a small-.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
I literally spoke every year.
That was from the day one I'vebeen on that stage.
You're gonna love it, man.

Speaker 1 (55:35):
Yeah, it sounds awesome In terms of the
anaphylic window when peopletalk about that.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
Oh, that's that one could get me going for sure.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
So what do you hear?
Because I hear all the thingsthat you need to do.
You gotta eat.
If you do not eat at thismoment in time, after your
workout, you will not gainmuscle.

Speaker 2 (56:01):
Well, I mean, I'm very dispassionate about this
because it's like you can't sayanything.
You really have no way ofknowing.
If you comb through theresearch, which is where I
started, I wanted to know andwhat I saw was that everybody
agreed that having a specificamount of amino acids, like two,

(56:24):
three grams of leucinepost-workout is very, very
important.
Nobody even wanted to touch howmuch.
What the timing is, you knowand thank God it was.
You know Jacob Wilson.
If you know him muscle PhD Iwas.
He's a good.
I haven't spoken to him inyears but you know, at the time

(56:46):
we were talking a lot and I waslike I was like you know what's
the research on this?
Can you tell me anything?
Cause he's a PhD and he looksthrough this stuff and he's
focused on bodybuilding, like hewas in generation iron.
You know he was in that part.
I think he might have been inpart two as well, but anyways,

(57:08):
there was one study and heshowed it to me and it was
basically it was the differencebetween an untrained athlete you
know, someone who's beentraining consistently for a few
years and like an elite athleteand, if I remember correctly,
that untrained athlete if you'rejust talking about the risk of
not eating protein.
That ends at about 12 hours forthem.

(57:31):
So they can go 12 hours after.
Then you get a little bit moreand then you're looking at elite
athletes can technically waitfour hours.
So my rule of thumb, if someoneasked me, would be you know,
four hours post-training is aslong as that wait Cause.
The thing is it never gets tothat point because if you're

(57:54):
actually training to eating togain muscle, you're probably
gonna have to eat three to fourmeals a day.
You're gonna have to just justbecause, number one, you're
getting that, that loosingsignal more often, which is very
anabolic, so that's great.
And, number two, you'reprobably gonna have to do it
that way because of all the foodyou're gonna have to eat.
Like you know, if you're, ifyou're a guy, I tell them like

(58:16):
you know, start at if you'retrying to gain weight, just if
you wanna start at a number,multiply your goal body weight
by 20, start there.
So if you're 180 pounds, youwanna be 200, start at 4,000.
And then you know, up thecalories or lower the calories
by 50 or 50 or so.
That's my number.

(58:36):
Usually, as things happen, ifyou start to gain too much
weight, you know too quicklythings like that.
So yeah, what, what?
What were we talking about?
Like?
As far as the cause, I'll justgo on these rants and then just
I'll go out.

Speaker 1 (58:53):
Just talking about like mis-conception, oh so the
the protein window man?

Speaker 2 (58:58):
Yeah, so the protein window.
You know, 30 minutes after youwork out, nothing's gonna happen
if you don't get protein 30minutes after you work out and
you know, don't?
You don't have to rush to getit in and feel like you need to
just drink a protein shake.
That's what a lot of peoplethink, you know like.
It's not that I'm completelyagainst them, but most of them

(59:18):
are trash I highly recommend.
The two that I recommend are theSanta Cruz Paleo beef protein,
grass-fed beef protein, whichliterally is just is grass-fed
beef powder, and the same thingwith the oh my gosh, I have a
code for them and everything.
And I'm forgetting the primeprotein from Equip Foods.

(59:41):
Equip, the Equip ChocolateGrass-fed beef protein is
freaking amazing.
It's literally threeingredients Grass-fed beef
powder, stevia and cocoa powderand it tastes delicious.
But I would prefer real food.
You know it's just gonna bemuch more than just amino acids,

(01:00:02):
you know, and the protein,you're getting minerals and all
this other good stuff and plusyou're eating something and
you're chewing something, whichis what your body is gonna
absorb those nutrients better,because just the chewing action
it's gonna be way different thanjust chugging a drink.
It's way different how thosenutrients are assimilated.
So go figure, it's the naturalway.

Speaker 1 (01:00:25):
Yeah, just back to the basics.
Back to the basics I remember Iwas, I used to.
I don't know if they have themout or in Tampa where you're at,
but like exports, you know, doyou have those out?

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
there?
Oh, I've heard of that Is it'skind of like.
It's kind of like what do youcall it?
Like X games?

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
No export is a.
They're popular in the Midwest.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
out here it's a gym and every oh, wait a second,
wait a second.
Is this the one?
That is kind of like CrossFit.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
No, it's like a box gym and it's just.
They started small and theyjust started popping up
everywhere.
I think of like plan of fitness, but not as crappy, I guess.
I want to take crappy, butthey're super popular around
here and the every town has anexport in it and it's open.
Some are open 24 hours andeverybody who's in the kind of
fitness or like that's young orjust getting like an A

(01:01:13):
certificate and will work at anexport and I was the overnight
guy because they just didn'thave any positions and they're
like we need to be overnight butovernight's awesome because
nobody's in there and you canwork out.
So it's great, and I just do myI was in college, I was just
doing my homework or whatever.
But the day you have to go tothis sales course before you can
even step on the floor and thesales course is basically it

(01:01:37):
wasn't really a.
I had to do it but it didn'tapply to me because I was
overnight, but everybody elsethat was during the day, shifts
or afternoon or whatever.
You had to hit quotas and youhad to like if you didn't hit a
quota you would get reprimandedfor it.
You would get like written upfor it, but they would.

(01:01:58):
They told us this whole scripton what to tell people.
To sell the protein shakes, tosell the protein powder, you
have to have protein, 100 carbsand anywhere for 25 to 50 grams
of protein after your workout orelse it's not even gonna be
worth the workout, kind of deal.
And it was just.
I just remember it.
I was sitting there.

Speaker 2 (01:02:17):
I was like wow that's a lot of carbs.

Speaker 1 (01:02:19):
Like, oh man, I'm like.
But I bought it because then Istarted doing like, I got to
have more carbs.
Then I started doing.
I'm like you know, I'm a 20,maybe 19, 20 years old, and then
I started getting really heavy,just cause I'm just like you
know, I gotta I'm gonna lose mymuscle, but it's gonna walk away
, it's gonna fly away, it'sgonna.
Yeah, that's it.
So, like that nutrition piece,you're a dad, right, and you got

(01:02:45):
some kiddos.
How do you navigate cooking forkids and going places?
And you know, once you see theveil drop of just the food
industry and you can see howcrappy it is.
So how do you navigate thatwith the kiddos and what do you
cook for them?

Speaker 2 (01:03:04):
Well, I was blessed and so I have to recommend this
way because it is gonna be theleast speed bumps, the smoothest
and most enjoyable and theprobably best chance that you
will really set that foundationto a point where you won't have
to be worrying about it causethey just eat that way.
And that's to start before themother's pregnant.

(01:03:26):
Make sure that you're bothsuper healthy and then go into
same thing, like when both of mysons we wean them both with
soft boiled egg yolks and rawliver.
That was their first thing thatever touched their mouth.
That was food, and it justshows these kids are just super
healthy, off the charts alwayshave been with their height and

(01:03:48):
weight, and so that really helpsbecause we just basically their
palate didn't start to get moreless sensitive from all the
junk until much, much later inlife.
You know they didn't know whata cake was.
They would.
You know they were on Halloween, they were.
They thought these things.
The goal was to collect thingsand put them in the.

(01:04:08):
They didn't know it was candy,you know, when they were really
young and so.
But, that being said, a lot ofpeople are not coming from that
situation.
I understand that that's part ofwhat we did with the podcast is
trying to tell these familieslike, look, it's not just
knowing how, the right way toeat and the right way to feed
them which, by the way, is theway we eat, because they're

(01:04:30):
humans too, who are just alittle bit smaller and, in fact,
probably can benefit even morefrom this, because they're
growing and the stuff thatyou're gonna provide them with
when you're eating the rightdiet is just gonna everything to
maximize their potential andtheir brain development and
their muscles and everything youknow setting up their.
You know how lean, how easyit's for them to stay lean when

(01:04:51):
they're older from what they'reeating when they're young.
So it's super important.
But you know a lot of peoplecoming in later and I just I
have my style of parenting and Ithink it works really well.
This is just really just beopen and have conversations.
Like look, literally just talkto them about yourself.
It has nothing to do with them.
You know a lot of people, infact, don't even worry about the

(01:05:14):
child and it's not until muchlater that they're like wait a
second, why am I buying cerealfor them?
I'm not eating this.
I just like somehowdisconnected.
The fact that I.
This is not good for me, butyet it's still good for my kid.
You know what I mean.
So I would just recommend, like, if they're old enough, if
they're young enough, then youcan just go ahead and start

(01:05:35):
changing things and rip theband-aid off and go through that
, because no one's ever gonnadie from not eating Like for a
few, especially for a few days.
It's not gonna happen, becausemy boys, you know, we started
them.
They were like pretty muchpaleo.
And when I did powerlifting,you know, I fell by the wayside.
I went down that wrong path.

(01:05:55):
I'd ate a bunch of carbs andthen we started to get
undisciplined with them and so Ihad to boom, bring them back in
.
When I did keto, and it wasliterally like a day or two of
just poutiness.
And I remember like the secondor third day their mother came
home with like a bunch ofgroceries and they just tore

(01:06:16):
through the turkey and cheeseand like they were like, oh, can
I have some avocado, you know?
And it was like game on and so.
But so if they're young, justexecute.
Still talk to them, tell themwhy, you know, like I always say
, like you know so, and so Ithought that what I used to eat
was food.
I found out recently that it'sactually not food, it's not even

(01:06:39):
food, and when I learned that Irealized, wow, I have all these
things that I don't feel goodabout, like my physically, like
my back hurts this that and Ifound out that if I eat the
right foods, that I'll feel muchbetter, and so that's what I'm
doing now.
So if you ever have questionsabout it, you know feel free to

(01:06:59):
ask them.
I'm happy to talk about it, anddon't even talk to them about
it.
Like we'll talk to them aboutit but don't talk, don't put it
on them yet.
You know, just have thoseconversations if they're old
enough.
And if they want to join, youknow you're obviously free to
offer them, but it's got to bemassaged in because it's a very
tricky with kids, and so there'sways to do it and you just

(01:07:22):
introduce it if there's thingsthat they really love.
Look, if the child is onlyeating chicken nuggets and mac
and cheese, that's not, it'sjust not sustainable.
Come on, like, grow up, likethey can't eat that way.
That's terrible.
I'm just like so bad for them.
You have to put your foot down,but, like you know, you want to
be able to talk to them so thatit's just a bigger thing with

(01:07:45):
parenting.
You want them to trust you.
You know like, be honest withthem, be open with them.
And there's things that you do,of course, to put yourself in a
successful situation.
Number one get all the junk outof the house.
It shouldn't be there, you know, donated, if you want whatever.
And number two you know thingslike when you're going out to
eat On the way to the restaurant, look at the menu already and

(01:08:07):
find like two options on therethat that you know are
acceptable to you in the waythat you arrange them.
So you on the car ride say, hey, do you want this or this and
this with this, or do you wantthis, this and this with this?
And Whatever they pick, theyhave a choice and they're both
good choices.
You know what I mean.
Now, we have our indulgencesfrom time to time, you know, and

(01:08:31):
they know that that's what itis as indulgence, um.
But the most important thing isnot that they eat perfectly,
even though they're pretty darngood.
It's that when they grow up,they will know that if something
slips with their health ortheir performance, that the
first thing they're gonna do isnot gonna be go to a doctor,
it's gonna be like I need tolook at my diet and my and my

(01:08:52):
work, like my activity.
I, what am I doing right now?
What can I change?
And that is the most powerfulthing, because then they make
some.
They can't be manipulated intoGetting fed into the healthcare
grinder.
You know where they're like.
Start with one medication.
Then you know, well, I noticedhere, you got this, now I'm
gonna prescribe this for you andnow it's like.

(01:09:13):
It's like 20 medications, dude,you know, terrible.
I.

Speaker 1 (01:09:18):
Mean at a young age, are learning these skills to
take control of their own lives.
Oh yeah, a lot of adults don'thave that.
They just oh, this is normal.
Oh, this is normal eating thatI feel fine.
Well, you don't really.
You think you feel fine becauseyou don't know what it is.
That happens always.
They feel good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
Yeah, they don't know what it is to feel good I was
good, that's gonna say that andlike that is so freaking true.
I think a lot of the timepeople Look, if you're
considering trying this, youhave to understand that your
brain right now is not the wayit's gonna be Even in a few
weeks.
And so, with your poor, poorcarbon dip, your brain that's,

(01:09:57):
you know very much thinking toyourself like how can I not eat
this, how can I have no cheatdays?
That was what, um, what my exused to say to me, like how,
what do you mean?
No cheat days?
And I was like, yeah, I've beenreading.
It's probably not a good thingto cheat on this, you know, like
you know, it's not good to havecarbs in fat, you know.
And so your, your brain willchange and you will start to see

(01:10:21):
that, that your preferenceswill change.
Um, but you, you don't.
You don't know until you try it, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:28):
You just don't.
And just the big one as as aparent leading by example.
Yeah, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:35):
Kids are gonna model the behavior model the behavior
you want to see, that's for sure.
Like you know they that thatgoes for training too.
You know these kids, the I'llnever forget, like anytime they
found like a broomstick orsomething they thought it was a
squat bar.
They're putting on their backand they're like little babies
squatting down.
You know, with broomsticks andstuff, you know they would.
We were, we were back then forlike Two years I did CrossFit

(01:10:59):
and competed in that and, likeyou know, that was awesome
because they were in their carseats.
You know still babies watchingus, front row seat to us working
out.
That's all they saw.
And so I think that's veryvaluable because to this day, my
boys are just always outside.
They'd never were stuck on.
You know, the first of all wedidn't have video games.

(01:11:20):
Um, now they got their oculices.
You know both of them got toget on that, but that's even
then like they're like doinggorilla tag.
You know they're like runningand you know.
So If you set that foundation,you start to see that even
Because think about if you dothe opposite you could do.
You could do one way which isjust basically feed them garbage

(01:11:41):
.
You could do another way whereyou just restrict the heck out
of them, and then they just,when they're, get a moment of
freedom, since you Didn't takethe time to teach them about why
you're doing what you're doingand you kind of the approach
might have Really best with them.
They're not going to learn thatlesson, that valuable lesson,
um, that you can basically gethealthy by eating the right

(01:12:03):
foods, which that sucks.
You know that sucks it, becausethe kid didn't know, but a lot
of the parents don't know either.
That's why it was so importantfor us to to spread that message
, you know, spread the messagethat Health is totally within
your grasp.
You don't need an expert.
All you need to do is, like, beable to Learn on your own, be,

(01:12:25):
be your own stakeholder, likethe biggest stakeholder in your
health, um, and then decide foryourself, because no one knows
better than you.
And so that's why we're tryingto do that, because I think a
lot of people they just are likeyou know what, when it comes to
health, I don't know.
There's this person saying this, that person saying this, and
I'm just going to go to thedoctor, because they're the

(01:12:47):
doctor and they're going to tellme, and they don't know crap
about how to stay healthy.
They can.
They can manage sickness, butthey don't know unless they,
unless they actually do it.
Like you know, a lot of doctorsthat I know have taken it upon
themselves To do that and thenthey're deadly because they can
talk the medical side and thethe health side.

Speaker 1 (01:13:06):
Yeah, pre-care is huge.
Uh, yeah, why don't we Talkabout, or why don't people worry
about, pre-care?
Uh, my, my, this is a side note, but it's like I think it's
just there's no money in it.

Speaker 2 (01:13:18):
There's no money at 100%.
That is one.
I mean, it's simple incentives.
You know people are are goingto do what their incentivize to
do.

Speaker 1 (01:13:26):
Yeah well, danny, this was.
This is awesome, this is agreat.
We went through a training,food, family's life, things like
that.
If somebody wants to connectwith you, what's what's the best
way to connect with you?

Speaker 2 (01:13:39):
Yeah, honestly, danny vegams, that's, that's my still
, what I'm still active on Umeverything else I've kind of
just Taking a step back from,but yeah, my instagram, danny
vegams.

Speaker 1 (01:13:52):
Awesome, great.
Well, thank you for taking thetime to come on the primal
foundations podcast and toeverybody listening.
Thank you and we'll see you onthe next episode.
Thank you all for joining us.
If you enjoyed this episode,don't forget to subscribe, like
and share.
See you all next time on theprimal foundations podcast.
You.