In this highlight show, we hear some stand-out quotes from past guests like Dr. Phil Maffetone (godfather of endurance training and the MAF heart rate training model), Brock Armstrong, Deirdre Fitzpatrick, William Shewfelt, and a few others topics like how to effectively change your mindset, applying cognitive behavioral therapy to pursuing practical goals, and the societal prescriptions that don’t really fit anyone.

You’ll find out what it takes to train at an elite level and what are just popular misconceptions about training, what soreness does to our muscles and how long it takes for our muscles to recover, the meaning of “the window of weakness,” how to use a methodical approach to win the body of your dreams and why it’s actually easier than it seems, and more!

TIMESTAMPS:

Brock Armstrong is an expert on diet, nutrition, exercise, and working out but also added cognitive behavioral therapy to his work with clients. Develop a curiosity and be willing to experiment with yourself.  [00:36]

Exercising in and of itself is a very modern construct. [03:30]

If you are watching a video on a technique you are learning, what should you be looking for? Why does Brad want to write books? Brock is explaining cognitive therapy. [05:42]

Dr. Maffetone says the stress thing is really what it is all about. The common denominator of the causes of death from chronic diseases has to do with being overfat. [11:25]

There are some misconceptions about what is required to train and perform at the elite level. [17:07]

That period of time, that 24- to 72-hour period after you do strength training is a window of weakness. [20:30]

Deirdre Fitzpatrick, TV news anchor, talks about balancing her demanding career with family life as well as her accomplishments in endurance sports. [22:51]

William Shewfelt talks about using a methodical approach to carve out the body you want. [28:56]

William’s resistance workouts are in between weight, not heavy weight, and last about 45 minutes. [33:14]

Dave Scott and Mark Allen join Brad and reveal personal thoughts and experiences we’ve not known about. [35:13]

Molly Downey explains the relationship between sleep and glucose. It is very common to see elevated glucose levels overnight.  [42:09]

Sara Banta discovered that many of the so-called healthy foods her child was eating caused trouble. Of the family of five, she found each had a different profile of foods that they could eat. [49:27]

Dr. Robert Lustig is one of the world’s pre-eminent anti-sugar crusaders. He talks about the eight pathologies that drive all chronic diseases. One thing that makes all eight go south is processed food. [56:51]

Is there a potential to live to 110? The problem is, we eat crap! The food industry has us in its clutches. [01:03:30]

QUOTES:

• “Feed the gut and protect the liver.” (Lustig)
• “If you simply eliminate processed foods, you cannot get fat or diseased type two diabetes”. (Lustig)

LINKS:

• Brad Kearns.com
• Brad’s Shopping page
• Second Wind Fitness podcast
• The Hacking of the American Mind
• Dr. Phil Maffetone
• Dying to Ask Podcast
• William Shewfelt
• Nutrisense
• Podcast with Sara Banta
• Dr. Robert Lustig
• Brad’s Podcast with Dr. Lustig
• The Hacking of the American Mind
• Metabolical

LISTEN: 

We appreciate all feedback, and questions for Q&A shows, emailed to podcast@bradventures.com. If you have a moment, please share an episode you like with a quick text message, or leave a review on your podcast app. Thank you!

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B.Rad Podcast

Brad (00:00:00):
Welcome to another highlight show of wonderful B.rad podcast guest interviews. I hope you are enjoying this series. Please send us some feedback podcast@bradventures.com. It’s nice to reminisce and reflect on all the many great published shows, and hopefully these highlight shows will stand alone with great chosen excerpts, but also inspire you to go back and listen to the complete interview as I tee up these brief clips from various guests.

Brad (00:00:36):
And we start wiith my man Brock Armstrong. I’ve known him for a long time, the Get Fit guy up in the Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada area. He’s been deeply immersed in the ancestral house scene for a long time and has great audio and video expertise. So he’s been the engineer behind many of the popular podcasts. So he has lived and breathed so much content, and it’s really great to see him bust out on his own as the host of the Second Wind Fitness podcast. So I hope you can go and give his show a listen, does some nice short format practical tips for living healthy, active, energetic life. Same with his content on YouTube. And this is a little discussion about a new wrinkle that he’s brought into his coaching offering. Of course, an expert on diet, nutrition, exercise, working out. But he also recently has been certified in cognitive behavior therapy and with his weigh less program, weigh less get it, he has a year-long weight loss program that you join up, you get support, all the resources. It’s a really great thing. You can learn more about it on his website, but he’s talking about how our mindset, our behavior patterns, and the use of cognitive behavior therapy to get to the bottom of things and then help you apply that to your pursuit of practical goals and strategies for health and fitness. Brock Armstrong.

Brock (00:02:08):
Well, and also being, uh, a lot of this comes down to curiosity and being willing to experiment on yourself. So if you, if you can maintain a level of curiosity, not only can you look at your own beliefs and, and question them and, and find some clarity with that, but being willing to try something and fail, try something and be like, okay, well, no, I didn’t really like that. What, let me, let’s try something else. We tend to be, and this is part of that all or nothing thinking, I think, is we’re afraid to do things wrong, to the point where we don’t do anything. And being able to actually accept the fact that, well, you know what, I’m gonna, I’m gonna try Zumba. Let’s see, like maybe I’ll love it. Maybe I’ll hate it, but I’m gonna give it a try. Or I’m gonna try training for a triathlon, or, or I’m gonna try gardening for the first time. There’s the sense of curiosity and, and the playfulness that can come from that can be so much more fulfilling. We can, we can find the things that actually align with our greater goals and with our, with our greater vision of ourselves if we’re just willing to, to give things a try instead of being like, okay, I need to get fit. So I got a gym membership. Like, there’s a lot of societal prescriptions that hardly fit anybody <laugh>.

Brock (00:03:30):
It’s not only that they don’t fit like these people that I’m coaching it, it doesn’t really fit anybody. There’s a certain amount of the population that can force themselves into that mold and eventually find some pleasure from, from it. But at our, our mutual friend Daryl Edwards, the, the Fitness Explorer, he always says like, people weren’t meant to exercise. Like there’s, there’s nothing about us that like exercising is a very, very modern construct. And so we’re not predisposed to do that. We are predisposed to enjoy moving our bodies and, and challenge ourselves and, and, um, and do all the wonderful things that our bodies are, are capable of. But exercising in and of itself is a very modern construct, and we’re not genetically defined to, to do that sort of thing. So I, keeping that in mind and just looking for ways to actually, like Katie Bowman, our, our friend , Katie Bowman is, is the great advocate of that. Just finding ways to do stuff in the garden that uses your body in unique ways. She just released a, a video about walking downhill and how to walk downhill, and it blew my mind, <laugh>, like, I haven’t been using my hips walking downhill. What the heck? That’s amazing. And we can find much more pleasure if we have that curiosity and, and lose the fear of failure. Hmm. Well, sure. But in that particular situation, I don’t know if this is hypothetical situation or not for, for Brad, getting

Brad (00:05:05):
Distracted by watching Oh, video guides, high jump videos. Yeah. Completely hypothetical. Yeah.

Brock (00:05:09):
I would say, well, in which situation? Like, what are you doing right before you, you start watching those high-jumping videos? Like, what are you, what’s the activity if you’re engaged

Brad (00:05:19):
Now? Oh, Brad’s getting processed on his own show. Oh,

Brock (00:05:22):
Yay. It’s, it’s no better way to do an example

Brad (00:05:24):
That is correct. People, I am, I am game. Here we go. Right. So is it, um, you know, lack of taking appropriate breaks at opportune times every 20 minutes to keep my cognitive function sharp and keep my body energized.

Brock (00:05:42):
Let’s do more, more, more high level, more specifically, like what are you work, what should you be working on when you’re watching the high-jump videos?

Brad (00:05:48):
Oh, excellent question. Yeah. You know what I’m gonna say? It’s the most cognitively challenging tasks are the ones that I like to jump out of with, you know, abandoned. So it’s like writing a book is probably the hardest thing that I do. Mm-hmm. I can certainly, fire off emails no problem. While the video’s running, you know, on the other side. I mean, so that’s my answer is that when it, when the going gets tough, Brad goes to YouTube.

Brock (00:06:18):
Okay. So why do you want to be doing those cognitively difficult tasks like writing a book? Like what is your motivation to write the book?

Brad (00:06:25):
Well, yeah, so the, the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment and all those wonderful things flow from, uh, putting yourself into challenging situations and persevering, and that’s the process of meaning, uh, living a, a rich and meaningful life. And, um, Dr. Lustiig talks about this in his book, Hacking of the American Mind. You know, we have the serotonin receptors, which, uh, are happiness, contentment, fulfillment, all these great things that, that give us a rich and meaningful life. And then we have the dopamine receptors, which are at war with the serotonin receptors. We routinely flood the dopamine receptors with all manner of indulgence and, uh, instant gratification in modern life to the extent that we crowd out our ability to persevere through daunting challenges and struggle over a manuscript. When, why, why, why would I do that when I have a chance to see, um, Tim Barry and Bashim sharing the gold medal in one of the greatest moments in Olympic history?

Brock (00:07:26):
But why do you think it’s important to write this book?

Brad (00:07:31):
I guess, you know, there’s that wonderful part of me that has high values and ideals and wants to make a difference and make a contribution to the world instead of just being a diante who, uh, ha has, you know, a, a high competency with watching YouTube videos.

Brock (00:07:48):
But can you see, like, we could keep going like this. I don’t think we’ve hit the, the crux yet, but we call it the five whys. Like, this is just one of the, the exercises that you can do.

Brad (00:07:59):
How many, what did I, what am I at for? Are you gonna gimme two more?

Brock (00:08:02):
Three and the Well, we could, but I think I don’t, we can get into some really personal stuff when we get into, into those, and that is the point of it being five, because usually the first two or three why’ss are very like, well, like, okay, why do you want to lose weight as a, a really common one? Like, I’m having a lot of trouble, I’m eating snacks. And like, oh, well, why do you, why don’t you want to eat snacks? Well, because I’m trying to lose weight. Okay, well, why do you wanna lose weight? Well, because I’ll, I’ll look better. Why, why is looking better important to you? Well, because it’ll help my self-esteem and, and stuff. Well, why is that important to you? What’s, what’s important about your self-esteem? Well, when I was a kid, I was ridiculed, and then it’s, it gets very personal and gets really specific to the point where then we can say, okay, so in those moments when you are about to, to look at a high jump video, you know what’s going on, you know, what the, what the issue is, or what the root of the behavior that you’re about to elicit is.

Brock (00:09:04):
And often that can be enough to, to shut it down or we get to the bottom of it, and you don’t know why. You don’t know why you’re writing that book. And so being distracted is super duper easy because you don’t really care at your root. The book is, is not important enough to you. Watching high jump videos is much more engaging and exciting. I’m sure you can get into all the dopamine and serotonin and all that kind of stuff, but that’s completely irrelevant. If your drive to do something is true and sustainable and stuff, then you won’t experience those kinds of things, or you can at least defeat them a little bit easier. But often we get to the bottom of things and realize, well, you actually don’t wanna lose weight. You wanna heal a relationship with a parent, or you want you, you want to do something different that has manifested a belief that society has somehow said is going to fill that void instead of actually, uh, addressing what the real problem is. So sometimes we write books because we wanna feel validated, not because we really think that our <laugh> our message is so vastly wonderful and amazing that I need to share it with the world. And so it’s a lot easier to, to get distracted or to engage in, in sort of coping behaviors or, or numbing behaviors, who instead of actually doing the work,

Brad (00:10:25):
Dr. Phil Maffetone, the godfather of endurance training and the MAF heart rate training, which has now been, uh, widely, uh, integrated into the, the, the mainstream endurance scene. But I met Maffetone midway through my triathlon career when I was struggling from the tremendous training load and trying to adapt, but getting tired and burnt out. And his work was really transformational, not only for me, but, uh, several of the leading athletes in the sport kind of turned the corner. And we all started to realize the stress impact of training and how important it is to balance stress and rest. And also to appreciate the distinction between health and fitness. And when you’re pursuing these extreme fitness goals at the elite level of competition and trying to shave off 30 seconds or one minute from your time in a two hour race, you oftentimes have to sacrifice or, or in inevitably sacrifice your health in the process.

Brad (00:11:25):
So the voice of reason that is Dr. Matffeone was in our ears helping us understand how when you slow down and minimize the stress of your overall training load, you can get faster and faster without breaking down, falling apart and having those interruptions. So let’s listen to Dr. Phil Maffetone.

Phil (00:11:44):
I’m doing it because I, I wanna reduce stress. And, and that’s one of the things that, um, anyone who understands stress, which we define as as being physical, biochemical, and mental emotional in nature does they recommend reducing stress. And there are a lot of stresses people can eliminate or reduce. And then what happens when you do that, the body is now healthier and more fit, and now you’re able to cope. You’re able to adapt to all the other stresses, which we may not be able to change. So yeah, I do it for selfish reasons. At the same time, I wanna be able to explain how somebody can, can do those things. And, it’s, it, it’s really, you know, the stress, the stress thing is really what it’s all about. Uh, if, if we, if we, you know, I’m, I’m into, I’m into the big picture, uh, sometimes we have to whittle down and say, well, here’s, you know, here’s the mechanism that’s going on in the knee joint when you get injured.

Phil (00:12:59):
But there’s a big picture. And that’s a, that’s a really nice place to start because when you see the big picture, you see what are the things that I wanna devote time and energy on to help myself to help become more healthy and become a you know, a more fit person, improve my natural human performance, whatever that may be. And stress, stress would be in a general, uh, in a general sense, stress would be the only thing we, we need to worry about by definition, because, um, all the physical things that you and I have talked about over the years in terms of training, uh, how do we run a better marathon, et cetera, et cetera. All the things we’ve talked about regarding food and, uh, nutrition and all the, the bad, um, oils and hydrogenated fat, and well, now they call ’em trans fats, synthetic vitamins, all, you know, all this.

Phil (00:14:06):
We can all throw that into this thing called stress because there are physical stresses that we need to deal with. There are biochemical stresses, which is where nutrition is and food. And there are mental emotional stresses, which is, um, our, our education or our miseducation. Pain is there too. Pain is something that is an emotion. And, and so when we put a lot together, we say, well, now I’m really confused. Now I’m overwhelmed because, um, if I make a list of all my stresses, which, which I recommend people do, um, I, it, it’s unlimited. I mean, I’ve got, you know, I’m up to 57 physical stresses I’m under. I’ve got, you know, 107, uh, biochemical stresses, and I’ve got all these mental emotional stresses, many of which I really can’t even define, but I know there. So what do I do? It’s, it’s, and everybody’s waiting for the answer, <laugh>, I don’t know the answer because it’s individual, it’s very personal.

Phil (00:15:14):
I can give you some idea from a physiological standpoint. W when we look at things like, well, we, we, we, we brought this up before, you know. What are the causes of chronic illness? You know, we don’t, we don’t, we’re no longer dying of infectious diseases. We’re dying of chronic illness. Most people, um, today die of chronic disease. And virtually all those diseases are preventable. Everybody knows that. Scientists know that. Clinicians know that, um, you look, look up on the CDC website, you know, these are preventable conditions, which means they don’t have to happen. And so, um, what do they have in common? What do all these chronic diseases, cancer, you know, all the cardiovascular diseases, heart attack, stroke, et cetera, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, you know, those are the top, uh, causes of death in the western world.

Phil (00:16:24):
What are the, is there some common denominator there? You know, everyone makes it seem like, well, you know, you’re, you, you’ve got cardiovascular disease here, and then you’ve got cancer over there. And so if you have, uh, both of these, you go to one doctor for one and the other doctor for another in, in end stage situations, that, that makes perfect sense. And having a specialist is really wonderful. However, why are we all waiting around to go to a specialist when we could be more proactive? Um, but what is the, you know, what is the common denominator? It, it has to do with being overfat.

Brad (00:17:07):
Okay. The next clip is more from Dr. Phil Maffeone, since we did back-to-back shows, we tend to talk for a long time, and I spill it up into two bite-sized shows. But boy, we covered so much. And now we cover with fascination the great marathon runner Eluid Kipchoge, who broke two hours in the marathon, famously broke two hours in the marathon. And the concept of an athlete being able to run four minute and 32 second per mile for 26 miles in a row is really mind blowing for anyone who appreciates how fast that is. It’s virtually a sprint for almost all humans, unless the, unless you’re a world class runner and he can carry on for 26 miles. And Dr. Phil talks about some of the misconceptions and what is required to train and perform at that level, uh, the importance of power and explosiveness, even as applied to, uh, an extreme endurance event like marathon, because he’s going so fast. And also, again, hitting those important points about the importance of performing and recovering, not just working hard and thinking that’s gonna get you to, uh, the finish line. So more from Maffetone, here we go.

Phil (00:18:16):
You know, what happens to say, a runner as they age, what happens to a runner? Well, Kipchoge, okay, um, when he was running 5,000 meter and winning, um, I bet his jump height was, was close to, to 25, 30 inches.

Brad (00:18:43):
That’s so funny, cuz the, the marathon has long been the dumping ground for the endurance athletes that didn’t have enough speed to be competitive at five and 10 K. And now we’re looking at the guy who’s gonna shatter the records and win the gold medals. It has this explosive power in his body as well as the ability to handle the endurance regimen, which probably, uh, you know, Wayde van Niekerk probably couldn’t do that well as a marathon or the guy who just broke the, the world record and the 400 meter. So at some point you’re gonna sacrifice. Your explosiveness is gonna be difficult to train into a marathon person, but

Phil (00:19:18):
That’s true. Yeah, that’s true. But when I, when I saw Kipchoge’s 5K history, I knew he was potentially a great marathoner in the making. If he could just hold on to enough of that strength that, that is lower body strength. And so, um, uh, so fast forward to the gym, your workout, your muscle soreness that you develop. When we get sore, the muscle gets weaker. And, you know, now we, we have to look at tradition. What does tradition dictate in, in weightlifting circles, in strength training circles Tradition dictates that we work out hard, we fatigue the muscle, which means we get sore. And then the muscle recovers and it takes 24 hours, actually it takes 72 hours in many cases to recover. And, I wrote a, an article called The Weakness Window.

Phil (00:20:30):
That period of time, that 24 to 72 hour period after you do strength training is a window of weakness. Your muscles are weak because you worked out to the point of fatigue and the muscles got sore. And that soreness, now, that whole physiology has to be adapted to, and that’s what recovery is all about. And so during that period, what are you gonna do physically? Whatever you do physically, if you’re gonna play golf, or if you’re gonna go for a run, you’re vulnerable to get injured because your muscles are weak, cuz you, you did this workout that caused them to weaken. So the answer to the problem is how can we build strength without getting weak muscles, these windows of weakness twice a week? You know, I mean, that, that’s a problem. It’s also a problem because that approach to strength training also builds muscle bulk. And the last thing you want as an endurance runner is more muscle bulk because you’re, you’re running economy will get trashed. You were talking about ounces before in shoes. You know, you put on a pound or two of muscle mass, which is not difficult to do in a strength training program. What is that gonna do to your 10 k your, your marathon time? It’s gonna, it’s gonna trash it,

Brad (00:22:02):
Right? Some people’s

Phil (00:22:03):
Some people are overfat are running sore because they’re in addition to the excess body fat and all the problems that that creates, there’s a additional weight there as well.

Brad (00:22:12):
I mean, some people wanna put on bulk and put on size and have different goals or aesthetic goals or what have you. But I think the concern there is, this continued soreness it’s not pleasant. It’s not enjoyable. Uh, and we also have this muscle weakness. So are there some modifications? I know people talk about doing the positive aspect of the lift only, where you lift the weight up and then drop it so you’re not getting those eccentric contractions that lead to muscle soreness.

Phil (00:22:46):
No, I, I think, I think first you have to have some clear goals. What, what do you wanna do?

Brad (00:22:51):
Next up. I would love to introduce you to the powerhouse queen of the Sacramento news scene. It is Deirdre Fitzpatrick, and she has been an anchor feature reporter on KCRA three Sacramento for over 20 years, cranking out every single day. I believe her wake up time is 3:00 AM And she talks about her routine and balancing her challenging, demanding career with family life and her child, and also, uh, her tremendous enthusiasm and accomplishments in the endurance sports scene. And we’re talking a few years ago now, but in 2022, she completed both the Sacramento Ironman and then soon after, weeks later, uh, the annual California International Marathon in Sacramento. And weaving in her reporting with all these ambitions that she does, she’s covered, uh, many, many Olympics. She had a binge of covering winter and summer. Winter and summer again. They happen every two years that’s gone for quite a long time all the way up to Covid, I think, and dating back. So she’s, she’s a veteran of Olympic coverage and you’re gonna hear all kinds of fun inspirational things from her. She started her own podcast called Dying to Ask. So I recommend that highly where she brings in guests. I’ve been a former guest on the show and peppers you with questions from true news reporter angle. So here we go with Deirdre Fitzpatrick of Sacramento, hostess of the Dying to Ask podcast.

Deirdre (00:24:26):
You know, I love the idea of running through your community. I love that. I know every inch of the course I love, I’m on the board that helps put it together. So I’m really proud of what we do with it. It’s, uh, we’re not, it’s incredible race. Yeah, yeah. And we generate a lot of money for youth fitness programs, which I’m very passionate about. I know you are too. Um, and for other, like, running and fitness related causes in the community. So yeah, I’ve done that. I’ve done a bunch of Half Ironmen and then I’ve done, I’ve gone to three Ironman competitions and I’ve finished two. I got kicked out of one of ’em, but that’s

Brad (00:24:59):
Oh,

Deirdre (00:24:59):
Yeah.

Brad (00:25:00):
Um, for profanity or

Deirdre (00:25:02):
No, just for not

Brad (00:25:03):
Being failed doping test. One

Deirdre (00:25:04):
Not being good enough, I guess.

Brad (00:25:06):
<laugh> <laugh> Finished two Ironmans on a felt bicycle just pedaling away. Fantastic. Wow. And so does that give you some type of balance to the extreme intellectual challenge of your career?

Deirdre (00:25:18):
I guess? Yeah. I mean, I think probably it’s, it’s a stress relief. I love the idea of, um, being kind of comfortably uncomfortable. I like the sufferfest. I like that feeling of pushing yourself and knowing that you still have something left to keep going. I think when other things in your life get hard, you can remember and, and think, oh, I remember how crappy I felt that day. I got through it, so I’ll get through this. And so I, I think I get a lot of balance out of it. But I think for me, probably the biggest thing is it’s a reset after a stressful day, if I come outta here and my, my brain is about to explode from being in a newsroom all day long, which is just like a high sensory overload most of the time. I go out and I run and I sweat and it’s gone. And to me it’s that mental boost, re reset, start the rest of the day, get into family life after that.

Brad (00:26:06):
But the battery power to me is a question like, how can you do it all? <laugh>, it’s th there’s is there a another component of pure stress relief where you sit in the garden for half an hour and Sure. Uh, knit or hit the sauna or

Deirdre (00:26:22):
Something? I read, I’m a big reader

Brad (00:26:24):
Of, of reading for non-work-related reasons. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah. Fiction or something.

Deirdre (00:26:30):
Fiction. Really? Fiction. Uhhuh

Brad (00:26:31):
<affirmative>. Wow. So she has time to wake up at 2 45, crank out many news channels, crank out big mileage, read for pleasure, parent her kids, then you crash out at I Crash

Deirdre (00:26:43):
Or what? Crash out, crash out between eight and nine.

Brad (00:26:45):
Serious. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. So you’re down, I’m down. Lights out

Deirdre (00:26:48):
In, I fall asleep in five to 10 seconds.

Brad (00:26:51):
<laugh>, I really did. You’ve been to the, she did a sleep story at the sleep.

Deirdre (00:26:54):
No. Drives my husband insane because he’s not a great sleeper. And so literally like I, I put my head down, I’m out.

Brad (00:27:01):
Wow. That’s interesting. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, I mean, it’s gotta be related to the amount of exhausting, you know, the volume of volume of work you did during the day of brain and body.

Deirdre (00:27:10):
I, I don’t know. I mean, or maybe I’m just wired that way at this point my life, but it, but it’s probably the reason why I’ve been able to do this job, this shift for as long as I have, you know?

Brad (00:27:20):
Right. I don’t think an average person could take this.

Deirdre (00:27:22):
I don’t think an average person should. I mean, I don’t, yeah. I’m not saying it’s a healthy way to live. Yeah. I’m just saying it for me. It’s work. I did an interview

Brad (00:27:28):
Recently. Works for me though,

Deirdre (00:27:30):
<laugh>. I did an interview recently with a psychiatrist for a story, and she was asking me a lot of questions about, about the time I get up and how much sleep do I get, and what do I do. And after she had asked me about six questions, I thought, is she diagnosing me? <laugh>? Like, I felt like I was getting grilled. So finally I just said, I feel like you’re, you’re studying me or something. Are you trying to figure out like, what’s wrong with me? And she goes, oh, I know exactly what it is.

Deirdre (00:27:56):
I said, well, what is it? She said, oh, you have this trait we call resiliency. And she said that in certain professions, they put people through these personality tests to figure out, like, like for example, in medical school, everybody goes through the same basic courses, but to figure out what’s a good specialty for you, they do, they do some sort of a, like a test and it figures out your ability to react to certain types of situations mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Deirdre (00:28:17):
And like who’s gonna survive and who’s going to thrive and who’s gonna like fall flat on it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And there’s nothing wrong with it. You’re just, you know, meant to do one thing over another. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And so for people who wanna work in like an emergency room, you need this resiliency factor, because you’re the one who’s going to, oh man, here’s another case that just came in and I haven’t slept for 24 hours. You’re, you’re on it, your adrenaline inspired, you’re, you’re clear thinking, you’re ready to go. And, and somebody’s gonna be better suited for that than say they might be for like dermatology, where you’re gonna have much more just as challenging, but just different kind of schedule that would come along with it. So she said, she said, oh yeah, you, you’ve got the resiliency thing. That’s exactly why you’ve been able to do it as long as you have.

Brad (00:28:56):
Next we get to hear from the young dashing William Shewfelt, who burst onto the health and fitness scene as a youngster. 21, 22, 23 years old. He was co-hosting a podcast with Chris Bell and he started his own podcast, which I named, thank You very much, Will to Win. And then he transitioned to a music career. So I think he’s deep into the music scene and putting up some great stuff on YouTube. And this guy was a peak performer all the way. I had him on one show, and I was compelled to get him back for a second and a third appearance because his focus, his determination and his methodical goal setting was so impressive, especially for someone so young. And so in this show, he talks about using that methodical approach to carve out the body of your dreams and win that frustrating battle against excess body fat once and for all.

Brad (00:29:57):
And he gives a nice quote. It’s easier than it seems <laugh> if you just do it correctly. So, uh, sometimes we recoil when we get into this subject and, um, we want to appreciate and respect ourselves no matter what. But I think it’s important to, um, take a look at this challenge and how to do it right. And if some of the stuff doesn’t resonate with you, that’s fine. But there is a way to do this where you are disciplined with your diet, with your exercise. You don’t have to struggle and suffer and engage in these ill-advised methods, which are the commonplace approach to trying to drop excess body fat. And they work only temporarily. So let’s hear from William how to do it correctly.

William (00:30:41):
It’o 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 (00:30:58):
Well, the results will come so easily too. 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 Sissen says, to be good at burning fat, then I, I imagine like you, you’re just putting your hand on a dial and saying, oh, I’m gonna get down from 6% to 3.8 cause I got some photo shoots coming up, and then mm-hmm. <affirmative> I’ll, I’ll take a vacation and allow things to get back to whatever baseline. But, um, we can act like the Hollywood star who’s, who’s building their physique into the role by, by, by demand

William (00:31:33):
That that’s exactly why I get so excited about this. 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 it’s easier than you think. For me, like previously, if I wanted to get down to 5% body fat, it would’ve been hell. As

Brad (00:31:51):
A vegan, you’ve been,

William (00:31:52):
Oh, as a, as a vegan, it was nearly impossible, but it would’ve been hell. So it’s caloric restriction.

Brad (00:31:57):
Vegans at 5% body fat are under, please send your photos to the email, get over yourself podcast@gmail.com. And prove me wrong,

William (00:32:03):
No, no.<laugh>. 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 gonna 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, that

Brad (00:32:38):
Guy’s full of that guy’s full of baloney. He’s suffering. I I know it. He must be

William (00:32:42):
<laugh> that that’s what a lot of people think. And, and it’s crazy. Like I, Chelsea has seen this, and I guess I have no other eyewitnesses besides Chelsea, but it’s like, um,

Brad (00:32:51):
I’m still nice to her. I swear

William (00:32:53):
<laugh>, even though I’m

Brad (00:32:54):
Fasted

William (00:32:55):
<laugh>, it’s like, it’s very, very possible to do. But you wanna be prioritizing nutrient and 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 (00:33:14):
Oh, speaking of the training, I had a couple questions, like, on those resistance workouts that you described, where you’re in the, um, in between weight, not the heavy weight mm-hmm. <affirmative>, the little higher reps. What’s the total duration of the workout?

William (00:33:27):
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 body building split where I’ll do shoulders and back one day. I’ll do chest in arms the next day, and then I’ll have a leg day as well. So yeah, it’s basically doing those. In the program I basically outline an entire workout for you to do, and then it alternates, um, over the weeks. But what I do currently is I literally go in, I know it’s chest in arm day, and I just think, what do I wanna do <laugh>? So I’ll, I’ll come up with two exercises. I’ll super set a chest exercise and arm exercise, and I’ll say, I’m gonna do that for five sets. And then within that, that’s where the intensity comes in. So I don’t have anything written out, so I’m gonna push myself as hard as I can with those.

William (00:34:13):
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 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. Just having fun with it. And that’s where the results have came from me.

Brad (00:34:44):
And the zone two cardio, how is that, uh, in heart rate terms?

William (00:34:49):
So for me, usually I try to stay in the 150s, um, 23 and, you know, 180 minus that. So I usually stay in the 150s and I’ve been doing it for a good while now, where I think I’ve built up my zone two. So yeah, I I usually say

Brad (00:35:02):
Very comfortable.

William (00:35:02):
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 <laugh>. Um, that’s usually when I’m listening to audiobooks or podcasts or things like that.

Brad (00:35:13):
Next I am joined by the two legends of triathlon Dave Scott and Mark Allen, both six times winners of the Hawaii Ironman World Championships. These guys were the original two of the original Big four that dominated the sport from its professional inception in the early eighties and dominated for many years and performed at the very highest level. And their epic race called Iron War in 1989, is still talked about and celebrated. They destroyed the record at the Ironman race course by, uh, uh, around 20 minutes and were very far ahead of third place. And so here were two guys at the absolute top of their game. And they raced side by side for eight hours until the very end when Mark Allen broke away for his first Ironman victory, uh, with several failed attempts. And Dave followed in at second, trying to win his seventh Ironman.

Brad (00:36:12):
And Mark Allen went on to win many more to get his six titles, and Dave had some injury problems and some time off. He was getting older, and then he bursts back onto the scene in his later years and took an incredible second place at the age of 42. And then I believe at 45, he came in the fifth place in the Hawaii Ironman. He’s still coaching. I had a great show with him talking about his, his coaching career and training principles. But here these guys give you a little different twist and they talk about some personal mindset and, uh, behavior and lifestyle challenges, uh, dating back to when they were top athletes, uh, that they’ve never really shared before in public. So all we saw in the triathlon world were these guys gracing the cover of the magazines, winning yet another race, breaking the record.

Brad (00:37:02):
And Dave gets real and talks about the depression that he battled throughout his career. And Mark talks about the disappointment and the discouraging times when he was favored to win, uh, the big race in Hawaii, and he was snake bit over and over and over. And so the struggle, the perseverance, and the complete human that we get a glimpse of in this interview where I’m talking to both of them, alternatively, boy, you’re really gonna love it and appreciate it and see these guys in a different light than you ever have before. Dave Scott and Mark Allen.

Dave (00:37:33):
I kind of look back on my career and I think those are pretty destructive moments, Brad, and I think we can kind of put ’em in a box and say, but yeah, but the outcome is, oh, you won six Ironman. He did pretty well athletically. I I can look at those periods in my life. And I, and, um, they brought me down, down so low similar to any other, uh, depression or compulsion that people have. And I kind of parallel to an alcoholic, we don’t really, we know that we shouldn’t drink too much, and if I drink too much, it’s gonna set, set me over the edge psychologically and physiologically. And, and, you know, people would always say, you, my close friends, Dave, just go out for a four mile run. You’ll fe feel better than doing nothing. And, and I always had this sort of compulsive behavior.

Dave (00:38:21):
It was all or nothing. So four-mile run wasn’t the dosage that kind of mollified or tempered my depression that I had. And, and I knew it was real chemically induced. The more I put off exercise, which was my release, and ultimately my release every time I dig myself out of it I also treated myself to this self-inflicted torture. I see that seems kind of, uh, ex best in word choice, I just put on it. But it got to the point where I, I didn’t wanna talk to anyone. I didn’t wanna see anyone. I would isolate myself in the house. And the difficulty was just kind of stepping out for the first time knowing that what I could control was really my fitness, but yet I didn’t. So it, it, I think it’s puzzling for people to understand that. But the, the simple phrase, it was either I could do it extremely well or not at all.

Dave (00:39:22):
There was, it was black, there was no in between. And, uh, you know, I, I looked at it because I’m keenly aware of depression that manifests itself with other, uh, athletes and also entertainers, and it’s pretty prevalent. And, you know, it’s unfortunate and I maybe the, the gold bar of the standard is too high, but, uh, it, it did bother me for a long time. And I mean, I have a simple rule I followed for 20 odd years, just do a little bit of exercise, and if I get out and, and, uh, you know, breathe the air and just start moving, you know, I get that morphing like kick those endorphins go up and I, and I feel like, you know, now I can manage the day. And I didn’t do that back when I was competitive.

Mark (00:40:09):
You know, I would say I had a lot of really tough moments as far as results that were very difficult to swallow and to accept. And, um, you know, in, in the short run after 1989, I thought, why did it, why did I have to go through all that tough stuff? You know, it was a little cynical in a sense. And then I realized that it was those really, really difficult races that I had where I had to pick up the pieces. It was the really difficult races where even in the middle of it, I, I had the choice, okay, I’m, I’m walking, Dave just passed me. Uh, is this day a waste? And if it’s not a waste, how can I make it worth keeping going? And the things I learned in through those really, really tough moments where I could have just given up and said, forget it.

Mark (00:41:02):
You know, I’m gonna take it easy or whatever. I learned how to regroup and how to just sort of surrender and say, okay, this is, this is where it’s at right now. This is not my best race, but somehow let me get something out of it. Let me give an effort to it. The, you know, if I, and when I can get across that finish line, at least I’ll be able to hold my head high knowing that, you know, I stuck with it and I stayed with it. And tho all of those lessons were absolutely essential to have stored away in my DNA so that when the, when the good days came around, I was able to put out the races that I had on those just as as well. And so, you know, you asked, does great athletic endurance performance require you to have these sort of extreme, maybe down periods? And I don’t know if it’s necessary that you have them, but if you have them and you learn something from them, then you will definitely be able to be a better person, a more effective person. You’ll be able to bring more of just the better parts of yourself into any endeavor, whether it’s sports or life.

Brad (00:42:09):
Let me introduce Molly Downey, registered dietician and lead nutrition manager at Nutrisense, my wonderful partners delivering the finest in continuous glucose monitor technology and one-on-one personalized support. So you’ve probably heard of CGMs or seen people wearing the patch on their arm that gives them a basically 24 7 readout graph of your blood glucose levels throughout the day and when you sleep. And it provides so much interesting and helpful information as to how your lifestyle behaviors affect your blood glucose, which is a great leading indicator of your overall health status, especially the, uh, very prominent concern for many citizens these days of heading in the, uh, disastrous direction of type two diabetes. And the rates are skyrocketing. Um, it’s driven by a whole bunch of adverse lifestyle factors, but most particularly a processed foods diet. But interestingly, and I think in this clip, Molly’s gonna get into some of the other ways that we can mismanage our blood glucose levels and increase our disease risk factors, especially when we compromise adequate sleep.

Brad (00:43:31):
And I have seen that on my own CGM reports as well as my wife Mia Moore’s, when we are staying up beyond expected or typical bedtime, you generally experiencing skyrocketing blood glucose levels, and that’s pretty much the fight or flight response where you’re suppressing melatonin thanks to the bright lights or the screen or the active excitement that’s going on when you should be going to bed. And so you’re going into this fight or flight mode where you have elevated cortisol levels, elevated blood glucose levels. So let’s hear more from Molly and get you inspired to try a Nutrisense journey yourself. So please go to Nutrisense nutrisense.io/Brad. You can see that you get $30 off your support package. So what you’re ordering up is the technology, right? The continuous glucose monitor that you apply to your arm and leave there for two weeks, and then you get the app on your smartphone.

Brad (00:44:33):
But you’re also getting this incredible one-on-one support where you can chat through the app whenever you want and receive thoughtful, detailed and very quick responses. So during your journey and looking at these spikes or questions why your, your, uh, blood glucose are responding in a certain way, they can talk you all the way through it. So I, I really call it a bucket list item for everyone to at least, uh, do a, a short term foray into the world of CGM technology, and then you can organize your lifestyle accordingly with that instant feedback and behavior modification tool. Let’s hear from Molly.

Molly (00:45:10):
So the amazing thing about the continuous glucose monitor is that we’re not just focusing on nutrition, we have all these other variables at play. So if we’re looking at sleep, for example, it’s definitely a fascinating thing that we can discover through continuous glucose monitoring. It’s one of the trends that we see all the time. So with sleep and glucose, there is a bidirectional relationship. And what I mean by this is, you know, say that you have a poor sleep. It’s very common to see elevated glucose levels overnight. So what happens is our body is recognizing this, this poor sleep as a, is a stressor on the body. And what happens when the body is stressed out is there is this endogenous production of glucose. So we see that blood sugar increase, and there’s also a decrease in insulin sensitivity. So if someone, you know, say I’m working with one of our members and they, most of the time their glucose levels overnight are somewhere in, you know, the nineties range, and then I check their data, you know, one morning and their levels are more so, you know, say it hit like one 10, but there’s no other variables.

Molly (00:46:28):
You know, if we take out the confounding factors of was there a meal the night before or are you stressed, if we can zero it in on, you know, sleep, you know, your glucose levels can increase significantly because of that. And it’s not only the overnight values that are impacted. So as we go into the next day, right, that stress is still going on and our bodies are fatigued, and we’ll see that, you know, blood sugar regulation is not controlled as well. So we, you know, maybe you had a banana one day and you know, in the morning after having a fantastic night’s sleep, and you had a great response to it, like you were able to tolerate it. But you know, after that poor night’s sleep, you might have that same exact banana at the same time and you might have a poor response to it.

Molly (00:47:19):
So we see this trend all the time that foods that are otherwise tolerated well, if you, if if you consume them after a poor, poor night’s sleep, you know, you know, it, it drags onto the next day. So it’s not just affecting that, you know, in that period of time, it’s, it’s, it’s taking you into your next day as well. And of course, like there’s other variables like, like mood and appetite, right? So with poor sleep, you can have, you know, an increase in, you know, hunger hormones or ghrelin and, you know, a decreased satiety hormones. So this can, this can make it so you can, you start eating even more. So sleep is not something that, you know, should be undermined and always, you know, I always pay attention to it, um, because there are so many implications that come along with it.

Molly (00:48:09):
And then, you know, as I was saying, you know, sleeping glucose is bidirectional, right? So what I just explained, if you have poor sleep, you can have that r that increase in glucose, but also say that you have high glucose levels from a different variable. So what if you eat something later on in the evening? So say you eat like a cheeseburger and fries, and then you go to sleep 20 minutes later and your glucose is rollercoaster all night in, you know, high levels, then, you know, I’ll usually ask someone too, it’s like, how was your sleep that night? And most of the time it’s like, yeah, I was tossing and turning all night. I, you know, had crappy sleep. I didn’t feel well. Um, you know, so in in that aspect, you know, the high glucose from a different variable such as food can impact your sleep as well. So it, you know, that foods acting as kind of like a s stimula s stimulant to the nervous system so it can, you know, make you more alert so it can make it so it’s more difficult to actually fall asleep and then stay asleep as well. So those are, you know, that’s that bidirectional focus that we’re looking at with the glucose data with sleep. But it’s, it’s definitely fascinating to see.

Brad (00:49:27):
Okay, and let’s listen to Sara Banta as she talks through her health journey that involves some real crises with her child and herself. And she had to go into deep exploration mode that has led to her career today at accelerated health products. And in this clip, she’s talking about discovering the seemingly healthy foods that her kid was reacting to. And you’ve probably become familiar with the carnivore, the animal based diet movement through the content on my show and many others. And she’s talking about the oxilates and things that are in, uh, seemingly healthy foods like almonds, raw spinach. And boy, if you start to become compromised, especially with, leaky gut symptoms, a lot of things can cause trouble. And when you heal, you can tolerate, more varied diet. But I really do believe that the message to emphasize the most nutrient dense foods on earth, which are by and large from the animal kingdom, and then choose carefully when it comes to plant foods, to minimize your exposure to the natural toxins that cause all manner of digestive autoimmune and inflammatory conditions when you’re sensitive.

Brad (00:50:40):
Sara’s story is pretty extreme, but it’s worth reflecting upon how things can really go south. And the journey out can be very arduous, especially if you’re following the mainstream medical advice where you’re taking prescriptions due to your, um, you know, digestive, gas, bloating, uh, elimination irregularities. Things that we typically treat with medication rather than investigate carefully in the diet and look really deeply, especially into the emerging science that’s driving the animal-based movement where your kale smoothies and your salads and these wonderful raw foods that are highly touted for their nutritional properties also have some sincere concerns when it comes to the natural toxins contained in them. The way your body reacts. Sara Banta, here we go.

Sara (00:51:33):
But what I found was I actually started feeling better when I incorporated the healthy carbs at night. And my workouts were better the next morning. I had more energy. I felt like it helped my hormones as well. And what we did as a family a year ago is that we got our DNA tested because my kids were eating very low carb, high fat, and they weren’t thrive. Not all of ’em were thriving. I had two of them that were thriving pretty well, but they had certain issues, but one that wasn’t at all. And what we found, Brad, is out of all five of us, all five of us had a different profile of foods that we should eat. And my one daughter, she could not do a ketogenic diet. Now all of us are eating whole foods re you know, staying off the processed foods.

Sara (00:52:27):
There were certain vegetables that each one of us couldn’t eat. The oxalates for insulin, for instance, you know, you’ve got your spinach and your almonds, your beans, your nuts. Oh my gosh, do you know how many almonds that we would used to go through? I’ve got a, I’ve got an 18 year old boy that needs to pack on the calories and nuts are a great thing for someone like that. And when he was told he can’t have any almonds because of the oxalates, it was like, okay, now what? So, and then I’ve got me and my other daughter who had an issue with fat absorption. So here I am doing a ketogenic diet, but I have a hard time digesting fat. What am I to do? I stick to a high protein diet. I do my accelerated keto pills to help me with energy and fasting.

Sara (00:53:21):
And I’ll either go one meal a day or I’ll do the two meals a day. I enter, I go back and forth. I, I really listen to my body. Whereas before I would just do it the way I was supposed to do it. But now I’m really listening to my body. I eat a high pro-animal protein diet based on wild meat, like bison, lamb, elk, deer, wild fish. I stay away from chicken because chicken has amyloid proteins which don’t break down in the body and then they get deposited in the brain and that’s what the amyloid plaques you hear about with, um, Alzheimer’s and dementia. So we stick away, we stay away from chicken, we stay away from conventional beef if we can. Um, but we really focus on the wild animal proteins and that’s where I feel best. I can eat a ton of animal protein and feel great.

Sara (00:54:17):
Do I add a lot of extra fat to my food? No, I stick to certain vegetables. The oxalates, I stay away from the sulfur vegetables. I used to eat them every day. And those are the cabbage, the broccoli, the bok choy, the cauliflower, very ketogenic low carb vegetables, right? They were horrible for me. They made me super bloated. They backed up my sulfur pathways. I don’t have a sulfur detoxification pathway. And so people say, well, how are you getting your nutrients? Well, I’m sure not getting any nutrients if my stomach exploded and I have leaky gut, right? So I needed to heal my gut, get those things outta my body. Now I can have ’em intermittently cuz I’m healed. Um, but I can’t tip that scale. Once you hit that tipping point, you might have an issue and then you’ve got the lectins. Well, what’s interesting is I was staying away from lectins for so many years cuz I knew they were bad, but my body’s actually okay with them. So I eat ’em on a, on a, you know, on a moderate basis. And the 19,

Brad (00:55:27):
What kind of stuff are you talking about in the lectin family that you stayed away from, but you’re actually Okay.

Sara (00:55:32):
Cucumbers, zucchinis, the squashes, all of those. I love eggplant and I took that outta my diet and now I was able to introduce it back in. I don’t need a lot of it, but just having it is definitely a treat. And then the nightshades, um, just like with most nightshades do have lectins as well, but I was staying away from those and I’m actually okay eating those once in a while. But it’s really interesting. My one daughter was okay eating nightshades and potatoes and then she was eating them every single day and now all of a sudden she’s not okay. But what’s great is that what it’s taught, even my kids, is that they’re learning to listen to their bodies. Mm-hmm. When my, when my daughter was having to lay on the couch after dinner to settle her stomach, I said, that’s not a good sign. She said, no, you’re right. I’m probably eating something that’s not meant for my body. So we always go back to the animal protein, the wild fish, and then play around with the vegetables on the side because as you know, I don’t need to tell you this, that, um, animal protein has most of the nutrients that we’re trying to get from the vegetables in the first place.

Brad (00:56:51):
I’m so pleased to present this highlight clip from Dr. Robert Lustig, one of the world’s pre-eminent anti-sugar crusaders, who has done such a wonderful job with his bestselling books. The Hacking of the American Mind was absolutely life changing for me. The assorted ways in which evil sinister marketing forces compel us to indulge in these instant gratification, pleasure driving behaviors to our detriment and to the detriment of the pursuit of a healthy, rich, meaningful life. And then his most recent publication, Metabolical, which was the focus of this interview, he throws down some epic and very memorable quotes, one liners that will help you guide to making the best choices with your diet. One of ’em is feed the gut and protect the liver. So every bite of food that you eat, you ask yourself the question, does this food either feed the gut or protect the liver?

Brad (00:57:51):
And if it’s, the answer is no, you can pass. And so when he means feeding the gut, he means nourishing the healthy bacteria. So we have the high probiotic foods, we have the beneficial fibers that are often touted, and then protecting the liver. Uh, we’re talking about getting away from the, uh, toxic processed foods. Um, one of my most favorite, uh, insights from him is when he contends with his amazing life’s work and reputation behind this statement, that if you simply eliminate processed foods, you cannot get fat, diseased type two diabetes and so forth. The human is an elegant machine that can handle a variety of different foods, but the processed foods are the single culprit in this disastrous accelerated decline and demise, accelerated aging that we’re experiencing today, largely driven by processed foods. Everything else after that is nuanced and refining and fine tuning.

Brad (00:58:53):
So, uh, a lot of the content that we get out there and that I talk about is really operating in that, uh, 20% of further optimization realm. And even Dr. Peter Attia contends that if you just eliminate processed foods, you’re 80% of the way to your longevity and ultimate health potential. And now we have Dr. Lustig throwing down and inspiring you to forever, you know, fight this battle with tremendous intensity and commitment to get those processed foods out of, of your diet. And I had another memorable insight at the end of our interview when he admitted that he has a sweet tooth himself and that he falls victim to the stuff that he’s criticizing and taking apart with his life’s work. So it is no small battle. That’s why we require tremendous intensity and commitment to clean up the diet and to remain on that path and to withstand the evil, sinister marketing forces that are compelling us to consume these foods. In the name of instant gratification, pleasure. And all the symbolism behind it that, uh, drinking this alcohol is, uh, equating with having a celebration or going to Chuck E. Cheese is the way that you make your kid happy and all that nonsense. So let’s hear from the man himself, Dr. Robert Lustig.

Dr. Lustig (01:00:06):
In the book I talk about the eight subcellular pathologies that drive all chronic disease. Okay? Now, these eight, I call ’em the hateful or the grateful eight <laugh> when they’re working for you. You’ll be 110 playing tennis when they’re, they’re not working for you. You’ll be 40 in a wheelchair with two stumps on dialysis waiting for your, uh, next stroke. Okay? And everything of course in between. Now, those eight pathologies belie all the chronic diseases that I mentioned earlier on in the program, but they don’t have ICD 11 codes. So doctors don’t know them because they’re not getting paid for ’em. And doctors don’t explain ’em to their patients. And there’s virtually no way to figure ’em out, you know, from any lab tests. And there’s no medicine for any of them anyway, cuz none of them are druggable, but they’re all suitable. And that’s what I explained in the book. So here are the eight, I’m gonna name ’em real quick as we are, you know, getting ready to close here. Glycation, oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, insulin resistance, membrane instability, inflammation, methylation, and finally autophagy. Now when these eight are working for you, you’ll be as healthy as anybody. When these eight are working against you, you’re gonna be sick as hell. Right? And there’s one thing that makes all eight better. Real food. And there’s one thing that makes all eight go south all at once. Processed food

Brad (01:02:00):
<laugh>. I, I like how you say that all this fascination with fasting and, and kickstarting autophagy is wonderful, but if you’re have a baseline diet of real food, you don’t even need to fast to enjoy the benefits. And that kind of makes sense from an ancestral perspective too, where we’re, we’re bragging about our ancestors going all winter with no food, but the ones by the ocean that figured out how to make a fish net, they were probably eating as much as they wanted all day long for years and centuries, right? So it’s a nice, you know, big picture look at everything instead of getting fixated with the details of how long your fasting period is today versus tomorrow and all that.

Dr. Lustig (01:02:39):
Exactly right. Bottom line, why does intermittent fasting work? Well, it does probably works for two reasons. One, it gives your liver a chance to burn off the fat that accumulated from the hours before, thereby keeping your liver insulin sensitive, ie. Protecting your liver. And also because it promotes this phenomenon, called autophagy, which is basically garbage night for the cell, it clears out all the dead wood, all the debris that’s built up from the cell doing its job over the course of the last 24 hours. This is why we sleep, by the way, that’s garbage night for the brain. Hmm. It’s the time when the brain can get rid of junk that’s accumulated protein aggregates, lipid oxidation, products, defective mitochondria, et cetera. It happens while you’re sleeping.

Brad (01:03:30):
So that clip you made about playing tennis at 110, is that just for fun or do you feel like we have that potential to become the norm if we, uh, figure out this diet thing?

Dr. Lustig (01:03:42):
Well, if we ha if we figured out the diet thing with everything else that’s going on in the longevity field, no doubt we can do that. But not if we eat like we do.

Brad (01:03:56):
And what’s the

Dr. Lustig (01:03:58):
Personal nothing

Brad (01:03:59):
Yeah. Yeah. Right. And boy, there seems to be a lot of hope. You mentioned the timeline of the last seven or eight years where the message is really getting out, but we’re also worse than ever in a lot of those stats that you cite in the book. We just had the medal count on the Olympics and the USAs here and there, and then we’re 37th in a really important category in the O E C D. So, uh, we got a, we got a sober up a little bit here, huh?

Dr. Lustig (01:04:25):
Right, exactly right. You know, Olympians, I love them. They’re, they’re terrific. Okay? We should all be Olympians, but we’re not

Brad (01:04:34):
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Lustig (01:04:35):
<affirmative>. And it’s not because we’re not just, we don’t have just God-given talent. It’s because we eat crap

Brad (01:04:44):
Now to, to extricate from this trap, uh, by a really well-meaning person who’s writing the goals on the whiteboard and, and hoping they can pass by that Starbucks. But in your other book, the Hacking the American Mind, you talked about the addictive properties and the addictive nature of all this stuff, right? What do you, um, what do you recommend as some baby steps here to, to escape the clutches,

Dr. Lustig (01:05:08):
Right? This is the cognitive dissonance. I, you know, and the food industry uses it like crazy. I mean, you know, uh, sugar’s their hook, you know, they put cocaine in the food if they could, but they can’t, so they put sugar in and also caffeine, you know, that’s what, because that’s what’s legal. So what do you do? Well, the first thing you need to know is that 62% of the sugar in your diet is in the ultra processed food category. And 67% of kids’ diets, that’s where the sugar is, 67%. So, you know, that’s the category we have to deal with.

Brad (01:05:48):
Here we go with Dr Mark Cucuzzella. Oh my gosh, few people are walking their talk at the level of this man. So he’s a physician fighting the battle on the front lines, trying to get processed food out of his very own hospital and taking care of people, and at the same time convincing them, inspiring them to go on a healthy path so they don’t have to come back into the medical system and receive the highly trained care that he dispenses. He’s a supreme athlete in his own right, a longtime elite level marathon runner, and his broken three hours at the Boston Marathon for some streak of years. Absolutely stunning. And he’s also a huge advocate for the barefoot shoe, barefoot lifestyle movement. He has a store in his home area of West Virginia dedicated to minimalist footwear and trying to help people integrate in a healthy manner over to a less constrictive, less padded shoe, so that the foot may become strengthened and, uh, function in the proper manner. So there’s all kinds of interesting aspects to him, and we’re gonna hear a little clip about some of his athletic endeavors that I think are really gonna inspire you and hopefully go back and listen to the entire interview. Mark Cucuzzella.

Cucuzzella (01:07:12):
Yeah, I’ve run half marathons barefoot, I’ve run sandals. Uh, I ran a Boston Marathon a couple times and five Fingers, and, and then once, oh my gosh, those archie sandals and, um, I love ’em. But yeah, I, I squeezed my feet into track spikes for years and ended up with that Hallux Valgus deformity. And what that is, is, is your foot looks like a shoe for those listening <laugh>, right? Your, your your, it is like a pointy toe shoe. Your big toe is smashed in, is a bunion type of thing. Mm-hmm. Um, but that comes from the footwear. So had some surgery done in the year 2000 for that, you know, cleaned up some bone there, they straightened the toe out a little bit. And I, I realized just like nutrition, I realized that no one had ever taught me anything about like the foot or running injury.

Cucuzzella (01:07:58):
So I kind of dug into the dark space on footwear and, and the foot. And, uh, you know, this was before Born to Run came out, McDougal spoke and before Lieberman’s paper. So I started to, I had a shoe sponsorship with, with Brooks at the time, and they saw was into this stuff, and they were sending me some hacked off running shoes. They had a guy there, and one of their designers was like from the old school, and he knew that like the way the toe box was and flat shoes like was biomechanically, you know, the engineers are the smart people in the room, not the marketers, you know. So

Brad (01:08:34):
No offense, no offense

Cucuzzella (01:08:35):
Marketers, no offense to the marketers, but I mean, from the scientific, it’s, it’s the, it’s the nerds world. And I was like, oh my God, this is like, this works, right? And, uh, yeah, and then everything exploded. You know, when Chris McDougal wrote his book and Dan Lieberman’s papers, you know, the signs started to come out and, uh, we opened up a shoe store here, Brad, about 12 years ago, promoting natural footwear. Not everyone needs to be minimal, but wide toe box light, no heel elevation, teach them how to strengthen their feet. It’s kind of like the food movement, like eat real food, you know, put your feet in real shoes, you know, something that compliments normal anatomy and retrain the foot. If you have a foot injury, don’t just brace it, you know? Let’s try to, you know, one other extremity in our body, if it were hurt, will we just brace it for the rest of our lives?

Brad (01:09:22):
<laugh>, uh, well, our eyes, we put glasses on instead of work those muscles. I had Jake Stein on my podcast talking about how you can, you know, correct myopia with just more, more physical exercise for the eyes and challenge. So, uh, we have the feet and the eyes that we, we disgrace with, uh, you know, the, the, the cast of the the cushiony shoe?

Cucuzzella (01:09:42):
Yeah. Yeah, the mil, there’s a whole subculture in the military about eye training because they have to pass their eye test.

Brad (01:09:49):
Oh, wow. Little,

Cucuzzella (01:09:51):
It’s probably like threads. Like you could probably find them on the inter web. Just say you’re an 20 year old kid and you wanna get into flight school, right? You gotta be able to see like Chuck Yeager. But if you can’t, like, oh, and you know, every minute of your life to that point in time has been like, you wanna be Chuck Yeager <laugh>, uh, the greatest West Virginia, by the way, Chuck, you just passed away.

Brad (01:10:13):
Another plug for West Virginia. Wow.

Cucuzzella (01:10:15):
Big plug. First man to break the sound barrier. But yeah, there’s some things you can do, you know, to, to train that focus and the lens and the muscles of the lens.

Brad (01:10:25):
So with the feet we’re talking about trying to spend more time, especially around the house and safe environment. Yeah. With that, with that barefoot coming back into

Cucuzzella (01:10:35):
Barefoot right now, right Standing

Brad (01:10:36):
Here, oh my gosh, in the hospital setting, they let this guy walk around barefoot. I’m

Cucuzzella (01:10:40):
The office, but here’s my shoe, you know, like, this is my hospital shoe, it’s black,

Brad (01:10:45):
But, so he’s showing a shoe people that he can make

Cucuzzella (01:10:48):
And I can

Brad (01:10:48):
Roll in water

Cucuzzella (01:10:49):
Into a sizeable cross ball.

Brad (01:10:51):
The most minimal lack of support walk around shoe. Wonderful. Smaller

Cucuzzella (01:10:56):
Than a coffee cup. You know, when you’re

Brad (01:10:59):
<laugh> can you put your shoe into a ball? That’s the, that’s the test. If you’re real minimal guy,

Cucuzzella (01:11:05):
But your feet feel great at the end of the day when you are using them, you know, they, that’s how keeps them springy, you know, know we want

Brad (01:11:13):
That. Yeah, it’s amazing. Um, when, when you get accustomed, then we wanna talk about that gradual and, and gentle integration. But once you get accustomed to it, the most comfortable shoe imaginable is, is the minimal one. And it’s just because that’s, that’s how the foot’s designed to stand and support your body weight,

Cucuzzella (01:11:31):
And you get that sensory feedback from the ground.

Brad (01:11:35):
Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support. Please email podcast@brad ventures.com with feedback, suggestions, and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list at bradkearns.com for a weekly blast about the published episodes and a wonderful bimonthly newsletter edition with informative articles and practical tips for all aspects of healthy living. You can also download several awesome free eBooks when you subscribe to the email list. And if you could go to the trouble to leave a five or five star review with Apple Podcasts or wherever else you listen to the shows, that would be super incredibly awesome. It helps raise the profile of the B.rad podcast and attract new listeners. And did you know that you can share a show with a friend or loved one by just hitting a few buttons in your player and firing off a text message? My awesome podcast player called Overcast allows you to actually record a sound bite excerpt from the episode you’re listening to, and fire it off with a quick text message. Thank you so much for spreading the word and remember, B.rad.

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