William and I finally succeed in transitioning over to talk about his current area of passion and focus – becoming shredded and helping others achieve their ideal body composition goals. Now that you know where William is coming from, you can fully appreciate his recommendations for cultivating the proper mindset, exercise program, and dietary strategy to take your body composition goals to the ultimate level.
William doesn’t only dream big, he has put all his lofty goals into action by sustaining a lifestyle that allows him to maintain food satiety and great body composition all while having the energy to spare.
We speak passionately about “the black hole of cardio training” and how burning too many calories leads to sugar cravings and unnecessary cortisol hikes and he tells us how to get our dream bodies without calorie tracking or overtraining – methods that will undoubtedly exhaust you mentally and physically.
William favors an intuitive approach when it comes to workouts and eating strategy, warning against the obsessive self-quantification and tracking that can drive you nuts and burn you out. “Tracking is like riding a tricycle,” he says. In this show, you will get past the knee-jerk criticisms about carnivore-based diets and learn from someone who’s made it work very well for 1.5 years and running.
He speaks about the risks involved with eating a mostly-meaty diet and the ways he implores negating those risks altogether. William describes the rationale for leveraging fasting and ketosis and trying out the carnivore plan, whereby he increases protein intake and moderates his fat intake to make those final steps of progress to super-ripped.
William lets us in on the secret of the kind of protein that took him to his ideal body mass in a brief time period. We figure out what collagen should actually be used for, the best type and right way to consume it as well as the supplements he believes in.
By increasing nutrient density with the right foods and using the proper training, William promises you will get stronger, faster and leaner. He talks about the way to get better-looking and shapelier muscle by reverting back to the golden age of weight training. He also lets us in on the secret of just how many days we should really be lifting, how many reps we should be doing, and what pound of weights to use that hit the exact sweet spot. William demonstrates how old school beliefs meet new and how the future is unstoppable for anyone as long as they practice confidence and execution.
TIMESTAMPS:
The new trend of the carnivore diet is something to think about. [03:29]
Always maintain a strong alignment between your stated goals and your diet, exercise and lifestyle habits. [05:17]
William incorporated intermittent fasting along with carnivore diet. [07:45}
How does William manage the fat burning? [09:56]
When he tried to get as strong as he possibly could, he was stronger but looked worse. . [11:53]
William’s diet philosophy is heavily influenced by Ketogenic diet and carnivore diet. He talks about how his diet has evolved. [15:03]
Is eating so much protein bad for longevity? [17:36]
If food is not nutrient dense, you don’t need it. [21:57]
The purpose of tracking and biofeedback is to guarantee results. Does it do that? [23:11]
How do we best pair the fasting, the exercise and the meals? [25:24]
William’s diet is based around beef, eggs and fish. [28:34]
Egg yolks should be orange indicating the hen ate grass, worms and bugs. [31:48]
William does not go for a lot of fat. [34:12]
You can survive without plants. [38:51]
When he was on Vegan diet, he felt great for several months and then slowly over time he got worse. [42:12]
If you feel like crap, it’s probably not good for you. [45:31]
Usually 45 minute workouts are enough for William. [50:37]
One does not need to make a huge time investment to do this. [52:43]
LINKS:
LISTEN:
Get Over Yourself Podcast
Brad: 00:00 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author, an athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.
Brad: 03:29 Hey, it’s Brad to introduce a second show with my main man, William Shewfelt, my new friend, the 23 year old motivational force, and now we’re going to get down talking about how to get shredded on the carnivore diet. Yeah, let’s give it a listen. Find out what this new trend is all about. Uh, it’s been dismissed out of hand by many people when you hear what you only eat meat, eggs, and fish, but some interesting insights. One of them obviously is the desire to drop excess body fat, especially when you have a good groove going and you’ve developed that fat burning machinery to make things happen. Excluding further foods can really lead to success because you don’t have that decision fatigue, that application of constant willpower.
Brad: 04:18 You just know that for 30 days or whatever you want to ascribe to, you’re going to eat a very narrow range of foods. It’s going to deliver some health benefits. It’s definitely not going to kill you. It could even help autoimmune and inflammatory conditions as some of the data that’s coming out. Very interesting. But he also gets into the exercise component instead of talking about this stuff in a vacuum and he’s done a great job on his carnivore shredding website to put it all together and create a focused action plan to help you lose weight, man, help you drop that excess body fat, staying away from the common mistakes like black hole training, the overly stressful exercise patterns that lead to sugar cravings. And what I also like about William’s approach is he emphasizes intuition and going with the flow and flexibility and not obsessively tracking everything, which you might often think would go hand in hand with this super strict, highly regimented diet. William says, quote tracking is like riding a tricycle. Get it? So you start out tracking, making sure you know what a hundred grams of carbs look like in a daily eating pattern, and then you start going with the flow, enjoying your life, but always maintaining a strong alignment between your stated goals and your diet, exercise and lifestyle habits. You’re gonna dig William’s vibe. I promise. He’s very focused, competitive, driven guy, but he’s also got an ease about him. He’s smiling, he’s happy, he’s self-effacing. He’s got this wonderful girlfriend Chelsea who came along to the recording, a great support team. She’s got a great Instagram thing going herself. Influencer, just young people live in the dream, having a great time doing things right, giving back, making a contribution. William Shewfelt talking about the carnivore diet and more.
Brad: 06:13 William Shewfelt we have warmed up here, man. The get over yourself podcast had that unplugged version of finding out what makes this guy tick. A fascinating discussion and now you’ve come from this acting background and plunge deep into the health scene. So, uh, go check out the website, right? William Shewfelt.com
Brad: 06:32 William Shewfelt.com is a kinda like my acting self-promotion type website. But if you wanna check out the carnivores shredding program.com that’s where I discuss my approach to getting as lean and ripped as you possibly can on a carnivore diet by not tracking and depriving yourself and not just starving yourself all the time and just training yourself into a pulp. But actually following a very intuitive approach and what you should be eating, what sort of training you should be doing. And I’m actually hats off to you and to Mark and the work you guys have done in terms of backing away from that. Uh, I think you guys call, call it the black hole of cardio, but it’s like one of the pillars of my training program is zone two cardio. And that’s something that I learned from you guys. And um, yeah, so hats off to you guys for that, right?
Brad: 07:21 I guess that obsessive training will put you into a sugar craving, sugar burning mode. And that’s what it seems. I don’t think everyone’s fully embraced that as the problem is if you burn too many calories during exercise and your workouts are too stressful and depleting, um, it’s not gonna lead to the carnivore. shredding of this, what is it, 2.8 or 3.8% you get your body fat down.?
Brad: 07:45 Yeah. So I did an inbody scan and I was down at 3.8% body fat. But the thing was like if I tell people what I was doing, like I wasn’t counting calories at all, I would incorporate intermittent fasting, I would incorporate these fasted workouts and then my diet was basically a carnivore template. But you, you do have to moderate your fat levels so you have to prioritize protein and you don’t want to be eating too much fat because over time, you know, you will start to put on some body fat. Obviously you want to cycle in the fat at some point. Otherwise, you know, we all know our rabbit starvation and you’re just going to get to lean. It’s gonna affect your hormones, you’re going to have a lot of issues with that. But when I got down to 3.8% body fat, that was basically following just an intuitive listening to my appetite type approach training. Uh, in the morning I’d be doing some zone to cardio, some resistance training, um, doing some intermittent fasting. And then I would have one or two meals a day and I would basically be focused on beef, eggs, fish, and then some different supplements to bring in things that I thought I needed. Um, things like collagen and calcium and stuff like that that we can get into.
Brad: 08:53 So when you were going for this ultimate, uh, carnivores shred picture, where did you start from? Like how much body composition change did you undergo?
Brad: 09:05 Um, honestly I would just sort of hover in the same area so that 3.8% body fat, um, I was probably chilling at like five to 6% on a daily basis if I had to guess. Um, so getting down to that 3.8% would simply be just being strict with the food. You know, cutting the cheese out, cause cheese is something that just I put fat on with that cause it tastes so damn good. That’s the real issue for me. Um, but yeah, so just cutting out certain foods that are a little hyper palatable, uh, especially higher fat foods. I’m sticking to the ones that I know will keep me lean and that’ll support me. Um, and then, yeah, just incorporating that fasting. So usually it would take me about four probably about four days to get down to that level because I never really increased my body fat.
Brad: 09:56 I always like to say a definitely under 10, but preferably like six to eight. Um, and then earlier last year I was just obsessed with getting like as lean as I could and as shredded as I could. And now I’m trying to put on like more muscle and more mass. So, um, I’m trying to eat a lot more now. But um, yeah I always stay definitely under 10%. So it just takes a couple of days of consistent effort. But fat burning becomes so much easier once you’re utilizing ketosis once you’re utilizing, um, sort of a lower fat approach. I don’t want to say low fat cause I don’t believe in low fat. But if you actually moderate the energy calories and increase the nutrient density, the protein and the nutrients and the micros that you’re getting from your food, um, I find that it really, really helps me with fat burning. Um, yes. So utilizing the fasting, utilizing those dietary choices and then using the right training if you’re over-training and you’re just spiking your cortisol and like you were saying, you have these sugar cravings, um, I feel like your body is going to try to hold onto fat. You might get decreases in your T3 or in your thyroid hormone and you might start to have your body fighting against you as it tries to hold onto this weight. So it doesn’t just shrivel up.
Brad: 11:04 Whew. So let’s say our entry point is not quite, uh, at at high level yet. So we’re just trying to see if we can make some changes to workout patterns and get down from 27 to 22 for the female or 21 to 15 for the male. I am, I believe that, uh, a male at 15 and a female at 22 is looking pretty darn good at the beach. Is that our reference point? And then anything down below, obviously a male down below 10%, you’re looking at the people on the Internet with their six pack. Same with the females down below a 20. But yeah, give us a little bit of context and like let’s, let’s take us through, uh, if you were having a client that came to you that’s in decent shape but maybe making some mistakes like chronic exercise and then trying to get the diet dialed.
Brad: 11:53 Yeah. So the first thing I would do is I would be looking at what sort of training they’re doing. Um, and I think that you basically want to moderate the amount of resistance training you’re doing. Obviously it’s glycolytic, it’s anaerobic that has hormonal effects on the body that you don’t want to be doing that every single day. So I would usually get people to about three days a week of resistance training. And then I don’t like to incorporate zone two on top of that on the same days because I just don’t know anybody that wants to be doing two hours in the gym. So I would usually have them alternating zone to cardio with that. Um, and yeah, I think it would just be basic. So usually I would just have people doing stairmaster or walking incline on a treadmill, things like that. And they would incorporate those on the non lifting days.
Brad: 12:38 So that’s the basic template of the training. But with the resistance training, we’re not doing power lifting here. We’re not doing ’em really low weight or low rep heavyweight stuff. I find that, you know, they have sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and then there’s, I think it’s Myofibrillar, but basically you can either develop these really dense, extremely strong muscle fibers, which you know, you get when you’re power lifting and doing these lower reps or you can sort of develop this sarcoplasmic, it’s, it’s more of a full muscle and this is what you see bodybuilders doing there. They’re pumping a lot of reps and they’re really pumping the muscle up. And that’s what I encourage people to do on this sort of a program because for one, the muscles develop faster with that. And then I find that it has a more pleasing shape to it. It kind of looks better.
Brad: 13:27 Um, and yeah, so basically when I w when I try to get as strong as I possibly could, I was so much stronger than I am now and I looked worse. So I thought that’s really interesting. And I know a lot of really strong power lifters, you know, in like low weight categories, like the 140, 150 guys, I’m like, I’m never gonna be able to squat four oh five but I could have bigger legs than that guy. That guy still has very small legs for being able to squat so much and deadlift so much. So the type of training you’re doing definitely matters. So I always advocate a bit of a higher rep, more moderate weight training. So I’ll usually do anywhere from 10 to 15 reps, which is the so-called hypertrophy range, and then some more moderate weight increasing the volume. It’s very consistent with what bodybuilders did in the golden era and in the 70s with Arnold and, uh, Frank Sane and all these guys.
Brad: 14:19 Um, they usually started from a base of power lifting early when they were young and then they moved on to a lot more higher rep hypertrophy training. And that’s how they really built their bodies up in their musculature. I also find that there is, I’m a decreased injury risk for that because as you start to push the limits of, you know, your genetic potential and doing these lifts, unless your form is perfect, you run a higher risk of injuring yourself. And I’m not trying to get people as strong as possible, I’m just trying to get people to have a six pack, you know, or like to, to achieve a sort of physique that they want to get. So we’re trying to stay focused on that goal and not get too sidetracked by getting a strong as you possibly can. So that’s, that’s like the training aspect of it and that’s kind of what I preach in regards to that.
Brad: 15:03 With diet. Um, that my diet, uh, philosophy is heavily influenced by my experiences on the ketogenic diet and the carnivore diet. When I went onto a ketogenic style of dieting where it was moderate protein, I was probably 80, even maybe 70 grams, some days of protein.
Brad: 15:23 How much do you weigh?
Brad: 15:23 uh, I think I’m around 160. I try not to weigh myself. Yeah.
Brad: 15:28 Um, low protein. Yeah.
Brad: 15:30 Yeah. So I would keep the protein pretty moderate. They’re at 70 to about a hundred grams. Um, I would keep the carbs, obviously very low. Um, I think my total carbs would be at about like 25 or 30. Net carbs are probably much lower than that cause it was just vegetables and my fat was too satiety, which I thought was the way to go at the time. So I would just be drinking the fat, pouring it in whatever I could.
Brad: 15:56 And I had a philosophy that, um, I think a lot of people shared at the time, which was the more fat you eat, like your body gets better at burning fat and suddenly you’re just this amazing fat burning machine and you’re so mitochondrially adapted to burning fat and MCT and this and coconut and that and butter in this. And over time I was like, I’m kind of getting like skinny fat. I, this isn’t like really what I’m going for. I thought I was going to get shredded. And I saw a few guys on Instagram and youtube that do Keto and they’re just an amazing shape.
Brad: 16:26 Oh, you promised me.
Brad: 16:27 Yeah, exactly. So I was like, this isn’t really what I want. Um, and then I started to, this was actually before Sean Baker went on, Joe Rogan, I, I started to scout around and I saw a zero carbs, Zen and Principia and all of these websites and Facebook groups. And I saw these people that were experiencing amazing results. Uh, Kelly Hogan was one of them and they have, I think the Anderson’s and people like that. So I realized, okay, so there’s this like carnivore style of dieting. Um, and these people seem to be experiencing pretty good results. And I thought maybe I’ll give this a shot for a little bit. So I pretty much brought my diet all the way down to like a Vince de Ronda steak and eggs type thing. So I just went down to like ground beef and eggs. That was the majority of my diet and in a very, very short amount of time, like basically body composition flipped. So the fat started going down, but I was actually getting stronger in the gym without changing my training. Like all my lifts were going up and I was building more muscle and it was so heavily anabolic, like I was, you know, like my body was changing so quickly, so I realized I was onto something there.
Brad: 17:36 And this was also really influenced by Ted Naman as well. He’s huge proponent of, you know, higher protein, keep the carbs low, moderate the fat, go for nutrient density. So when I did that, um, huge changes in physique and all of a sudden almost effortlessly, I had this physique that I always wanted, but I wasn’t hungrier than before. I was actually very, very satisfied. I had more energy, I had a much better gym performance. So I realized for the goal that I have, I actually want a bit more protein and I actually want to scale back a bit on the fat. The thing with higher protein, I think the major concerns a lot of people have are stimulating these growth factors, whether it’s IGF, one, m, tor, um, just these things that could potentially, they could potentially indiscriminately grow, um, you know, cancerous cells, healthy cells, all these different things.
Brad: 18:28 It might be bad for longevity. The way I approach that is to just keep insulin and these, uh, growth factors pulsatile. So to go through these periods of fasting where they come down and I give my body some time to experience a state where, you know, I’m not eating five meals a day. I don’t promote people doing that. I’ll eat about one to two meals a day. So I spend a lot of time in the fasted state and then when I have this, uh, very insulin agentic very anabolic environment in the body, it’s usually after training and that’s when I’ll eat this very high protein meal. The other thing I think a lot of people are concerned about is gluconeogenesis. And you know that that argument has been gone into many, many times. You want to avoid that if you want to be in Ketosis.
Brad: 19:08 From my understanding, Ketosis is driven by hepatic glycogen. If your liver glycogen is low, you’re going to be in maybe low grade Ketosis, but you’ll be in some form of ketosis. You’ll at least be metabolically flexible to be able to burn some fat. Um, and gluconeogenesis seems to refill muscle glycogen really well. Um, so if you’re eating high enough protein like your, your muscle glycogen is going to refill itself somehow. So it might leach from skeletal muscle, um, or it might come from your dietary protein. But if you’re training hard and you’re trying to build this muscle and refill muscle glycogen on a lower protein and low carb approach, you’re in a tough state there. So I say up the protein and usually protein is very, very nutrient dense. If you’re eating meat, eggs, fish, properly sourced. Um, those aren’t foods that I think you’re gonna run into a whole lot of trouble with in there. They’re all whole foods.
Brad: 20:00 Yeah. I think we have to couch this conversation. This might be irresponsible to say am I’m just speculating, but we’re talking about a pretty devoted athletic regimen. Yes. William’s eating too much protein, he’s going to get cancer. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to add up. And I think Dr Tommy Wood has talked about this with me, so I’m getting a basic understanding here that these risk factors of stuffing your face with extra protein and, and going through your life in that manner and you’re going to spike these growth factors. You explained it really well where even even to protect against that, uh, that risk, which is probably minimal when you’re working out hard, you’re going to have fasting periods. So it sounds like you’re getting the best of both worlds because we’re so excited about fasting and the autophagy and the apoptosis and all these up-regulated health processes are going on and keeping the insulin low to live a long time. And then at the same time you’re, you’re pounding some delicious food and putting on muscle.
Brad: 20:57 It is trying to achieve the best of both worlds. And, and it’s almost attempting to do, you know, it’s like having your cake and eating it too. I want to be able to eat satiety and I want to be energized throughout the day and I want to have this amazing mental energy and focus and clarity. I’m not hungry, I’m not feeling hypoglycemic and shaky for some food, but I also want to be able to fast for a long time. I want to be able to eat these big delicious meals like, and be ripped and be shredded and all these things without tracking.
Brad: 21:26 And I want a, I also want a new Tesla and I also want a, okay,
William: 21:32 This program does not guarantee you a Tesla. Oh, just lost another sponsor. Damn. Um, but so it’s, it’s this kind of crazy checklist of things that I would like the best energy and focus ability to fast, great athletic performance and amazing body composition with food that tastes great and not tracking. So it’s a crazy checklist. And that checklist is what I try to check off in this program. Here is how you do all of those things and here’s how you can maintain a very lean and ripped body composition throughout the year. And that’s sort of my goal. It, it helps with acting, it helps with fitness modeling and it feels good. Um, I really, really enjoy sort of maintaining this throughout the year. A real popular in the whole youtube and Instagram world is the bulking and cutting. And now it’s time for, my cuts are for the next however many weeks I’m going to be on my fitness pal, tracking my calories and oh look, I can fit chocolate and French fries into my cut. Isn’t that cool, flexible dieting. And it’s like, well, those foods have no place in your diet. You know, if it’s not nutrient dense, you clearly don’t need it. If you’re expending extra energy and you need energy calories, there are better places to get it from. But prioritize nutrient density. I think that’s the most important thing. So I’m not a huge proponent of tracking meticulously all the time. If your goal is body composition and weight loss, because I feel that you, you want to make a lifestyle out of this. So tracking is sort of like a tricycle, which it’s good maybe to start off with that and to get a ballpark of how much am I eating? How much fat am I really eating? How much protein am I eating? Um, you know, and what times am I eating these foods? How many meals a day?
Brad: 23:11 So it’s good to start off with, but eventually you want to take that third wheel off and you want to be able to ride this bike. You want to make this a lifestyle so you don’t want to be able, you know, you don’t want to be going out to dinner and you have to pull out an app to track this and then prick this and then check this and write this down. And it just becomes like, wait a minute, your goal was weight loss, your goal was fat loss. You just wanted to feel better and look better and achieve this goal and now you’ve become a mad scientist on yourself. So I think it’s good to maybe start with some tracking, but eventually you, I think you want to relax with that and develop an intuitive approach.
New Speaker: 23:44 Well you told off the mike that part of the reason that we’re so obsessed with tracking and biofeedback is to guarantee results, which is still going to be no guarantee. There’s so many other variables. And I think the one variable that no one talks about is just the, the, the attrition and burnout from tracking too much and then giving up and soulfully and looking at like, you know, speaking of like the triathlon scene and the Ironman finisher, what’s the five-year attrition rate where people do something that’s so crazy in a poor fit for a hectic lifestyle anyway. And then they’re, they’re off the road entirely. And same with the, probably the Keto scene has just spiked in popularity for however many of the last three years. It’s gone crazy. But there’s probably a lot of people on the sidelines now who are going back to In and Out Burger.
William: 24:30 Hmm. That’s pretty, that’s pretty true.
New Speaker: 24:33 Not just dropping their protein down from one 20 back to 90 but just what a bunch of bullshit. This sucks. And I got a new boyfriend and he doesn’t care about this stuff. So I’m off the rails all the way as a fundamental symptom of over tracking and over obsessing.
William: 24:49 There’s a mental cost to those things. It’s right.
New Speaker: 24:52 It costs cost mental energy that you could spend on more sleep or something, yeah. That, that you could be spending elsewhere. So what I’m trying to show people is, here’s how we reduced that mental costs. These are the guidelines you can follow. And then within that framework, over time, I think you’re going to discover what works best for you. But following this framework, we’ll get you to optimal body composition or my idea of what optimal body composition is. I think everybody has their own definition, but this will get you, you know,
New Speaker: 25:22 Everybody has their own definition.
William: 25:24 Well, yeah, I mean I think some people want to look massive. My definition is very good. Now come on. Um, I, I think that so lean body mass will go up, um, you know, and then your fat will go down and those are, those are great right there. So, um, in terms of longevity, we were just talking about the cancer risk with increasing your protein. Um, you know, one of the best predictors of longevity as, as is often discussed, is basically avoiding that sarcopenia and having enough lean body mass. So, yeah, that’s kind of what I promote and really I’m just trying to push people to make the right choices on a daily basis, instill the habits and then listen to their body from there.
New Speaker: 26:06 So can you put it in practical terms, how we best pair the fasting, the exercise and the meals and then a little more detail on the, uh, on the complete menu of your, of your carnivore phase. I don’t assume you’re doing this permanently, but if you talk about this carnivore shredding, how’s that all fit together optimally? I know it’s probably going to vary between the individuals, but I think there’s some important patterns here in getting that best of both worlds. Reminds me of Ben Greenfield saying where he spends, he banks a lot of hours in a fasted state, does these crazy workouts, a very fit guy. And then he says at nighttime it’s family time and they make all kinds of crazy stuff including a ton of carbs and he’ll just eat whatever. And so making sure that he’s restocked glycogen and all those great things for his ambitious workout schedule, but also getting all that fasting time.
William: 27:00 So if, if I was to set up some guidelines, first thing, this is really, really simple, but just skipping breakfast, extending your overnight fast. Um, one of the easiest ways to just go through fasting. It’s like a typical 16 eight. So you get up in the morning, maybe you have a cup of coffee, you have some unsweet.
New Speaker: 27:17 400 calories of MCT oil in there? Oh No, maybe not.
William: 27:20 No. In my case it’s always black coffee. So I always say just keep the calories, you know, try not to have any calories during that fasting window. Um, one thing I will occasionally do that I, I was influenced to do this by mark was including some Collagen in my coffee in the morning. Um, cause this is usually about the time that I’m going to go work out. And apparently, you know, having that collagen in there before you go work out makes it easier to shuttle to your joints, connective tissue, those areas that don’t have a lot of blood flow. So I will occasionally put that in there.
New Speaker: 27:53 This show is sponsored by primal collagen and get your giant bag of unflavored or vanilla or chocolate. It’s delicious in your coffee. Use Code, carnivores shredding to get 10% off. Hell yeah, that doesn’t exist guys. Um, give you 10% off anyway. If you can just say William’s name in the order notes. There we go. We’ll give you a free bag. Just cause you’re, you’re, you’re pumping it.
William: 28:12 I might order some and say my name in the orange one.
New Speaker: 28:14 Chocolate, vanilla or all three?
William: 28:17 I like the plain cause then you’re drinking coffee. I don’t know. Yeah,
New Speaker: 28:20 You put the plain collagen in and I haven’t, I haven’t done that yet because I don’t have any joint aches and pains. And then, um, you know, I’m looking at my face in the mirror, all these wrinkles. I’m like, shit, maybe I should get some collagen and come on the,
William: 28:34 the idea behind collagen for me is basically to balance out the mythology and content of the amount of meat that I’m eating in the day. So getting the proline, the glycine, the nutrients in the Collagen, I like to include that, just to balance it out because I’m not eating a whole lot of connective tissue. I’m not, you know, knowing on, on, you know, uh, joints and all these kinds of things throughout the day. So I do try to get that in in the morning, but I’m using a hydrolyzed collagen and it dissolves really easily. And I think it’s, it’s definitely under 50 calories when I put it in there. So, you know, I, I sneeze and I walked down the block and I’m fasting again. So it’s, it’s very, very low calorie and I think you can maintain a pretty solid fasting state, especially if you’re going to go workout. So you skip breakfast, you have yourself a cup of coffee. Um, let’s say you wake up at 6:00 AM. So now, um, for me, I usually like to go for a fasted workout. You do not have to do a fasted workout. I think that you should include some form of exercise every day, but you don’t have to do this fasting if it, if that doesn’t fit with your lifestyle. So for me, I like to do a fasting workout in the morning. I’ll go train and then I’ll come back and I’ll fast until about noon. At noon.
William: 29:45 First meal I’ll have my diet is based around beef, eggs and fish. Those are kind of like the staples. There are other things I include in there for nutrient density. So I will include oysters. Um, I’ll include sardines, I’ll include, you know, different types of seafood. We’ll include once a week I’ll do about four ounces of grass fed beef liver. Um, so there are some different things I incorporate in there. The beef is usually grass fed. So I like to stick with grass fed beef. I like to stick with pastured eggs. Wild caught ’em, you know, seafood. Let’s see what else I can add in there besides that. Um, oh, one of the things I’ve been doing recently because I decided to cut dairy out and I seem to do best when I cut dairy out just in terms of body composition, skin, uh, energy, my mental state. So to replace the calcium that I’m not getting from that. And also some of the other nutrients, well a true carnivore would be eating bones and they would be eating, you know, bone marrow and even the bone itself. Um, so what I do is I actually take something called whole bone calcium and whole bone calcium. It’s almost like ground up bone, but it’s so fine. The powder is so fine that you can pretty much just put it in your mouth and down that you get a ton of calcium and you get all of the other nutrients, phosphorus, things like that, Boron that you would be getting from bones without eating a bone, which is great. Um, so that’s one of the things I incorporate. I don’t really take many supplements. I do occasionally take that, uh, wild Norwegian cod liver oil, the lemon flavor, and I think it’s from Carlson’s.
William: 31:19 I do occasionally take that to balance out Omega threes. But if you’re doing this carnivore approach, um, do pay attention to your Omega threes, pay attention to your food sourcing, pay attention to your nutrient spectrum and density. So when they say nose to tail, like you really have to care about that. I think organ meats are important. I think, you know, getting the nutrients from bones are important. Um, if you’re just having grain fed steaks all day, I think that’s very suboptimal and.
Brad: 31:48 crappy eggs too.
William: 31:49 Yeah. And crappy eggs you can always tell if water. Yeah, yeah.
Brad: 31:54 The uh, the kind of, there’s a gray film and it just dull on, on a, on a conventional egg.
William: 32:00 I’m seeing that right now and it’s so sad. But like, yeah, so you want to get these yolks that are really orange because I think that’s indicative of the carotinoids content in the yolk.
Brad: 32:10 Um, and which means the chicken ate grass, worms, bugs, things that are nutrient dense rather than just eating the feed. And you can lay in a lame egg.
William: 32:20 I love when they say vegetarian fed chickens and it’s like, like they ha they want some insects. The, these things aren’t vegetarian. Good thing. Um, so yeah, that’s, I’m trying to think about my whole diet as a whole. Um, so that’s what I would be eating at noon. So I would have maybe some beef, maybe some eggs, maybe some seafood in there, and then I would be incorporating some of the supplements. So I would probably take the calcium and then at night I would pretty much eat the same thing. Like I really don’t vary it a whole lot. I think if people want to incorporate chicken, Turkey, Turkey Bacon, if they want to eat bacon, if they want to add in different animal foods, you can absolutely do that. But some of the most nutrient dense ones are these ruminant meats and then you know, eating the eggs, which really is like an organ meat on its own. It’s a whole animal right there. And then including the seafood. I think that’s a pretty good base to start at. And then you can include Turkey, chicken, you know, things like that. Outside of that,
Brad: 33:20 just bone broth would be a big winner there because you are getting some of that joint material, Collagen Glycosaminoglycans, all the things that you’d get if you had, uh, the, the entire animal or cuts of meat that are on the bone. But yeah, especially if you’re limiting your food options to carnivore.
William: 33:38 Yeah. Yeah. I think bone broth is a great addition. I do think it lacks some of the things that you would get from a bone meal. So I do think it’s good to include some bone meal. Um, but you know, bone broth is fantastic dinner, I’m pretty much eating the same things. Like I said, in both of these meals, by the way, I’m eating to satiety, so I’m prioritizing protein. They’re not extremely fatty, so I’m not adding fat to this. And most of the fat that I’m getting is pretty much from the meat that I’m eating or the eggs that I’m eating. So I just stick with the natural fats that are already in this. I don’t really add fat to it. Right.
Brad: 34:12 So a general carnivore pattern is probably going to land at higher protein, lower fat than let’s say a Keto person who’s putting the butter in their coffee and so forth.
William: 34:23 Yeah. I think that you can go higher fat on carnivore if you’re really focusing on rib-eyes and you’re throwing a pat of butter on top and things like that. But I try to stay away from that. I don’t go for the fattiest cuts I can get, um, I’ll usually try to go for maybe leaner cuts. And this is, I think it’s the best way to just ad libitum eat to satiety and stay lean. If you just stick with leaner cuts and you, uh, you eat to satiety and you get your fats from your eggs, you get some from the meat, you get some from the fatty fish, things like that. Um, that’s a really, really good way to just slowly dwindle that body fat down. Um, so that’s pretty much how I approach dinner. And then before I go to sleep, I’ll have some, uh, magnesium from the calm brand and.
New Speaker: 35:10 Pizza from little Caesars.
William: 35:13 Now the, those days creep in there. Every now and then, Chelsea and I have been known to have our once in awhile cheat days. So we do occasionally do that. It’s not something I recommend. Um, but yeah, so that’s pretty much what a typical day of eating looks like.
Brad: 35:25 That was well said. I was joking cause I saw that on your, uh, interview off your website and you don’t recommend that out of the gate, but to have that healthy way of indulging down the line when you’re, when you’re locked in, who cares? So it, I, I saw you at the ice cream shop. What, what was going on there? I thought you were a carnivore. Yeah. Well yeah. Yeah. I thought you were weren’t a gossiper so just.
William: 35:49 Fire it right back at them.
Brad: 35:50 So what was the last meal or the last, uh, food at, at nighttime? You said.
William: 35:55 the last meal, I’ll probably do a steak. Uh, I might do some eggs with that exist as this,
Brad: 36:00 you have lunch at a mid day, then you have dinner,
William: 36:03 dinner probably at about 8:00 PM.
Brad: 36:04 Oh, okay. And that’s it?
William: 36:05 Yeah, that’s it. Okay. Um, now some days, like today for example, I’ll probably only have one meal, so I’ll probably just have dinner at about 8:00 PM. I’d train this morning at like seven. And it’s like a pretty good fasting window today. And that’s another great thing about this style of eating is you can fast for a while and you’re gonna feel okay. Um, you’re not going to feel amazing. Um, some days you’ll feel amazing, some days you won’t. I find the number one thing that contributes to that is my sleep. So if I don’t sleep much, fasting gets so much harder, it’s very, very difficult to fast when you’re sleep deprived. But if I’m sleeping well, fasting is just a breeze.
Brad: 36:45 So this is now getting some kind of underground popularity. The carnivore diet. Yeah. Massive detractors, uh, in the mainstream because there’s still ripping on a low carb and Keto and not, not seeing the big picture, taking things out of context and, and all that stuff. But what would, how would you address someone who’s reasonably, um, well informed, but is looking askance at this because we know all the wonderful benefits of eating the leafy Greens and the, the fresh fruit and, uh, the things that are missing and, uh, arguably, um, not, you know, unjustified to, to drop leafy greens for any reason.
William: 37:24 MMM, that’s a really great question. Yes. So for the person that’s not just throwing ’em, you know, kind of poor arguments at this, the person that does actually care about. What about the hormetic effect of plants. What about, um, the nutrients that you’re getting from these plants? What about the gut microbiome? Um, all of those different arguments? Well, I guess let’s look at one thing first. So plants do have their defense mechanisms. So plants do have things that are designed to paralyze, you know, insects and pests and things that would attack them. So they have their defense mechanisms, which if your immune system is compromised, I think that you’re more susceptible to experiencing the ill effects of those that salicylates, the Lectins, the oxalates, um, all of those different foods. And I think Dr Gundry has done a great job of talking about that in his book. Um, if you have something like for example, um, one of my parents has vitiligo and in that, uh, compromised immune system state, if you’re consuming a lot of these plant chemicals, phyto chemicals, you can call them. Um, they really might be doing a number on you. So I think that a carnivore diet is a great elimination diet to see how you would do without any of those. And I think that’s where the magic of it comes in, where a lot of people are experiencing amazing results with autoimmune conditions and just things that they’ve had their whole life ,Crohn’s, acne, Eczema, things like that that they thought they could never get rid of.
William: 38:51 And as soon as they eliminate all plant foods and they focus on these very nutrient dense animal foods, their results are amazing. So that’s the first thing I would tell people to consider is that yes, you absolutely can survive without plants. Um, I’ve done it for very long periods of times. Uh, there are plenty of other anecdotes and then there’s obviously these ancestral, uh, communities that did it to some extent. Now, th one of the arguments that people might say is that, well, no, this really hasn’t been done. Um, you know, in terms of ancestral communities, the Intuit were eating some berries and they were eating, you know, they were drinking some tea and there were some carbohydrate in the, the whales and things like that. Not the whales. What were they eating? The seals? Yes, they’re eating whales. Um, maybe if they were lucky and caught some whales, possibly.
William: 39:37 I think that so yes, you would get that glycogen, you’d get that glucose, you would get those sugars when you could and the plants when you could, but there were probably long periods of the year where you didn’t have access to those. So you would basically be existing in this carnivorous state and you’d be thriving. Um, they obviously had pretty great health from what, uh, Ville Helmer Stefansson said. So I think that there are cases where people have done pretty well on this. And then the next thing I would say is if you feel that you do benefit from vegetables, um, from plants, from fiber, things like that, add those in slowly and just see how you do. You know, there’s no reason to be dogmatic about it. Ultimately you need to know your goal. So rather than jumping on the carnivore bandwagon and you know, you want to join a community and it’s like, oh, sweet, I’m a carnivore to let me change my Instagram handle.
William: 40:31 Um, just think about what’s my goal. So as my goal, body composition, okay, let me do this carnivore diet the way it’s laid out, and let me follow this and see if I reach my goal. Okay. I’ve reached my goal. Now I want to add in these certain plant foods, add those back in and see if you’re still at your goal. So like we, we talked at, we talked about this extensively on the previous podcast, but focusing on your goal will help you make the right choices for your situation. If you’re joining carnivores or just because you’re so convinced by the amount of information and the anecdotes and all of those kinds of things. I think you’re doing it for the wrong reason. Um, do it for yourself basically.
Brad: 41:09 Well, it seems like if there’s still some frustration with excess body fat, you’re relatively healthy specimen. I know there’s some concern about doing a dietary transformation if you’re not in good health. Chris Kelly and Dr Tommy Wood of Nourish, Balance, Thrive talked about this all the time. Don’t try to lose weight until you’re metabolically healthy or yeah, tank your thyroid and your adrenals and all these horrible stories we hear from people. And then they’ll go trash. Uh, a low carb eating pattern in general cause it didn’t work for them and made them tired. It’s because they started with an leaky gut syndrome. So let’s say you have a healthy, healthy person who’s exercising, sleeping, trying their best to get through life. Why not? Why not make an experimental phase and see if you can get that body fat off with something, something limiting like a carnivore diet. I mean, uh, same for Vegan. People who go Vegan have an incredible explosion in health, energy, even weight loss because they’ve limited their previous dietary options and thereby are getting all these benefits like turning down the insulin dial that’s been on overdose their whole life and so forth.
William: 42:12 I think. So I was Vegan for almost four years and when I started at like I did this thing by the book, I, I experimented with a lot of different forms of it by. I eventually settled on a whole foods plant based. I was eating, you know, uh, grains, beans, nuts, seeds, legumes, leafy Greens, cruciferous veggies. I was including everything, getting my DHA in the B12. Um, all of the things that you need to supplement. And when I started with this, I felt amazing for maybe about six months, I felt pretty good. And then slowly over time I got worse and worse and worse. And basically the most, the worst symptom that I was experiencing besides huge bloating and just gas and just digestive discomfort.
Brad: 43:00 That’s normal. William.
William: 43:01 Oh, I should’ve known. I, I, I’ve actually heard that argument coming up lately. Like, you know, you should just get used to farting more. And I was like, Eh, I dunno. Um, none of us are going to get used to it. But, so basically I was experiencing severe hunger. That was the worst part of it. Like I would eat until my stomach was distended and I was so full and I was still hungry and I could continue eating. And I was thinking, this isn’t normal. I can’t eat any sort of normal portions. I can easily down like about 4,000 calories here and I’m still hungry but I’m bloated and I’m uncomfortable. So there were clearly some nutrients that my body was not getting that it needed. So I would compensate by over-consuming calories. I think when you focus on nutrient density, you don’t have to consume as many energy calories because your body is satisfying that nutrient requirement and the protein requirement that it has. So then you can kind of economize a bit more and you can get less energy calories cause you’re not scavenging all of these foods just to get what you need. So that was kind of the experience I had with it.
William: 44:07 Um, you were mentioning something else about people trying these different diets. Oh, from, from basically an unhealthy state. So if you’re coming from a, a background of deprivation, or if you already have existing health conditions or you’re coming from an unhealthy diet, you’re almost malnourished in a way, you probably have some deficiencies in certain nutrients. So now if you go onto this restrictive sort of fat loss diet, even if it’s the carnivore diet, if you’re really trying to restrict yourself and you’re like, I’m going to fast like hell and I’m going to train like hell and do all these things, you might start to exacerbate, you know, those underlying conditions that came from your past two years of eating and living. So what they always recommend with carnivore is basically, you know, start out and just eat and heal your body. Um, and then over time you can focus on fat loss, right?
Brad: 44:58 Don’t worry about the caloric deficits. So eat the eggs and the fish and the, the beef that you need to satiety and, um, I, I’ve heard some voices, some experts talking about that may be fasting is too stressful for certain individuals. So I guess you could, um, you know, do your carnivore thing as needed, uh, in the morning, noon and night or whatever. But boy, that appetite regulating effect kicks in pretty quickly, whereby it’s no trouble the fast because you haven’t spiked insulin, uh, all day long, the previous day and day before that.
William: 45:31 Eating to satiety and listening to your body while you’re fasting are so important. You can try to fight yourself with this and you can undereat and you can try to tell yourself, no, I’m good. I’m going to go drink two glasses of water after this meal that’s working against your goals. You can try to push yourself on a fast and you’re extremely low energy and you’re light-headed and you’re starving and you really want to eat, but you’re like, no, this is good for me. If you feel like crap, it’s probably not good for you. You might need to rest more. You might need the eat a healthy meal. Your body has some legitimate needs at that moment. And I think that, you know, you have to meet those. So yeah, it’s, it’s something that, that’s why I really, really preach and intuitive approach. It’s something that you do need to listen to your body. If you have to eat, you have to eat. If you need arrest, unit arrest.
Brad: 46:16 So people, this is Power Ranger talking, where are you going to fit in that suit, man? So your stakes are high. I mean, no kidding stakes. I mean the steak level is high. I’m like, oh, but you know, there’s same, same with an athlete who has to be at performance weight or they lose their financial bonus that they don’t, they miss the starting lineup, they don’t get their contract. And so even with your, uh, you know, extreme attention to diet, peak performance and maintaining healthy body composition, you’re still advocating for an intuitive approach. It, we have people who are in a recreational mode with no stakes whatsoever and they’re overdoing the self quantification and the suffering and the struggling. So making that point about fasting. Yeah, it should, it should never feel like a struggle. I think all fasts should be natural in, in their, in their nature. So, you know, when we hear our stomach growling, like Dr Cate Shanahan taught me the growling of your stomach is the hormone grillin taking effect and causing intense sensations of hunger. And I think from a psychological perspective, for sure, when you ignore that and you fight through it and battle through it, you will have a rebound effect at some point.
William: 47:25 Yeah, very, very true. There is a strong rebound whenever you do any sort of deprive and hold yourself back over time. Um, there’s this great saying from Martin Berkhan, he says, sooner or later hunger comes to collect and that’s the truth. It does. And you will start to put weight on. So if you start a carnivore diet or a ketogenic diet or any style of dieting where you’re trying to eat very healthy and you start to gain weight, you might’ve been underweight to begin with or your body might, you know, just be re compensating and trying to get what it needed for so long. So that’s the last thing people want to hear when they’re, you know, trying to lose fat. But it’s kind of like you have to be patient. And don’t go for the instant gratification. Just know, okay, I’ll just follow this plan over time and eventually the results will come. But it comes from a result of just consistently following it. You can keep trying to push yourself, but you’ll just push yourself into a wall and you won’t get where you want to go.
Brad: 48:21 Well the results will come so easily to it’s, it’s a little frustrating to see how much pain and suffering is going on out there and if we just did the hard work to build the metabolic machinery, as Mark Sisson says to be good at burning fat, then I imagine like you, you’re just putting your hand on a dial and saying I’m going to get down from 6% to 3.8 cause I got some photo shoots coming up and then I’ll, I’ll take a vacation and allow things to get back to whatever baseline. But we can act like the the, the, the Hollywood star who’s, who’s building their physique into the role, but by demand that that’s exactly why I get so excited about this.
William: 48:58 So it’s like it is easier than people think. Once you have the right strategy and approach and you have some practice doing it and you’ve built the habits, it’s easier than you think. For me, like previously, if I wanted to get down to 5% body fat,
Brad: 49:13 it would’ve been hell as aVegan.
William: 49:14 You know, as a, as a Vegan it was nearly impossible but it would’ve been hell. So it’s caloric restriction. Vegans at 5% body fat or under,
Brad: 49:22 please send your photos to the email, get over yourself podcast@gmail.com now.
William: 49:25 and prove me wrong. Um, but it’s really, really difficult to do that without some form of severe restriction in some way and you feel pretty crappy the whole time. And that’s something that a lot of diet gurus and fitness and Instagram gurus tell you. Well, when you’re cutting, you know you are gonna kind of feel hungry and you are going to kind of feel like crap. But the thing is like nowadays when I tell people I feel so good, I have so much energy, I eat to satiety, I feel great and I can bring my body fat down to 5% if I want to. And it, it’ll take about five days and people are like, no, no, no, no.
Brad: 50:01 That guy’s full of Baloney. He’s suffering. I know. And he must be that.
William: 50:05 That’s what a lot of people think. And it’s crazy. Like Chelsea has seen this and that I guess I have no other eye witnesses besides Chelsea, but it’s like, um, I’m still nice to her. I swear, fasted. It’s like, it’s very, very possible to do. Um, but you want to be prioritizing nutrient density, work with your body, incorporate intermittent fasting and yeah, just follow that approach over time. Don’t train yourself to a pulp and it’ll happen when you, when you work against your body and you force it, that’s when bad things happen.
Brad: 50:37 Oh, speaking of the training, I had a couple of questions like on those resistance workouts that you described where you’re in the, in between weight and not the heavyweight, a little higher reps, what’s the total duration of the workout?
William: 50:50 Usually it’s around 45 minutes. So yeah, usually it’s just a 45 minute workout. Um, I follow a sort of a very typical bodybuilding split where I’ll do shoulders and back. One day I’ll do chest and arms the next day and then I’ll have a leg day as well. So yeah, it’s basically doing those, um, in the program I basically outline an entire workout for you to do and then it alternates ’em over the weeks. But what I do currently is I literally go in, I know it’s just an arm day and I just think what do I want to do? So I’ll, I’ll come up with two exercises, I’ll super set a chest exercise in arm exercise and I’ll say I’m going to do that for five sets.
William: 51:29 And then within that, that’s where the intensity comes in. So I don’t have anything written out, so I’m going to push myself as hard as I can with those. So I’ll either be doing more weight or more reps and I’ll keep it as intense as I possibly can, bring the rest periods down. There’s a number of ways to increase intensity, but to me, that’s what makes it fun. And that’s what turns it into a game. If I had a written, you know, workout, then I could be, um, pretty much overdoing it or I could be underdoing it. So that’s why I like to sort of have that intuitive approach nowadays and that’s, that’s really what I’m all about. I’m just having fun with it and that’s where the results have came from me.
Brad: 52:07 and the [inaudible] to cardio. How’s that? Uh, in heart rate terms?
William: 52:12 So for me, usually I try to stay in the one fifties, I’m 23 and you know, 180 minus that. So I usually stay in the one fifties and I’ve been doing it for a good while now where I think I’ve built up my zone too. So yeah, I usually say.
Brad: 52:24 very comfortable.
William: 52:25 Yeah, it’s, it’s very, very comfortable. It’s, it’s a great time to do other things and get your mind off the time. Um, that’s usually when I’m listening to audio books or podcasts or things like that.
Brad: 52:36 So tell me about this book. When’s it coming out? Uh, with, with Neiman and, uh, what’s the, uh, the overview there?
William: 52:43 Our goal. So we don’t have this set in stone yet, but our goal is to get it out early next year. Um, and yeah, so this book is really gonna cover the fasting, the diet and the exercise. And we’re gonna make this as simple as possible for everyone. The simpler the better. But I want this to be so that my mom or my dad could pick this book up and say, Oh, that’s easy. Okay, I’ll just drink coffee for breakfast. I’ll do this 15 minute body weight calisthenics workout and I’ll eat these foods. Um, and then over time I’m going to lose weight. I’m going to improve all of my biomarkers, my health is going to get better and this doesn’t take a massive investment. And that was the main thing. We just feel like people think that it takes such a huge investment of time. You need to get the gym membership and then you need to be in there for two hours and you need to be eating this very specific diet. Um, but it’s a lot simpler than that. You install the right habits and then you do them over time. I encourage doing these daily, um, and then the weight loss and these things will come. So that’s pretty much what we’re working on right now. But we, yeah, we don’t have a release date set yet.
Brad: 53:49 So for now we can go to carnivore shredding.com and get on this, get on this program with a lot of guidance from you.
William: 53:55 Yes, indeed. So the carnivores shredding program.com and on there is the eight week carnivore fat loss plan, which is my approach to losing fat on the Carnivore Diet. You get eight weeks worth of workouts, exactly how to structure your meals, what foods to eat, what supplements you should be considering on this, how to make sure that you’re not experiencing nutrient deficiencies. Um, all of those sort of things. And then I also, uh, recently started doing consults so you can get a like a 30 minute consult on there where you tell me about your life and your marriage.
Brad: 54:27 You want to make it in Hollywood? How do I do it?
William: 54:29 Exactly? So I’ll, I’ll tell you exactly how to do that.
Brad: 54:33 Now. That’s the seriously, you’re doing sort of a, um, a coaching role where you’re getting big picture rather than just focusing on the workouts and they know it.
William: 54:40 It’s, it’s diet and nutrition. Yeah, it’s fitness. I’m, I’m not a life coach now. After that first 30 minutes, then we’ll, we’ll, we’ll talk further if it’s, if it’s not working out. Yeah, exactly.
Brad: 54:49 All right. Consults a full program. You gotta go in on. Man. It was a pleasure to talk to you. Thank you. Appreciate your thoughtful approach. I think that’s w that’s where we’re, hopefully we’re headed in this sensible direction where intuition is the key and being responsible, not, not going crazy, but trying out some new things. In your case, it’s working well, making it a lifestyle. Absolutely. William Shewfelt thank you for being here.
William: 55:13 Thanks for having me.
Brad: 55:18 Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback@getoveryourselfpodcastatgmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars and it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to. Thanks for doing it.
