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the vast majority of people that go to
the gym they're in there working out all
the time they never see any substantive
gains
why not what are people doing wrong well
I'll say in general there are a few
Concepts that you need to hit and then
there are infinite methods so the way to
frame this entire idea is regardless of
your goal gaining strength losing fat
all those things you listed there are
always these fundamental concepts if you
hit those you're going to see your goal
if you don't it doesn't matter what
method you're using you're probably
going to either not hit a goal or you'll
hit it very shortly and then come back
down and you'll have this yo-yo
battering so all you really have to do
is ensure at the most fundamental level
those concepts are hit and then we can
talk days and days and days about all
the intricacies of the different methods
because they are different especially as
we get to the level of nuance but for
most people at this level it is that big
stuff so what does that look like
the number one thing is what we call
Progressive overload such that you need
to be asking a change in your physiology
and remember probably the biggest
Advantage we have in biology is the fact
that we are optimized for adaptation
and I want to reiterate that point what
that means is your entire physiology is
based around a single goal of adapting
the stimuli it's the best trait we have
why that matters here is if you're
asking it to do something it is going to
respond and so you need to be very
careful with what you're asking it to do
if you are putting a stress on it it's
going to change but if you're not
stressing it it's going to revert back
to homeostasis this is that Baseline so
ask it to change and then be diligent
about what you're asking it to do
in this context we call that Progressive
overload so you're going to continue to
ask it to do a little bit more and more
and more so that it will continue to
adapt
doesn't have to be harder or longer or
more sore or more fatigue it just needs
to be overloaded and there's a bunch of
ways we can reach overload that can be
more weight it can be more repetitions
could be longer it could be more
complexity it could be more novelty
there's a ton of ways in which we can
ask our body to learn a new task but
that is the the one that jumps out to me
is the first fundamental issue is folks
will go to their Fitness routine and
they'll sort of perform the same thing
every time and that's great and you're
going to get changes up that level but
once that is a new homeostatic balance
you're not going to proceed any further
so Progressive overload is is the number
one tactic there okay and so I've heard
you talk a lot about consistency that
certainly is
um a problem that a lot of people have
they are not they're just not going
enough they're maybe they go work out
once a week it's super intense but when
I think about the problem of consistency
should I be thinking about it in terms
of that even if you go in and do the
same thing you're going to make some
mild gains but it plateaus quickly
because I think most people are thinking
about it in terms of do I need to be in
the gym six days a week do I need to be
in the gym five days a week or can it be
less than that like what is the amount
that is sort of the Baseline if we want
to add muscle so that's a great question
because what you're actually asking is
the methods question
and I say that through iterate that
actually not that it doesn't matter but
this is a second level question so that
gives you options if within your
schedule or your preferences you want to
work out twice a week
that could work if you want to do six
days a week that could work as well you
have the ability to do either one or
anywhere in between still reach most
people's fitness goals and so what it
really comes down to is the question
beforehand which is what is that goal
if you're trying to say optimize
strength and you're fairly highly
trained then you're probably going to
have to work out more than once a week
but if you're saying hey look I want to
Simply maximize my fat loss that could
be done plausibly in once a week
could be done wouldn't be optimized but
it could be done and so the other
question is again are we looking for
optimal
or effective
those are not the same questions so we
have a lot of room to grow in general
for most people
if you're doing some sort of what we
call structured exercise
a couple of days a week at a minimum and
then the other days you have some sort
of Baseline physical activity then
you're probably okay this could be
something like a step count so are you
hitting your ten thousand steps a day
plus then two days a week of structured
exercise okay that is probably enough
for most people to get by
if that's all you're looking for
great if you're saying I'm not
interested in just getting by well now
we're having a different conversation so
again ultimately it really comes back to
what is the actual goal and to determine
what these steps are and the methods we
need to execute that goal but to go back
to our first point it's still
Progressive overload I'm still moving
and I'm still training the other thing
we need to discuss here is the
difference between physical activity
and again structured exercise those are
not to be treated as the same thing
for most people
um easy example let's say you went to
the gym really hard
20 minutes exhausted at the end of your
workout you do that three times a week
and then the rest of the week you engage
in a thousand steps and sat the rest of
the day you could look at the science
here you can also look at intuition
they're both going to lead you to the
same spot which is to say this is not an
Optimal Health strategy you might feel
great in those workouts but you're not
in a great spot the polar opposite would
be oh I don't really work out because I
walk a lot and I move
great also strong science to show that
that's not optimal for health either and
so the balance that you're going to play
here between my physical activity and my
movement my taking the stairs my
gardening my standing desk like all
those General things versus your more
structured exercise it's a balance game
but it depends on the specific goal
you're going after we could go through
different goals if you'd like and I
could give you more tangible examples
but before we do that definitely we will
get into especially muscle gain and fat
loss but first I really want to nail
down why most people don't make the kind
of progress that they want so we've got
the progressive overload we've got
consistency you're going to need to do
both my question is though why don't
people do that so taking them one at a
time well one is there something more
than consistency and Progressive
overload yeah there's a handful of other
Concepts but the other big one that I
think you're actually you're getting to
if I'm reading the right direction here
is they don't necessarily have a
specific plan
and so what the evidence will show you
scientifically is having an actual plan
regardless of how great that plan is is
more effective than not having a plan
when you say plan so I'll use my own
Journey as a mile marker so my plan was
look like Hugh Jackman and Wolverine
amazing uh or in the X-Men when it came
out so is that are we calling that a
plan that was certainly a goal that's a
goal but I had no idea how to get there
so I just bought Arnold Schwarzenegger's
book of bodybuilding and started going
after it Progressive overload I
understood so I was I was really trying
to push myself I was trying to add more
weight constantly yeah but this brings
me to the the big Avenue I want to go
down are the things like
why why are people lazy how do they get
injured that kind of stuff which I think
plays into it but I have a core thesis
that I want to run by you that I think
is a big part of this so you started by
saying that humans are the ultimate
adaptation machine my words but that was
your concept
which I agree with very much but what I
don't understand is why we have such a
use it or lose it stance at a biological
level so the thing I don't understand
you're you're fighting against
constantly if I let off the gas even a
little bit I slide backwards so you get
this a it's very hard to move forward
you have to put yourself in what I'll
call an adapt or die State I remember
lifting if I wanted to increase size and
strength I I had to go in there like I
was trying to kill myself like it's not
like oh just do a little bit extra it's
like two hours in the gym to the point
where I remember one time
I put pressure on my hand like I was
leaning on something and my arm just
collapsed because I had been doing
tricep work and it was like when I was
working out like that I made gains when
I stopped working out like that I wasn't
making gains and so
there is something that I don't
understand about why the body is so
hesitant to put on to increase VO2 max
and maintain it to put on muscle and
maintain it like all these gains lactic
threshold and maintain it like all these
things that we can do
they just end up sliding backwards so
it would be easy to say okay people
don't understand Progressive overload
Fair it would be easy to say people are
lazy Fair it would be easy to say that
people hate working out I certainly do
but my question becomes why does working
out suck and I think it's meaning it is
physically unpleasant at least if you're
wired like me it is not fun there's
nothing about it I've seen you joke
about people vomiting like it it is a
horrible experience for me from top to
bottom now my body is telling me stop
doing this
that's the part I don't understand why
is my body screaming stop doing this and
then why does it slide back so fast if I
actually do stop doing it there's so
many fun things there uh I was trying
not to smile interrupt the entire time
there's this is a topic I find endlessly
fascinating right the biological Drive
of what we do I have a lot of things to
react to on that and I'll try to stay
organized with my response because that
is very fun number one I need to push
back hard on you on it is absolutely not
required to train that hard to make
progress uh I would actually love to go
back to your training records and to see
what you're doing but I would I'd be
willing to bet a large sum of money that
the training program you were doing
or what you're asking your body to do
outside of that
was massively off and so this could mean
that your training program was terrible
uh technically right what you were doing
probably
or your other factors that go into your
physiological adaptations so the way
that we characterize this is remember
adaptation happens as a result of stress
okay and people think stress they think
bad that's not the case right it's
pro-stress negative stress there's
scientific terms for these but just
think about it though good stress bad
stress right so what actually happens is
people use an analogy of like a stress
bucket so you have a certain size of a
bucket say this coffee cup right here
and there's some water in it right now
and the water is full of 60 okay now
once that thing overfills then it starts
spilling out okay so you have a couple
of options you can either increase the
size of your cup
or you can reduce the amount of water in
the cup in this case the water is the
total stress load this is called
allostatic load or allostasis that's a
fancy science word for stress load so if
I want
to be in a position where I can put a
little bit more water in that cup again
two options make the cup larger or take
the amount of water in there and reduce
it
but remember in order for me to adapt I
have to add water that's the signal
that's the stress so just not adding
water means backwards adaptation right
so what most people don't realize is
that water is actually full of two types
of stressors
these are what we call Hidden stressors
and visible stressors the visible ones
are the ones that you see or feel or
react to you know you didn't sleep last
night you know you didn't work out
yesterday you know you drank alcohol you
know you did things like this but then
there's a whole Cascade of what we call
Hidden stressors so these ones are not
symptomatic these are micronutrient
deficiencies these could be parasites
these could be
inefficiencies in sleep or recovery tons
of things going on that are outside of
your perception so one of the things
that we do is to make sure that that
hidden stressor is as low as possible
and so I've lowered that water line how
do we care because it's going to because
you're from pushing myself no uh great
question I'll come back the more water I
can put in your cup the more adaptation
I get got it so the more stress I can
put on you but if your cup is already 90
pre-full
and I can only put in that last 10 and
then you start overflowing
overflowing would be injury breakdown
fatigue things like that so this is why
it's important to understand the two
types of stress I may be feeling a cup
of dumb stress and not useful stress
yeah exactly and that thumb stressed and
useful stress uh could be again
something you're aware of or unaware of
and so by simply reducing the amount of
unwanted stressors
I've increased your ability to put more
stress in the system which increases
your good stress to adapt right it's
targeted stress it's saying for example
you're having a stressor in your
physiology because of a poor nutritional
intake
if I can remove that then I can add that
same amount of stressor in by more
exercises
I can do it I can Target where the
stress is coming in which means I can
Target
the adaptation what we're looking at
here is saying all right let's make sure
that that stress cup that bucket is
minimized with non-targeted stress so we
can maximize our targeted stress so we
can maximize our targeted adaptation
so I would say again that either your
training program is not great which
means the stress you're putting in
wasn't great because you're saying your
fundamental assumption is that I should
not have to work that hard to make those
gains yeah no like that I would
technically that's an assumption but I
would say just because of our years of
experience all the science um I would
not believe any other truth is that that
training program is not great or
something else that was going on in your
internal physiology your hidden
stressors or your visible stressors was
causing your cup to be pre-full too high
to where everything was just blowing
over and there was no ability left for
an adaptation so one of the actual
markers we test for is adaptability we
can measure this
um through a bunch of labs and stuff I
would imagine your adaptability was
extremely low and so you had to push
hard hard hard hard hard to get any
moderate amount of change and so this is
kind of the equivalent of working
extremely inefficiently we would have
came back and said we're going to get
you more progress by simply removing
these other things and you're going to
do the same work in fact less work
and you'll make a lot more gains give me
some of the standard bad invisible
stress that build up in people's lives
that they're unaware of yeah the ones
that I mentioned earlier uh very common
to see either
inflammatory markers hormone profiles
micronutrients that tend to be off there
can be other things that are more
difficult to ascertain like heavy metals
uh think pollutants in the air there
could be things in your sleep
environment that are volatile Organics
that are coming out of your mattress
like formaldehyde or out of your wall
like lead I've heard you talk about that
before it so let's break down
commonality of these stressors like is
is it like you're just walking straight
to people's bedrooms testing the
formaldehyde leaking out of it and going
all right we got to switch out your
mattress or is that like it's mostly
people's diet and you're just eating a
[ __ ] diet and that's the reality okay
it's all back up what um
what our system is is comprehensive so
we build stuff for these high
performance individuals whether they're
athletes or non-athletes and our
approach is basically if if we wanted to
take money out of the equation
and figure out the answer for everyone
Let's do an unbelievable amount of
Diagnostics
so that we could come back and say you
have a very specific and simple solution
plan and what we're looking for is what
we call Performance anchors so these are
anchors that are holding someone's
physiology back the last time we had our
conversation we talked a lot about
not wanting to overuse Technologies and
fitness and that's still true and so we
believe in the power of your own
internal physiology which means I want
to let your physiology do what it wants
to do with all the great technology we
have right now we still don't
necessarily understand why physiology
runs the way it runs
so that all being said then we are
looking for the things that are
constraining your physiology if I can
remove those three to five performance
anchors or constraints and then let your
physiology do what it wants to do then
I'm in a much better spot and you're
going to be in a much better spot so I'm
on the hunt for what those three to five
things are maybe seven maybe two for
each individual person do you approach
them in the same order meaning you just
expect some are common not at all no
yeah so this is answering your question
directly there's been plenty of people
that will run these full evaluations on
you're talking you know well over 500
biomarkers the environmental analysis
we're doing sleep tracking at the
highest level you're running full
clinical grade sleep analysis this is a
sleep study done in your own bedroom
every night things like that right
you're not going to a sleep lab we're
doing all kinds of other tracking and
we're going to figure out and this has
happened plenty of times yo you just
need a psychologist
yo you just need to eat a reasonable
diet that your performance anchor is all
nutrition based sometimes it's the
opposite they're doing all the visible
stressors great
sunlight and stress and community and
connection and purpose and good diet and
exercise and all those things are great
but then something is happening
internally that they just never would
have spotted this could be an
inflammatory marker
this could be any brain chemistry things
like any number of neurotransmitters off
something like that and so that person
might be on a different protocol another
person might be something like you need
to find purpose in life that you need to
find an activity or volunteer or you
need and you need to do this more style
of training right so any combination
we're really trying to find again what
are those like three or four or five
things that are going to make the most
impact and then we can just get out of
the way and let physiology do it so my
brain when you were saying that earlier
is
look of all the I've dealt with
professional athletes in probably 15 Pro
Sports and this is at the highest level
so you're talking NFL MVPs and Cy youngs
and all-stars and all pros and Olympic
gold medalists and world champions in
the UFC in boxing and all these things
we've dealt with hundreds of people in
our executive programs
I've never seen anybody that has to
train that hard to get progress wow so I
just don't believe that that is I
believe that was true in your actual
experience but I would say something was
not great with the program or something
else in your physiology was kind of
strained to a level that your
adaptability was just smolderingly small
and so we would need to figure out what
that was at the time
could have been job stress could have
been CO2 tolerance could have been
connection to your own physiology like
there's all kinds of areas that this
could be in and we've seen them all
and or it could have been you know
something else going on so we would have
gone and found those things and said
we're having you do a b and c could be
very simple could be not and then here's
your new training program and I'm I'd be
willing to bet
a lot that that your training would have
resulted in and much more Effectiveness
okay I don't want to uh litigate sort of
in theory and I certainly don't want to
argue for my limitations but I do want
to uh I'm gonna pose some questions and
you tell me
um where I'm crazy is there such a thing
as a hard Gainer I've seen for people
that haven't heard that phrase somebody
that has just a hard time putting on
muscle yeah there's actually we've
I'm in this um there's a nice review
paper on this handful there's been a
couple of now that have come out I'm
looking at simply the the physiological
factors specifically in muscle
um and there's there's a whole
host probably over a dozen now of the
cellular processes that go into muscle
actually adapting that have been looked
at and none of those are really jumping
out in fact I literally read a paper
this morning looking at muscle fiber
type this would be fast twitch or slow
twitch and that didn't seem to predict
hard gainers versus
um fast scanners either
ribosomes are probably the most leading
candidate but satellite cells have been
looked at gene expression signaling
protein and so there is clearly
it's clearly happening and there's no
question there are hard gainers but we
still haven't figured out in my opinion
really any strong evidence suggests
what's happening inside the muscle cell
despite a lot of research and a lot of
papers on this topic which again gives
me more ammo to come back than say
I don't know if it's muscle
it's it's something else potentially
that's leading to it there's no question
that some folks will have an exaggerated
response so central dogma is basically
this if your muscle adapts you have to
have some signal coming in exercise this
could be the cell wall the muscle fiber
stretching this could be a hormone
that's activating a receptor on a cell
wall say say an androgen receptor
um it could be testosterone like any
number of things on my gf1 stuff like
this so it could be mechanical
stretching exercise stuff like that or
or a model but that signal has to be
then transduced across through the cell
into the nucleus which holds the DNA
inside the cell that has to then
activate what's called gene expression
that tells your muscle to express the
genes that code the proteins that make
your muscle fiber so three-step process
signaling is one gene expression two and
then protein synthesis actually is the
third process there's clear evidence
that if we were to take all of us in
this room do the exact same workout and
then biopsies some of us would have an
exaggerated either signaling response
or maybe not but it'd be an exaggerated
gene expression response or maybe not
or maybe even just a more effective and
faster protein synthesis process so in
all three of those individual layers
there are differences between folks but
they don't seem to predict at this point
which one is going to be the the hard
Gainer or not and so what I tend to come
back to now having taken so many people
through our comprehensive process is you
can reboot your life your health even
your career anything you want all you
need is discipline I can teach you the
tactics that I learned while growing a
billion dollar business that will allow
you to see your goals through whether
you want better health stronger
relationships a more successful career
any of that is possible with the mindset
and business programs in Impact Theory
University join the thousands of
students who have already accomplished
amazing things tap now for a free trial
and get started today
there's probably some other hidden
stressor and those individuals there has
been some stuff on older uh individuals
in in studies where they try to look at
this and what they find is they give
them more volume and they tend to
respond they get the same gains as the
other people once they've had more
volume
other papers feeds into
um my sort of underlying hypothesis
which is that I did need to work that
hard or are you saying that hey yes add
more volume but if you're going to the
point of not being able to support your
own weight that you've gone too far I
wouldn't say that like I'm a strength
training junkie like I love that part of
it
um but when I say volume I'm
specifically referring to not
necessarily how heavy or how hard you
were going but maybe you needed an extra
day maybe your workouts were too long on
one day and you needed to do it more
frequently
maybe the recipe for you was a total
amount of sets that you're hitting or
repetitions you're hitting per week it's
also possible that you are exceeding
that and so what you were actually doing
was you were compromising your recovery
capacity that was reducing performance
in the next workout and so by the end of
say the month you were actually getting
a total tonnage
less than you would have had you been
saved a little more gas in some of the
workouts and put it to the next one so
it could be a combination of things or
expressing it um I did you want to
acknowledge though that it is still
absolutely fundamentally true some
people are simply going to respond
better
there's there's clearly a spectrum of
hyper responders to low responders so
I'm not saying that that is false what I
am saying though is you could have made
a lot more progress uh had things been
dialed in no question could we have put
you in a position where you're the
fastest muscle grower ever no like
probably not going to happen but we
could have improved your status quo for
sure and I'll make that the default
assumption and I don't for the viewer's
sake I don't want this to be about me
what I did or didn't do but I just want
to better understand like what the sort
of bracketing functions are so
uh hard gaining is a real thing but you
probably don't have to worry about that
is what I'm picking up from you this
might be well a bad stress issue it's a
volume potential issue addressing those
things yeah actually kind of give you
two just real quick action points on
that one if you do feel like you're a
hard Gainer number one is make sure
everything else is truly dialed so get
the lifestyle stuff that's within your
control as high functioning as possible
before you start blaming the workouts or
your own physiology
make sure you're doing your due
diligence and the things we talked about
earlier can I run through what I think
you'll say is to sort of remove all
those basic things uh make sure you're
getting plenty of sleep
make sure you're getting sun exposure
make sure that your diet is I'll call
clean maybe we'll get into that later
but you're basically eating Whole Food
whenever possible I'm sure you're gonna
say protein intake is going to be pretty
important if you don't have the building
blocks for the muscle you're not going
to be able to build them you mentioned
purpose earlier which I love hearing I
think that would be very important so
that psychologically you have meaning
and purpose in your life you have loving
relationships uh
uh what am I missing
that's probably pretty close to the 80
20 rule yep you covered most of it you
could throw in a couple of other things
like a social connection
uh maybe you folded that into purpose
maybe didn't but loving relationships
yep that's it's great there maybe
hydration
yeah we're gonna get into hydration I
won't derail us now but okay great
understood but you've hit most of them
okay so
um one thing then assuming that we have
those basic things taken care of I I
have maybe a misconception you will blow
my mind right now if you tell me that
this is just a protocol problem I will
love you forever but I have a belief
that adding muscle is brutally difficult
and that if you're not in the gym
working really hard really consistently
meaning uh you have a high volume of
lifting and a high volume of days that
you have lifted so
um I if somebody came to me and said hey
I'm trying to add muscle what should I
do uh I'd obviously look at their diet
first and then I would say you need to
be working out probably six days a week
is there anything in that assumption set
that you think is broken in terms of the
difficulty of adding muscle mass yeah I
say you're
again exaggerating the need for training
okay let's pick a physique so here's
more base assumptions that Tom has
um when I watch a Hollywood star get
jacked like Hugh Jackman uh in a call it
six month period that they almost
certainly did steroids
reasonable assumption
um in that Community that's pretty
reasonable okay now I'm fortunate to
know
many of the individuals that actually
are the ones behind those folks and I'm
I'm gonna maybe not say names uh though
I'm actually although I'll take it I
appreciate it but um very good fun
friends with um
uh the gentleman responsible the
the Henry Cavill and his stuff for
Superman and things like that um sorry
Michael Blevins that's his name I'm
sorry Mike if you didn't want me to say
your name or not you can always leave it
out if you want to ask him yeah um but
he's he's um
he he spoke about this at length he
juices him up no
um in that case I don't know if Henry
does or not it doesn't matter my point
is though he's gone through a number of
those things and I know a lot of these
things many of those individuals are are
on
um anabolic agents which fine who cares
right I don't have a beef with it I just
want to better understand how hard
muscle is to gain some of those folks
are not I can tell you though we've
worked with plenty of individuals that
to our knowledge are not on that and
I've seen
countless people add to their physique
without needing any things like that so
it's it the challenge Mike would say
would be if you want to use that as an
excuse
great
there are that excuses right there if
you want to use the excuse that all
those folks have all the money and the
time and the to train and to eat and the
chefs and all like that and that's the
excuse you need to have in yourself to
not uh go through your own body
transformation then great use that
excuse
all true
why does it matter to you though do you
want to make the journey or do you not
if you want to make the journey and you
don't want to go on the anabolic agents
no problem we've done that personally
countless times and across the world
it's been done millions and millions of
times can you get to the level
um based on your starting point to
finish
looking like Arnold no but can you again
you go through your own transformation
absolutely can you improve your physique
sure can you look like Henry Cavill I
don't know without drugs I don't know
did he use it I don't know I don't even
really care for the most part so the
question should be framed back on you is
this something you're willing to go
through now do you need to get dialed in
a little bit sure do you need to work uh
two and a half hours a day in the gym
six days a week absolutely not
absolutely not that again we have
extensive evidence for that are some
individuals going to have to work harder
than others probably are you going to
have to make other changes in your life
potentially
um but if you don't want to necessarily
go all the way to Hugh Jackman level but
you just wanted to make some
improvements that are noticeable in your
physique that can absolutely be done at
a much more reasonable time frame to
also be clear it won't be easy either
right we're not gonna just add a bunch
of stuff at 45 years old
by you know just eating a couple of
protein shakes today and lifting a
little bit harder very ages of you yeah
it's not going to happen right and so
there's a truth here in between
um let me ask you how assume I'm
27. yeah how many pounds of muscle
without anabolics can I add to my lean
muscle mass can I add to my physique in
a year
I would say
in a year at 27 years old
10 pounds would be very conservative
okay yeah that can certainly be done
um that's going to be a standard
deviation right some folks a little
higher a little less but I don't think
the average person 10 pounds would be
very reasonable
um you could certainly do that in much
shorter time frame but given life and
all those things trying to factor in a
practical answer that'd be a that also
scales if you're coming in at 145 pounds
to start or 215 pounds to start and that
number scales it's harder to put on
muscle when you're you know 40 in size
yeah well when you're already big in
terms of just physical size so for
somebody who's 215 pounds to put on 10
pounds it's not a high percentage of
their total body mass so that wouldn't
be that hard somebody's 150 pounds
easier for the big guy definitely got
you definitely because absolute Size
Matters a ton for someone 145 pounds to
put on 10 pounds of pure muscle that's a
big percentage of your body weight so
that would be a much slower process
but you could be done interesting so we
have a guy here at impact theory that uh
has really been trying to put on muscle
and he's very solid like if you touch
his shoulders they feel firm and but he
just he's like if I don't concentrate
all of my energy on eating all the food
that I'm supposed to eat for a day he
was like over a weekend I'll lose five
pounds and I'm just like that is so
weird to me as somebody that if I look
at a photo of a dessert I'm gonna gain
weight I just find putting on especially
fat is so easy this kid shovels food
into his face Non-Stop
and you just can't you can't add yeah
you know I've been answering those
questions for 15-year career now
again I don't know I will always
acknowledge the uniqueness of physiology
there's always weird things about your
guests though my guess is I'm gonna call
it a guess I'll be more arrogant than
that
um you're just not doing it right the
lifting or the eating both and my other
thing would be not to harp on this but
again something else in your physiology
um is constrained
and and that is the answer once nothing
is concerned then you just take off like
a rocket ship no question so a lot of
folks do things
that make them feel like they're
smashing food all day as but the food
choices are incorrect or they're
actually at just totally unnecessary
volumes or something else is happening
unnecessary volume of food yeah so okay
interesting now he is I don't want to
derail us on diet just yet but he's
eating the standard one gram of protein
per pound of lean body mass that he uh I
don't know if he's doing it for where he
is or where he wants to be does that
matter uh it's sort of pedantic at this
point it could be could not like
probably pretty close meaning you're
just not sure what the thing is that's
constraining I mean it is close enough
probably is a rough one whether it's you
know you're talking you're splitting
hairs of 10 or 15 grams maybe 20 grams
of protein a day it's close enough okay
so if I'm trying to add or he's trying
to add is 10 pounds of muscle over the
next year
um is he going to be able to do that
with the three days a week or does he
need to yeah you could you could for
sure um is there any advantage to more
days or is it just volume in the days
that you work out so the the most strong
predictor of muscle hypertrophy and
again we're not talking fat loss or
strength or endurance or any of the
other goals but for hypertrophy total
volume is is the answer and so whether
you want to get that done across three
days or six days a week there may be a
small advantage to breaking it up I'm
actually more recent research has gone
back and forth in this point of
frequency right so if you equate for
volume uh and you just the only variable
is three days a week or five days a week
or six days a week you could find
evidence on both sides of that equation
probably practically it's easier to do
it six days a week because the volume
needed on three days a week is then
double on each individual day so it's
just hard to get that all in but that
being said again I don't want I really
don't want people at home listening
thinking well I don't have six days a
week to lift weights and I'm not going
to do it for an hour and a half so
there's just no way I'm going to try to
add muscle and I like I really need to
dispelier absolutely because it's not
true
it's absolutely not true because they
can spread it out because a minute ago
you said hey it's a question of whether
you want to go on this journey and
whether you're willing to put in the
work or not which I think Remains the
fundamental question
but now I feel like you're backing off
that so
help me understand okay so here's what
I'll say there's a difference between
trying to improve your physique and
trying to maximize any of the most
possible ever for the fastest and
largest gains and so I guess I'm
differentiating there if you want to go
to optimize
then that's great
um technically it's probably easier for
you to execute that volume over more
days per week but it doesn't have to be
if three fits your schedule fine also if
you're like look I'm 80 20 on this thing
I don't need to get the most amount of
muscle gain possible in six weeks I just
want to gain 80 of it can I back it down
to three days a week and do an hour can
I do four days a week in 45 minutes the
answer is yes you can absolutely gain
lean muscle a noticeable amount in three
to four workouts a week if you give
yourself three or four months or some
reasonable time domain so that that's
maybe the differentiation I'm drawing
that's that's absolutely possible what I
don't want people to do is think that
that is binary if I can't do six days a
week 90 minutes each session then I
might as well do nothing and that that
is like very much not true we again we
have people that do this
very routinely and if you look at the
research that has looked at a variety of
volume uh so total amount of volume per
week if you want to count the amount of
sets that you do the number you're going
to look at there is about 20 to 25 sets
per muscle group per week so if you
think to 25 sets per muscle group okay
now that seems to be about optimal
having said that the groups that did 10
still grew muscle and so that's why I'm
saying like you can still now if you
take the example of 10. let's say you
did three sets of biceps
three days a week
that's ten I mean you're at nine right
there so like 10 sets a week is not a
insane volume if you did three sets of
ten
of two different bicep exercises on one
day that's six total sets do that twice
a week now you're already at 12. so
you're already getting there and you're
going to grow muscle it's just not at
the same rate maybe that those folks
that I did 20 or 25 sets and so it's a
question of again are you trying to
maximize or are you just happy with some
statistically significant scientifically
measurable progress in muscle mass which
is still very important and so it's to
give people options and to not scare
them away of saying if you can't
go to all the way to the end that
doesn't mean go nowhere you can still go
somewhere
and have effect
um that's also kind of what I was
referring to when I was saying if you're
not willing to do the work and you don't
even want to go to the first couple
steps so they don't expect anything but
don't think that just because you can't
have a full team a chef at your house
anabolics and all these things then
that's an excuse to do nothing
if you want to do nothing do nothing but
you can still make a lot of
Transformations under whatever
constraints that you really have
I would like to take a moment to do a
PSA
for anybody out there considering
lifting and adding muscle mass there and
getting lean I think both are going to
matter there there is something
fascinating psychologically at work for
the human animal as you as for both
sexes but from a guy's perspective I
will just tell you
when you transform your physique when
you get stronger when you add muscle
there are going to be few things in your
life if anything that will make you feel
better about yourself I don't know why
it is but it is it is unreal now I'm not
at as big as I used to be and we will
get into injuries in a minute because
hopefully live here you're going to be
able to help me overcome some that I've
struggled with for a long time
um but there was a period when I was
younger I could bend over and pick up
almost 400 pounds it was amazing I loved
it the most I've told the story my my
poor listeners a million times but I
once I was at a pool party with my wife
a woman climbed up out of the pool and
asked my wife if she could pet my abs it
was one of the greatest moments of my
life Petty yes for sure but it was
amazing uh and so
it it's worth it and I want people to
hear that before I say what I'm about to
say it's really worth it it will do
something deeply to you psychologically
to get strong to have a physique that
you're proud of what you have to do to
your own mind to be consistent to show
up every day to progressively overload
to get your diet right to do all those
things to care enough over an extended
period of time the rewards are
tremendous and even though I absolutely
despise working out the results are so
unbelievable psychologically and and
physically but psychologically the
results are so incredible and they apply
to so many areas of your life look at
Schwarzenegger he's been able to apply
it to all these different areas of his
life same for me some of my biggest
breakthroughs in business were born of
the discipline I developed in
maintaining a physique
all right
hopefully everybody heard me say that
and now I'm going to say when somebody
comes to me and says that they want to
add muscle I'm just like you're never
going to do it they're never going to do
it and
uh it's interesting because I don't know
as much as you I take a totally
different approach to why they're going
to fail uh to me it people do not want
things badly enough because they don't
want it badly enough they will not
suffer and while you are making it sound
easier than my experience leads me to
believe you're the expert I want to
completely acquiesce to that and I
cannot wait to learn more about how to
do this more easily uh it's difficult it
takes a lot of time nobody will stick
with it the vast vast vast vast majority
of humans will give up long before they
make gains and
of this reversion to the mean that
you're going to slide back if you take
two weeks off you're gonna notice and so
if you take two months off forget it
three months and it feels like you never
worked out in your life it's bananas how
fast you will go backwards because of
all that dear listeners
the vast majority of humanity will never
do this do you agree with that I would
agree with much of that okay what's the
part you don't agree with I still think
the charge is worth the effort yes I
started with that yeah I started with
that Andy totally agree
um
there are many other benefits of
strength training that are going to pay
off dividends the rest of your life yes
I'd get that but what I want you to get
into is what breaks people so we've
covered they've got these hidden
stressors cool we're going to address
those
what I'm talking about and so stressors
and their approach probably isn't right
but now talk to me about the the mind
game of this all like where do what
factor do you think that plays because
you work with Elite athletes man they've
already walked over some sort of
threshold where they're like I'm
committed I'm gonna do this but do you
encounter
the sort of average person and where
they trip themselves up yeah so our
entire rapid health and performance
companies all non-athletes for the most
part so we've been to this plenty of
times uh gone through this
transformation the folks in here range
everything but you've got people running
billion dollar companies in there the no
time is my point right you've got
mothers of three kids and running
companies and startups and so these
folks do not have the time they're not
committed they're not 25 year old and
they're not even on anabolics for the
most part some are but some aren't and
so we face this challenge plenty of
times a couple of processes that we go
through
step number one actually is we can
actually come back and talk about common
biology we started this earlier and be
happy to come back to that that's a fun
conversation
but our process looks a lot like this
number one are you choosing the right
goal
and this is really not us trying to play
uh psychologist or therapists but is
really making sure based on your
physiology this is where we think you
need to go so let's say the example is
uh muscle growth and they come in and
they say we want to I want to add muscle
and add 15 pounds of muscle okay the
first question we would ask is why
right if is it just a personal goal
great that's fine is there something
else going on that you think you need to
add 15 pounds of muscle and when we run
this complete analysis and this is top
of mind because this just happened with
one of our clients
and we looked at it in his uh his
aerobic capacity his metabolic
efficiency was very very low and there's
actually good research recently showing
that going through about six weeks of
pure aerobic exercise
prior to high cardio straight up cardio
you're talking cycling just steady state
cycling not intervals not anything like
that
six weeks of lower moderate intensity
cycling prior to going through
hypertrophy training resulted in more
muscle growth by the end of the study
than those folks who did not do that
aerobic part before do they have to keep
doing the aerobic part nope so six with
some sort of primer it was Primer and
it's most likely an improvement in
aerobic capacity which makes the workout
less painful recovery it's all recovery
from the training right so now you have
the mechanisms that allow you to
actually
enhance your recovery which allows
adaptation to occur if you dig too deep
down that hole of fatigue all you can do
is come back to Baseline but if your
recovery is higher then we can actually
get the results that we're earning and
so in this individual
it was a similar story where we're like
you need to go through some basic
aerobic fitness first before you start
launching into hypertrophy because
number one you won't even get to the
training
you'll be so fatigued you'll be so sore
you'll have all these problems and so we
need to set this Foundation of aerobic
fitness prior to getting into that so
that would be one of the things that I
would say is is what are we looking at
here and what's truly why you want to
get there and if you want to get there
let me guide the ship on how we get
there just trust the process if you were
willing to wait six months we will get
you farther by the end of the six six
months than you would have had you gone
on your own it's gonna look like we're
calling off course here but this is what
we need to do to get you there so that
would be reaction number one right is to
say
why do you want to get there in the
first place is it just a personal goal
or do you think it's something else
going on and so the process then says
okay we've decided we want to get 10
pounds of muscle in the next six months
that's the goal and we went through the
whole process and we're all in agreement
that's the goal okay great second step
is in
all right let's look at what we call
your quadrant so your quadrant is take
everything in life and we're going to
put into four unique buckets okay now I
got this from my colleague Kenny Kane's
always Mike to make sure I give him
credit he created this I did not
but pocket one is what we just call
business
okay this is whatever work finance
things like that
and the one is what we call
relationships this could be family
friends social time going out
concerts parties whatever thing it is
for relationships that you do social
connection volunteering whatever
bucket number three your physical
training again this could be walking
hiking gardening exercising lifting
kickboxing I don't really care
the fourth one is recovery
and Recovery is everything from mental
recovery emotional recovery physical
recovery
etc etc and there's huge crossover
something that lands in a recovery
bucket for me might not be recovery for
you
Etc so it's just it's personal right in
those four buckets you get 10 total
points
and you can allocate those 10 points
total not per category total however
you'd like and so we run through this
assessment and we say okay you're
putting five in your business right now
you're putting three into your kids okay
great you now we have two points left
you're gonna go one training and then
two into training and no one recovery
not gonna work right and what we're
trying to do is run them through a very
high level analysis of allostatic load
all stressors are stressors right we
have to account all these things
business stress all this stuff matters
into the system and so we look at that
and we say where are you at now and we
come to an agreement and then we say
where do we need to be
to allow that actual goal to happen six
months down the road
we need to make adjustments all right
and so we're going to take a point off
of business we're going to take a point
off of maybe relationships maybe we're
not hanging out with friends as much
maybe whatever it is right and Recovery
has to be at least half of training
right so if you're gonna put three into
training you can put one into recovery
it's not going to work right you're not
going to have enough recovery to
actually get the adaptations right
you're just going to be stress stress
stress no adaptation or no recovery no
adaptation
so we build that thing out we come to an
agreement and in that that agreement
goes on a postcard literally physically
if possible and that goes to three
unique people
person one is Udu and that thing goes it
is a contract between you and yourself
of where we actually need to be to allow
that adaptation to occur that's the goal
we set we agreed on that you made that
goal
we're going to do the work we're not
going to do the work here's how we get
there this is how we have to allocate
that and I encourage them to put that in
the place of vulnerability or weakness
so if they're addicted to work then that
goes on their laptop or that goes in
their computer screen if it is addicted
to Netflix it goes on their TV it goes
in some place when they start violating
that rule they see it
it also goes to person number two
which is the person most likely to ask
you to violate that rule
this is your friend who always wants you
to go out this is your boss this is your
someone else is asking to work late this
is
the person who's gonna push you against
it and that person knows this is Tom's
New Deal
like this is not non-negotiable anymore
three the person most likely to be hurt
besides you by the violation
so this could be again your kid this
could be someone else who says Dad like
you committed to x amount of time with
me and you're not following you you did
that meeting you did that other thing
you weren't supposed to
whatever it comes down to right and
that's an accountability system of
person who's going to violate you you're
going to violate yourself or the person
who's gonna be most hurt by this
and then the last step is okay great we
know where we're going we know how to
get there now all we have to do now is
set very specific boundaries which are
extremely specific and there are things
that we call
what life actions do you need to take to
ensure those things actually happen and
so just to give a random example say we
have agreed to take one point off of
business
amazing what are we going to take to
ensure that it's not just like oh yeah
I'm going to try to work a little bit
less
that's never going to work right it is
okay I'm going to commit to never
working on Saturdays or I'm going to
commit to never working before 9 A.M or
after 6 p.m or something right whatever
makes sense for you and your scenario
same thing with recovery I'm going to
commit to doing x amount of recovery
minutes per week period I'm going to
commit to this a much dollar investment
whatever whatever it takes for that
thing once you have all those
you're still going to have some failure
no question but you have very specific
guidelines and then when you do fail
it's very clear what happened and why
and so that's the process we take our
folks through and we don't have a
hundred percent success rate but I'd
like to think it's pretty high well I
know it's pretty high and I'd like to
think it's higher than most folks so
um this is kind of the soft part of
coaching right not the X's and O's but
this is the reality of what we take our
folks through and I think that would be
what I would recommend
um to the scenario you set up is going
through a process like that so it's very
clear on where we're going and when we
started the conversation one of the
major Concepts I said is people not
having a plan
I was really talking about like actually
knowing what to do in the gym but this
is also part of your plan so you ensure
when you get to the gym you're in there
in the right frame you're not rushing to
get out of there in 15 minutes because
you got to go to work or you're not
rushing there so knowing exactly what to
do so you're not making your workout up
as you go based on what machines are
just open that minute
but then making sure you have the space
like this is the commitment I'm going to
spend or not right I'm only going to
commit to 45 minutes in here I can't
drag this out to an hour and a half so I
have to get off my phone immediately I
have to get right to my warm up it
doesn't matter if my playlist isn't
right because I have to be out here in
45 minutes because I committed
to this other thing I have to get to so
there's no time to drag this on so that
means I have to have a very specific
training plan which means I need to
either have a professional helping me
ahead of time or some other thing but
tomorrow's success is based on today's
preparation right so having that plan in
place just simply having that plan will
take your execution so much higher than
not having something written down
so having that done ahead of time is
what's needed that's a great process I
like that a lot I'm going to point a lot
of people to that clip
um so now talk to me about the the final
piece in this people just don't make
gains movement here so
homeostasis and the reversion to the
mean
take me into the biology of it why like
I understand muscle is calorically
um
greedy yeah expensive perfect so that I
get what the body doesn't want to keep
more muscle than it absolutely needs but
like VO2 max I don't understand why that
would ever especially if it is if Peter
OT is right and it's the number one
predictor of longevity
why on Earth would we revert to less why
would we revert to a worse resting heart
rate why would our heart rate
variability drop like all these things
are good so why do we revert to a mean
that is sub-optimal well what I'd say is
I'm going to poke a little fun at Peter
here I consider Peter a friend so I can
do this
depending on what study you look at
you'll actually find the leg strength is
a stronger predictor than VO2 max
interesting yeah
um I'm really just teasing him they're
they're both incredibly important
obviously I'm a strength training guy so
I'm going to give most of the little
bias just a touch right unbiased towards
lifting and Physiology if you haven't
picked that up so interesting well I
think the biggest issue is you're
personifying the approach you're good in
batting physiology there is no good and
bad in physiology
Andy you sure about that very sure okay
give me your North Star there is this
point the North Star is adaptation
uh-huh that's the thing it doesn't know
good or bad chemistry doesn't know good
or bad there are no toxins
there are things
that's just what they are right
um so we don't have bad inflammation we
don't have good inflammation they have
inflammation
I don't have toxins we have chemicals
like this is not how the world works
so number one you're fundamentally
approaching this is good and bad when
that's not actually what happens because
why would physiology do it if it is bad
and the answer is it wouldn't
step back
it's playing a game
over here you have immediate
gratification over here you have delayed
we call this optimization we call this
adaptation you're pushing one end of the
spectrum with every single thing you do
the better day you have today
may make it worse later
immediate gratification delayed
gratification this is what your
physiology is doing every single second
every interaction every thought every uh
insult every injury is all pushing
further on one side of the spectrum and
so when you're asking like why is it
doing this why is it doing this if
you're not pushing for delayed
gratification you're pushing for
immediate gratification which is rest
recovery
so it's saying if you don't need this
VO2 max up here because it is expensive
then we're going to conserve energy now
because we don't know when the next lot
of energy is coming
and so it backs down
think about it I'll give you another way
uh you're probably familiar with the
autonomic nervous system parasympathetic
versus sympathetic this is rest and
digest versus fight or flight
now which one is better
obviously
it's not right it is a situation if you
want to be able to maximize both if you
said right now like why is my body
fighting me I have so much such low
energy
like my body is and you'd have all these
negative words and I would say
it's not no no it's doing exactly what
it needs to do
it's going there on purpose you just
haven't figured out why it's going there
you have the car pointed down the wrong
Street
don't blame the car for driving down the
street blame you for not pointing it in
the right direction it's not going to
drive there and be up now this bad car
the car is just driving where it's being
told to be driven so if you don't tell
it anything it's going to revert back to
we don't know if we're going to live 10
or 20 or 50 years so we're maximizing
for this current moment
that's what's happening until you
convince it to maximize down the road
it's going to maximize for right now
so why is it going to reduce muscle mass
muscle is expensive there are also
resources in that muscle that can be
used for something else um think about
it this way
what do you think the body will choose
to give an advantage to muscle or organ
definitely you're going to die tomorrow
or today if your organ is going to
failure you are not doing anything with
your health if your muscles get weaker
right now you have years
to work on poor muscle and so it's
always going to revert towards number
one your brain
all things default we're going to keep
your brain alive second thing keep your
heart beating third thing keep your
organs alive fourth thing organ systems
right skeletal muscle nervous system etc
those will be preserved last
and so you have to understand the choice
you're making right now
and you need to be convincing your body
do this adaptation that is expensive and
it is costly it is using resources and
is using energy now we're specifically
talking about ATP and then resources
like uh like amino acids now you think
about this in the context of building
muscle but amino acids are also needed
to build red blood cells to view immune
cells to build any other tissue in your
body and so it's not that it's holding
on to them or preserving them so you can
get more jacked but it is saying we're
going to conserve these so that we can
rebuild your liver there's damage
happening there right the liver just the
Torso gets kind of the crack kicked out
of it all the time right especially by
some people more so than others but
things like the kidney are not as
resilient
um you don't want a lot about it you
don't have a lot of adaptation happening
there and so that's what's actually
fundamentally happening you're pushing
it there if you make choices
that maximize current optimization
that maximize immediate gratification
think about those two is the same thing
optimization and immediate gratification
okay it's it's slightly different but
they're representing the same idea right
now
what's happening is you're going to feel
better in the current moment
so this could represent yourself
something like I feel less stressed
right now I'm more relaxed I'm more down
regulated more parasympathetic I'm more
recovered I'm not sore I have a lot of
energy because I'm super chill
that's great but if you continue to be
in that super chill moment
you actually start regret regressing
back down
to inefficient because your body's like
yo we don't have to be this inefficient
and let's take I'll give cardiac output
a very specific example so cardiac
output is calculated by the amount of
times your heart beats
multiplied by how much blood is coming
out of the heart per pump that's your
cardiac output right so when you get
very exercise trained and you get really
fit your resting heart rate goes down
okay why is that well because you can
actually have a stronger contraction per
contraction
so you get more Blood Out per squeeze so
you don't have to squeeze as often
so the aerobic demands of you sitting
here are the same whether you are fit or
unfit
Robo demands are identical you're not
using any more less energy basically so
your body says I can get that same
amount of blood pumped in less pumps so
don't pump as often so resting heart
rate comes down but if you lose that
strength
in the contractions because you weren't
training it
then it has to bump bump bump more
frequently to keep cardiac out but the
same and so as you go into recovery mode
you feel better but you're automatically
not putting stress on the heart to be
strong so it starts regressing back to
being weaker so your heart resting heart
rate has to then come back up
if you were in a state of over training
whether we're talking about
non-functional overreaching or actual
true over training
this is how you recover
this is how you Peak for performance
this is how we get people to have these
uh into the periodization tapers and and
you know peaking on the right day or the
right year or the right month like in
the case of the Olympics making sure
they are being perfect for that world
championship fight and they feel the
best I've ever felt on that day not a
week earlier a week later in that exact
moment right so we can time physiology
to be correct
the other Spectrum
if you're always choosing delay
gratification you're never going to be
feeling as good as you can in the
current moment and so if we look about
think about this from a the same
perspective going all the way to the end
end and saying training training
training train train train train as hard
as I can more adaptation more adaptation
more adaptation doesn't give you the
recovery capacity to actually see the
changes and so then the system breaks
last example and I'll pause here
think about this from the perspective
of happiness
such that if you choose delayed
gratification all the time you tend to
not be present
you don't celebrate wins and you don't
you're not happy in the moment right
something great happens with your
company or success and you just want to
move to the next thing because you're
choosing delayed gratification those
folks don't tend to do very well right
if you're they don't do well in what in
terms of uh they're not maximizing
longevity uh they're gonna struggle
because they're never present a delayed
gratification person definitely
so you're always choosing the leg
gratification
um and so what I mean is like the
current wind just moves to the next
thing this moves the next thing you
don't you never celebrate you're never
in the moment you're never right here
because you're just thinking about the
next thing already right it's not a win
right now I'm not tracking how that
would add up to let me let me pack this
one the opposite is those that choose
immediate gratification all the time so
all they do is sort of celebrate in
their current president right now and
they're not paying any attention
to the next step down the road
those folks are going to struggle
because nothing is is planned out in the
head there is no drive there is no
forward progress right they're very very
present but there's no leaning forward
so what you clearly need to have is
pulse of these things they are not good
or bad they are just two different
things right depending on how you want
your life to go you may hedge a little
bit more towards being more present
you may hedge a little bit more towards
great that was awesome mini celebration
now we got to get back to work into the
next thing
I'm not judging either side here people
have been wildly successful and happy
in both approaches or somewhere in
between but as a fundamentally different
approach to how you're going to handle
the problem of immediate versus delayed
gratification right
I would think most would argue you don't
want to be fully on the end of the
spectrum of either one of these things
right there has to be some
um worry and planning for the future but
then there also has to be some
enjoyment of the the current moment an
ideal scenario you're able to flicker
back and forth between both right some
present and then some forward stuff and
then potentially even some password
leaning
um stuff there but
that's the psychological equivalent of
the same thing your physiological body
is doing when it's saying yo do I need
to maximize today
or am I banking for the future but if
you continue to bank and you don't allow
recovery processes there's going to be a
problem that occurs okay so man really
interesting idea that what we are
optimized for is adaptation
my gut reaction to that is that the adap
the we we are the the dominant apex
predator because of our ability to adapt
there's no doubt about that I'm a huge
believer in humans is the ultimate
adaptation machine
that seems though to me like a path and
not the North Star so when I think about
what is evolution optimizing for it's
optimizing for you surviving long enough
to have kids that have kids up uh
adaptation is the way in which the human
animal achieves that
I see you have a reaction to that yeah
no so all right the North Star thing is
so fun because
let's take stress
now I would argue the entire existence
of the human race has had one
fundamental goal outside of reproduction
which is clearly the the absolute number
one right
and this is really how do we get to
reproduction and that is stress
and we spent our entire existence trying
to mitigate stress so initially it was
thermal stress so let's create housing
and then it was stress of attack so
let's create communities and then it was
Trust of food so let's create more
sustainable and our Agriculture and
farming and better hunting and all
things like that right and then earlier
in this Century in the previous one it
was let's create more safety nets so
this is uh cities and governments and
and economies and things like that so
that less people have as less extremes
less likely right so we've been charging
deadhead at this path of minimizing
stress and we take this one step further
and I know you know exactly where I'm
going here
this was probably not a great idea
it probably was for the first
hundreds of thousands of years around
but it's very clear whether you look at
the astronauts that are coming back from
space or you look at any of the
films or literature or just the thoughts
that are going through people's edits
it's like oops
maybe minimizing stress was not the
right of actual North Star
when we come back and we put ourselves
in a position where we actually have
eliminated stress in the context that we
understand stress to be
we get really unhealthy very very
quickly you've talked about it multiple
times now what happens when you take
training stress away
just for even a few weeks
we come crumbling back to Baseline right
that's how important stress is in our
life if you take an astronaut put them
up in space for a minimum of like seven
days and they come back you see massive
physiological changes I think the
numbers are something like 30 days of
bed rest is equivalent to 30 years of
Aging and skeletal muscle
this is how big a deal stress is uh
people sort of joke about Mars
you know getting there but that's a
human problem
that's a physiology problem more than it
is a rocket problem
obviously I'm a physiologist I'm quite
biased but how do we get people alive in
a situation up there this is where we're
spending you know billions of dollars
trying to figure out that's how critical
stress is
we've had to re-engineer put exercise
back in our lives we've had to now
figure out oh my gosh we can't be
isolated that's not good for human
mental health when we're engineering all
these things that are stressed back into
our life right maybe we should actually
go out of our way and spend tens of
thousands of dollars to get hot again to
get cold again to get hungry again like
we have to do all these things because
we realize
again for most of our life we our
species existence that stuff was good we
absolutely needed to keep people away
from those things but now
once we kind of got there it's like oops
we need to figure out how much that
stress needs to come back into our
system and so figuring out what is the
right amount of stress that's on the
biological system
to make it actually live as long as
possible as healthy as possible is an
unanswered question at this point and I
was sort of smirking so much when you
were talking about that earlier because
I don't think we have any idea what the
North Star
really should be we thought it was
stress reduction but I don't I think
that that's pretty clearly misguided uh
is it optimizing stress in or not I
guess that doesn't feel right it doesn't
feel profound I don't know if we've
learned anything there besides the fact
we realize if we don't have any stress
in our life
this is a problem and I think the reason
I defaulted for adaptability being the
actual Northstar glitter is because
if we drill down on stress
why do we even care to have it to begin
with going back to First principles why
is stress even necessary and I think
it's because our body functions best
when it is pushed to adapt
so I actually think right now the best
process I have come up with is that the
optimal state
is adaptation
Andy this is very interesting so
um I have a maybe slightly different
take on that so there is I think it was
Lisa Feldman Barrett that said this to
me and it was really eye-opening uh she
was like Tom you're asking me the
classic is it nature or nurture and she
said the reality is we have a nature
that requires nurture definitely and I
was like ah that is so true
when you were talking about stress I
don't know that stress is the I don't
think that we have optimized to remove
stress I think that's a result of two
different factors one I think that
um we have a nature that requires stress
and the reason we have a nature that
quote unquote requires stress is because
there is stress in the system for an
animal nature is completely indifferent
it it does not care if you survive but
if you put
um an a gene apparently under uh the
rules of evolution
it will adapt or it will develop a
survival Instinct because the ones that
have their survival in sync are going to
be the ones that survive like people are
even saying that this may happen to AI
which is sort of one of my fundamental
pushbacks about AI I won't derail this
conversation for that
um but that to me makes a lot of sense
so if a Gene's response to being in an
environment where it is the survival of
the fittest then it will develop a
survival Instinct and to survive in an
environment that is replete with stress
you're going to an organism that has a
survival Instinct will develop the
ability to adapt to that and that's why
as the the greatest adaptation machine
that nature has ever created we have
gone farther than any other animal and
we have a level of control that they do
not the other part of the equation is
that nature only has Pleasure and Pain
and so to get whatever Behavior it wants
those are the only two levers that it
has to pull on
and so this is really the the thing
driving my initial question of why does
working out suck like if I should be
doing it why isn't it fun
um but so if nature only has Pleasure
and Pain in order to get me to survive
then the question becomes what did it
leverage to make sure that oh I want to
do this thing that's going to keep me
going and as far as I can tell that
thing is progress so what you're saying
is US optimizing for stress I would say
is the Pleasure Principle at work where
nature had to make something pleasurable
so that we would move towards so it gave
us this freakish desire for progress in
our lives now the reason that I think
that this ends up playing out weirdly
where it looks like uh ooh we're now
without stress and that was a huge
mistake is because if you have this
incredibly strong desire for Progress
you will make problems to fight against
in order to feel like you're progressing
and so that devolves into madness
this is one of my earliest like insights
about
um people when I first got into business
this uh random thought popped into my
head which is some people need to be
chased by a lion
because I was just like dude what are
people are getting up in arms about some
[ __ ] I'm like why are you even
worrying about that and then I realized
whoa It's because they have the Cycles
to worry about it the food is there
they're not struggling with temperature
like there is no line around the corner
that's about to eat them and so all of
that desire for Progress to they're
optimized to overcome stresses simply
because it's been in the environment now
they start there's like a almost sort of
weird derangement of like I'm gonna find
a thing to freak out about because
things get too good and then you get
into collapses of civilizations and how
they it it is it is rarely when they are
galvanized against an external enemy
stroke stressor to your point that they
collapse it's when they don't have
something from the outside galvanizing
them internally they're all in total
disarray and when times have been good
for too long and they've gotten weak
then the enemy comes in they're no
longer prepared for it and boom they
they collapse and it least the Roman
Empire which is the one thing I've
started looking into the collapse was
distressingly slow it was anyway this is
going to really derail this conversation
but it that that to me is a really
fascinating take on
why people end up failing because that's
where this started why why does the body
default to backwards sliding and you're
saying from an evolutionary standpoint
it would make sense that they would want
to go back to that okay so that's a
really interesting sort of how it plays
out at the psychological level can I
jump in here actually I think there's a
nice tie-in the reason current people
probably
I'll say that maybe this way one of the
reasons
people are failing in this scenario you
outlined
there's just not enough incentives
to what
to succeed
why do they really care about adding
muscle if they don't really really care
there's no lion chasing them to do so
it doesn't matter enough to them right
if this is a personal goal for just
looking a certain way so you'll get
somebody to pet your abs
if the person is wired mentally the
right way that might be enough we
certainly have plenty of crazy ass
people on our program it's like okay
great
if they're not then that that's going to
be exactly the scenario you laid out a
few weeks few months don't care enough
why because their family doesn't depend
on it their survival is not depending on
it nothing matters right if you fail in
your physical fitness journey right now
how many folks out there are really
going God if I don't do this I'm screwed
versus how many people are saying if I
don't do this
yeah medicine will probably catch up
there'll be gene therapy like someone
else will take care of this eventually
so like I know
I need to like work out but like
I'm not gonna die
it's not really gonna like someone else
is gonna
so I think actually when you're saying
like there's no lion chasing them that's
probably in big part what it is right
these are again we had to add in
exercise as a fake stressor
a very recent thing right
there's a whole the history of exercise
structured exercise is really
fascinating to me and there's a whole
Arc you could take it through but I'll
kind of jump through some of the ends
and one of them where you see this
catastrophic rise in specifically
strength training is post
um pumping iron right it's Pumping Iron
it's Conan and then all of a sudden
Terminator and then it's just a rocket
slide right the whole thing launches off
and I think what happens in is my
position that people look at this in
Prior
to those things exercise was something
you did either for sport
great small segment of the world playing
sport or you did it because you liked it
it was pleasurable the reward all those
things
small percentage of people right more
people probably more like you right I do
it because I know I'm supposed to but I
don't really particularly enjoy it
that's the bulk okay well now you've
inserted a new thing which is yo I can
make you a superhero wait what oh no
literally
look I mean picture that prior to that
there is Adam West Batman
that's what a superhero looked like
right and then we saw that thing
and it's like yo how did that happen
it's like oh protein shakes and lifting
yeah well even if I can't get all the
way there that's pretty [ __ ] rad like
I wanna I can literally become a
superhero so if you think about that
consciously or subconsciously that grain
is planted going yo
you could literally become a superhero
holy some percentage of the world was
like whoa that's incredible
I can take that I can grab that and that
is my new lion that's the chasing thing
because it's like yo I'm gonna be a
superhero and this is all the things
that are there and whatever mentally is
going on for that desire I don't know
who cares healthy or not healthy
irrelevant right
but you've got a big push going on there
and that's all great where we're at now
though is like we've still left a giant
bucket of people
I were just like I don't care about
being a superhero I don't care about
kicking a ball better or fighting
somebody better like I'm not doing any
of those things and I don't like working
out doesn't feel good okay great where's
the net to catch those people
well the net should well initially was
scare tactic it is if you don't do this
you're going to die earlier quality of
life etc etc and if
I think we have enough evidence to
suggest that doesn't work very well
whether it was scaring through food
whether it was scaring through death
like people just are not motivated by
not dying
it's the wildest thing right they're
just not motivated by not dying
particularly probably because they've
already bred or passed their breeding
window
so maybe that instinct is just gone I
don't know but even folks prior to that
like just don't seem to care so much and
so I was trying to figure out like what
is the thing and I don't think we've
ever well actually I think it's pretty
clear that anything we tried Civil War
is just epically failed well this is
information guidelines
um although this is monetary it's
nothing really works for people so I
don't know what it would take to figure
out that button to push on people
well we haven't got it there and it
would be again my current thought would
simply be the fact that this is not
enough on the back and there's no payout
for these folks there's no instinct to
go if I don't do this
I'm gonna lose my job or I'm gonna have
some other suffering and so the
suffering of I'm comfortable now I have
income housing friends engagements uh
social media like I have all these other
Rewards
exercise only represents something that
I don't feel good right now and secondly
something that is going to potentially
Help Me Maybe years and years from now
but someone else will probably come fix
that anyways
would probably be why most folks don't
have a lot of desire to exercise I think
those are all wrong but that would be my
guess um
okay there's something I want to wrap up
is is VO2 max expensive you've said that
the body will will back off of the
things that are expensive yeah
is VLT Max expensive depends on how you
want to look at it so in general vo2max
has a couple of components there's a
central component in a peripheral
component Central being that first thing
cardiac output
so it is it has the heart has to squeeze
with a certain amount of strength and
then it has to pump a certain amount of
blood per pump okay well the second half
of that equation is what's called avo2
difference a stands for arterial and v
stands for venous side so it's the part
of your vessels that go into tissue and
then the part that leaves tissue goes
back to the heart to get re-oxygenated
so it's the arterial versus the Venus O2
and the difference in sides
what that means is let's just give it a
number if uh 20 molecules of oxygen came
into the tissue just call it 20. and
then it went into the muscle and we'll
just call muscle for now
comes back out goes back to the heart
and instead of 20 being in there
because muscle took some there's five
left
so the difference between 20 and 5 would
be 15. okay the higher that number the
better the higher the VO2 max right
because you're multiplying it it's
cardiac output multiplied by a VO2
difference
so if I come in with 20 and I leave with
that difference is 10. good number but
if I come in at 20 I leave with 5 that
difference is 15 that's a bigger number
if I come in a 20 I leave a zero the
numbers if you have two difference is
20. that's an even bigger number so the
bigger that number
the higher VO2 max meaning you took more
of the available oxygen
extracted it out into the muscle and
didn't have any just circulating back in
the tissue which is you're more
efficient at doing that so how do you
improve avo2 difference well a couple of
ways number one is you increase the
amount of capillaries
right so you put more capillaries
because what happens is these vessels go
into tissue and then the way they
actually get into tissue again in this
example call it muscle is they diffuse
through capillaries and the more these
capillaries the more that it slows the
blood flow down because now picture a
river you have a giant River coming in
and all of a sudden it's moving at this
rapid rate and disperses into 50 little
tributaries by hitting that because the
surface area and pressure changes now it
just slows way down
the blood then moving through that
muscle slower allows muscle to grab the
oxygen out of it just based on physics
right moving fast through an area or
slower an area we can grab more things
out of it
circulates back out and then has to be
recycled right so increasing the amount
of capillaries you have in that
particular space
is is the primary adaptation there
secondarily you have to have
mitochondria because the mitochondria
are the part in the muscle cells that
are going to actually be able to use the
oxygen to power recovery or any other
process all of aerobic metabolism
happens in mitochondria there is no
other way in all of biology certainly in
humans right so we have a demand for
extra capillaries we have a demand for
strength of contraction of our heart and
we have a demand
for mitochondria those things have
required maintenance
right I have to keep up the capillaries
they get damaged and recover repair
mitochondria have themselves the demand
for energy to stay alive we have to
repair them we have to build them we
have to increase them and then the
strength of the contraction we have to
produce the energy for that and we have
to produce the recovery capacities for
that so all of that is is quite costly
now having said that your instincts are
actually quite good here
so I'll ask you a question and see if
you can get it there
if we take muscle mass
muscle strength
and VO2 max
and you stopped training all of them
which one goes away the most the fastest
and which one is the most stable in
other words holds on for the longest
amount of time
strength size or aerobic capacity
I'm gonna guess oh God I don't know so
this is just a guess I'm gonna guess
your instincts for good here so
take a second and think about it because
your instincts are the bad news is all I
have is a gut instinct so uh you lose
Fitness really fast meaning VO2 max so
my guess is that one goes first okay
then I'm going to guess that I would I
would say that
um
God's strength and size that's my gut
instinct but you do lose size pretty
fast I don't know that's my rough gut
instinct so you said uh use the max
first and then we'll choose that right
strength then size okay great you
perfectly screw that all up yeah I'm I'm
not surprised so this is what's
interesting
so you lose size first then strength
then VO2 max will hang on the longest
strength is probably going to go first
yes so that was my mid so I didn't get
it completely wrong then okay then
you're gonna potentially lose the muscle
size and VO2 max hangs on the longest
it's extremely stable interesting really
very stable whoa yep I'm shocked by that
yep so in fact if you see this um if you
look at things like a maintenance dose
if you reach a certain level of muscle
size a single dose of training per week
is enough to maintain that current level
of size for a very long time really wow
and that's actually pretty clear
until you're at the extremes like you're
you know very high level bodybuilder or
something like that but for the majority
of people a single dose a week will
maintain size so if you can do that
initial work get and add some muscle
size and you can just do something to
keep it around one session a week is
enough
we actually know more and more about the
mechanisms of that
the other benefit is the second time you
go to grow that muscle it will come much
faster than the first time this is the
cellular side of what was called muscle
memory and so again we know a lot about
the mechanisms behind that with what's
going on with satellite cells and some
things there but
the first time is hard
and it's long but once you get there it
doesn't take much to hold on
and two if you ever have to slide that
slide and come back it will come back
much faster the second time when you
compare that to strength strength is
thought of well as a skill
which means just like if you if you take
a professional golfer we work a lot with
PGA golfers
uh they'll they'll be on the PGA tour
for seven or eight years they'll have
won tournaments and majors and stuff and
they take two weeks off and they come
back and they feel like they don't know
how to get a golf ball that's how fast
their skill slides down right and
they'll be like Oh I'm just so terrible
yet they're still top 10 in the world
but they're not one in the world because
that's how much they've regressed by
taking a few days off right Jesus we
have one golfer
that I've worked with for a while very
high profile guy and
last year he's you know he told the
media hey like I'm just going to take a
bunch of time off and and I was like oh
my gosh like what's going on with him
like in his mind that was like eight
days so he took like anyone's like think
he's gonna be out for like months or a
year or whatever and he was like he
played in the next tournament like what
the hell he's like yeah I took like
eight days like it was time he's just
like that's how fast skill comes out
that will skill come back quickly
absolutely okay it will come back but
it's very sensitive to what you do like
within the day almost right
um our major league baseball players
will say the same thing right do you
know what's happened is that a
neurological it's exactly right yeah so
it's a very very tight switch you also
have to remember they're trying to
execute motor control with unbelievably
small margins of error and so it's not
that they forget it's just that they
don't have that fine-tuned Precision
um that's unrealistic to most of us
ever
point is skill slides quickly and
strength is a skill so you're timing the
neurological sequence muscle firing
activation patterns
um the position you're in that stuff
requires a lot of skill not as much
skill as a golf swing or a baseball uh
thing like that hitting a baseball but
more skill than just being big
more skills never heard anybody call
strength a skill that's a total reframe
for me it is absolutely a skill is this
I've heard you talk about uh intent
intent a lot with gaining muscle yep and
I wrote a note saying does he mean like
you're literally folk Arnold used to say
I think of my biceps becoming a mountain
is that what you're talking about that's
exactly what I'm talking about okay yeah
so there's a couple of ways um one of
them is called the muscle mind
connection and there's again science
behind this as well
but literally thinking uh of the muscle
it's funny you mentioned that but like
Arnold nailed it a hundred percent
thinking of the muscle watching it grow
in your mind there's been studies
looking at whether or not you watch the
muscle in the mirror while you're
training or not right so you've seen
people that are like lifting and looking
at their bicep in the mirror and that's
quite effective it helps absolutely
interesting I did not expect that yeah
now it's not going to work for skill
based movements so it's not going to
help your deadlifts right it's not going
to help your your snatch or your
cleaning Jerk It's not going to help you
perform any better effects I would argue
as the skill coach that's going to make
things worse right but from a muscle
growth perspective
that connection between your mind and
the actual muscle is very important and
is a great way to add percentage
increases of your results by doing
nothing or size or both it's mostly size
so the Mind muscle connection is clearly
important in strength but what we're
talking about here is muscle size and
development so this is when we would say
intent matters and now that is actually
good research on intent for speed and
strength as well such that what we're
saying here is
it doesn't actually matter
how much you lifted or how what speed
you achieved but the intent to go as
fast as possible will lead to Greater
adaptations than lack of intent so
intent matters across all of these
things no question about it but in this
this part of the conversation we're
talking more about
thinking about the muscle you want to
grow watching it paying attention to it
and having a strong mind connection will
enhance your results for muscle growth
as well
very very interesting okay so uh long
and short going back to VO2 max it is
expensive
so there are reasons why the body is
going to back off all of that it's
really interesting now let me round that
out though Sorry I know we're finished
no please so this is why if we work our
way all the way up to VO2 max though
it is expensive but it is not nearly as
expensive as holding on to an
exaggerated muscle mass
or as nearly as expensive as the
neurological motor control very
difficult to keep those patterns alive
and that feel alive very difficult to
keep muscle at a particular size
relative to Simply maintaining
capillary density mitochondria density
this is not as much and so if you look
at in fact we've done this we did a
project with a cross-country team years
ago
they need a three week taper and for
this project they got down to 50 a total
of weekly miles were dropped by 50 this
is a lot if you're a competitive Runner
right college level cross-country
Runners and we biopsy them before and
after we did VO2 Maxes we did actual
this is in Seasons the NCAA season
and what we saw is despite a 30
reduction in training there was no
change whatsoever in vo2max no drop
there was no change in any of the
molecular and cellular enzymes
responsible for aerobic capacity so any
of the um synthase or any of those
things that are important for metabolism
despite the fact you had a huge
reduction in training volume those
things did for almost a month now they
went nowhere race performance went way
up so they all had more improved
performance and at the muscle level
the fast twitch muscle fibers increase
their size and strength by almost about
10 percent
over the course of the taper
so I would reframe that all they did to
increase their fast twitch size and
strength was to Train 50 less hmm
now that's probably because that they
were like a little bit pre-fatigued
in the prior in the three week one but
the point is nothing changed
and their aerobic capacity at all and if
anything things got a little bit better
now taper for a competitive Runner is
not the same that's just like an average
workout for the average person that's
they intentionally do too much volume on
purpose to have this kind of super
compensation but the point Remains the
Same aerobic capacity will hold on for a
very long time if you just give it a
minimal dose so it is what we would call
one of the most stable physiological
parameters so it is expensive but not
nearly as expensive as the other ones
which is why we say
you really do need to invest in the
strength training and the hypertrophy
training because those are harder to
maintain and just do something if you
absolutely have to to maintain your view
to Max and that'll hold on
pretty tight that's interesting that's
good news because I if somebody like me
I much prefer lifting to doing things
that really stress the cardio system
that is not nearly as fun
um
can you add muscle and lose fat at the
same time you can reboot your life your
health even your career anything you
want all you need is discipline I can
teach you the tactics that I learned
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you can it depends on how specific you
want to be if you are fairly untrained
or lowly trained or sedentary however
you want to call that more possible you
get to moderate to decently fit then
that becomes basically fundamentally
impossible if not physiologically
practically pretty impossible so a
challenge to do for sure all right so
what are the environments that you need
to create in your body in order to add
muscle
what's the environment need to create to
lose fat and why do they collide
well you're going the opposite direction
it's basic physics or basic chemistry
right so fundamentally we are all
organic uh compounds what does that mean
we're all made of carbon
that's what organic chemistry is carbon
based
um all life when we go looking for signs
of life
effectively we're looking for carbon
right carbon-based life forms is what
we're after and why that matters
everything in your body that we use for
substrates for energy are big carbon
chains so your carbohydrates
that's what they are it is a carbon that
has been hydrated so one carbon molecule
attached to one water molecule
that's the chemical formula for like
glucose is C6
h12 o6 meaning it is one carbon attached
to one H2O glucose is six of those
carbons so six C6 double the hydrogen
and six oxygen
other forms of carbohydrate are smaller
chains like fructose and starches or
longer chains smash them all together
but fundamentally all carbon all
carbohydrates are just carbon chains
attached to water fat is the same thing
fat is also just big long chains of
carbon whether you're a free fatty acid
now in fact that's what we call
different fatty acids
depends on how many carbons they have so
if it has six carbons or eight carbons
or 12 or 18 then it has a different name
steric acid or whatever else right if it
has
um any breaks in the bonds between the
carbons we either call them uh
polyunsaturated or unsaturated or
monosaturated or saturated if they're
all all the bonds are perfectly
saturated we call it a saturated fat
there's one break it's the
monounsaturated if there's more than one
break that's a polyunsaturated
if it's stored as a triglyceride you
have three that's why we call it a try
Right One Two Three fatty acid chains
and you have a three carbon
glycerol backbone so it's a triglyceride
so it is one three carbon glycerol
backbone and Three fatty acids coming up
big chains of carbon is all we are right
so
when we're talking about manipulating
wait
um what we're talking about is more
carbon going out than carbon coming in
you can split hairs and talk about how
much fat versus how much carbohydrate or
whatever you want but it doesn't matter
fundamentally because it's all just
carbon and when you take a breath in
that's oxygen coming in basically when
you take a breath out
that is carbon dioxide going out the
difference between O2 and CO2 is the
carbon where that carbon come from it
came from you
whether that carbon came from fat that
was stored behind your neck and a
triglyceride fine whether that came from
glucose that was in your blood fine
it doesn't really matter carbons are
going out carbons are only coming in and
humans when we then consume Foods so we
eat carbohydrate we got carbons we eat
fat we got carbons weed animals we've
got like you haven't mentioned protein
is there protein is not a very effective
fuel
so you want to think about still carbon
not really interesting so give me I know
nothing about organic you're looking at
nitrogen that's really what you're
looking at right so you're basically
consuming a whole host of of nitrogen
and amino acids for protein so you can
technically take those convert those
into
carbohydrate molecules gluconeogenesis
and the liver are different different
ways like that but fundamentally protein
is a very poor fuel source if you want
to look at your metabolic process you're
looking at maybe five percent
of your calories or energy is going to
come from protein if you're using
protein as a fuel you're probably in a
pretty bad spot like something is going
wrong for that to happen it's kind of
like a little bit of a backup system but
you want to think about this if you're
going to build a shelter
and I said okay great
um I've got some metal pipes and things
like that and then I've got some paper
and I've got some wood and things like
that and uh great go ahead and build a
shed you would almost certainly say the
structure of this shed is going to be
made out of metal
can you technically melt metal and make
a fire
yeah but if you're if your goal to stay
alive is melting metal to make a fire
uh you're not in a good spot right
something really bad has happened what
you want to do is say hey we have tons
of wood this light's on fire very
quickly it's easy to manage we're going
to use that as our fuel to make our fire
and then we're going to use the fire to
melt down some of that metal and reshape
it and reform it into the exact
structure we want
the analogy here is the protein is the
metal
it's hard to break down hard to rebuild
and you don't want to do it very often
but when you do it correctly you can get
an awesome structure that should stay
there for a very very long time
wood is very easy to manipulate back and
forth now
what is wood made of
carbon right
if you were to take a log
and you were sliced off a very thin
slice of a log
you would use that and you could write
on it and you could call that Papyrus or
now we would call that paper
right amazing well if I take that thing
and I settle down a tiny little sliver
of that and I put a little bit of stuff
on the end of it I could make a match
out of it it's all carbon it's all
coming from wood
in this analogy a match is great I can
light that thing really quickly and I
can get a few seconds of usable energy
fire
that's phosphocreatine that's the role
of creatine in your body very very quick
but burns out in
however long it takes a match to burn
out I don't know seconds 30 seconds
something like that great
if you were to take that thing though
and get the paper going if you ever made
of uh fire in the woods and you used
paper
you realize well that's great it'll last
a lot longer than the match will
but it's not a permanent fuel source
either
that's carbohydrates right if you were
to then throw the wood on the fire and
you said hey look if you want a
sustainable fire use the match get it
going light the paper take the paper
light the logs on fire it takes forever
to get the logs going but they're going
to stay there for a very long time
that's fat
okay now obviously I made a bunch of
physiology and chemistry errors there on
purpose it's an analogy folks right just
getting to a rough idea here that you
have different ways to create Fuel and
the point is like we talked about
earlier it's not bad or good it is
simply giving you options right so we
can have faster fuel sources we can have
more sustainable fuel sources there are
pros and cons to both sides right if you
are maximizing carbohydrate only
metabolism you're going to have major
limitations if you're maximizing fat
metabolism you're gonna have major
limitations this is just the nature of
of our world right pros and cons say
that
ideal scenario
for either one of your cases fat burning
or muscle growth
is we have the proper fuel from those
sources found in carbohydrates to then
reform and rebuild the protein into the
shapes that we want it to be in
we used our metal for that and we don't
keep ripping off our siding to put in
the fire when we should have just got
more wood right that's a bad spot to be
in so the conditions that you need to
have to have both of those goals are
fairly similar if you want to lose fat
you have got to be in a negative caloric
balance that's just simply going to have
to happen more carbon has to be coming
out of you than carbon coming in you now
how do you make that happen you have two
options you consume less carbon
option two you expel more carbon option
three I guess you do a little bit of
both
so if you want to reduce the amount of
carbon you're eating great you want to
increase the amount of carbon you're
expelling I.E more work more energy more
movement
great the fundamentally that's all you
have to do if you can do that
while holding on to enough of your
protein
then you're not going to lose as much
muscle mass but you'll lose fat
okay that's the key trick there and this
is why people will say hold your protein
fairly High
keep that around but then reduce your
calories from fat or carbs or both or
some different way which it's almost
irrelevant which one you choose or what
combination for this goal alone
then you're going to be able to lose
mostly fat
and not lose a ton of muscle along for
the ride you're going to lose some
muscle that's just the nature of being
in a caloric deficit but you can try to
lose as much fat as possible
if you want to gain muscle then you go
the inverse Direction which is to say I
need to have the cellular energy to
power the workout to drive the stimulus
we talked about earlier I need to have
the cellular energy to go through
protein synthesis remember
when you break a chemical bond right so
these carbons are attached in a chemical
bond you break that Bond that's either
going to give off energy or require
energy and in the case of humans that's
going to give off energy so you broke a
bond and that gave off energy well now
you want to reform a new bond that
doesn't exist you want to put two amino
acids together you want to synthesize
them that's protein synthesis that
synthesis process requires cellular
energy not just the energy for the
workout but you actually have to have
the fuel mostly in the form of
carbohydrates to power that connection
process
you have to have the supply the amino
acids and you have to have the fuel to
form that connection
that's what we're really going after so
so sorry I'm going to pause you there uh
because there's something broken in the
way that I'm tracking this so that sound
if I need fat
or glucose fat fat or herbs so I need
one of those to make the muscle yes
primarily carbohydrates okay so then uh
maybe you just answered it so what I was
thinking is if I need the fat in order
to build the muscle why do I not
naturally get leaner as I'm building
muscle yeah because it uses carbohydrate
as a preferred fuel source for that why
just as it burns faster it's just like a
quicker thing a couple of things it's
faster and it is immediate so you store
your carbohydrates in the actual muscle
tissue you don't store much fat in the
actual muscle tissue
interesting is that why you store weight
so you're using carbohydrate both to
build the muscle and to work out so
there's something in the contractile
process that it needs carbohydrate for
yeah so effectively the way that muscles
contract is you have two major filaments
is what they're called myosin and actin
and uh just think of it as as the is the
myosin reaches up and grabs the actin
and it squeezes the actin together so in
the actin molecules if you're watching
on the video sorry audio friends I'll
try to describe this but you have two
I'm pointing to my hands at each other
pointing my fingers so my middle fingers
are touching each other my thumbs are
pointed in the sky okay
um that's the direction now if I were to
slide my fingers past each other and
stack them on top of each other you see
how the height of the bottom of my pinky
to the top of my pointer fingers
increases because I'm stacking them on
top of each other that's the actin
molecule so if I flex my bicep and I
pull the actin over top of each other
the height gets larger I'm stacking the
molecules rather than being end to end
they're now stacking light gets shorter
but they stack up exactly right now
for that process to occur that requires
ATP which is cellular energy right now
if I wanna if I have all the time in the
world
I can break down that triglyceride
stored behind my neck I can go through
what's called use that example all the
time why always behind your neck is this
the one that like I think I want to make
it differentiated from the exercising
muscle got it right it is not coming
from when if you use this analogy and
you talk about it just like a different
part of the bicep it doesn't make
um I don't think it's 6000 people's head
as much that is coming from all parts of
the body
basically equally right so there's no
targeting of fat loss specifically in
the exercising muscle that much relative
to carbohydrate burning so if I'm using
my bicep I'm going to burn the
carbohydrate in the bicep but if I'm
using fat for some part of this process
it'll come from wherever it's mostly
coming from everywhere else in the body
which is why when people lose fat
they don't just lose it in the area that
they were working out they lose it
equally in their face in their jaw their
fingers or toes and all these places
very upsetting that I lose in my face
but yeah I feel your pain yeah yeah so
if you wanted to use that to power that
protein synthesis process you'd have to
go through that delay
you have to liberate it you have to put
it in tissue you have or you have to put
it in muscle or Bandit burns more slowly
right
um kind of um so it's only getting it uh
available in the body that makes you
call it a slow fuel right so think about
it that's a storage mechanism thing not
an actual 100 if you want to think about
this from the bigger perspective
it's not exactly right but carbohydrate
is your immediate fuel source fat is
your backup
this is why I can only store so much
carbohydrate the capacity is very
limited with how much it's limited by
physical size of my muscle and my liver
and my blood right the only other if my
muscles full three places is stored
period three places
give me ratios I'm guessing the vast
majorities in my muscles unless I'm
really small you've got a couple of
tablespoons
in your blood total like this is it
right so if you run to the actual math
you probably have gone wait a minute
I've got some blood done and they said
it was like 80. okay what that really
means is the equivalent of a couple of
tablespoons of total glucose in your
body in your blood if you think about
your liver kind of this right side there
and you just you know if you ever had a
whole liver you pull it out it's kind of
like the size of a hand you know a
little maybe uh a flattened
softball or something like that in
humans you know a little bit bigger it's
pretty big
but muscles everywhere so it's physical
dimensions wise if you just take the
ratio physical size that'll explain to
you exactly much so if you said okay my
liver is about the size of my right
glute well
every other part of your muscle then is
storing a glycogen
all over the place right so we can store
way more in a skeletal muscle and the
more muscle I have the more I can store
the more trained I am endurance trained
the more I can store so it scales that
way this is one of the reasons why
and you mentioned Peter earlier uh Tia
but
um you know in the podcast I've done
with him we talked a lot about the
importance of muscle for health and one
of the major factors there is it is your
primary glucose storage place
people don't realize like this is the
biggest place to store glucose and
carbide so if you're worried about blood
glucose levels or things like that if
you don't have enough muscle you're just
adding to the challenge of being able to
handle and manage your glucose
so you want to put it there
um going kind of back earlier when we
were talking about you have to mobilize
and liberate
the fat it's got to go into blood it's
got to go in the blood then it's got to
get into the tissue then it's got to go
through the tissue into the cell it's
got to give in the cell then it's got to
get into the mitochondria and there are
rate limiting steps specifically on the
cell wall the mitochondria to be able to
get it into that thing and then actually
use it now is fat slower at the
mitochondrial cellular level then so the
beauty of it is once you get into
mitochondria
aerobic metabolism between carbohydrates
and fat is identical but what about
getting into the mitochondria is that so
it's already in the cell tissue for
carbohydrate
so you can stay outside of the cell not
have to worry uh
uh using fat as a fuel source is 100
aerobic meaning it requires oxygen
carbohydrate is both anaerobic and
aerobic so you have way more flexibility
so not only is it stored in the actual
tissue but if you don't have the time to
even wait for oxygen and you can't don't
want to wait for it to get into the
mitochondria to go through the aerobic
side of the equation you just go
anaerobically you go right now now it is
a lot less efficient
so this is what we call anaerobic
glycolysis splitting lysis being
splitting glycan being glycogen or
glucose it doesn't really matter you're
splitting glycogen or glucose
boom you're getting a couple of ATP like
two to four ATP total very small when
you take that molecule though and you
put it through the aerobic side of the
equation so the second half now you're
going to get like 25 28 30 ATP you take
one molecule of fat for that entire
equation you're getting 300. Jesus so
you're going it's it is getting you way
more packed because think about it this
way
glucose is six carbons
but if you had a triglyceride
that was three fatty acids that had 15
16 carbons each you got 16 16 plus you
got the three glycerol backbone well you
have so many more carbons to deal with
every time you break the carbon ATP ATP
ATP H so you just have way more carbon
to break so you're going to get a lot
more pack for it but it requires oxygen
and requires that mobilization and
movement process
anaerobic glycolysis can happen
immediately it happens right now
to round the story out
have to have a signal
have to have gene expression and then
you're going to go through protein
synthesis right
There's an actual time component here
that signaling process happens within
seconds okay and it is over you stretch
a muscle then that Cascade happens
immediately you go through a workout you
go through some sensor or receptor is
attached
signal happens and that thing that
process is over in seconds to minutes so
if I were to biopsy you
25 minutes post exercise those signaling
Cascades are probably back to Baseline
they're done already that Signal's over
with the gene Cascade kicks on and that
is elevated depending on which marker
something like three to four hours post
exercise now the protein synthesis part
is elevated still up to 48 Hours post
so my point is saying I don't
necessarily have the time to wait
because the genes are expressed almost
immediately and the signal is already
dead after a few seconds so if I have to
wait to mobilize and use fat
I'm gonna slow down that process when it
is ready to go and it is trying to to
get going
such to say that doesn't mean you cannot
grow muscle in a low carbohydrate State
and I'm certainly not making any claims
about low carbohydrate diets this is
like not what we're referring to at all
but are you optimizing growth well
that's a different story entirely so
differences there between possible
versus optimal
okay uh
you have made a very bold assertion in
terms of my Layman's understanding of
carbohydrates versus fat
uh your the implications of what you
just said is that
um me putting on fat doesn't really
matter if my diet consists of high carb
or high fat doesn't matter it's just
total intake of carbon
so uh your what you just said make some
predictions let me go through them
that I'm gonna have a very hard time
getting obese on a high protein diet if
I'm not in taking fat and carbs true or
false I would say true okay so something
called rabbit starvation I tested this
uh when I got my leanest I was basically
eating protein only it was miserable by
the way and I was inflamed just an
unimaginable amount it really sucked but
I got lean okay so that's interesting I
mean that's just an anecdote but uh it's
interesting certainly in keeping with
what you just said predicts
um but it also I would say by the way on
that point
that would be pretty common finding that
that will hold that's yeah yeah we um
we have seen a ton of problems with
inflammatory markers with folks that are
uh tend to be very very very low on a
particular either nutrient
either macro or micro so when you pull
things away like that some people can be
fine with it apparently but the folks
we've seen
they don't do well on things like that
they may feel okay initially but their
biology is pointing the wrong direction
pretty quickly so I would say what you
experienced
uh going on it was basically like a
protein but very low carbohydrate very
low fat diet is that what you're saying
yeah so it's yeah it was basically just
boiled chicken breast and steamed
broccoli for two years
and look it wasn't it obviously I was
taking in occasional fat but it it
really was pretty rare and it was
that'll mess you up yeah my wife pulled
me aside and was like you you're not fun
to be around anymore like you need to
change strategies and before I went on
the the because I really wanted to get
lean and before I went on it I said look
I am I'm hyper disciplined so if I set
my mind to something it does not matter
the amount of suffering I'm gonna keep
going
and so I said that means you have to be
in control if it gets to the point where
it's gone too far then just signal me
and I will change and so she did and
ultimately had to find out oh man you
cracked me up could you do things the
hard way I do things the hard way that
is a very uh astute we called out the
road uh the robot mode yes I like going
in a robot mode that's great but if
you're gonna do that you better make
sure that that robot is pointing the
right direction yeah that's a really
good point I don't want to derail us and
I will bring us back but as a quick no
no it's very interesting at least to me
uh my wife
has said we I finally had to decode her
language and the more I go into robot
mode the more she's like I want my
husband back yeah but because I value
robot mode and virtually everything
except my relationships
get way better the more time I spend in
robot mode I can't help but value my
ability to stay in robot mode uh but
anyway my wife keeps using it you just
need somebody who's guiding that ship
that's that well from uh don't go too
far that would definitely be my wife and
I wouldn't say not go too far but I
would say let's make sure we're getting
that in the right path yeah in terms of
what's your goal is the strategy the
best way to get there the tactics yeah
like there's we can get people extremely
lean and and not have to eat like that
very interesting okay so that that's
where we're headed right now because the
other prediction that what you just
walked through made is that
um calories being equal it will not
matter if I'm on a high fat diet or a
high carb diet that one breaks several
of my assumptions
uh this is anecdotal but let this be the
jumping off point for your dismantling
of my assumptions if you give me
somebody and say uh Tom you can either
control this person's diet or their
exercise and they are going to do
exactly what you say but you have to
um improve their body composition so I
have to reduce their fat and I need to
positively impact
biomarkers that would lead one to
longevity so things that occlude the
arteries for instance that's going to be
bad mojo I would say I don't care about
exercise whatsoever just let me control
their diet and I'm only going to need to
pay attention to one variable and eighty
percent of people I will get eighty
percent of the way there through one
variable and that will just be blood
sugar and if I keep their blood sugar
call it 85 or less they are going to
stay a reasonable body comp just period
end of story like I I'm not even asking
how many calories are eating could they
stuff their face full of fat yes but
they probably won't so
um it's really in my my assumption is
it's really only when you start
elevating your blood sugar that you run
into a Cascade of problems but that
means that carbohydrates matter a lot
okay so I would say a couple of things
what you're what you're talking about is
a question of practicality versus
physiology okay
so the a lot of things you put on there
are issues of well this will be more
practical more people will do this
they'll execute it better they'll get
better results because they're
um they're hearing more right and if you
look at any intervention for nutrition
adherence will be the number one
predictor of success so you're not wrong
in that charge right to say if I can set
somebody up for more adherence I'm more
likely to have success that is
absolutely the number one starting
criteria
a diet not done is irrelevant right you
can talk all the theory you want but if
they don't do it it's completely
irrelevant that is separate from
physiology
and I would say physiologically is very
very very clear
you can manipulate either one of these
things and have success if you want to
look at
uh
chemical signaling if you want to look
at randomized controlled Trials of
outcomes
you're not going to see any difference
in successful weight loss by
manipulating carbohydrates more or fat
more if protein is
is held consistent right that's very
very clear scientifically
again though what you feel like is more
realistic for people who will execute
higher and more success that's a
separate question and again as I argued
a second ago maybe more important I'll
give you that
um
whether or not you can fundamentally
base this exclusively on blood glucose I
think if you want to put this across 30
000 people I think the mission you laid
out there would probably be pretty
successful actually I'd say it's
probably really successful at the
individual person
um I'd say that's also something that's
not really that important
so you can see tremendous progress in
Folks by not worrying about blood
glucose at all I've actually encountered
we go back and forth in this we'll use
things like a CGM
sometimes and sometimes not some people
it is really really helpful in a lot of
ways and then other folks it's just an
utter disaster with what happens to them
when they see that they get so fixated I
was gonna say orthorexia is that the
only that that can be it they just freak
out there's a lot of assumptions built
into cgms that are false
so the assumption that you should just
never be over a certain number and like
things like that we certainly go into
that but those things are all really
wrong so people will make all kinds of
weird things and do things because their
number went to a certain level one time
and
and so we're very cautious on when we
see gems other folks it's it's a game
changer it's a complete Game Changer you
throw that on them and you just walk
away and then there's like holy cow
and they just stop eating Doritos all
day and stuff you're like
you know sorry if Doritos is the problem
they're not is the problem with Doritos
just that people overeat calorically
no uh you're never gonna find things
being a single a explainer so probably
issues of overeating calorically sure
probably compromising reducing other
items that they should be eating that
are now not coming in so now you have
fiber deficiencies or you have
micronutrient deficiency there are other
issues there so it's not just what
they're eating it's what they're now not
eating
okay because this isn't tracking with my
understanding of what you were saying
uh so when you say the difference
between carbohydrate and fat for fat
loss doesn't matter does that uh assume
that you're not eating highly processed
carbohydrates
okay
when I say it doesn't matter what I mean
is
not that it's irrelevant
I'm saying you have options either way
that's really what you can lose weight
on a high carb diet absolutely you can
lose weight very successfully on a high
carb diet you can lose weight very
successfully on a high fat diet I
I would say that there's there's so many
studies on this again whether you want
to look at the mechanistic data whether
you want to look at the randomized
controlled trials and they basically are
all showing the exact same thing does
that mean it's irrelevant and there's
nothing else considered absolutely not
there's thousands of things to consider
methods are many concepts for few
very basic fundamental concept calories
are going to have to be accounted for
one way or the other if you have a
different method you like to get to that
calorie thing you showed your method
great if you want to track and weigh out
your food great you want to give another
simple heuristic just do this just don't
do that great those are just different
methods to get to fundamentally the same
concept of calorie balance right whether
you're saying yeah I eat this more food
so I'm more satiated so I'm less likely
to okay fine like those are just
different systems to all get to the same
spot so I apologize if I said this
earlier I didn't clarify but it's not
irrelevant there's a ton of relevance to
all those variables it's just
fundamentally you're going to have to
get to the same place and if you get to
the same place you'll have the same net
result
but there's a lot of different ways to
get there and some are more successful
than others and certainly many are more
successful than others at the individual
human level
there's no question
some people respond better to different
micro macronutrient switches absolutely
whether that is actual physiological
whether that is now behavioral of course
all those options are on the table if
the strategy you'd like to employ to
help people regulate
is just simply modern blood glucose
great
sure that could be effective if you're
taking another approaches saying I don't
care at all about measuring blood
glucose but I'm going to have them weigh
their food and we're going to have a
great that works too all that stuff will
work it just depends on now we're at the
level of well what other factors are we
considering are we considering
how their digestion feels are we
considering how um
their food preferences are we
considering their cultural aspects are
we considering their income and their
costs like now those are all just
different levels of nuance that we want
to get into
um I'll give you an example we just
recently completed a study on
intermittent fasting and we actually
wanted to look at whether or not
it did anything for muscle growth
and so people are really interested in
this topic
from a perspective of fat loss but we
were like well what about somebody who's
trying to maximize muscle growth does
the 16-8 intermittent fasting approach
help muscle growth doesn't harm it or is
it irrelevant
I can't share the exact results right
now because it's in review
but what we what was very important to
me is
exactly what I'm saying I don't want to
just know the answer at the muscle up
but I want to ask him about their
fatigue I want to ask him about their
digestion I want to ask them about how
hard they felt it was and all these
things
and I can tell you this much
there's no clear-cut winner here there's
never going to be it is well okay maybe
this adds in muscle growth or a dozen
but it was harder to do
or it you know gave them made them more
bloated or there's always just going to
be pros and cons to these approaches
right so it comes down to you saying
which ones you want to optimize for and
which of the downsides do you not care
about or less important to you or don't
affect you as much
that's the game you're constantly going
to play so when you talk about dietary
stuff when I kind of say
laissez-faire like it doesn't really
matter what you do what I just mean is
fundamentally you just got to get to the
same kind of place and you'll get there
and then from there you got to coach
your people describe the same kind of
place is that just in this particular
instance yeah would be calorie balance
for fat loss like you're just gonna have
to get to a negative
position that's just going to have to be
how how it goes there is no other way to
go about that again different systems to
get to negative calorie balance but
you're gonna have to get there that's
like it's kind of circular argument
because one is actually just the
definition like for the other so there's
no really way outside that Matrix all
right I want to talk about If It Fits
your Macros and the idea that you can
eat nah whatever macros as long as your
um
you have a Target you're worrying about
calorie balance all that but before we
get there I think we have to understand
the mechanism by which you add muscle
and the mechanism by which you lose fat
um when I started researching you for
this episode you really changed my
understanding of how fat is actually
liberated uh and even in this interview
the idea of the glycogen being stored in
the muscle so it's really readily
available versus fat which is a backup
mechanism which has to be liberated
first make its way through the blood all
that is really helping me understand the
sort of hows and whys of this all but
walk us through the fundamental nature
of
um I don't know which you think is right
to start with but walk me through the
building blocks of building a muscle
walk me through the building blocks of
losing fat and just to re-anchor
everybody because this I had never
thought about it before that
carbs and fat have more in common than
protein has to carbs and fat that's very
interesting that being more about
nitrogen the other two being carbon I
had never put two and two together even
though I knew oh if you're building
muscle like you you can check the
nitrogen levels in your urine I just
never stopped to ask why
um so yeah mechanisms please sure
we've laid a lot of the foundation here
so this shouldn't be too difficult for
us to get through but really
you're breathing in O2 you're breathing
out CO2 right that carbon is coming
again either from carbohydrate or from
fat and so really to answer your
question
one of the ways we set up how we analyze
our folks is I want to know four
fundamental things
number one I want to know everything
that goes in your body so I want to know
what you eat what time you ate it how
much you ate it where you got it from I
want to know where you get your drinking
water from I want to know what kind of
toothpaste you use I want to know how
you're cleaning your tiles and your
floor if it goes on or in your body I
want to know about it number two when
everything comes out of your body
I want to take we take saliva we take
urine we take blood and blood and blood
we take stool we take hair if needed we
take every single thing that comes out
your body sweat hair all of it there are
different markers that are better and
different biological samples so in in my
world we don't treat we don't I don't
treat anything I'm not a doctor a
medical doctor but I'm not going to
develop you plans and protocols uh based
on Labs we do it based on humans right
so how you feel is most important right
and then four how you perform so how are
you functioning I take all those things
and now I know exactly what's happening
and I can create and find those
performance anchors find those
constructs or constraints and then I can
actually set to your very specific
planica
why that matters here is
all that's happening in your body is
input in
and put out okay so fat then when you're
losing fat has to come out of your body
in one of a few places it either has to
come out in your feces
your urine your sweat your saliva or
your hair
but it's none of those places the only
thing I left off that equation is your
breath
and so you use lose a very minimal
amount of fat through your urine some
through your feces you pee fat you can
pee anything
right but we're basically you might as
well count that as zero interesting
little comes out in your stool
the overwhelming majority is coming out
of your breath remember those chips that
they put some weird thing in it that
made you not digest fat
and so it was like beware may cause anal
leakage also mortified by that I never
even tried them the anal leakage thing
is historic oh God
anyway so yes it can certainly hopefully
not a lot is coming out in your stool
but it can happen
man I wonder it's been so many years
since I thought about that I would love
to know what actually was in there I
will also tell you bad things happen if
you take too much fish oil well it can
yeah woof or MCTS or any kinds of things
yeah depends on how hot you want on your
fish oil there's a part of uh medical
physiology you go through in med school
and then they'll teach you all about
what happens with excessive fat intake
and especially in the form of oil I
found the upper limits I'll just say
that yeah
amazing
um so it's mostly coming out
through your breath and if that makes no
sense so we we are losing fat by
exhaling that's right that's crazy it's
nuts right but it is exactly what I
explained earlier you're breathing in O2
and breathing out CO2
the sea is coming from carbs and protein
you cannot burn fat alongs this is not
possible Right so you're you're sorry it
comes out as carbohydrate or fat I think
I said protein a second ago 100 men as
those two you can't burn fat along so
it's coming from a combination of those
two things and the fundamental answer is
it doesn't even really matter which one
is being used for exercise
it doesn't matter which one is being
used for exercise in terms of your fat
loss so people will really be worried
about do doing the types of exercises
that burn the highest percentage of fat
versus carbohydrate because I think
that's going to Aid in fat loss it
doesn't matter if they had just called
the the molecule in food something
different than the molecule on your body
and I get why they didn't because they
are the same they are but it gets really
confusing when you mean dietary fat
versus stored body fat
okay so when you say it doesn't matter
what you use what do you mean it doesn't
matter what I use when I eat it's not
because
your dietary fat is just another animal
stored fat correct it's the same thing
yes but when I'm trying to lose fat yeah
the fat that I eat has implications in
terms of priming my body as to what to
use for a fuel source so when you're
talking about this because I've heard
you describe this mechanism before and
literally thankfully you stopped and
said but that doesn't burning fat does
not mean you're losing fat and I was
like what because I can be burning the
dietary fat yeah well you can even be
burning your own endogenous fat yes but
when people hear you say burn fat I
think if they're anything like me they
just assume you mean off my love handles
you would think that's not necessarily
what no it's definitely not the case so
you have a difference in terms one of
them would be called oxidized so are you
oxidizing the fat okay great that means
you're using it using that oxygen to
burn the fat as fuel that's great I'm
oxidized does oxidizing imply that I am
burning my own body fat or that's what I
do to fat I have it actually doesn't
matter whether they're using the dietary
fat or your own endogenous fat so you
could eat a high fatty meal and then you
would go train right then then your rate
of fat oxidation would go up but you've
also increased fat intake
so yeah you're burning more fat but you
ate more fat does the does the fat have
to make it out of the food into my
bloodstream before I can burn it it must
yeah yeah of course okay so I have eaten
the fat
it's then not in the shape that I would
recognize it from the animal I'm
assuming it's broken down and some
things free fatty acids and then that
crosses your butter and your blood can
be free fatty acid floating around yep
so you ate it you ate that wonderful
delicious fat however it came and it was
in the storage form because it was in an
animal stored form our plants doesn't
matter right
it's going to get in your belly your
belly isn't going to break down into the
free fatty acids put it into your
bloodstream as the free fatty acids the
exact way that you take it from your
storage and put in your bloodstream
mystery fatty okay that I was going to
ask I didn't want to interrupt but if
you took my blood could you tell whether
I was uh releasing fat into my
bloodstream from stored fat or whether I
had just eaten it is there any
difference or it is identical once it's
well we would be able to
depending on the marker you look at if
you're looking at um some particular
markers would be identical we wouldn't
be able to differentiate but if we
looked at other food particle stuff
you'd be like oh you just ate food so
it's kind of a cheat answer but so there
are other things going on in the blood
of five just eaten so you can presume
totally got it yeah but fundamentally
but the fat itself is the same if you
want to give the because you say the
same answer for blood glucose
I I wouldn't know necessarily if we you
get your blood drawn I wouldn't know if
you just necessarily had you know some
carbohydrate meal right before it or if
this is just your normal blood glucose
you we wouldn't be able to from that
marker alone if I just looked at blood
glucose levels like I wouldn't be able
to see okay but I have God this is
fascinating
I had never thought about this before
but what you're saying is
um when I because there's only two ways
for me to get glucose in my blood if I
understand this correctly I eat and then
the carbohydrate is broken down or I
break down my own protein through
gluconeogenesis you're shaking your head
for those just listening okay so how do
I get glue what are the ways that I can
get glucose into my bloodstream
certainly number one you can eat it yep
any form of carbohydrate whether that's
in the form oh so let me give you this
real fast I'll try not to
when you have glucose in your blood we
call it glucose or blood sugar okay when
we store that glucose we call it
glycogen
okay so the glucose is a six carbon
molecule if I stack a bunch of those six
carbon molecules together and store them
then we call that glycogen yeah sorry I
should have been more clear uh so does
it take a different form when I eat it
and it gets stored in the muscle or is
it literally because for instance when
you say I store glucose I always think
about it as being stored as fat yeah
yeah oh yeah so this is let me let me
just hit a little bit more chemistry
here so in your muscle it is stored as
glycogen and in your liver is that a
different thing than glucose it is the
it is the exact um like imagine if we
made this like physical thing so imagine
so could I say it's parked in the muscle
because when I think of storage I think
of it transforming no no no storage is
not transformation
storage is not transformational it is
literally storage if you let's imagine
this is Legos so give me one Lego block
and there was you know six notches on
that one Lego block each Notch is a
carbon I have one Lego block and that
Lego block is glucose floating around
right and he said okay store that put
that away put your LEGOs away and he
took the next Lego and you attach it
onto it and the next leg untouched it
onto it you could call that entire
structure your Lego block
but each individual one is still its own
Block it's just being stored more
efficiently so if your kid is putting
away their Legos in their box and they
just took all the Legos and dumped them
in there you wouldn't be maximizing the
efficiency if you store them and stack
them on top of each other exactly where
they're built you could get way more in
that same box area
does that make sense yes I'm still
waiting for that's glycogen it is saying
yo rather than just dumping a bunch of
Lego blocks in our space let's stack it
together perfectly each one is still its
own individual unit but it was all
perfectly stacked together so if you
want to break out and open up your your
storage area and pull one Lego block out
you can there's nothing different that's
only in the blood liver or muscle only
in the muscle
and the liver okay and the blood is just
it is only it is never going to be
packed together
in the blood it is only in that
free-floating my bad yes so
in nature though
we have another word so if we take
muscle glycogen
if it's in an animal we call it muscle
glycogen it's in our liver we call it
liver glycogen if it's in the blood we
call it glucose in a plant though we
don't call it glycogen we have a
different term for it you know that is
carbohydrate
starch oh okay yep makes sense that's
what a starch is so biologist same thing
in a plant different name don't go nuts
here but I'm going to give you I'm going
to violate some stuff but just as a
framework here
we typically use what we call those
shorter forms of carbohydrate so
monosaccharides as I've heard of glucose
fructose galactose things like that
you take polysaccharides
starch
uh glycogen things like that right
stored forms
there's monosaccharides polysaccharides
disaccharides and all the way down okay
transportation and immediate utilization
is done in the monosaccharide form so
you're going to use fructose glucose as
fuel sources for the most part plants
and animals right you're going to use
glycogen as a storage vehicle that's the
point so in a plant it'll say yo we're
going to collect a bunch of sunlight and
then we're going to breathe in carbon
dioxide the sunlight is where we get the
energy from and we're going to collect
the material the food they're eating is
the air so they're breathing in CO2
breathing out O2 they're collecting
their carbons through the air we can't
go through that process that's called
photosynthesis so our only way to get
carbon is to eat the plant who just took
all the carbon out of the air and store
the animal they ate the plant or the
animal yeah right we have to eat the
thing that did it right so now
it's going to bring in those carbons one
at a time it's going to stack them
together and make the glucose molecule
then that glucose molecule is going to
be running around that plant and it's
going to say great we brought in more
carbon we have enough to now store that
current glucose that's floating around
you so go store that as a starch they
tend to go down which means I'm going to
store it in the ground which is tend to
be things like root vegetables so a
potato is a starch tubers are starches
because they're putting all those
glucose molecules together and they're
burying it Underground
if it wants to fruit then or flower it's
going to start breaking down that stored
starch back into its monosaccharide just
like you take down your broken down
storage or your storage of in the liver
glycogen and you need a little bit of it
you pull one Lego block out at a time
put it in your blood it pulls one like a
block out at a time of its starch puts
it in the the plant sends it back up the
tree goes all the way up to the branches
and gets in the flower or the fruit in
the form of a monosaccharide which is
why most of your fruits are actually
fructose and glucose
that's the carbon cycle right
if the plant wants to store it it puts
it in the root that's why most root
vegetables are starches if it wants to
put it in a more immediate access use it
turns it in back into a monosaccharide
that's why if you eat a banana or an
apple that's not ripe yet it tastes
terrible because it is mostly still
starchy
it tastes sweeter when it is converted
those starches into fructose and it is
now a sweeter flavored on a second okay
hold on this is so interesting so I get
the root thing that's their storage
mechanism for energy the fruit will and
and so they will use the energy stored
in the root occasionally will they reuse
the energy that they store in the fruit
no because the fruit's gone
so it gets even more fun so it isn't
then fruit because you said they stored
in the fruit if it's available for
immediate energy I assume the fruit is a
way for them to pass their seeds there
you go okay yep so the idea is we're
exiting we're letting that thing go
yeah but but when it's a root they are
used they are storing it for its own
flowering purposes to make more fruit
yeah exactly and on the way up the Chain
by the way so same idea wow it goes from
a polysaccharide to a monosaccharide at
the end right but on the way up it goes
to a disaccharide and in some particular
plants you can stick a needle halfway
through them and you can collect that
and we call that syrup
so that's why those are this is so
interesting right this is why you're
like why the hell do some trees make
this unbelievably sweet little thing
that we can get out of it
again not all plants do all this is
different but you're getting the pointer
right so polysaccharide in the bottom
stored convert it into disaccharides
move it up the tree
get it all the way to the end convert
that into monosaccharides make that a
sweet delicious tasting thing that then
other animals will come eat to spread
our seeds put it in their digestive
tract excrete it later throughout the
forest
and get our seeds out there right
fascinating we do the same thing
we say store our starch our glycogen in
our liver and our muscle keep the
optimal amount in blood so that we can
power brain activity and transport it
back and forth where we want don't go
too high don't go too low
right you need more great we're just
going to kick it either out of muscle in
the blood
or out of the liver and in the blood and
so the way that you keep your blood
sugar optimized is muscle
and the liver constantly sort of
dripping out glycogen or you eating your
own food source to put it back in there
so those are the three ways that you can
keep your blood sugar elevated or or
more consistent so this is why again we
say the more high functioning skeletal
muscle you have it's a little bit better
blood glucose control you have is
because it's that storage Depot that can
say give or take you have some extra to
give it to me great we'll take it you
need some extra we can technically give
it back the liver is probably doing most
of the giving rather than muscle muscle
is probably doing most of the taking but
that's really where we're at now when it
comes to fat
this is the backup Supply okay sorry
before you do that I need to understand
when glucose becomes fat because if I
overeat glucose it is going to become
fat and it's my understanding perhaps
erroneous but it's my understanding that
the way that the body pulls the glucose
out of my bloodstream so preferentially
the muscle will grab it if it needs it
brain will grab it if it needs it liver
will grab it if it needs it but if none
of them need it and it's in the blood
the blood's like gut or the body knows I
got to get this out of the bloodstream
and it's going to store it as fat no not
really really what the hell my whole
world is clumbering it's all been a lie
Andy and what are you talking about
um so that process you're describing
it's called de novo lipogenesis so this
is the formation of new fat out of
non-fat sources
conversion from carbohydrate despite the
fact that they're big long carbon chains
it's not efficient
it's not as efficient as it needs to be
you're talking in the order of five to
ten percent
is what's going to happen there what's
going to mostly happen is partitioning
here's what that means
if you were to be in that exact scenario
we have excess blood glucose you could
convert some of that to fat and storage
yes hard to do though right what's
easier to do is just change the amount
of car of fat that you're burning
and shift your metabolic energy demands
more towards carbohydrate and lower on
fat
so think about that now if you say look
making up a scenario at rest you're
burning half of your energy from fat
half of it's coming from carbohydrate
yes now you have too much carbohydrate
body says yo yo we have excess
carbohydrate it's a pain in the ass to
store it it's full
pantheastern converted into new fat
just burn more carbohydrates and start
burning less fat
so shift my bias towards more carb
burning and there's really that much
Flex in the system that's way easier
than converting an entire moment I live
off of 5 000 calories of pixie sticks
there's no fat but I thought that person
would get oh that person will get fat
but how
they're shutting down fat burning
they're not necessarily that's what I
mean so there is that much Flex in the
system there's so much going on that if
I just start cramming my weight but uh
okay so if they stop burning fat fair
enough but if they're only in taking
sugar
there's there is no
okay so you're this makes everything
makes a prediction
if I understand what you're saying
correctly which I may very well not but
if I understand what you're saying
correctly the person that eats only
pixie sticks they are
are they gonna get fat yes
how are they gonna get fat they stop
they stop burning fat but they're not
intaking anything other than glucose
sure but they're not getting rid of
anything else uh-huh so they're fat uh
fat reduction is going nowhere right
they have no fat burning there is some
de novo lipogenesis you can do that
process you start sweating at some point
like at some point something has to give
do they just die like what because
you're you're you've you've talked about
this yeah the body will regulate the
life out of blood sugar it doesn't it
can't have the blood sugar it's does not
work I don't know what word use but it
will it will gum up literally gum up
your system the blood uh cells start
sticking together it's inflammatory at
that high level yeah it's not good so
man I always thought that that you
pulled the glucose out of the
bloodstream and put it into fat wow
again that can't happen right so there
is very hard super inefficient so we're
probably not the best survive doing that
yeah so the best way is to Simply
Flex up and down as you called it where
are we getting our fuel sources from how
are they going to keep getting fat well
they're going to continue to add to that
mass right so any extra calories going
to go somewhere and so if if you're
really going to that extreme we're
literally fat intake is sort of zero
right every energy uh every amount of
energy they're expelling
is coming directly from that
carbohydrate right yes
that's all coming in any extra small
amount of uh lipogenesis that can occur
it's just going to add to that total sum
so even if that is a small amount
if you're literally taking this to the
ex the reduction Maps atom here and that
is zero zero fat burning a small amount
of de novo lipogenesis is going to
result in a lot of fat gain over enough
time wow but it really does have to go
like that now I'm not aware of any
studies that have taken it to like an
incredible extreme like that so perhaps
when you get to certain levels that
percentage increases from like five or
ten percent
um but in most normal circumstances
people aren't that
yeah no and look I get that and I
understand that this is very much just a
thought exercise but it it's helping me
map the realities of the biology yeah it
goes the other direction too
by the way
um if you were to go on a very low
carbohydrate diet
and go on a very high fat diet that
doesn't mean you store extra fat right
because the opposite equation would be
like wait a minute like we we tried that
game 40 years ago right I think that
Wall's over eating more fat again of
calories are balanced does not result in
additional fat Mass gain for the zigzag
same reason well you're just similar to
burning fat you're supposed to switch
over and this is also why
um some of the marketing behind that
side of the equation is
um confusing give it the most charitable
term
because I can be burning more fat but
that doesn't mean I'm losing more fat
all I've done is I've shifted my
metabolic balance from carbohydrate
oxidation to Fat oxidation great fine
doesn't mean necessarily you're gonna
lose more fat doesn't mean necessarily
anything else about performance either
folks can perform at a very high level
physically even on a moderate amount of
carbohydrates or low amount of
carbohydrates if their calories are high
enough so you won't necessarily even
lose performance by going on a small to
low amount of carbohydrates depending on
the exact sport some sports there may be
more influence but just because you're
not eating enough carbs doesn't mean
your brain won't function right or
things like that it's like oh I need
carbs for you know or I'll have no blood
that's not true either right so we've
seen this equation play on both sides
you have the flexibility
but it wouldn't work wouldn't wouldn't
work only one way
right so it wouldn't work just high fat
or just High carbohydrates
if it's true on one side it's it's got
to be true in the reciprocal as well
would it not be easier to get fat
eating fat because at least I know that
can be stored as fat so even if I'm in
Burn mode
um if if I'm in okay I'm in taking way
too many carbohydrates so I'm just
eating pixie sticks again I get that
that's a an absurd thought experiment
but if I'm just eating pixie sticks and
I'm not in taking fat very little
um fat will be created from the
carbohydrate itself from the glucose but
some will okay that Stacks up but other
than that like I'm just burning so it
just becomes that every little bit adds
to my body
um still feels like something is going
to break down there if you overeat but
setting that aside on the fat side if I
am I'm only intaking fat so now I switch
over and my body's like okay I'm just
going to burn this because it's all I'm
getting
um but I
I assume that there is an easy path from
dietary fat to stored fat is that not
true
is there an easier path from dietary fat
to stored fat yeah it's it's a direct
route there but it's still not going to
matter
if total caloric expenditure is balanced
yeah no that I understand so what I'm
holding in my head is a morbidly obese
person
and I I would have predicted that that
morbidly obese person is closer and
closer to eating pure pixie sticks
but what I hear you saying is actually
that's probably not true what they're
doing is they're obviously over
consuming calories but the calorie that
they're having the easier time storing
is fat and so what's going on for them I
think is what your hypothesis predicts
or your theory because I'm sure it's
well tested predicts is that they are
eating so much carbohydrate that their
body switches over to just burning
carbohydrate so every bit of fat that
they get and they're probably getting a
lot is stored as fat cool that that
sequence makes sense to me
um the sequence that now I'm having a
bit of a hard time wrapping my mind
around is they're not eating
carbohydrates the body starts burning
fat but they're still over consuming
calorically and so it seems like it
would be easy to shuttle the excess fat
into fat cells
no yeah so if you want to look at folks
who are excessively fat okay
you'll see actually problems on the
carbohydrate side of the equation
you'll see problems on fat equation if
you look at a standard American diet
they're going to be very hyperloric on
both of those and what typically happens
we do this in my nutrition class I've
been doing this for 12 years where I
have all the folks track their nutrition
what is
obnoxiously clear it's very rare very
rare for any of my college students to
ever hit even close to the minimum RDA
recommendations for protein intake
never even come close to it it'd be one
or two people per 40 person class that
even hits the minimum RDA numbers which
I think are way too low
they're eating way too much of fat on
carbohydrate
that's that's the issue here so
could you find folks who are eating too
much fat yes that's easy to come by
right if you're looking at any of the
accessible food things they tend to be
very very high in fat right so fast food
any of these things
carbohydrates are even more accessible
you go to any vending machine it's going
to be mostly carbohydrate-based things
right you're not going to find any
protein there you know and maybe maybe
they have some high quality protein bars
but that's the best you're gonna hope
for right
and so you have accessibility problems
on both sides of that equation I it
would be I think you're responsible to
blame it which is not what you did but
just to clarify to blame it on either
one of those as the primary uh cause for
excess calorie intake so if they're a
carbohydrates are in check and they're
eating more fat
going to be a problem if their fat is in
check and they're eating too much carb
going to be a problem
you're going to find people across our
350 million Americans that are violating
that in the droves across all of that
Spectrum so
I don't know like I'm not sure what the
it's I guess I'll say this is kind of
why I'm generally like
I'll just say laissez-faire again
because I'm like if you're eating too
much I don't like for 350 million of you
there's a hundred of you doing it this
way 100 of you doing that 100 million
you're both doing it wrong they've got
big problems on both sides of the
equation if you want a solution okay
great now we're talking tactics we know
where we have to get to
I think it's generally best to flag
yourself against protein for all the
reasons we talked about and then
whatever other system helps you
personally
there will be hundreds of millions of
people who function better on this
system or that system or anything else
because there's so many of us and now
it's coming down to things like
practicality execution adherence and if
you want to make arguments that some
systems are more or less effective than
others
great we can do that but fundamentally
like at this level of physiology
it's not super important at the global
scale if that makes sense it does
because they're all making a fundamental
mistake but for my own understanding of
biology I have another question which is
who's going to get fatter
the person that
um and let's assume calories are the
same in either scenario the person that
eats a
all carbohydrate and the person that
eats all fat who's going to get fatter
if they're both eating 10 000 calories a
day let's say and they're sedentary if
you're in a lock in calories and you're
locking protein I would say you're gonna
have
very minimal differences between the two
groups interesting and we have evidence
on that understand yeah because again if
you look at whether you want to pull
these randomized control trials or they
take people through this and they
put them on very high carb or very
they get to the same place okay so the
mechanism by which the uh glucose over
consuming person gets fat is
um that the little bit of
lipogolises I forget what you call that
the the Turning glucose into fat that
what is it called again do you know
about lipogenesis okay I'm never gonna
remember that uh lipo lipo like
lipolysis like lipid Genesis is making
of a creation so it's creation of fat if
it was lipogenesis I could get behind it
but you throw another one
of new you're making new
got it yeah okay
um
that just seems like it would be a much
slower process but you're saying no I'm
gonna let go of this
um
I don't know
I think this is pretty fun stuff to talk
about personally to hell with them they
don't I just can't wrap my head around
um it depends on what you mean by time
right so are we looking at this end of a
16-week trial or a six-month trial or a
six year trial so um yeah we're six
years down the road like it's a little
bit of speed difference it's not it's
not gonna matter right really yeah it's
just like that's fast enough
if you want to look at like a six-week
change you might pick something up six
day change for sure but
what you're talking about generally is
is years
of work here and so by that point
subtle differences in in speed are going
to be equated for
very very interesting okay so I
legitimately feel like my understanding
of fat just leapt forward give me the
same breakdown now on muscle so
um unlike fat which does not require a
stressor to force my body to well you're
gonna say
with adding muscle it's Unique and then
I have to go work my ass off in the gym
I am never going to I can't just eat a
bunch of protein and add a bunch of
muscle I wish not true really what
totally not true so Arnold
Schwarzenegger could get to his size
just by cramming chicken breasts I
didn't say maximize I didn't say
optimize you said you can't add muscle
but just so if I just like my protein
100 really 100 how much give me a
percentage two percent fifteen percent
Oh you mean she was a total muscle mass
yes well it would be an asymptote so
what do you know what that means um
meaning the first minute you do it it's
gonna be much higher by day five that'll
be lower by months
yeah of course that's what asymptote
means well it's asymptote is a is a line
that goes sharper more vertical as you
get closer to ask somebody else's over
time is how they summed it up okay
anyway got it yep
um diminishing returns is is another way
to that's an asymptote right understood
so uh this is classic
classic data from probably the mid 1990s
looking at protein synthesis and what
you'll see is some cool things
if you simply do about a resistance
sector okay we'll go back up at all
times you are actually going through
protein synthesis so you're making new
proteins right now you're also going
through protein degradation
so anabolic is when the net result the
protein balance
is positive
catabolic is when the protein balance is
net negative right so right now I could
biopsy you
you would be going through some protein
synthesis and you would be going through
some protein breakdown at rest though
most likely you're going through more
breakdown than you are synthesis
so your protein balance is probably not
negative which means you are technically
catabolic right now if it was the
opposite you'd be anabolic okay great so
one of the things that happens is when
you go through a bout of exercise
strength training you go from a net
balance
of negative to a net balance of positive
now it's not much but it is technically
positive the exact same thing happens by
just eating protein
that is enough alone eating a bolus of
protein right now would take you from a
net negative to a net positive in this
next few minutes to hours without
question
if you then do a bottle of exercise and
eat the protein the effects are additive
so you take the exact amount of benefit
you got from protein the exact amount of
benefit they stack on top of each other
and you get a double
bump there
if you add in carbohydrates to that meal
it is another additive effect
so you get up there right now
that's acute that is like literally
right now we go do it with biopsy you
you go do that intervention and I biopsy
you after that
the protein synthesis process is not
necessarily 100 predictive of net
muscle gain eventually
right there's the science is not perfect
so just because I can measure the rate
of incorporation of new amino acids in
you
that's not the exact same number so you
asked for a percentage number if I told
you it increased protein synthesis by 25
percent
that would not mean you gained muscle 25
percent it is a is a small number and
there is no actual good relationship
between that protein so this is number
and the resulting amount of whole muscle
you'll have
eight weeks later
there's no number to give on that one um
it wouldn't equate in fact the protein
synthesis numbers are going to be
greatly exaggerated
um I'm going to go so far off track here
but it's your job to pull me back in a
second this is a really good another
this is a PSA it's my turn to give a PSA
when you start going into to molecular
biology
folks those numbers do not translate
into whole human existence and what I
mean is if you go to protein synthesis I
just gave you the example a 25 increase
in protein synthesis may result in a
three percent increase in muscle growth
eight weeks later
you go back up the chain and you go to
cell signaling if I was measuring um the
gene expression and I saw a a 20
increase in gene expression I would say
that basically nothing happened
some molecules need to go up three or
four hundred percent before it's
actually physiologically relevant
so you can see a paper
somebody can post something or share
something and tell you oh this mechanism
this Gene this signaling activity
increased by 80 percent
and that could be total [ __ ] the
science could be great but it could mean
absolutely nothing because we know that
that actual marker needs to be up 300
before it's clinically meaningful
and so this is why when we say things
like be very careful of mechanism and
don't let mechanism be more important
than whole outcomes if we have whole
outcomes if we don't have whole outcomes
meaning how much stronger do they
actually get how much longer do they
actually live how much more muscle when
we measure the actual muscle mass those
are always more important than molecular
mechanism if we don't have those we can
look towards mechanism that's great
that's insightful if I'm creating a drug
fine look towards mechanism I don't have
whole body data but don't let people
trick you with these molecular numbers
because they they don't scale to human
existence if that whole tangent
sort of makes it does it makes a lot of
sense so okay the punch line is and I'm
gonna have a hard time eating my way
there it does at a cellular level it
really does have a it does a response
but I'm still gonna have to go get the
additive benefit of um you don't have
sexually lifting if you what do you mean
by that think about a sumo wrestler do
you think they have more or less or the
same amount of muscle mass as you and I
I think they have a lot more but I don't
think they would ever get that just from
eating I think they have to train now
may not be with weights sumo wrestlers
are not really traditionally lifting
weights right okay fighting they're in
there like okay I'll give you a better
example pick the random person on the
street that weighs 300 pounds yep more
or less muscle than you and I more no no
not doing a single thing of exercise
carrying all that fat okay they're
walking right
eat a little bit of there but mostly
they're sedentary
so is the amount of walking you you
could you spent 20 minutes trying to
convince me you have to train your ass
off to listen to gay muscle yeah and now
you're also making the argument that
just walking around
you Andy Calvin it's not stacking up
right
interesting man so
it's both right you're correct you walk
around the 150 pound backpack on that's
going to stimulate some muscle growth
eventually right but you're saying that
the their muscle mass is more
attributable to just the massive amount
of calories
I'm not saying necessary has to be
protein protein I'm saying it is some
part
is some part actually people looked at
this are there numbers to give on this
uh in terms of what number
uh the amount of muscle that an obese
person adds
okay
um all right so check this out
I'm trying to decide how much I can tell
you on this one or not because we
haven't because this is like secret this
is like alien nice to science you're not
supposed to talk about results while
they're in review uh is that you're just
gonna say you're not supposed to talk
about results the first rule of science
you don't talk about science yeah got it
here's what I can say
um so my colleagues and I have uh I'm
sorry I'm just gonna apologize my
co-authors right now
it's impact Theory I'm gonna have to I'm
gonna have to go above Beyond right
so if you look at the national databases
so whether there's a thing called the UK
biobank
and there's one here in America called n
Hanes and these are these National
databases these are 10 to 20 30-year
studies where they collect people every
single year and they put them and then
they make these data openly available
and if you look at things like that
you will see that muscle mass has kind
of an inverted U
H regarding mortality risk such that if
you are under muscled and you add muscle
mass your mortality risk goes down and
then if you add too much muscle
it is detrimental
um there
that does not stack up to me at all
doesn't make any sense right there's
just no way adding muscle mass is
deleterious outside of very rare
bodybuilders and things like that but
these are the not the folks in these
National databases right these are Mayo
Clinic folks and things like that
and so my colleague Tommy wood and I and
Dan Garner and some other guys dove in
and said
I don't know if that's just true so we
ran some modeling against these things
and one of our papers is in review right
now and one of the things that we found
was
if you look at the association between
strength
and muscle mass in these databases
you'll basically see none
you will also see
that these folks have almost no
connection between their muscle mass and
their physical activity
meaning the folks in these groups added
their muscle mass not through physical
activity
which says they added it somewhere else
food
by being larger you tend to have more
muscle which made you at a higher risk
of dying it had nothing to do with the
muscle mass
we did though see an association a
direct association between the strength
training and brain health
which is the first finding really ever
to find a direct causal link between
strength training and brain health not
mental health physical brain health
in addition
um
What's called the strength residual and
so if I take your muscle mass and I look
at how strong you should be just based
on your muscle mass again big database
stuff
and then I actually measure your muscle
mass the residual is the difference
between your predicted strength of that
given muscle mass and your actual
strength the farther you are off that
line
then the higher your risk of of Death
Becomes hmm so there's a standard for
the amount of strength you would expect
with muscle mass and are you saying that
people that gain their muscle mass
through just massive caloric intake they
get the mass but they don't get the
strength and that so these people are
not the way that we phrase it
scientifically is they're not accruing
their muscle mass from training
that's what's happening I don't know how
they're doing it
but there's not a lot of options left
so that going back to original question
I don't know
what number that is I don't know what
protein these folks like we could go
back and I guess probably run that
pretty quickly
but the point is if you eat more and
even if you don't exercise at all you're
going to add some muscle
it's gonna be there now are you adding
all lean muscle no no no no no are you
adding some muscle though yeah are you
adding mostly fat yes this is not a good
way
um a similar note if you're trying to
gain muscle and you want to gain lean
muscle
which means you want to gain as much
muscle as you can with the least amount
of fat gain what you don't want to do is
eat excessive calories and so the
typical number we'll say is like maybe
10 to 20 calorie increase
don't do the whole thing of like oh my
standard calories or 2 000 a day but I'm
trying to bulk up so I'm going to eat 6
000 calories
great if you're willing to have a whole
bunch of fat come along for the ride
like go for it if you want to add as
much lean muscle like you're probably
looking at a 500 calorie increase maybe
making sure protein super high training
that hide that's probably going to put
you now there's actually um
a couple of studies that are being run
right now trying to figure out like what
that exact percentage is but those data
are not out yet but it's probably
something in that neighborhood of 20 or
so percent caloric increase
rather than like what some folks will do
which is actually like a doubling or
even tripling of their calories so
all that to come back the original point
of yeah just eating protein probably
does add to a lot of muscle growth
um
it's also adding protein alone is not
going to bring a lot of fat along for
the ride
either so it's a pretty fail like easy
way to go about it
one gram per pound of body weight is the
starting place you would have no issue
going way higher than that though so I
would typically say if you are a hard
Gainer one of my first stops would be
we're going way up in protein
I want to do some other stuff timing
wise nutrition and just other things um
training wise course but going way up in
protein is
like there's a very low risk potential
for reward from a protein perspective
does animal versus plant protein matter
at all yes everything matters
um where it starts to matter is when you
are below or not as sufficient where it
matters the most is when you're below
we're not a sufficient protein intake
when you're at that one gram per pound
or higher those things start to matter a
lot less in fact there's a study came
out very recently in the last few months
directly comparing this and once you hit
that number they saw virtually no
difference in the amount of muscle
gained over the animal versus plant
protein
which is to say you have options
if you are like my students
and you're eating you know 60 grams of
protein a day 80 grams of protein a day
the protein quality and the protein type
starts to matter a lot more so my
general recommendation is if you want to
be very diligent and pay attention to
your food intake
and really plan things out then a
plant-based approach can be fine
if you want to just not worry about it
though just eat a ton of plant-based
protein and you're gonna be fine most
likely as much as we can tell
um if that's the strategy you're trying
to take is plant-based
man so fascinating okay talk to me now
about I want to be optimal I want to add
like real quality muscle I want to get
strong
um we talked earlier about some of the
protocols in terms of 20 to 25 sets per
muscle group per week that'll make sense
um give me a little bit more information
about the protocol especially as it
relates to diet yep great so setting
that protein as a minimum number there
probably even going higher on on that
again so I eat a lot of eggs yep egg
whites uh whole eggs only chicken breast
like if I'm uh if I'm open to animal
protein so assume I'm not trying to do
um if plant is better for adding muscle
definitely let me know uh but I'll eat
whatever source of protein you tell me I
should whey protein casing whatever I'll
do it but what's that optimal
like thing sure we actually ran that
study the egg white versus whole eggs I
ran through that thing in general many
similar findings this was only one study
by the way we'll probably need this to
be repeated with different circumstances
there's just very limited things you can
ever glean from one paper but in that
particular case uh the whole eggs
outperformed the egg whites interesting
even though I'm gonna intake a lot more
calories per gram of protein because of
the fat yeah but you also now have a lot
of the nutrients coming along for the
ride you also have fat soluble vitamins
that are needed and you're having the
fat
um there's more calories you're trying
to go up in scale
so
if you wanted to go egg white only
that's fine it could totally be done but
I don't worry about that too much um if
you want to do a thing where you have a
handful of uh whole eggs and then add
some egg white to that to increase there
while keeping calories under control
that's a strategy as well
I typically am just mostly a whole egg
sort of person and then I will keep my
fat a little bit lower in other places
so that my protein can stay high to not
go again too excessively high in
calories so what you're going to want to
do is to set that protein marker as set
number one
then you need to make sure that your
micronutrients are under control so if
we have any blood work to go off we're
going to get all that stuff dialed in
whether that is from Whole Foods and or
supplementation stuff ideally mostly
from Whole Foods that's the Target right
let physiology do what it does I think
about protein powders it's totally fine
of them love them I absolutely love way
it tends to be very digestible it is
very practical it is very uh
transportable so we can use it on the
road whenever the other limitations and
things like that it tends to make it
easier for people to hit their protein
targets and it's it's very very
effective for muscle growth it's also
not required if you hate it you don't
have to use it at all we will use it
pretty often unless somebody requests
not to
for all those practical reasons it is no
more magical outside of the fact it's
very easily digested and absorbable but
Whole Foods can get you there
as well no problem if your total protein
intake throughout the day
is equivalent then your protein timing
doesn't matter that much
so it doesn't matter that you have your
protein immediately post workout or
things like that as long as by the end
of the 24 hour period you get to the
same total amount of protein you're good
and so that's when I say like it's
easily digestible fast absorbing things
like that great but if you don't like it
or have some reason why you don't want
to use it no problem we can get there
through Whole Foods just as easy or the
inverse
if you're just like yo like I love it
great
um I certainly have seen people that are
you know five to six servings a day of
that
um easily like you can get there like I
don't
the Guinness is early into but we also
deal with some professional athletes
that are 300 pounds so that the numbers
are a little bit different for them but
that's even for moderate people 185
pounds 200 pound sort of folks so
um I just see it as a viable option we
consider it to be powdered food
basically and
nothing really more than that
so highly effective um
protein and total calories
there micronutrients getting where it
needs to be for your unique physiology
as we would go we need to have enough
carbohydrates to support training and
then to support and maximize recovery
because if we're going to be training
harder we want to not just do them bare
minimum we want to maximize recovery so
what you're looking at there
in terms of numbers probably something
in the ballpark of three to six grams
per kilogram of body weight
roughly it would be a carbohydrate
number so if you weigh you know 180
pounds you're probably in looking at the
neighborhood of 350 grams
carbohydrates today like plus or minus
something like that
um if you're training really really hard
some of our like our competitive UFC
fighters we're training multiple times a
day
six seven hundred calories or 600 grams
of carbide or today is
totally normal Jesus just because the
the amount of um other training high
intensity workout that they're doing yep
we also you have keto athletes
I don't think we have any
at the current moment because it's not
very effective
I can't ever remember circumstance where
I told somebody who's not on a ketogenic
diet
that they needed to go on one and we
certainly had plenty that came in and
said this is what I want to do help me
do it better which we have no problem
I'm not going to talk them out of that
that's what they want to do
um but I am
I have not ever seen that
and I can't honestly envision myself
ever taking an apple and saying you need
to go on a ketogenic diet because the
rate at which you can liberate fat yeah
and Spark it well slow even just from a
performance perspective
um there's no evidence whatsoever that
is performance enhancing so now I'm
changing your diet even for endurance
no I've never seen data support that
if somebody said that they feel like
they perform or had data I believe them
but physiology is physiology we don't
also work with endurance like Ultra
endurance runners or anything like that
just candidly we don't not that I
wouldn't I just haven't had a lot of
those come across our desks probably a
handful Maybe
um in that case I would think about it
more seriously but for the sports we
typically work in the NHL the NFL
Major League Baseball things like that
it's not going to be a great fit for
those folks unless they again came in
really hell-bent on doing it
would help them get better but I'm not
going to change
it's a very hard thing to change too
there's going to be an Adaptive phase
I'm going to miss six weeks six months
of hard quality training to just get
them right back to the same performance
uh doesn't make any sense to do that so
for non-athletes though boy there's a
ton of potential sense to do that if
that's an easy your system
for you
um
on the carbohydrate thing as well we
also have people that do very well on
much lower
amount of carbohydrates 200 grams 150 I
personally
I don't see any drop in performance with
my own training and um
in my own ability to add muscle mass
even at like 100 grams a day I'm totally
fine there I don't feel any
drop and performance I'm not obviously
training as hard
or as much as our pro athletes are
um but I have no issue putting on muscle
at that low of a number so it can be
anywhere up and down and then basically
you fill in fat behind all those things
so once you set protein once you set
carbohydrate you can fill in fat
you do want to make sure you don't go
too low oh that that can be a problem so
if you're getting that area of concern
like we'll step in for sure being too
low will be problematic being too high
is only really an issue of just gaining
weight too fast
but there's really no harm to having
extra fat there's lots of many important
benefits of having fat in the diet for
muscle growth for sure have you seen
people on a heart a high carb diet
regardless of exertion have inflammatory
issues
depend Define high
uh north of 300 grams
not necessarily
in general I wouldn't see that if you're
if you're looking at more of like
if you're north of five to seven grams
per kilogram body weight and you don't
have any physical activity then there I
would be much more likely to see an
association with that
um
that is also to say
I don't think many people have reason to
be that high
they're not training very hard
whether or not it's causing additional
inflammation or not it's certainly not
necessarily needed so I I would not even
for our folks that like in our executive
program that really don't exercise much
I'm not putting them at 600 grams
carbohydrate
and I'm if they are I'm probably trying
to talk them out of that even if their
inflammatory markers look fine like I'm
probably pulling them down and not
pretty good why would you want to pull
them down what's the knock on effect
you're worried about
it is very easy to over consume
carbohydrates because of availability so
my concern would be in that direction
um we're also going to be checking for
other markers
um of
dysfunction if they're totally fine as I
said earlier if we don't coach
Labs we coach people if they feel great
if their performance is great and by
performance I mean their physical
performance their cognition their focus
their energy their ambition all that is
exact their sex drive is all where they
want it to be and they feel amazing and
they're at 600 grams carbs a day like
totally fine I have no issue with that
if they don't feel great though or have
something going on and the other things
we tried aren't working then I might say
all right
let's pull the carbohydrates down a
little bit because you don't have that
energy demand so why be there lastly if
they're at that number and they're not
hyperchloric that probably means
something else is very very very very
low and that would be more of my concern
not that the carbohydrates are evil but
the fact that it is taking the place of
something either fat is way too low or
hopefully not protein
makes sense earlier you mentioned that
weightlifting was good for brain health
why
so I can spit out to you some different
mechanisms but why it's actually
mechanistically improving brain health I
don't necessarily know
very intriguing okay I have to ask this
question the the thing that has held me
back in developing my own physique uh
nothing has slowed me down more than
injuries
I I know it's going to be impossible for
you to diagnose but when you see people
that have routine injuries what is your
sort of go-to checklist for figuring out
what's causing the problem so number one
you want to start actually
Occam's raiser here if your shoulder
hurts you're probably doing something
with your shoulder it doesn't want to do
right now what is that case
I'm look I would love to tell you wow
there's this like secret hidden stressor
in your immune system well it is you're
probably doing some [ __ ] with your
shoulder that it doesn't like
that's going to solve the overwhelming
majority of people's problems now we
have a quest now we're going on a little
uh a game going okay why now is the pain
localized is it there is the injury in
the same spot of the pain yes or no can
we go find that out what's causing the
pain I can just like earlier in our
practice like we we don't resolve
symptoms I don't really go after
symptoms we go after if we can what's
causing the symptoms sometimes you have
to remove symptoms to allow you to then
work backwards
so no problem but the reality of it is
I'm not just going to say put an
injection in there not that I can again
I'm not a medical doctor but I wouldn't
advise just resolving the pain don't
just take Advil blah blah blah if you
need to right now because you can't work
you can't sleep cool no problem but
that's not your long-term solution
you're just masking the pain we need to
work backwards and figure out why is the
pain there is it actually there in the
thing let's just say your shoulder or is
it actually uh an injury or head to your
to your neck
is it an injury you had to your foot
what happened that caused some sort of
altering of positioning or movement or
stress load that then resulted in a net
chain up into your shoulder that's
almost certainly the cause of
dysfunction right it typically is an
acute injury or something like that that
leads to some sort of compensation
pattern that then results in wear and
tear somewhere else right it's it's uh
four tires on a car and if you have
eighty percent of your weight in the
back left one it just wears down but the
problem is not the tire you can keep
replacing the tire all you want but
until you figure out the car is off
balanced you're going to keep wearing
something down there right and then the
left tire blows so you put another one
on and then that one hurts and then you
put more stress in the front left and
that one you get it you get it you just
keep running the circles
and so we would need to step back and
look and say okay like what is the
actual pain is it soft tissue is it
joint is it muscle is it a sharp pain is
something damaged in there or is it
actually movement based is it only
happening when you're doing a certain
activity or is it all day long so this
is a whole uh evaluation you would go
through much like a physical therapist
would take you through to figure out
what's going on and then from there once
we can identify what we think is
actually the the core problem then we go
on a mission to actually solve that with
things like hey my shoulder just started
aching
it tends to be a pattern a Groove
pattern
so what I mean by that is this
there can be an entry there
can also be an injury that's long gone
but pain is sensory
and so that can be a learned signal and
so what we need to do is desensitize the
signal and teach the brain we're not in
pain stop protecting
that's all you're doing the brain signal
is telling you you're in pain protect
because it thinks something's injured
but sometimes even when the injury is
gone it continues to send that signal
not typically the case in the shoulder
though it could be that is very common
in things like the low back
like low back pain low back pain despite
nothing being wrong it is a learned
signal that you need to desensitize and
you see a lot of the chronic pain going
away for forever one if there is they
are in a bad position but the other one
would be again the pain signaling one so
if the shoulder there was no like acute
injury there you said right it was just
more of like I've had trap problems
that's been my chronic thing so this is
the first time I'm having a problem with
my shoulder uh historically it's been my
traps specifically my left trap okay
for sure right like that's this is how
it goes right
um so then we would walk backwards and
figure out what's the dysfunction in the
left trap
why is that happening is it simply motor
control
okay great then we fixed that and that
problem's there is it actually something
else going on so is the left trap
dysfunctional because actually uh it's
the lower trap that's off is it maybe
the rhomboider for spinatus is something
else happening there that's pulling the
react and you feel the pain in your left
trap and you're getting that worked on a
massage and rolled out but the
dysfunction is actually happening in the
shoulder girdle that's the problem right
um I'll give you an example one of the
professional athletes I worked with uh
Tatiana Suarez UFC fighter undefeated
neck pain neck pain neck pain right
when we started having all kinds of back
problems because she actually had an
acute injury to the neck the shoulder
blades are being protective so they are
pulled way down and tight and so she's
constantly right here which is straining
the neck which is straining low back
right so having to work back the chain
starting with the low back resolving
that pain to let the traps or the
shoulder blades relax a little bit to
let the traps relax a little bit so that
the neck finally go through a ceiling
process right so you have to kind of
come backwards and figure out is there a
starting place that I can get to my
guess is with your left trap it would be
like probably wasn't something injured
in there but you probably had some sort
of again what we'll globally call
dysfunction this could be weakness it
could be a firing sequence it just could
be neural activation not on at the right
time lastly it could be
a competitory pattern because of some
activity so every time you go to lift
weights or do something like that
something else is pulling in the wrong
direction with the shoulder specifically
also the very last thing we would
evaluate is sleep
so the sleeping position you're in
obviously if you're a side sleeper and
you're rolling in that position not
necessarily bad but the mattress may not
be fitting perfectly for your shoulder
and that may be contributing to it as
well so lots of things we could Tinker
around with there
brother this has been so fascinating
where can people follow you and learn
more sure my social media Twitter and
Instagram Dr Randy Galpin those are
pretty much exclusively science
communication so like I don't do
anything else on that but if you like to
hear about science and this kind of
science that's what I use those for and
then um
any links to any of the companies that I
have the our sleep company absolute rest
or rapid health and performance and all
that stuff
you can Google it or uh I think it's all
on my personal website handygalpin.com
but
it's not really what I do with my time
mostly so it's probably all there if you
Google it I love it all right everybody
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