Episode 25 - You Can be Fit & Healthy, No Matter Where you Start! - Dr. Anthony Balduzzi

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi, founder of the Fit Father Project, shares insights on men's health, emphasizing mindset, motivation, and nutrition strategies. He discusses morning rituals, sun exposure, and vitamin D's role in testosterone. The conversation covers heart health, blood sugar, gut health, and the benefits of hydration, infrared saunas, and light therapy. Dr. Balduzzi provides advice for starting a fitness journey, focusing on emotional clarity and alignment with core values. He highlights the impact on cognitive function, future generations, and the simplicity of achieving better health. The Fit Father Project is recommended for support and guidance.

Takeaways

• Gain emotional clarity and align your health and behaviors with your core values.
• Take action and seek guidance to achieve your health goals.
• Combine the mind, heart, and clarity to create a successful fitness journey.
• Quick results are possible, and long-term habits can be developed.
• Health and nutrition have a significant impact on cognitive function and future generations.
• Improving health is a simple equation that requires exercise, nutrition, and good sleep.
• Influence your children by modeling healthy behaviors and creating a healthy legacy.
• Poor nutrition and lifestyle choices have serious consequences.
• The Fit Father Project offers resources and support for health and fitness.
• Collaboration and sharing knowledge are essential for promoting health and wellness.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Tech Troubles
03:41 Dr. Anthony Balduzzi's Background and Inspiration
09:41 The Importance of Health for Men
17:22 Motivation and Mindset for Health
25:23 The Impact of Neglecting Health
30:41 Nutrition Strategies for Men
32:45 Morning Rituals for Health
33:27 Morning Routine and Supplements
36:03 Sun Exposure and Vitamin D
37:01 Heart Health and Supplements
39:22 Blood Sugar Regulation and Fasting
41:44 Nutrition and Dietary Intake
44:12 Gut Health and Fiber
47:27 Quality of Meat and Dairy
49:08 Hydration and Water Intake
52:23 Infrared Sauna and Light Therapy
57:39 Sunscreen and Sun Exposure
01:04:24 Getting Started on a Fitness Journey
01:05:05 The Importance of Emotional Clarity and Alignment
01:06:00 Taking Action and Seeking Guidance
01:07:23 The Combination of Mind, Heart, and Clarity
01:08:20 The Promise of Reversal and Quick Results
01:09:03 The Same Principles Apply Regardless of Starting Point
01:10:26 The Impact on Cognitive Health and Future Generations
01:12:23 The Simple Equation for Better Health
01:13:20 The Influence on Children and Creating a Healthy Legacy
01:14:12 The Consequences of Poor Nutrition and Lifestyle Choices
01:15:40 Resources and Support for Health and Fitness
01:16:14 Appreciation for Sharing Knowledge and Collaboration

About Dr. Anthony and the Fit Father Project:

Dr. Anthony Balduzzi, NMD, creator and a dedicated helping busy fathers worldwide lose weight and build muscle for family health. With over 10 years of experience, Fit Father Team has assisted 48,609 men across 100+ countries. This site offers precise health advice based on extensive research and hands-on training for busy guys aged 40+.

www.fitfatherproject.com

To learn more about Maxed Out Man and to maximize your potential, visit www.maxedoutman.com or connect with us on Social Media:

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Transcript

0:00
[Music] welcome to maxed out man helping you
0:06
become the man you were made to be hey guys it's Kevin Davis from the max
0:11
out man podcast it's episode number 25 I'm here with Dr Anthony balduzzi
0:17
balduzi if you want uh he's the founder of the fit father project and uh I can't
0:23
tell you how excited I am to have this conversation I love talking to men that are kind of aligned with my own values
0:30
my own uh you know things that I believe in and honestly I'm just excited to be able to learn more from you you're a
0:36
little bit you know you're obviously more contemporary than I am uh with all the fitness stuff so I'm super excited
0:42
to have you thanks for coming on board Kevin thanks for having me hey give me your you know I I think you don't
0:48
necessarily have to give me your full resume but give me your back story you know how you got into this I know there I was reading on your website there's a
0:55
little bit of a tragic story there but a great outcome uh so I'd love to hear more about kind of who you are and what
1:01
the fit father project is and everything sure well you know I think I grew up like most kids you know I didn't dream
1:08
of becoming a doctor per se I like being outside ride my bike playing sports getting in trouble in the neighborhood
1:13
all that stuff what was unique about my childhood is I watched my dad and saw the consequences of what happened when a
1:20
man works really hard to take care of his family but neglects his health puts it on the back burner so that's what he
1:25
did he busted his butt put food on the table he worked a job as I eventually got up the lab corporate ladder to be VP
1:32
of computer leasing company and it was like night sleeping at the office lots of stress and you know that wasn't the
1:38
guy he was from a young age he played football and stuff but you know priorities shift when you become a family man and unfortunately for him
1:44
like things hit ahead really quickly you know it was in his late 30s when he was diagnosed with cancer he had a seizure
1:50
one day and fell down and I remember just like seeing my dad in that kind of state just like shook me to my core and
1:57
then over the course of years he had two brain surgeries multiple chemotherapy radiation treatments and I watched my
2:03
dad like just deteriorate in front of my eyes and he eventually died when he was 42 years old oh man right and mean crazy
2:11
how young that is when you know you get around that age and you're like that's just like I guess the beginning of Life in some sense yeah and I was nine at the
2:18
time watching that happen and it impressed in my mind like so many valuable lessons you know outside of the
2:24
pain of what that's like and the destabilizing force but also the opportunity I guess in some sense to
2:30
rise and become the hero of my story I got to learn that Health has got for us guys it's the foundation of what we love
2:36
and so far as we pursue other things like health is the Bedrock of that because when we lose the health we lose
2:42
our ability to provide we lose our time with our families we lose our ability to pursue our hobbies and so I decided from
2:48
a young age that I wanted to figure out how to be healthy and now that I knew exactly what that was being so young but
2:54
my mom on my 10th birthday did give me a pair of my dad's dumbbells and I started a train you know I do some push-ups I I
3:00
hit him under my bed with a little like you know Walkman kind of thing and I put on some music and you know do my
3:06
exercises at night and I found as I was exercising it was healing for me on many levels I was getting stronger but I was
3:12
also maybe processing some emotion I was also gaining a sense of personal power because as I trained I got stronger I
3:19
felt better and I also realized when I was like sprinting on the Block at night and you know just exerting myself it was
3:24
it was easier to feel good and not feel so sad and so that like lights went off in my young mind I'm like there's
3:30
something to this like I I just really want to pursue this so I went into High School and I went to I had a privilege I guess
3:36
in some sense of going to an all-boys Catholic High School the drawback is there's no girls the the the the the the
3:42
the the the good thing is it was a very like good academic and sports school and it was cool to like lift weights and get
3:49
big and so that's what I was into I was I started packing my lunch carrying around my water and you know trying to
3:55
get really big and strong and I was able to do that and as I as I got bigger and stronger I guess as a young man like I
4:02
got respect from my friends they started asking me dude how do I do this so I was the beginning of like personal training
4:07
by just telling to teach people the things that I was learning and devouring and I'm an intellectual guy I love to
4:13
read and learn some of the science of these things so I was just like reading all these books and then the muscle magazines and all those things and it
4:19
was so cool because what started initially as this was like a turn as like personal tragedy now turned into
4:25
something that was a legitimate passion for me early in life that gave me a sense of purpose and a way to serve and
4:31
and to help some people right now I went to University and I picked my University because I went to my guidance counselor
4:37
and I said tell me the best school you think I can get into that also has an amazing gym and we stumbled upon the
4:44
University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and I went there and when I went there with my mom who took me it
4:49
there was a poster in the gym of like a bodybuilding show it was the mystery Mr Pennsylvania bodybuilding show I'm like
4:54
Mom I'm gonna win that bodybuilding show one day and so I ended up going to school and I I do my first bodybuilding
5:00
show freshman year I obviously did not win you know but I did it and it was a really cool experience but I came back
5:05
the second year after more intense training and having so much dedication I won the bodybuilding show as a sophomore
5:11
and again as a senior and my foray into bodybuilding at a young age and I guess at this point in like my 20s was a
5:18
really cool and Powerful experience for me because I learned how to like take all these things I was learning on nutrition sleep exercise supplementation
5:24
and with the name of this podcast bring them to the max like how do you push pedal to the metal and learn how to take
5:29
things very far and I did that and I had the resiliency of a Young Man at that time to be able to like train like a
5:36
maniac and eat tons of food and do all that and testosterone natural testosterone level of like a billion
5:42
exactly right all the factors that were like very very valuable at that point
5:47
um and at the same time I was also starting to shape up and see how I could start to package all this knowledge that
5:52
I'd gained personally and start to like transmit it to people and and I was I was looking around at all these you know
5:58
people with internet platforms like a guy like a Tony Robbins was someone who when I was healing was listening to his
6:04
motivational tapes and so was my mom going through the experience of raising kids as a single mom and so I'm like man
6:09
that's kind of cool I guess you can just help people with your knowledge so there was some entrepreneurial gears that started to turn at this time and I
6:16
started doing my first websites around post college and I was like doing summaries of Health books I was reading
6:22
starting to learn how to blog and do create some stuff online so that was a significant part of my journey because
6:27
this kind of evolves into what is now fit father project which is this mission to to help dads
6:33
and I went to naturopathic medical school after that and when I got to medical school I saw so many people like my dad they didn't always have cancer
6:39
but it was the same exact scenario it's like I'm busy lots of pressures I feel like my health is something I can't
6:45
really juggle and manage so I just don't exercise and I'm stressed so I eat the wrong foods and I'm not sleeping great my kids are demanding same story it just
6:52
manifests for us in different ways and so I want to help people fix that particularly I want to help people like my dad fix that because of my deep
6:59
personal connection to to that story because there's a story that I'd lived and so I started helping people in
7:05
medical school and and then I realized the common themes and started again package that stuff into fit father
7:10
project which now exists like 10 years later we've run over 50 000 guys in over 100 countries through the program
7:15
they've lost hundreds of thousands of pounds and gotten great results but it all started in these these layers and I
7:22
guess the last significant two things I'll share is I am a dad have a beautiful daughter and and this is just
7:27
a it's it has so much more purpose to Fitness now than just like looking good and being you know fit and healthy and
7:34
like like I cared about when I was in my 20s and one of the big turns in my life that led to this was in my last year
7:39
medical school I went on a skiing trip with one of my close friends Barrick and we were skiing
7:45
like idiots we're both very good skiers but you know with total ego just like blasting and and I had an intuition that
7:51
day that I should should slow down or something bad was gonna happen but I I totally ignored that and we're in
7:57
Durango Colorado and there was one of these ski runs where it was a very Steep Hill that you can absolutely ski if you like stop and dig some edges in but like
8:04
a maniac I was I was jumping a little bit at the top of that hill at high speed so you just float down 15 to 20
8:10
feet and I did it once and go back up to lift to do it again except the second time I do this like the skis kind of get
8:15
a little crossed up in the air and I land poorly the skis blow off my feet probably going 30 miles per hour and I'm
8:22
just getting thrash tumbling and I end up slamming into a tree at that full speed and shatter my right leg break my
8:28
arm and almost died in that moment like almost life-ending accident all because
8:33
of like my ego and and that set off a series of experiences of like basically having to learn to walk again getting
8:40
sick surgeries over six years having to get a leg lengthening surgery and kind of become a lot more interior like it
8:47
dissolved the big parts of my ego that was so tied to like what I looked like I had to confront the ideas of pain and
8:52
mortality and and weakness and debility I learned so many lessons through that that I guess shaped me on the inner
8:59
spiritual side of things as well and now I'm here today um with you Kevin as a
9:04
man like on a mission to share like good word and the good word is that like dads no matter your age or where you're at
9:10
right now you can make progress and get back into great health like we've had guys who are like 200 pounds overweight
9:16
in their 50s like get that weight off it takes tremendous dedication and a good plan but it's possible and like if you
9:23
look around at what's going on in the world prescription medications are like candy right now half of guys are overweight or
9:30
obese you know Low T is more rampant than it should be just based off of like age decline guys are addicted guys are
9:38
having problems with marriages and it's all connected right this is like a mind-body spirit experience that we're
9:44
having and I definitely have a lot of like unique skills in helping people like get aligned getting that body piece
9:49
aligned which inherently requires getting the spirit in the mental piece of line because you know this is a full
9:55
body full body full court press thing yeah 100 I mean I've got this you know
10:01
fitted every age thing on the back and it's not fitted any age it's literally be fit at any age when I was a trainer
10:07
and what you just described the last part and there's a ton to unpack and all that that you just said but the last
10:13
part about having it a full body thing like that's kind of what I wanted to do
10:18
with maxed out man and the whole projects is I want to talk about marriage and family and kids and fitness
10:24
and finances and Entrepreneurship and kind of all of that stuff and but the
10:29
fitness component is almost one of those things like the you know the spiritual side yeah inner peace that drives so
10:37
much of everything else um now let me ask you was your dad like did they trace the issues with your dad
10:44
to like specific lifestyle stuff we know right now look cancer is
10:50
expected it's expected a one out of two guys gets cancer by like 20 50. right
10:56
and it's not just like listen this is invite environmental pressures we know that stress crushes your immune system
11:01
the immune systems are the Sentinels of our bodies and we're constantly being exposed to different kind of
11:06
environmental factors that are causing damages and breaks to our DNA some people have genetic predispositions
11:11
there's environmental toxins and chemicals as well as that cause cancers certain foods and and add additives and
11:18
stuff like that are linked to cancers for whatever the reason like the combination of my dad's behaviors and
11:23
the environment that he was in Led to him having that but like whether it's cancer or the slowed buildup of heart
11:30
disease or blood sugar dysregulation like point is is our inputs are gonna are gonna create problems down the line
11:36
and right now there are a lot of pressures in our society that it's like really easy if you choose the default path to do what everyone else is doing
11:42
you're going to get the results are unhealthy unwell and and the state of your body is also the clarity of your
11:48
mind you know the two things are completely connected our brains are sitting in this neurochemical soup that
11:53
is effectively created by the things we're ingesting and and then the habits and the relationships we have after
11:58
those things so it's so connected and I'll say this too what's unique about like the physical aspect is to have a
12:05
good healthy body requires certain disciplines and daily actions it requires you having routines around
12:11
putting Good Foods into your body it requires you having some kind of schedule and commitment to an exercise or movement practice and like that's
12:18
like the scaffolding of your life that because the stuff that like the the real the richness is our family it's the
12:25
ornaments it's the memories it's the creation it's the value the service but like it like those are the real Rich
12:31
things but it hangs on the scaffolding because we know and we're not sleeping well or eating the wrong kinds of foods
12:36
we're just not showing up with those other areas everything's not colored in the same way of like connection and then
12:42
the spirituality how that's so tied to the body in my opinion and experience is when we feel like we're enslaved by
12:48
something when we feel like we're out of control something has power or dominion over us or if we have that little voice
12:54
inside that knows that we're not living in alignment with what we feel like is our highest path like that that's where
13:00
there's spiritual distance and regardless of someone's exact Faith or beliefs you can quote scripture that the body is the Temple of the Holy Spirit
13:06
kind of things I'll also share like I know when I'm on my health routines my prayer and my meditation practice is so
13:13
much deeper more clear and connected I feel so much more joyful so it's all one game and I think that's part of the
13:19
mental trap that guys fall into is I think a lot of guys think of like health and fitness as something that
13:24
they'll find time to get to yeah it's like right right it's just like maybe I'll find time to get to that but like
13:30
we got to collapse that from a separate Circle to be like this is foundational now respect to our boundaries and
13:35
limitations right we do have busy schedules we can't always like like we can't always get it in with like if the
13:42
plan is I need to exercise for an hour a day but you're gonna eat you're gonna be eating meals any day how can we slide in
13:48
better in class options that don't require a lot of thinking okay you can't work out could you do five minutes of
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XYZ you know we can talk about strategies of getting things in there's ways to do it for even the busiest of guys
13:59
um it's it's it's a partly a matter of realizing how important this stuff is and making a deeper neuroassociation
14:06
commitment that's why we're called the fit father project not the fit man project for many people it's like the
14:11
family is is one deep motivating reason to like to be around for them because a lot of us like guys can be totally
14:17
self-destructive we can drink ourselves to death we can do bad things you know whatever because like we're willing to
14:23
do things but I guess when this conversation becomes larger than just us certainly for our maxed out life and
14:28
performance but for the impact you'll have on our kids on our mission you know on our connection to God like now it
14:34
becomes a more motivating and more important conversation I hope that my dad's life does frame what could happen
14:40
but also like the promise of like what doesn't have to happen too yeah my uh my wife's my wife's uncle
14:47
died at like 37 and it was very very similar but like he literally had a heart attack in a hot tub which is you
14:54
know if if your heart if your blood pressure is already off the charts that's a good place to have a heart attack but yeah right yeah it's
15:01
it's interesting because I I felt like the delineation for me you know social media can be a blessing and a curse but
15:09
when I got to be in my early 40s and that was when I was kind of my way you
15:14
know I was a personal trainer super fit all that stuff younger and then over time it's kind of gone up and down we
15:19
all go through those cycles of when our priorities are out of line or when I end up having some testosterone issues that
15:25
were kind of unrelated to like is more of a genetic thing that I went through
15:31
um and I actually you know full disclosure I actually have only one functional testicle because of a
15:37
motorcycle accident so that actually what was interesting I didn't really track that until I had a
15:43
conversation with someone just recently and I've been on trt for a couple of years
15:48
um but I didn't actually track that that could be a source of and I was like in the 250s 260s yeah your tanks you know I
15:56
was I was tanked so that you know trt changed my life but that what I was saying is that like you get to on social
16:02
media and when you start to get in that early 40s range you start going I went to high school with that guy look how
16:08
old that guy is he's like you know and it's because they tend not to take care
16:13
of themselves and have kind of an Al Bundy kind of you know I was this great
16:19
athlete in high school or whatever I'm interested in knowing how many people that you've worked with how many men
16:24
that you've worked with dads you've worked with it it seems like there's this kind of
16:30
philosophical understanding that men don't really care when they get to be in
16:36
that 35 40 45 range do you find that or do you think that's just complete BS
16:42
you know because there's this idea of like this big you know beer belly guy this whole stupid dad bod thing that
16:49
that is the you know lie of our current generation that that's that's healthy
16:54
and that's sexy and all that stuff like are you seeing that I'm curious like the philosophical side of things yes I think
17:00
humans are very very good at becoming complacent but not like truly happy I
17:06
think we're good with going around with the tide in the curve and everyone else is doing it and like there's the bias
17:12
again that change takes work right it requires like voluntarily taking on pain
17:17
making commitments to carve things out to do something new so we have this inertia status quo effect that's in
17:24
reinforced by culture that a lot of guys are just kind of caught in the ab but I know that deep down every person who is
17:32
overweight every person who takes a shower in the morning and looks at their body and like just there's something
17:37
even subconscious there being like I know this is not the best version and I wish I could do better and there's so
17:44
many stages of that some guys look at that and respond as like okay I'm finally gonna do better I'm going to
17:49
take it again I'm going to try again other guys have the mental script of like oh I'm too far gone screw it's not
17:55
even worth it anymore you know I think a lot of guys get Spurs through the health scares bad blood work hard
18:02
stuff for sure but also through like marriages that are not going great losing intimacy or even like those that
18:09
do dissolve or don't work well can be a kick start because a guy gets out there and it's like holy crap am I gonna be alone for the rest of my life look at me
18:15
I gotta like start to get my stuff together um many impetuses but I guess this is the simple answer your question is like
18:21
no I think we have a deep calling inside of us to feel like we're maxed out which
18:26
is like fully expressed which means to become the best we can be mentally emotionally and physically and and again
18:33
that that meets at every age but we certainly know the best we can be is not wearing 30 40 50 100 pounds of extra
18:41
weight and I I guess I'll say it's like look around it's not that it's not easy to do that it's absolutely easy to do
18:47
that that might even be the default today the food is crap we're lazier than ever like there's a lot of environmental
18:52
factors estrogens toxicants that are not good for our bodies like a lot of things are are tough so then it comes down to
19:00
every man must make a deep commitment especially when the margin of error gets smaller in your 40s metabolism slows
19:06
down you don't recover as well from exercise easier to gain weight busier than ever you know absolutely in a role
19:13
of being a provider and putting other people in front of you like you need to understand why this stuff is absolutely vital you need to connect this to your
19:20
core values and if you haven't like done one of these actual exercises where you take like 30 minutes you put on some
19:26
music that you like really inspires you and gets you going and you write down like what your core values in life are
19:31
you know business success God family integrity and then you actually really think and ponder about how your health
19:38
and your behaviors with nutrition sleep and exercise connects to every single one of those and then you future Pace
19:43
out there what's going to happen if I make no changes and keep on going exactly as I am where does my life end up looking like what happens if I do
19:50
make some changes and like that gap of that change that cost what do I think it's going to require well it's going to require shopping for new foods and not
19:56
ordering ubereats as much for the family it's going to require having a conversation with my my wife about what
20:01
we're feeding for dinner it's going to require me joining a gym or carving out three times a week for some exercise like are those costs worth it so this is
20:09
the internal conversation because we all there's there's an abundance of Fitness information out there like you said it you were literally legitimately a
20:16
personal trainer you have a degree in exercise physiology but you got out of shape it wasn't due to a lack of knowledge it was due to the rhythms and
20:22
the pressures and the momentum of just your life moving yeah so we need to get this emotive deep aspect connected
20:29
powerfully and then we actually do that in our program before people read the meal plan they create one of these mission statements and they do this and
20:34
they print it out they take it very seriously and it creates a sacred container for commitment because I think
20:40
just like how do you make change as important as like what to eat and I'm sure we'll get into that as well and how to exercise after 40.
20:47
um but like how a rocket launches into space is it gathers up all this energy in the form of fuel and then has to
20:52
escape gravity big blast off then when it gets out above gravity and into orbit you know it's it's able to be a lot
20:58
easier it can glide and make my micro adjustments doesn't use much fuel but if you're looking to change you've got to
21:03
store up the fuel and the way you store fuel is partly that emotional power of being like Okay and like enough's enough
21:09
this is why I'm connecting this to the deepest parts of me it's not just physical you also get fuel in the in the
21:15
form of clarity like okay this is the nutrition plan and approach I'm going to follow this is the exercise approach I'm going to follow and then you ideally
21:21
surround yourself with like-minded men like men in Brotherhood in community like listening to motivational stuff
21:27
like this or getting in person like or a part of our fifth father brotherhood like that is fuel like like iron
21:33
sharpens iron like we get around people that are trying to live a maxed out life like naturally we we resonate with that
21:39
we rise to the occasion that's something cool about the human spirit so all that stuff the psychological emotional
21:45
spiritual stuff is just as important in my opinion as like the tactics yeah because I think you know so many of
21:50
these guys they put so much effort into their work or their Hobbies or whatever and they're not like they don't equate
21:57
that if they just had better health Health they would feel better and be able to perform all of those activities
22:04
and like you know be a better father like the father project but be a better
22:09
husband a better worker you have more productivity you feel better you know as a as a guy that has
22:15
exercised his whole life and like yourself you you go a week first of all you know
22:20
what actually happens to you physiologically when you skip workout skip like if you're on vacation you have to not lift weights which we always try
22:27
to find a gym but when you do that and you kind of have that that lack of soreness in your muscles or that
22:33
tightness I always like feel like I just feel gross and unhealthy not gross like
22:39
oh I'm you know 50 pounds overweight or whatever for myself but just that that
22:45
lower energy and that motivation and all that and then if we eat you know have a
22:50
couple days of crap food which we try you know when you travel it's just it's just how it is I sit and I think to
22:57
myself I've said this to my wife I'm like do people that eat like this feel like this all the time because it's just
23:04
that heaviness and you can feel all that stuff that's running through your GI tract and it feels like it's in your
23:10
blood because it's screwing up your you know blood sugar and and all that so having that motivation to really say I'm
23:17
gonna put just as much effort into or more effort into getting fit and staying
23:23
fit eating good food getting decent sleep as I do everything else in my life
23:28
it it seems like there's this missing link between those between that mentality for sure and those steps it
23:35
gives you energy like literally all these inputs that we just talked about like good sleep habits and hygiene gives
23:41
you energy consistent strength training gives you energy and then like nutrition right regardless if you want to make the
23:47
investment to like go start exercising I'm sure people listen to this are certainly exercising um to some extent like you're gonna have
23:55
to eat you just you're gonna eat every day unless you're intentionally fasting for health purposes which has benefits
24:00
too and we can talk about that if you'd like to go there um I I what let's nutrition strategies I
24:05
think they're very relevant for guys is the most successful guys that I know is they have a standardized first meal of
24:11
the day like the first thing you have for breakfast it's it's standardized it's something that is quick convenient
24:19
lots of good Protein healthy fats fills you up like do you have a do you have
24:24
like a go-to breakfast Kevin do you think I literally have eaten the exact same breakfast for probably 18 months
24:30
other than when I'm not at the house I have cool egg whites eggs and I I basically make like a frittata I throw a
24:37
potato in there and and put eggs and egg whites over it and then I'm I'm good okay so check that out so like you
24:43
there's a couple categories and one of them is egg-based recipes and I'll go over them that like guys need to like dial this in the benefit is you get
24:50
something super nutritious in the morning that gives you energy keeps your blood sugar stable it's also a momentum
24:56
shifter because regardless what happened yesterday okay you ate way too much you have a family dinner you had pizza and a
25:02
beer like today you have a new way to shift momentum because it's fine if you have a meal that wasn't good it's not
25:08
Vine if you have a week of it let alone a year of it right so it's about constantly shifting momentum that's what nutrition's largely about so standardize
25:15
that first meal for that egg based recipes are good it could be a mix of egg whites and whole eggs I recommend that guys buy high quality eggs like
25:23
spend more for your eggs get the nice yolk that's really orange it has a lot of beneficial compounds in it are good
25:29
vitamins minerals Etc my wife is getting ready she's been wanting to do chickens our neighbors have chickens and just
25:35
side note about that that you can actually see the difference she's she does a lot of pastry she's a kind of a hobbyist pastry chef and if she's making
25:42
like creme brulee or something that's very very yolk based she will get I mean
25:47
because we go through like 120 eggs a week so that's a lot of eggs so she'll get those eggs that are literally from
25:54
our neighbors chickens that have just been you know they they just laid them a couple days ago and the the richness
26:01
that you can see even in the yolk based pastry stuff is like holy cow you can
26:07
just see how much Rich how much richer it is and anything that is colored like that in nature like these are the beneficial compounds that our bodies
26:13
have those are like carotenoids or in a cloth compound like the vitamin A's you know and asses Anthony zeaxanthin these
26:20
are the things that keep our heart healthy they're good for hormone production and the yolks are really powerful also for cognition and memory
26:26
there's choline in the yolk is very good so egg-based recipes are fine you can add three Sunny Side Up scrambled eggs
26:32
frittata kind of style cool other option is like shakes and smoothies awesome like if you get a protein powder that
26:37
you love and you throw that in there with some kind of like milk that you tolerate well it could be dairy or non-dairy milk throw in some like
26:43
organic blueberries some greens maybe some hemp seeds chia seeds chocolate
26:48
cacao powder you blend that sucker up it's gonna be like under 500 calories keep your blood sugar super stable easy
26:55
to digest and you can still have like other kinds of variety food for dinner but like that's a go-to shake a lot of
27:00
guys are super successful with like protein smoothies in the morning tastes good you can take it on the go you can still fast whatever like really good if
27:08
you're like more like an oatmeal kind of person you can make some oatmeal power oats overnight oats oats with a whole
27:13
bunch of cool stuff in there regardless like dial in your meal number one but I think even before that another thing
27:19
that I think a lot of guys could do is uh start to doing a morning rehydration ritual immediately upon waking up 20 to
27:26
32 ounces of water and ideally you get some minerals in there so it could be as simple as using something like some kind
27:32
of a salt like a Himalayan salt or a Celtic Sea salt or you could get a little more fancy and get a trace
27:37
mineral drops or some kind of electrolyte powder that's not full of crap but like gives your body some of these minerals like we need these
27:43
minerals they're just as important as the vitamins for the hydration so Matt are you do you recognize do you recommend like the BC I do I like my
27:51
BCAAs and we have some that I carry under maximum but I also have some that I use from other manufacturers so I kind
27:58
of look for how much crap is in it yeah but it's also that's kind of electrolytes and you know I think BCAA
28:04
powders are like they have their place it wouldn't necessarily in my opinion be like a first thing in the morning kind
28:09
of thing I think it's like unless you're doing it for Fitness purposes you're on a diet so those who are probably
28:14
familiar BCA laser Branch chain amino acids it's a particular family of four amino acids that are really good for
28:21
increasing protein synthesis they they're good for muscle building leucine being one of those BCAAs that's a big
28:26
trigger for muscle protein synthesis interesting thing about BCAAs is they do stimulate insulin they're insulinogenic
28:31
amino acids so for those wanting to stay in a fasted State and maybe in the morning it might not be the ideal thing
28:37
to have but if you like to if you're doing morning training that's very hard and heavy and you are already lean BCAAs
28:43
could be a fine thing in the morning but for overall health purposes I wouldn't say people just do a BCA in the morning
28:48
just for shits but if you did a morning Shake though and you're actually having carbohydrates and stuff in there adding
28:55
some additional BCAAs in there is good but if you're just doing in the water I would personally say save it for later
29:01
because I usually just do I usually just do plain water in the morning I kind of do this prayer gratitude you know talk
29:07
to God in the morning before I get out of bed drink my water then I have my breakfast and then with my breakfast I'm
29:13
typically doing like a red super food with and I throw in um some creatine because I know creatine
29:21
is a nootropic and you know water uptake and all that so that typically is kind
29:26
of my you know part of my morning routine I'm doing cold plunge and sauna and I go out and walk when it's nice and
29:32
I don't do heavy cardio in the morning because I just I you know that helps me kind of clear my head but yeah keep keep
29:38
going with the breakfast stuff sorry no no it's perfect and you kind of nailed it I mean we'll just hop around this whole like morning section because I
29:45
think it's important for guys you win the morning you have that momentum for the day so like you wake up and you you
29:50
rehydrate we talked about that what you mentioned that you do intuitively is also just as important if if possible
29:55
for a guy's schedule is to get outside and do some kind of light movement I'm not talking about cardio but like walk get the lymphatic system going start
30:03
breathing through your nose and ideally get some sunshine on your skin but certainly in your eyes like we're now
30:08
learning so much about the Circadian rhythm and like sleep's important but like good sleep starts with good morning sunshine exposure when our eyes get
30:15
exposed to that particular Morning Sun before the sun's too high the sun's kicking off a lot of this near infrared
30:20
radiation and a lot of that light that hits our eyes too also produces serotonin which is that feel good make
30:25
us positive so imagine starting your day off a little dose of like serotonin that you naturally create from being in
30:31
contact visually with the sun super cool and then yeah I normally I normally would wear sunglasses but I've actually
30:37
over the last six to nine months or so I've actually made a conscious effort I live in Montana so I have to do a lot of
30:43
treadmill because we have six months you know of winter so it's real you know I'm gonna follow my ass if or there's you
30:50
know minus 40 in the wintertime but during this time of year like I make a conscious effort to not wear sunglasses
30:56
because mine are Polaroids polarized and I don't I want to get that sunlight in and so that's one thing I think that
31:02
that getting that sunlight that that my morning routine this time of year and I love the beach we go to the beach in the
31:08
in the wintertime I I wish that I could simulate that same feeling on the
31:13
treadmill that I get out outside this time of year yeah for sure and like to like I agree and the the morning sun is
31:21
like different than the the high up Sun very bright wear your sunglasses during the day but get a little morning sun exposure and the same thing goes with
31:28
sunset like when the sun looks red when it's starting to set like it's kicking off that red spectrum of light and that
31:33
red light has biological effects good for our skin and connective tissue good for a mitochondria that's why all these
31:39
people are doing red lights and infrared saunas and things like this and we can talk about that if you like as well like those are beneficial but light is a
31:45
powerful bioregulator so if you can get that light in the morning that's going to help you out a lot and then with that morning meal I'm a big fan of all guys
31:51
taking creatine if you can you know I think it works for almost all guys the only other considerations and like even
31:57
with people with with kidney disease like check with your doctor like there's even the case studies with people with like one kidney that can take creatine
32:03
and if you're taking the three to five grams a day like this low maintenance dose it's just like generally super good
32:08
maintains muscle mass good for cognition more ATP all good supplements in the
32:13
morning that could be good if you're having that at the fat for that breakfast with like the eggs and stuff also a good idea to get some vitamin D
32:20
you know I know we're getting some from the Sun but probably ideal for guys to take some supplemental they show them the guys with low vitamin D levels have
32:26
low testosterone levels and low immune function so if like you're looking at natural naturally boost tea like tea is
32:32
very very helpful for that well they talked about like even with the coveted stuff they they actually showed which got completely got I mean all the
32:40
science behind vitamin D got completely ignored but they were talking about the because here in Montana it's like in the
32:45
winter time it's like 85 percent of the people that live here have low vitamin D levels crazy serum vitamin D but yeah I
32:52
mean I I don't take a vitamin D which I probably should well you know so it's interesting so we make Vitamin D from
32:58
the sun right what's crazy is that the the same UV radiation the UVB that comes
33:04
from the sun the same stuff that gives us skin cancer is the only aspect of the sunlight that makes us produce vitamin D
33:10
interesting yeah right so like even the morning sun unfortunately doesn't have much UVA UVB just based on the position
33:16
of the sun and it's rising like we don't get much UV exposure it's only when the sun gets really overhead that we get a
33:21
lot of the UVB the UVB is what makes us produce vitamin D our skin so it you know I think it's like for guys who are
33:27
getting regular blood work like a serum vitamin D test once or twice a year is a good idea and then seasonally if you
33:34
know you live in a cold place like you do like just take 5000 IUS yeah you take it like forever and there's really no
33:39
drawback to it well there's some like I've heard sometimes that like what my wife does is she actually super loads
33:46
um yeah once a week so on Saturday she takes like I don't know 25 000 IUS or whatever it is and then
33:52
because it's fat soluble right Ade and K you got it yeah and I think for a lot of
33:58
guys too like heart heart diseases like besides cancer is like the number one killer of men like that combination and
34:04
and as we get older like we get stiffer largely you know exercise and movement is a way to offset that we got to keep
34:11
blood flow we got to keep like the spine healthy but like things get cows classified calcification is our body
34:16
deposits calcium to make things stiffer in response to inflammation and when Our arteries get more stiff is when we have
34:22
blood pressure problems we want that nice elastic thing and there's a cool vitamin vitamin K2 which is a special
34:28
form of vitamin K and one of its jobs is actually to clear calcium deposition from the arteries it actually can
34:34
decalcify arteries and K2 is found in like some interesting places in some
34:39
fermented foods butter like chicken skin weird places but it's a good thing to get with your D if you're going to get a
34:45
vitamin D supplement get it D3 K2 combo yeah and I think most of them have that
34:50
now the ones the good ones do you yeah you can buy a certain d by itself you might as well get the K2 and get the calcification benefits and the other
34:57
thing too for guys like get an omega-3 fatty acid supplement high quality one like good anti-inflammatory good for
35:04
heart health good for your brain health like I think in terms of like supplements like supplements are supplemental but I think the core stack
35:10
we tell guys in fit father project to do for good health would be like a D3 K2 and omega-3 it would be probably some
35:18
kind of like I'm a Believer in a low-dose multivitam of some sort doesn't even anything crazy but like might as well cover your bases like there's so
35:24
many products out there it could be a red super red super greens like something that's got a lot of cool stuff in there that you can like scoop in and
35:30
it's an insurance policy you don't have to think about it I think a quality protein powder is a valuable tool you can use those to make shakes it could be
35:36
meal replacement post-workout that's very good and then perhaps something that's a good natural anti-inflammatory
35:41
like a curcumin turmeric yeah I take turmeric just the little capsules yeah
35:46
and it may be a probiotic too like although eating some kinds of foods the gut health is important so imagine a
35:52
morning routine where you just like get those things in with your standardized breakfast you obviously do that like in
35:58
your plan like if a guy doesn't have that in place it's a huge area for optimization and then like later on in
36:03
dinner that's where you can be have a lot more variety like you're eating stuff with your family like try to keep it clean but like if you standardize
36:10
that first meal of the day and ideally lunch is also decently standardized it's like protein on greens kind of scenario
36:17
or you know just like protein forward with veggies it could even be a sandwich as long as your bread is not
36:23
and you know you can tolerate some kind of wheat sprouted organic bread or something like that or you could you have options but standardized those
36:29
first one to two meals of the day and then have a more flexible dinner with your family you just do that like you
36:35
have good structure and Scaffolding to give you stable blood sugar I'll tell guys like stop snacking stop mindless
36:41
eating in between meals our bodies are meant to have discrete periods of feeding where like food comes in
36:46
digestive process happens insulin Works blood sugar gets stable don't mess with
36:51
it for four or five hours you know just like Let It Go so this is where like guys who like are constantly grazing and
36:57
snacking on things throughout the day are actually like disregulating their blood sugar and actually training the brain as well to release more more of
37:05
these pulsatile secretions of The ghrelen Hunger hormone which makes you hungry more often so we eat more meals you have more times to potentially mess
37:11
up as well as you get more hungry as well as you disregulate your sugar and so the the stability of your blood sugar
37:16
is largely going to be what your energy levels are like and we also know that in terms of Aging
37:22
there are these compounds called Advanced glycation end products Ages which is a very like fitting name for
37:28
what they are basically what we know is like it's sugar that goes around throughout the body and sticks to
37:33
different kinds of proteins and it messes everything up it makes it like it's really bad it just like it creates
37:39
damage to DNA it makes sure that things don't work really well and the way that we get more glycation in these ages is
37:45
by eating like really crappy Foods we all know are unhealthy as well as spiking our blood sugar as much as possible so for those that want to live
37:51
a long healthy life you want to have blood sugar be like as stable as possible and not spike it all the time
37:57
and so this does not necessarily mean you need to go like keto and never have like a carbohydrate again like you could
38:03
have rice and sweet potatoes and all these things but like have them in moderate balance proportions another
38:08
good benefit of strength training is it makes you more insulin sensitive makes your body more receptive to carbohydrates when you strength drain
38:14
you can eat carbs and it functions way better in a body that's not exercising or resistance training and in
38:20
carbohydrates so the blood sugar regulation is a massive thing and I also think I should get into some kind of
38:25
fasting I'm not saying you need to fast every day but like a dinner to dinner fast once per week is a powerful tool
38:31
you know for for mental physical and spiritual benefits like just like have dinner today and don't eat until dinner
38:38
tomorrow drink water coffee teas whatever just non-caloric Beverages and you're gonna sensitize your insulin your
38:45
growth hormone goes up a ton while you're fasting you're giving your body a break from food so it actually breaks down a lot of these damaged proteins
38:51
that build up from regular metabolism so you know here's the thing over 40 the margin error is smaller we need to learn
38:57
we need to implement more of these tools and if we do that we can the way we're aging versus other people's aging these
39:04
start to diverge very very massively yeah I mean all of the I mean yeah that's that's so much great information
39:12
um I do I try to do quite a bit of that where are you Landing so you know we're talking about like
39:18
um you know no carnivore you don't need to do keto or all that my my desire my typical diet is is pretty heavily meat
39:26
based uh I'm not a you know my wife is a baker she makes her own home you know
39:31
she makes all of her stuff from scratch which is great so I have like sourdough bread and those kind of things but I
39:37
don't typically I'm not a huge vegetable guy which I know can be bad but like I take fiber
39:44
supplements and and yeah and that kind of thing to kind of get that where where are you landing on that with you know
39:49
everything's a fad right I said a long time ago I wish back in the early 2000s I had no ethics or morals because I
39:56
probably could be billionaire by now with all the with all the fad you know Tony little's and Susan powders and all
40:02
those people that made a super fat but um you know what what is your basic recommendation for just generalized
40:09
dietary 100 and and I'll actually comment on yours first as we kind of work into that question like I it's
40:16
pretty clear now that you don't need to eat vegetables to be healthy and in fact
40:21
there are certain vegetables that are problematic for us like not all things want to be eaten certain vegetables one
40:27
don't agree with people individually like we have our own unique sense of sets of like sensitivities like you eat
40:33
a food you notice that you feel bloated or you feel like crap or you feel mucousy like we all kind of figure out our own unique food sensitivities also
40:40
there's a lot of vegetables that are hiding these things called oxalates you're going to hear people talk a lot more about this like spinach is high in
40:46
oxalates and other things like this and these can get deposited in our tissues and they can cause a whole bunch of problems so like the carnivore people
40:52
are basically like yo let's just eat meat let's just have high fat high protein no vegetables we're gonna be
40:57
fine now there's a grain of Truth to that because animal protein animal proteins and animal products like have a
41:04
lot of nutrients loaded into them they're avoiding a lot of the inflammatory carbohydrates they're avoiding a lot of the blood sugar crap
41:11
that you're getting and you're like you're just avoiding a lot of the issues that come along with those kinds of foods at the same time we have a
41:17
digestive tract that is not just like us it is all these commensal bacteria and microbes that live with us bacteria
41:24
viruses and fungi and those guys do like to ferment fibers and so they do like to break down those fibers like a gorilla a
41:31
Silverback Gorilla is massive it eats a lot of vegetables and leaves and stuff like that well what happens is their
41:36
bacteria breaks down that fiber and actually turns it into short chain fatty acids particularly butyrate so butter is
41:42
like butyrate so basically like these animals have got bacteria that break down those fibers into butter effectively so they're getting like
41:48
butter calories yeah and we have the same system too which is kind of cool so like when we get the right kind of
41:54
fibers in into our system and these could come from fruits or certain kinds of vegetables or straight just like psyllium or other kind of fiber
42:00
something movements apple or Citrus pectins like our gut bacteria love these things and they Thrive and when they're
42:06
happy we're happy we have good immune defense so I think whatever prioritizes someone's unique gut health is going to
42:12
be good I think most people will realize that they're going to do better by getting away from a lot of the grains
42:17
particularly non-organic grains there's a big difference between having your wife's organic sourdough which is a
42:22
slightly fermented probably super high quality flour and eating like just like a white flower that's sprayed with like
42:29
ground up glyphosate that's like bleached in a whole like it's a world of difference yeah she uses I mean
42:35
the the amount of money she has to spend on flour to get you know good yeah good flowers when you're eating grains it's
42:41
all about the quality and it's also about like what individually people can tolerate like I know when I eat wheat I
42:46
don't feel my best like I wouldn't say I'm like Celiac but I feel like bloated A little sluggish I've eaten too much rice I don't feel like my best I feel
42:52
better if I can have sweet potatoes I can do good with squashes I do good with certain kinds of berries and fruits but
42:58
like I'm not against like having fruit people have really villainized fruit because it's like oh my gosh it's sugar
43:03
these things are full of so many beneficial phytochemicals micronutrients vitamins minerals and not all things
43:09
massively spike your blood sugar like your your life is probably going to be better if you have some organic berries in it or you have an organic apple once
43:16
in a while and do something now if you're just like slamming watermelons eating bananas and like eating dried
43:22
dates and figs like that's not an optimal thing we want to keep stable blood sugar but fruits have their place
43:28
and I think if you're going to have them the way to break your fast with them they're a nice food because they wake up the GI tract they have you know good
43:34
stuff for the bacteria and again animal Foods the same story like quality matters especially when you're eating
43:39
higher up on the food chain so when you eat higher up on the food chain things like cows or fishes or stuff like this
43:45
like what that animal ate matters too because things are all bioaccumulators so if you can get grass-fed
43:50
grass-finished beef that's like better than the corn fed kind of things if you can get well mild lime caught salmon
43:56
it's way better than farm salmon that needs to be colored because it's not eating out natural diet yeah they so I
44:02
mean you made an important distinction that I think a lot of people now because this the USDA and all the BS you know
44:08
how things are organic and how things are cage-free like cage-free poultry their only requirements for cage-free or
44:16
to free range is they have to have a big gate in front of the in front of the door like it's complete nonsense but
44:22
when you talk about beef we're actually just talking last night because we want to do like we'll probably buy a side of
44:28
beef or a full beef he here and it's it's grass finished so there's this
44:34
distinction can you talk about the distinction between grass-fed and grass finish because the grass-fed is not
44:40
necessarily much much healthier than yeah for sure I mean my understanding is
44:45
like they can feed for the grass-fed designation because it's all politics they can feed the animal grass for a certain amount of time and then they
44:51
have a period to basically fatten it up on corn before it's actually slaughtered and brought to the shelf and so like
44:56
ultimately with the animal ate most recently particularly the corn which has a particular kind of fatty acid composition which then makes it way into
45:03
the fats that you end up eating with that particular beef and meat you know and that fat can either be inflammatory
45:08
or anti-inflammatory if it's coming from a grass it grass-fed grass-finished animal grass all the way through its
45:14
life cycle it's going to have these beneficial anti-inflammatory fat burning compounds like the CLA it's not going to
45:20
have as high omega-6 content which is an inflammatory type of fat so yeah I mean
45:25
where quality matters which means you're going to inherently spend more if it's like too cheap you know it's probably
45:31
like not the thing so I guess like if you're going to eat a diet that is largely meat based then like buy up for
45:37
the good kind of stuff I think is good good eggs good beef if you can hunt or if you can get your own to get in and
45:44
get a full beef or half like you are doing that's those are all great options yeah and I was actually surprised because for a full for a half it's five
45:51
bucks five dollars and fifty cents a pound which is that's what's great Costco ground beef is five to five fifty
45:58
five ninety nine right now so like you have this concept that if I do this and granted you have to have you know we
46:03
have a we have four freezers in our house so we've got room for that stuff and if you're in the big city it's
46:08
probably going to be harder for you to get to but most Middle America you know you've got access to these you know
46:14
these kind of things we're in Montana so we're surrounded I'm literally have cows right next door so it's you know it's
46:20
it's easy to to get those things but you know it's obviously more expensive when you're buying it in the store if you're
46:26
buying all organic grass finish you can there's a ton of mail order things now that you should get that stuff delivered
46:31
right to your house so yeah I mean I was surprised that buying a half a beef or a
46:37
full beef which is I mean you're talking about I mean the investment's like 1500 bucks you know but that's 300 pounds of
46:45
meat this is also what you're feeding yourself your family and your kids I mean like is there anything more like
46:50
there's not many things as foundational as like what you put in your body if it's going to impact your energy your
46:56
mood your disease risk down the line how much you thrive it's like a form of self-love I mean we can spend money on
47:02
all sorts of crap and like this is like so I guess there's a mental reframe on like how important it is to spend some
47:08
more money on quality nutrition and to get back to your broader question like what's the overall nutrition philosophy I guess it's to like eat a diet
47:16
that is good for every individual's like gut function if you're taking good healthy poops they're not sludgy you're
47:22
not bloated they're coming out don't require a ton of wiping then you know you're eating a good a good good diet
47:27
that works well for your GI tract if you're having GI issues that means something that you're eating or some
47:33
kind of scenarios happening where there's inflammation and your GI tract is not working well and something needs to be optimized and oftentimes it takes
47:40
a degree of experimentation to pull things out to get simple so I think the cool thing is like these meat-based
47:45
carnivore diets or stuff like that are a good way to like do an elimination and like get back to Baseline because people
47:50
aren't typically reactive like this to animal proteins and then you can start to add stuff in but I guess like the
47:56
best diet is like a largely non-processed so like Natural Foods this combination of fruits vegetables meats
48:03
eggs for most people I think a lot of people especially a lot of people especially based on certain racial
48:10
Origins so like Asians black people some Mediterranean people have sensitivities to Dairy it's unfortunate because cheese
48:17
is freaking awesome yeah and it's coming for me it's like I have both lactose intolerance as well as like a
48:22
sensitivity to Dairy if you find that you eat cheese or eats your things and you feel a little funky or you get a mucous reaction you have some
48:28
sensitivity to Dairy proteins so just be mindful of that doesn't mean you can't have dairy ever it just means like it
48:34
probably shouldn't be like a staple everyday thing for you if that's the case and then there's also Nuance in that like there's difference between
48:39
sheeps and goats Dairy people often tolerate that better than the traditional like cow's Dairy and there's
48:45
even variation in the type of cow and the dairy so nutrition's freaking complicated because these are molecules that are interfacing with our immune
48:51
system and that's really complicated but I guess like get the get the BS out and then as it comes to behaviors like what
48:57
we like to do is have people like proactively plan a free meal every week so pick a day Friday or Saturday night
49:03
and like just know it's your free meal like have whatever you want like I live I live we call them cheat meals but free
49:09
meal is probably a better term but yeah I live I like by the time Friday gets here if we're going out or we're gonna go you know and we try not to go
49:17
completely off the rails but if we're going to do something that's a little bit you know yeah I'm like I can't wait
49:22
I'm sure especially if I'm cutting or you know trying to drop fat or whatever
49:27
and that's a good habit you know because like it's like it's in a sense it's like it's proactive it's planned instead of reactive and that's a massive difference
49:33
two it like it gives you the opportunity to like let loose and have all sorts of foods and enjoy all sorts of tastes
49:39
which is awesome and then three the next day oftentimes when I always you wake up feeling a little bit like crap and it's
49:46
a good reminder again heading into the next week that's like oh yeah that's why I don't eat as much pizza like it
49:53
sounded like a good idea at the time right like delicious but it makes you have that kind of internal dialogue like was it worth it and you're like yeah it
50:00
was probably worth it but I'm gonna be good for a good amount of time so it's like this kind of like punitive feedback
50:06
loop that we can give ourselves to which is cool and then you know it's it's just good so proactively planning it once or
50:12
twice a week is is solid I recommend more of a dinner than a breakfast because I think like when you have that double pancake stack breakfast with the
50:19
OJ and the the cream on whatever like that can wreck you for the entire day versus like dinner you have your big
50:24
dinner out and then you like go to sleep and you can shake it off yeah if I I have a huge day plan like I do a ton of
50:30
construction work and all that dirt you know just taking care of the house so how many pound of big I may have a bigger breakfast and then a bigger
50:36
dinner that night too on kind of that and I don't make it you know off the rails all day but then I know that and
50:42
then I just feel Fuller and I'm I'm ready to go but yeah that's good advice for sure so I want to
50:48
talk you know so basically the the net of what you just said which obviously is more complicated this is don't eat crap
50:54
you know cut out the crap first get health foods try to you know try to eat organic as much as possible and just
51:01
clean things up and then you can begin to fine-tune yeah and then standard on layer on the first part of that was
51:07
standardize your first two meals of the day right I mean standardize your breakfast to be those high quality eggs standardize your lunch to be leftovers
51:13
from your decent dinner the day before or a high quality sandwich recipe or a salad with protein and then dinner can
51:19
be like we teach a framework for dinner called a perfect plate where if like you look at a blank plate white plate fill
51:25
it half of it with some kind of like fibrous vegetable you love so that could be a little green salad mix could be
51:31
asparagus could be broccoli something that's just a little bit of fiber that you're okay and you tolerate and you can like it enough throw a little salt or a
51:37
little butter on it olive oil like extra virgin olive oil if you want to be like really good about it um that's good for your gut microbiome
51:43
and then a quarter of that plate is protein and a quarter of it is healthy the carbs you know you can have sweet potato you can have some little rice and
51:49
if the portions are there it works out nicely you have a lot of flexibility and there's so many perfect plates we could do it could be like taco night you could
51:56
have a little bit of rice with ground bison and like some sauteed vegetables it could be salmon asparagus and like
52:02
and and white rice with a little soy glaze it could be chicken sweet potato with some roasted veggies of some sort
52:09
like many different options you can do that fit that framework and if you really feel cold to like drop the carbs
52:14
all together and just like I want to go straight carnivore then just like take out that quarter of the carbs and just
52:19
increase the protein portion like that works too so it's more of a frameworked approach than this is exactly what you
52:25
need to eat and the final thing I'll say on the nutrition is hydration is your through line water is your constant
52:30
Amigo and you need to have a water bottle of some sort to actually drink water because we're all busy so like get
52:36
a stainless steel guy Slam in the morning or whatever you do it and then just take something throughout the day drink water in between your meals don't
52:43
drink water while you're having your meals to dilute those digestive enzymes like have a big meal wait chug a bunch
52:49
of water and then keep on going but I think try to accumulate for most guys like 60 to 120 ounces a day you know it
52:55
depends on your activity level but more water is typically going to make you feel better yeah I and it kind of play with it it's
53:02
really weird but if you play with the container that sometimes can make a difference like for me I use my blender
53:08
bottle you know like I'll have what I I tend to do like an Amino Energy Drink which has some crap in it but that's
53:15
better than for me than coffee I just I feel better about it um but like if I if I try to drink my
53:21
water out of that same open top blender bottle I won't drink nearly as
53:26
much as if I put it in a straw based water bottle which is sounds really
53:32
weird but like you can kind of play around with you know I don't know what that is you know but it seems to work a
53:38
little bit better so play around with yeah with what you put it in so my wife ended up having sibo which I don't know
53:44
how much of that you've dealt with but it was a major so if you don't know what that is it's small intestinal bacterial
53:49
small intestine bacterial overgrowth and it's basically your complete your biome
53:55
and your small intestine is completely screwed up took her forever to get rid of it she had to end up doing that
54:00
Elemental diet is she eating a lot of bars or fibers or like sweeteners or like what do you think came from that uh
54:06
we were not a hundred percent sure whether it was like you know and I know antibiotics whether she got sick and had
54:12
antibiotics that went on it but it took her a really long time and to to deal
54:18
with it and the elemental diet is kind of a and you're aware of this but it's like a pre-digested quote unquote quote
54:26
um drink and it's it tastes horrendous made her sick she had to do it for 21 days
54:31
and you know my wife is kind of a badass and so she was like I'm not gonna let this beat me and she suffered through 21
54:39
days but all that to say having that healthy bio you know that gut biome is
54:44
so important to doing it and you know it sounds gross but like your poop is a really good best indicator like I can
54:51
tell if I have less fiber or I miss my fiber supplement or whatever on a on the next day because then I feel bloated I
54:57
feel terrible I'm not going to the vet my wife makes fun of me because I go to the bathroom a lot during that I mean
55:03
it's just like I just do it but it's healthy it works for me my system works for me but I wanted to ask you and I'm
55:09
I've kept you for a really long time but um I want to ask you about the so I do like a morning sauna you mentioned the
55:16
near IR so these are and I do kind of near our near IR light so I've got six
55:21
near IR lights I sit in there I actually made it under my stairs in that there's a little closet underneath there and
55:27
it's it only gets like 115 degrees or 120 so it's not this super hot 185
55:33
degree traditional sauna what you know is that something that tends to be pretty beneficial what I found which is
55:39
interesting is during the winter time I'll tend to have some a little bit of psoriasis or something like that on my skin if I'm if I'm constant every day
55:47
doing the doing the sauna I don't have it but if I go a few days or if I'm out of town or whatever it tends to flare up
55:53
yeah I mean the whole infrared spectrum is like just so beneficial so there's near Mid and far you have the near which
56:00
is the wavelength that's closest to Red visible light but you can't see it does yours has red light with it or just it's yeah it does they're they're the red
56:07
light yeah so it's a red near IR combo which are really good amazing especially
56:12
for like the near IR hits that that top most kind of layers of your skin and
56:17
it's really good for your mitochondria which is like everything when it comes to your longevity and your ability to produce energy so helps with
56:23
mitochondria helps with blood flow circulation helps repair collagen makes your skin look better and like you have
56:29
good looking skin and I'm sure it's like I don't know if that was is it improve since you've used that but like yeah I mean it I I I'm one eighth Native
56:36
American so you'll see I have like a red tent my friends always make fun of me but like I I tan this is a couple hours
56:42
in the sun you know I don't like I I just um I just tan really well but yeah my I
56:47
typically have pretty healthy skin overall yeah so it's great for that great for longevity skin benefits
56:53
circulation I mean every if everyone could get some kind of infrared exposure every day it'd be good obviously the sun
57:00
itself gives you some but like being in front of those light panels massive I think the best times to do it are in the
57:05
morning or in the evening there's unique benefits to like both of those scenarios so my wife has this little uh IR mask
57:13
that she wears that's like popular in the Cosmetic industry and the makeup and all that you know because we're both 50
57:19
and so but that helps and both of us look like we're in our you know early 40s and people are taking collagen right
57:26
collagen is a big thing that people take and like good things for bone broth and all that's great but like these lights
57:31
actually have the wavelengths that stimulate natural collagen production on their own and they're relatively inexpensive I mean my whole setup for my
57:38
basement was you know 175 bucks or something like that that's really good I mean it's super cheap you just buy the
57:45
cheap Amazon and I I have this little morning guide thing that you can get on my website
57:50
um but it kind of has some of those links in there but it's like those those old school metallic holders with the
57:57
bulbs in them and you know a couple of power strips and it was it was super cheap I think her little face thing was
58:03
more expensive probably because of how it's marketed but it also has a rechargeable thing and you know all that
58:09
so nice but she wears it on her chest and she wears it on her face um you know to every night and get that
58:15
that IR speaking of sunshine here's what I want to get your opinion about sunscreen so I actually went to the
58:21
Dermatology so like I said I'm I'm part native American so my my melatonin and you know or dot melatonin my melanin
58:29
um you know I have that red tint I I stand really easy I don't burn you know
58:34
if I burn it turns to tan within overnight yeah I talked to my dermatologist about it and she's like
58:40
you never have to worry I was like do I have to worry about skin cancer she's like nope don't even worry about it so
58:46
her advice actually was not to use and I know there's this kind of debate but
58:51
there's her advice is to not use sunscreen and I typically don't I because I want all the vitamin D and I
58:57
figure are probably more likely to get skin cancer from the crap that's in sunscreen that I am from the actual Sun
59:04
um all right my take on that I think it's like the main thing to misunderstand is
59:09
exactly what you said that they have like massive individual genetic differences in terms of our skin
59:15
composition and how the Sun interfaces with us like for you I would recommend you probably don't need sunscreen I mean
59:22
maybe if you're working a really really long day outside and it's just beaming down I mean I'd probably wear more like
59:28
full coverage clothing and a hat or something like that and not wear sunscreen you do get the benefits
59:34
obviously of of the vitamin D from the full sun and a lot of those chemical sunscreens have the avobenzone the
59:40
oxybenzone some of these are just like not awesome things they do have like mineral-based sunscreens that use like
59:46
zinc or titanium oxides that are more like that's the old school that's the old school nose thing of the exactly and
59:52
that's and that's the problem with them is they don't like rub in and disappear they're more like actually a more of a a
59:57
barrier like reflecting all these things um yeah I think people who have fair skin you know your northern European
1:00:04
descent like absolutely should get some kind of sun protection or they're going to get destroyed and and the it's the
1:00:12
like especially during the hot part of the day middle part of the day when sun is high and overhead it's kicking out a
1:00:17
lot of UVA and UVB and UVA is gonna age your skin and UVB is the kind of the skin cancer kind of thing I personally
1:00:25
rarely use sunscreen unless it's a long day outside or I'm fishing or something like that and I'll pop some on
1:00:31
um but again I think like the best time for most of us to get our sun exposure is really like in those earlier morning times where you're not getting a ton of
1:00:37
UV exposure there's no need in my opinion to put sunscreen on early in the morning for that morning walk or the
1:00:44
time midday if you're outside for a protracted period I think like if you can spend the first five to 20 minutes
1:00:50
outside like just without the sunscreen then you're fine but it's like two individual tolerance based on your skin
1:00:56
type certain people that's bad advice and then certain people like if you're African-American you can probably be
1:01:02
these numbers are irrelevant you could be outside for much much longer and you wouldn't necessarily need that so it's
1:01:08
not exactly a one size fits-all prescription I personally don't use much sunscreen only if there's really long
1:01:14
times and I know I'm just getting blasted yeah my daughter we call her I say you're not white you're transparent
1:01:19
because like she is so white which is ironic because I you know she looks just like me but she got none of my none of
1:01:26
my melanin I guess but um so you know I don't want to keep you too much longer I could talk to you all
1:01:32
day but what so if some guy's out there listening to this they're like yeah I definitely want
1:01:38
to get more fit you know maybe they're 20 pounds overweight maybe they're 120
1:01:43
pounds overweight obviously we all have to start somewhere and work with what we've got when you first kind of what
1:01:48
what is a good motivating ideology or statement or philosophy that you can
1:01:54
give to kind of you know take that first step yeah I mean I I mentioned it a little bit earlier I I think seriously
1:02:02
doing setting aside like five or ten up to 30 dedicated minutes with like a pen
1:02:08
and paper or talking through someone if you're not the kind of writing down type of person and like doing a deep
1:02:15
reflection in inventory being super honest and getting some self-awareness about like where you're stuck where
1:02:23
you're trapped what kind of habits and rhythms are you just stuck in the same kind of rut like why does this actually
1:02:28
matter to you what your core values are how does your health and your behaviors connect to them what you would you
1:02:34
ideally want to accomplish what do you want to avoid and like dumping that stuff on paper and gaining emotional
1:02:40
Clarity on that front it would be like the most valuable thing someone can start off in this podcast for because from there once you're there you're like
1:02:47
holy crap I see that I'm like actually massively out of alignment would I say my core values are I can now tell from
1:02:53
this conversation that I'm heading down a path that like I'm gonna have to dig myself out of a hole and when I'm 50 might as well do it now when I'm 40 or
1:03:01
start or if you are 50 then you know that like 60 is going to look freaking rough if you don't like get these pain
1:03:08
out of your joints you know that being 30 pounds overweight it's not great for your knees you know your mood's not very
1:03:13
good and you want to ideally like have a life that feels fulfilling 10 15 years from now and obviously your weight has
1:03:19
something to do with that like get a grasp and get real like know thyself take the time to do a little bit out of
1:03:25
reflection and then from there this would be like the Shameless plug would be like come check out
1:03:31
fitfatherproject.com go to our YouTube channel read our case studies and get inspired by what's possible when you
1:03:37
commit to a system where you don't have to do the thinking it's like I love this analogy it's like the best athletes in
1:03:43
the world they have coaches like Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan they have shooting coaches dribbling coaches defensive
1:03:49
coaches because they can be the athlete you can step into the arena you can do the execution and you can have someone
1:03:55
who can provide some outside guidance in perspective same thing with weight loss like every guy listening to this you're
1:04:00
already the boss the CEO of your life and your family you know you're managing all these other things and if this is an
1:04:06
area that you're deficient in struggling in you don't have to be the one to figure all this stuff out you can
1:04:11
actually just take some humility and be like okay I know this is an area I want to focus on let me like use a plan from
1:04:17
someone who's like walked thousands of guys through this where it's all figured out and just take it and run with it
1:04:23
even if it's a 30-day experiment right like even if you can commit to Third 30 days of trying something new like that's
1:04:29
real action that's real traction so it's a mix of both the mind the heart and the clarity of the plan like that's the
1:04:35
combination that gets results like you growing this podcast I'm sure it was the same kind of thing you connected with
1:04:41
like your mission of why you actually want to take the time to like create this setup record invite all the guests
1:04:46
so there's an emotional component and then there's also a logistical component you had to like figure out who knows what the best camera on mic is what's
1:04:54
why do I pick this recording software so you probably read and you figured out what the plan was and then you like iterated and you took action and then
1:05:01
you bought certain things so that's good that's not same exact thing with this fitness journey like the start to the
1:05:06
emotion the heart you only have to do that once it takes 30 minutes and you know you do that once and you start to
1:05:11
get that Clarity and that power and then you gotta channel that power into a plan and you do that and you get some
1:05:17
tangible actions this week man you're Off to the Races you're you're in the fight and and I promise you you can
1:05:22
astonish yourself at what you can accomplish in in in six months like it may seem like we've had guys lose
1:05:29
literally in nine months we had a guy lose 100 pounds wow so like that's that's like like not typical and most
1:05:35
guys don't have that weight to lose but in six months if you have 30 to 50 pounds to lose that can be
1:05:41
completely gone and not only gone you could have the habits in place to keep that off for life you could be dramatically more fit and you might even
1:05:47
be off any prescription medications in that amount of time and that might have taken you 10 years to get there so that's like the promise of like the
1:05:53
reversal it's not easy but it can be relatively quick and how I mean and how good you're going
1:05:59
to feel is pretty amazing there's one thing that I learned as a trainer that I think a lot of people misunderstand and
1:06:05
you I was I've been on your website the before and afters are really amazing if
1:06:11
you're 40 50 60 70. I your body even though it's more difficult the the
1:06:18
metabolic and physiological response to weight training eating right losing weight stays the same I mean it's the
1:06:27
same I had this guy um this man that was 91 years old that I
1:06:33
trained and this was back in the mid 90s late 90s when I first started working with him he literally could not if he if
1:06:40
he was in a prone position if he was laying down he could not physically get up from that position without you know
1:06:46
doing a rollover and kind of taking forever we worked with him for probably four or five months and like the dude
1:06:53
was doing full push-ups he was doing planks he could do crunches like it was
1:06:58
I mean and it was just a matter of getting him moving and and doing those things I have a I have a 92 year old
1:07:05
neighbor cuts his own Lumber he's out there every day in his tractor I'm like
1:07:10
I'm pretty sure he may outlive me but but like those kind of and and then I
1:07:15
contrast that with other men in their 70s and you're like dude you are you
1:07:20
just waiting to die like you you're feeble and you're skinny fat and all
1:07:26
those you know all of those things and you look miserable like you're you're you're not a healthy person yes so all
1:07:33
that to say it doesn't matter really where you're starting from start from where you are and these the results that
1:07:40
these guys are getting at the fit that you are getting um fit fitfatherproject.com
1:07:47
it's pretty amazing because like for me I you know if you go to my website I got
1:07:52
kind of the before and after I dropped from 12 body fat down to seven percent body fat that's only five or six pounds
1:07:58
but I mean it it's still a lot of work but there's a little bit of a difference when you're starting at 11 or 12 body
1:08:04
percent body fat versus I'm 80 pounds overweight right like it but it's the same it's the same principles I was sure
1:08:11
I would think so yeah um and I'll say our program is designed to like Progressive like we take guys from like
1:08:17
you from like lean to ripped and we take guys from like completely out of shape
1:08:22
to getting in shape to getting lean like it's completely Progressive you can find yourself on this journey and uh and the
1:08:29
other thing I'll say too is that picture of the old debilitated guy in the 70s versus like your active Outdoors 90 year
1:08:36
old neighbor we look around right now and many of us like aging parents if your parents are still alive if they've not passed like
1:08:42
the cognitive decline in dementia rates are going insanely high and this is completely due to our nutrition and our
1:08:50
lifestyles yep exercise muscle mass hormone protection is huge for cognitive
1:08:55
Health testosterone levels for men huge for cognitive Health those ages that Sugar which is all of our nutrition is
1:09:03
going to be determined whether or not you have a brain that's full of sticky plaques and sugars or whether it's a
1:09:08
brain that is still young learning happy spry like it's determined by our choices
1:09:14
that's just how God set this up consequence due to our actions and so
1:09:19
I'll give you a test I'll give you a testimonial though so that same 91 year old 92 year old neighbor was a pastor
1:09:25
for 40 years so he goes to our church now is no longer a pastor he's retired long since
1:09:31
retired but he does guests he will he will preach as a guest and people could
1:09:37
not believe he did a 25-minute sermon a couple of Sundays ago no notes
1:09:42
no iPad no cards 100 from memory quoting scripture that he learned 55 years ago
1:09:50
and so like if you contrast that to you know there's people in my life that are
1:09:56
like oh it's just you know I'm in my 70s now and I just can't remember anything anymore and but they don't exercise they
1:10:02
don't eat right all that so it's like it's it's not it's not it's difficult
1:10:08
but it's not hard right like it's a pretty simple equation and it becomes
1:10:13
intrinsically motivating as you've mentioned a few times right once you get on it like you feel weird when you don't exercise you feel like you know and so
1:10:20
it takes a bit to get there or maybe you already are on that that that frame and you have good habits in places and it's
1:10:26
like this is even more motivation to like accelerate lean into those things and now you know it's even more
1:10:31
important for you let alone we haven't even mentioned too much about our kids like they're modeling our behaviors
1:10:37
constantly and we're creating like what their perception of like normal and good is and if you have kids right now that
1:10:43
are actually overweight and unhealthy and you're listening to this like which is probably a huge percentage of the
1:10:49
people that are listening your kids this is I'm not trying to sound mean here but like overweight kids are going to be
1:10:55
more tired more distractible lower IQ less emotional regulation and the fat
1:11:00
cells they create when they're younger particularly under 13 stay with them for the rest of their life making it easier
1:11:06
for them to be overweight in adult life and harder for them to keep it off we have kids right now who are in their
1:11:12
teens that have diabetes literally diabetes right I mean and which is destroying their organ function their
1:11:18
kidneys are getting destroyed at a young age livers their brains are being glycated so it's not just like cute fat
1:11:24
it's like our kids are being fed to crap Foods too so like what we're doing is is affecting subsequent Generations as well
1:11:31
let alone our most loved ones so yeah that's I mean that's super important and I'll take it one step kind of more
1:11:36
pointed that if you have a kid that's under 10 and they're fat that's your fault I mean like in my in my opinion
1:11:44
that's a very you know at least in some part or not your fault but it's something that you have a definitive
1:11:50
control over we're out on your intake yeah yeah we're out on the trail doing some Jeeping a couple weeks ago in this
1:11:55
you know two families showed up in in some side by sides and it was you know
1:12:01
four adults and there was probably six kids and all of them them every single
1:12:06
individual was grossly overweight down to like a six or seven year old that
1:12:12
probably weighed more than I do and it's like man that is it's just generational and that will continue on and on and on
1:12:19
until you know somebody makes the change and it's normalized right and I'll say this too like the the the connection
1:12:24
between adiposity the food you eat in your eye and your IQ is super strong the better
1:12:33
you eat the sharper you are yeah especially for your kids and and your kids ability to be sharp is going to be
1:12:38
con it can continue competitive Advantage for them to create a good life for themselves like absolutely is you want the smartest kid you possibly can
1:12:45
have and their nutrition is a big factor in that yep nutrition exercise good sleep all of those things the same for
1:12:50
little kids as it is for adults and you know and uh that's what how you make a difference so
1:12:56
fitfatherproject.com and uh they just go to find fit father project on YouTube as
1:13:01
well to kind of look at your YouTube stuff that's a great subscribe there we have hundreds of videos good stuff on the YouTube channel and then we have our
1:13:07
free meal plan at least it lays out a good healthy day of eating on our website as well as free workouts you can
1:13:12
find places to get that awesome and I'm I'm kind of a coach but I kind of need a coach too so I might
1:13:17
check out what you do and see if you can get me down to six percent body fat love it I love it hey man I really
1:13:24
appreciate you taking the time you guys have a much bigger following than me and you're a lot farther along on this process so taking the time to help
1:13:31
educate you know our smaller audience and some of the people we're trying to reach I really appreciate you doing that my pleasure and we're gonna we'll share
1:13:37
this out to our community too because I want people to know about what you're doing Kevin thank you awesome all right thank you so much Anthony
1:13:43
if you're looking to really maximize your life and become the man you were made to be head over to maxedoutman.com
1:13:50
and get your journey started today [Music]