Today’s show is fast-moving and informative as I talk to Dr. Marc Bubbs, a Canadian expert in all things related to peak performance. 

A doctor in naturopathic medicine, as well as a long-time trainer and coach, Dr. Marc is also deeply interested in scientific research, and this knowledge is woven into each fascinating insight he shares during this show. His new book, Peak 40, is all about simplifying nutrition in mid-life with a holistic lens on recovery, exercise, and mindset, and shows us how we can skillfully negotiate the challenges of mid-life. 

Dr. Marc explains why it’s more optimal for certain people to eat breakfast, the importance of reducing “decision fatigue” and setting up winning systems in your life, and shares a crazy statistic that 40% of our food is eaten after 6pm. He also talks about how the impetus for writing his book was his realization of how easily things can “start to unravel in the hurricane of mid-life,” which prompted him to ask himself: “How can we adopt some strategies to help us keep things on track, and not have to calculate our macros and weigh our food every day?” 

He also uses some great analogies throughout the show, at one point comparing protein to a brick wall to illustrate how the more active you are, the more bricks you’re pulling out of the wall. This means you’ve got to put the bricks back in (which happens by eating more protein). You’ll also learn what food is “Nature’s multivitamin” (and why) and the effectiveness of focusing on “priority management” instead of time management as Dr. Marc reveals that the time of day actually has a real effect on your decision making!

You’ll also learn all about Dr. Marc’s book, and how there is a new revolution happening in sports as more and more athletes are basing their success on this game-changing combination: health, nutrition, training, recovery, and mindset. Unfortunately, the evidence-based techniques that the expert PhDs, academic institutions, and professional performance staff follow can be in stark contrast to what many athletes actually practice. When combined with the noise of social media, old-school traditions, and bro-science, it can be difficult to separate fact from fiction.

Peak is a groundbreaking book exploring the fundamentals of high performance (not the fads), the importance of consistency (not extreme effort), and the value of patience (not rapid transformation). Dr. Marc makes deep science easy to understand, and with information from leading experts who are influencing the top performers in sports on how to achieve world-class success, he lays out the record-breaking feats of athleticism and strategies that are rooted in this personalized approach.

Dr. Marc expertly brings together the worlds of health, nutrition, and exercise and synthesizes the salient science into actionable guidance. Regardless if you’re trying to improve your physique, propel your endurance, or improve your team’s record, looking at performance through this lens is absolutely critical for lasting success.

TIMESTAMPS:

This Canadian doctor has done much research on nutrition and talks about the high risk of going off track in midlife. Marc focuses on helping us learn to age gracefully.  [01:54]

Marc talks about the importance of eating breakfast especially for people who are struggling with some metabolic challenges. [03:22]

Late eating is another area of research where you are compounding issues with weight loss goals. [09:42]

The ideal minimum is 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight in protein. [12:36]

Anytime we talk about dietary changes, we need to include movement. [15:07]

Decision fatigue is an interesting phenomenon which carries over into all areas of life. [19:26]

The later in the day you eat, you tend to eat more processed food with higher calories. [21:47]

Willpower is a finite resource. Compliance is a huge part of success. [24:03]

With insufficient sleep, the odds of your getting sick multiply. [26:25]

Interesting study showed that if you wait a little longer to have your morning coffee, it is better for the nervous system. [29:27]

What are some suggestions for getting into good habits rather than having to make decisions every step of the way to your goals? [31:00]

Some very elite athletes are getting injured unnecessarily. Nutrition and sleep still play a big role. [33:46]

It might be more common than you think that some people trying to lose weight are not eating enough. The body may down-regulate. [40:06]

Even if you veer off track on your worst day, you have to realize it’s not that bad. [43:35]

Get inspiration out in nature in order to reset mentally. [47:57]

What is some of the cool stuff on the cutting edge that cool people think they need to have? Cold exposure and hot tubs are very helpful. [51:35]

LINKS:

• Brad’s Shopping Page
• Peak 40
• Mark’s Daily Apple.com
• Dr. Bubbs
• Peak: The New Science of Athletic Performance That is Revolutionizing Sports

QUOTES:

• “If someone who is lean and fit skips breakfast, then when they eat lunch, there is no exaggerated response to their glucose levels when they eat lunch. But if someone is actually more overweight and obese, they do have this exaggerated response when they eat lunch, and it’s going to have a different effect from not eating breakfast.”
• “You tend to get cued by your environment.” 
• “Willpower is a finite resource. The elite of the elite doesn’t get up at 5:30 in the morning because they’re disciplined. They’ve done it so long that it turns into habit.”
• “Compliance is such a huge part of success.”

LISTEN:

Powered by RedCircle

Sponsors

Check out each of these companies because they are absolutely awesome or they wouldn’t occupy this revered space. Seriously, Brad won’t sell out to anyone if he doesn’t love the product. Ask anyone.

• Almost Heaven Sauna: Affordable at-home sauna kits for the ultimate relaxation and hormonal boost on demand
• Brad’s Macadamia Masterpiece: Mind-blowing, life-changing nut butter blend
• CAR.O.L bike: Cardiovascular optimized logic stationary bike for a highly effective eight-minute workout
• Male Optimization Formula with Organs (MOFO): Optimize testosterone naturally with 100% grassfed animal organ supplement
• Perfect Keto: The cleanest, purest, most potent ketone supplements and snacks
• LetsGetChecked: At-home medical testing with great prices, quick results, and no hassles
• Vuori Activewear: The most comfortable, functional, and fashionable gear, evoking the chill SoCal coastal lifestyle

Donations!

This free podcast offering is a team effort from Brad, Daniel, Siena, Gail, TJ, Vuk, RedCircle, our awesome guests, and our incredibly cool advertising partners. We are now poised and proud to double dip by both soliciting a donation and having you listen to ads! If you wanna cough up a few bucks to salute the show, we really appreciate it and will use the funds wisely for continued excellence. Go big (whatever that means to you…) and we’ll send you a free jar of Brad’s Macadamia Masterpiece as a thank you! Email to alert us! Choose to donate now, later, or never. Either way, we thank you for choosing from the first two options…

B.Rad Podcast

Brad (1m 54s): Hello listeners. We have a fast moving, very informational and thoughtful show from Dr. Marc Bubbs, a Canadian expert in all manner of peak performance. He’s a doctor of naturopathic medicine. He’s a long-time trainer, coach, performance nutritionist. He worked with the Canadian national basketball team, and it’s very cool because he is deep into the scientific research and you’ll hear many references throughout the show that lend to his credibility and his deep dive into all manner of peak performance, especially with the topic of his new book, Peak 40, which is talking about the goal of dealing with this inevitable slowdown and this high risk of really going off track in midlife. Brad (2m 41s): And so he puts a holistic lens on recovery, exercise, mindset, nutrition with all kinds of aspects thrown in. So you’re going to get a comprehensive discussion here with me, chi-ming and especially when he gives his golf analogies, which are so beautiful. And so applicable to healthy living and, and peak performance and getting with your nutritional goals. So this guy is like the king of analogies, sports analogies, a lot of scientific reference threaded into his insights. And some of the stuff’s going to be a little bit off the, off the beaten path. He talks about the importance for many people of eating breakfast. Brad (3m 22s): And when you do get yourself down for a nutritious breakfast, which of course we talk so much about fasting and the 16/8 pattern and seeing how long you can fast. Well, there’s another side of the coin here, and that is especially for people who are struggling with some metabolic challenges, consuming breakfast can actually mute the glucose response at later meals and kind of keep you more balanced and more regulated rather than let’s say waiting for a long time. And then having a big lunchtime meal, especially with that potential we all have for overeating if we overdo it with the fasting and the calorie restriction during the day, you’re going to hear an amazing stat that a lot of our food, 40% of our food is eaten past 6:00 PM. Brad (4m 5s): So we might want to unwind that and have some different strategies in place. So it gives you a lot of strategies to think about. There’s a lot of personalization that you’re going to have to process and see what works for you and try new things. I especially love his focus on reducing decision fatigue and setting up winning systems in your life. So here we go with Dr. Marc Bubbs, the author of the sensational new book, Peak 40. Dr. Marc Bubbs, come into us from the UK. Thank you for joining us in your evening time. Marc (4m 37s): Yeah, no worries. I appreciate you having me on, Brad (4m 40s): We connected a couple of years ago for Primal Blueprint podcast, and I’m so glad to talk to you now with this important need to focus on aging gracefully, which is what the B.rad Is all about. And my, my purpose in life. And I love sharing this message. And especially since, boy, it seems like we’re at a crossroads in modern life where we can go and join the masses into the medical system, reliance on prescription medication, a steady decline, or an accelerated decline into old age, or with all this great cutting edge science and research and coaching. We can dream of, you know, having this long, incredible vibrant life. So your new book Peak, ah, it’s going to set us all straight, especially with some of the misconceptions. Brad (5m 25s): So what’s happening, man? Tell me, tell me the, the scoop and what’s this Marc (5m 30s): That’s all right. You nailed it there. I mean, yeah. Peak 40 is, just it’s it’s funny. Cause my, yeah, my first book Peak, we took a deep dive into athletic performance as it relates to team sport and endurance and all these different factors. And, and in doing that, you know, as you work in performance, you know, the coaches are in midlife, right. You know, mid thirties, mid fifties, and they’re working long hours and not in the best health and the performance staff are the same way. And then, you know, I’ve got three kids home and all of a sudden, like there’s no more time left in the day. So how do I figure out how to do this or that? Or all of a sudden you’re spending, you know, you’re zooming now eight, 10, 12 hours a day with the pandemic and aches and pains start to rack up. Marc (6m 10s): And so you start to see, and I’m sure your listeners, you know, folks that you work with, it’s, it’s easy for things to start to unravel a little bit. And then all of a sudden you’re in pain, you can’t move, you gain 20 pounds, blood sugars go up. Now we might need a medication for that. Or, you know, cholesterol levels live in panels, not looking so good. So it’s amazing how things start to can unravel. And so that was the impetus for writing Peak 40 was more of a, a short form of some simple heuristics of, okay, how do we in, in the, in the hurricane of midlife, how do we, how do we adopt some strategies that can help us to keep things on track and, and not have to calculate our macros and weigh our food every day? Marc (6m 51s): And those are strategies in the short term that are helpful, but I mean, in the longterm, most people want to just operate on heuristics, right on, on the plate. Brad (7m 2s): It’s also helpful to take the first two and a half hours of your day and dedicate it to mindfulness, physical fitness, healthy eating, and my old friend, my childhood friend, Dave Kobrine. And I did a show with him and he detailed his tremendous morning routine. And he’s at that place in life where he has the, the time and the flexibility to put together this amazing jog on the beach at sunrise and then a cold plunge and then a hot sauna and the whole deal. And, you know, when I visit him and start my day, this way, it’s absolutely fabulous. And it sets you up for this, this healthy life where your priorities are set and everything’s dialed in. And then, you know, we get the pushback just like you described with kid number three arriving and all of a sudden you’re you’re time crunch. Brad (7m 47s): I suppose, maybe we should start there. It’s like, can we do this in a time efficient manner if we, if we claim to not have that three hours and all you listeners who claimed to not have that two or three hours? Let’s talk about your Netflix queue and the way that you are wasting or choosing to spend time in other ways, besides physical fitness. Okay. Marc (8m 5s): For sure. I mean, it’s always like the old story of a priority management, is that a time management, right. But it is, it is fascinating how there’s some great research around breakfast now coming out, you know, the University of Bath and the UK does all this tremendous research around how breakfast impacts us. And this is where, you know, a lot of nice heuristics, again, like intermittent fasting and fasting can be helpful, but there are some differences or nuances depending on the individual. So for example, if somebody who’s leaning fit, skips breakfast, then when they eat lunch, there’s no exaggerated response to their glucose levels when they eat lunch. But if somebody is actually more overweight and obese, they do have this exaggerated response at lunch. And that’s actually, they’re gonna have a different effect from not eating breakfast. Marc (8m 49s): Those, when we look at some of the stats around breakfast eaters versus non breakfast years, I mean, we tend to see all these things in terms of, you know, people eat breakfast tend to be leaner. They tend to have lower blood pressure, better blood sugar levels eat more vegetables. Now these are all observational studies. And so it’s a ratable. Does that mean that you have to eat breakfast? Well, not necessarily, but there’s some interesting repercussions for those individuals who start to skip breakfast. And then again, as I mentioned, one of them being that all of a sudden, you know, your lunch, you might get this exaggerated response if you’re looking to lose that 20 or 30 pounds, but you also actually start moving less, which is some of the findings that they found from the what’s called the Bath Breakfast Study. So, you know, less just general movement through the day that non-exercise activity thermogenesis, that fancy term in science, neat that you get in the day even fidgeting, which sounds funny, but the amount of little movements that we do can start to decrease. Marc (9m 42s): Now that doesn’t mean you can’t use that strategy, but just knowing that that’s a part of the puzzle can be really impactful because if we start moving less and the other side of the climb release, we start eating later, right? If you start and that’s a whole other topic, late eating is another big area of research that we look into in the book. But if you start eating later at night, now all of a sudden we’re, we’re, you know, we’re compounding the issues of, you know, rather than this fasting in the morning, helping us it’s actually hindering. So, you know, for a lot of us getting that breakfast back in, and of course dialing in, depending on the activity level, I know you worked a lot of fit individuals as well. So, you know, the, the amount of fuel starch could be higher for certain individuals, but for other ones, you know, we’re trying to lose weight. Marc (10m 23s): You know, that typically reducing a lot of that packaged stuff that we eat for breakfast, all the box and bag things is a pretty darn good, good way to start. Brad (10m 32s): So I guess that’s an individual experimentation. And looking back after 30 or 60, 90 days of testing out a new strategy, including possibly stepping away from this obsession, with seeing how long you can fast and how many hours you can bank, and maybe having a good nutritious breakfast. I had Robb Wolf on the show and he’d talked, he gave great one-liner. And he said, Hey, if you want to live longer, lift more weights and eat more protein. And so he’s talking to the metabolically healthy crowd where, you know, fasting is a stressor, so is doing a strength training session and, you know, pairing those two. And I referenced myself cause I’m, I’m pairing high intensity workout, fasting, carb restriction. Brad (11m 15s): When I first got into keto and really went deep dive and, and, and living the living the lifestyle and being old and trying to do the aforementioned you’re, you’re stacking up the deck where maybe, maybe there’s going to be from benefits from getting that nutrition in. And so you’re saying the blood sugar response will be adverse if you’re maybe not entirely metabolically healthy. And you’re trying to wait too long to consume a meal? Marc (11m 44s): Yeah. Well, and this has to do with breakfast. And then when they did consume breakfast, they actually had a better glucose response. And so this is where, you know, the notion being in the morning of just trying to get people off to a start where they don’t have to think about things. If we, if we can start to reduce the food decisions that we make, because every time we have a decision to make in the day that it’s a chance to go wrong. And of course, as the day goes, then compliance, decreases. And again, we can talk late night, but that’s where things get tougher. So getting off to a good start in the morning where we can get, if we get our breakfast in, you know, get a sufficient amount of protein. Cause we know that breakfast is the meal of the day that we don’t get enough protein compared to lunch and dinner, right? Like we failed to hit that 20 gram mark. And if we’re thinking about longevity, you know, if we’ve got some of the best protein researchers in the world, Theo Spolu, it leads back in the UK and Stu Phillips at McMaster in my hometown near Hamilton, Canada. Marc (12m 36s): You know, 1.2 grams per kilogram of body weight of protein. If we can start to achieve that in midlife and then through to our fifties, sixties and seventies, that’s a great way to preserve muscle mass, right? To prevent sarcopenia. So that loss of muscle mass as we age, which is really tightly connected to a lot of adverse health events. So that’s, if we can start to automate that, you know, if we can start to just, everybody knows that you can hit your 1.2 grams per day, divide that through the day. And that just becomes second nature. You can almost forget about the protein side of things and focus your attention, you know, on other areas. And so that’s part of the whole story is to just try to get people into the, into a rhythm with how they’re eating. So we don’t have to always be wondering, you know, should I do this? Marc (13m 18s): Should I do that, that type of thing? Brad (13m 20s): Hmm. Yeah. With the protein, it seems like there’s a trend toward backing away from any of the previous warnings about the dangers of consuming excess protein. Mark Sisson just wrote a long post on Mark’s Daily Apple.com. Paul Saladino is talking about 2.2 grams. In other words, a gram per pound or 2.2 grams per kilogram, which is 2.2 pounds per kilogram, which is quite a bit more than the minimum. You’re specifying a minimum there. Marc (13m 50s): Yeah. So this is where if you think of a bell curve, like the reason why we specify minimum is I want, and I know you’re a big golfer, so this is this, this dovetails with golf. Like when you’re a good golfer, your worst shot is just off the fairway. When you’re a 20 handicapper, your, the analogy Marc is 30 feet into the bush and it’s out of bounds, right? So we’ve got to start making a nutrition your worst day still pretty good. And so the idea with a minimum is that the 1.2, that’s your worst day you’re going to be doing really well. And to your point, as we go up that bell curve, you know, 1.6 grams per kilo looks like the sweet spot where you’re getting kind of most all the benefits and that’s work again, Rob Morton out of McMaster university, that shows that that’s a pretty nice place to go. Marc (14m 34s): But as you mentioned with, with Saladino from the 1.6, if you keep going up to that 2.2, now you’re at the top of that bell curve. You’re inching out those, you know, some of those, some of our listeners want those marginal gains. You know, other people will say, well, 1.6 that’s enough for me, but some folks will say, Hey, I want every last drop I can get. And that’s where you’re moving towards that 2.2. But yeah, the 1.2 is that minimum. And it’s that idea of like, let’s make, let’s improve the quality of your, your worst day versus, and then we can start to aim towards, you know, maximizing or optimizing from there. Brad (15m 7s): Yeah. And speaking of that, we have to back up a few steps. I mean, we’re, we’re probably have a listening audience that’s healthy, fit, and active every day. But a lot of times when you read a newspaper story headline, look, we’re looking at hundreds of millions of people who sit on their ass all day. And then here’s some research showing that consuming too much protein can damage the kidneys and cause increase insulin growth factor. And if you’re not moving around and not exercising and not even putting your body under resistance load and doing all those things, you’re kind of going into a different, a circle in the playground. And you got to go sit there and talk about your movement objectives before we’re splitting hairs and engaging in internet debate about the pros and cons, same with whatever they, the diverse dietary strategies that people are so excited about. Brad (15m 57s): I think for sure, you know, we got, we got to hit the big picture item first and then, you know, then go down the road. Marc (16m 4s): Yeah, totally agree. And that’s where they have that idea of like, if we can hit our protein, no matter what dietary strategy you pick, you know, you’re going to be doing a pretty good job of setting yourself up. Then to your point. You know, the other analogy I like with protein is like bricks in the wall. And if the more active you are, the more bricks you’re pulling out of that wall. And so we’ve got to, we’ve got to put the bricks back in and we’ve gotta eat the protein. And I think, you know, something that, you know, and of course your guests will, I’m sure it talks about previously, but as we increase our protein intake, we also increase our micronutrients. Right. We’re getting more vitamins, more minerals. It is like nature’s multivitamin. And that seems to go get missed in the, in the picture when we, you know, the vegetables and the fruits seem to always get the love when it comes to micronutrients. But we’ve got to shift that focus back to protein as well. Brad (16m 46s): Right. That’s a good point. When you’re, you’re talking about a vast assortment of carbohydrate foods that don’t have much nutrition at all. Your Starbucks drink. Your Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. We can also get consumed a lot of fat where maybe we’re not getting a lot of micronutrients, but when you’re looking at the typical choices of protein, you’re getting a lot of peripheral benefits too. Marc (17m 10s): Yeah. And it’s, you know, it’s between that and that’s a tidy effect. And of course what we call the thermic effect of food, which means it just costs your body up to 30% more calories just to break it all down and digest it and assimilate it. So it’s a, you know, it’s a pretty nice win. And for people who are trying to lose weight, I mean, there’s overfeeding studies where they get overfed 800 extra calories from protein and they don’t gain any extra weight. So, you know, if you’re going to overshoot on a macronutrient, protein is definitely the one. And to your point earlier, you know, we know now that, you know, up to three grams per kilo, which is just a number that, you know, unless you want to start carrying around Tupperwares, like you’re a bodybuilder, I’ll never get anywhere near That number, you know, is safe for over the course of a year for the kidneys. Marc (17m 54s): So you have that whole discussion around kidney health and protein is unfortunately still perpetuated in some medical circles, but you know, all the best protein researchers in the world, it’s not an issue if your kidneys are healthy. Brad (18m 7s): Yeah. It seems to me, even in the, you know, the category of advanced health enthusiast dropping excess body fat seems to be probably the number one goal of the entire health living, healthy living community at large. And this seems to have the most potential. That’s why I’m so interested in the carnivore diet because you’re assigned to eat these incredibly nutritious and high satiety foods that have a lot of nutritional value and bogus what you’re going to be full satisfied, and you’re not going to be spiking insulin so that you’re going to regulate appetite and probably predicting some favorable results with that huge and frustrating battle of trying to drop fat, possibly superior to going and choosing the, the fat all the time. Brad (18m 51s): Like a lot of the keto message is coming out to be, and you can have these high fat snacks that you can find in a bag or a wrapper and they’re keto approved and they’re, they’re sweetened with this artificial thing. And so it seems more reasonable to go back to basics, especially when we’re talking about ancestral living and, you know, we have meat, fish, fowl, eggs, these things have been the centerpiece of the human diet for a couple of million years. Let’s go back and hit those hard. Marc (19m 17s): That’s it? You know, if the ingredient list has one word you’re doing pretty well, beef, eggs, broccoli, boy, Stick to that. Brad (19m 26s): One thing you said quickly, I want to focus in on which was that aspect of reducing choice or reducing decision fatigue. Boy, this carries over into all areas of life. I remember a study kind of the random random comment. Then I’ll, then I’ll tee you up. But they’re talking about if, if the consumer had like three choices of automobile and they chose one versus another group that had 23 different choices, they level of satisfaction with the purchaser of the more narrow choice was much higher because they chose the best out of three. They’re super satisfied. They did their research. And then when you have 23, you’re like, Oh shit, maybe I should have got a Tesla. Those things, Marc (20m 6s): I don’t even want a car anymore. It’s crazy. Brad (20m 10s): Now we take it into like food and exercise decisions and how to structure your daily life. You’re talking about getting more busy with, with your three kids. What do we do there? Can we, can we automate things to make it easier to stay on track? Marc (20m 27s): Well, I think that’s, you know, Monday to Friday, by and large, the more we can do that, the better we’re going to be in the, where we see that the most is late eating. Right? We see research now showing that more than 40% of all the calories we consume come after 6:00 PM. You know, unless most of us are running marathons in the evening or hitting the dance floor, this is not a good to be bringing on board, The majority of your energy in a day. And we’re seeing more and more people. And this is a phenomenon that’s happening in not just the U S and Canada, but France, even where they live long and healthy. Japan. So it’s, it’s a global phenomenon. And the later that you eat, you tend to eat more ultra processed food. You tend to, it tends to be higher in calories. Marc (21m 7s): You know, you tend to consume more alcohol. And so the challenge of course, is after a long busy day. And of course in midlife, whether you have kids or not, whether it’s just your job or everything else, it’s busy, it’s hectic. And so your compliance is low. You’re sitting on the couch wondering, well, should I, or shouldn’t I have a glass of wine or a beer, or, you know, whatever else. I mean, the chances are you’re going to go for it. Right? And so this is where trying to, you know, if we’re trying to lose weight, if we’re trying to improve our glucose control or inflammation, all these types of things, we’ve got to start to say, okay, you know, especially with lockdowns, since, you know, rather than getting everybody fit with government initiatives, everyone’s been drinking wine and watching Netflix for the last year. So it’s even more topical. Marc (21m 47s): But we’ve got to start chipping away and saying, okay, you know, Monday to Wednesday or Monday to Thursday, we’re not going to snack after dinner. Right? And you know, we’ll have maybe some water or a cup of tea or something like that to provide a bit of sensation, but we’ve got to pre-select these days so that we don’t have to decide at nine o’clock on a Monday, whether we want a snack or not, you know, that’s part, part of the story. Now, the other part of the story is also the fact that we are like Pavlov’s dog in the sense that if you always have that nice glass of wine and piece of chocolate in your living room or TV room where you relax, well, if you keep exposing yourself to that same environment, whilst you have those nice things, well, what happens on a Tuesday when you actually don’t really crave a glass of wine or whatever else, but that environment now your brain is getting the sensation. Marc (22m 33s): Well, wait a minute, Hey, this is the place where we have. Then, you know, this is the nice food, the chocolate, the ice cream at nine o’clock at night or 10 o’clock. And so you begin to get cued by your environment. And so for people who struggle with, you know, not being able to resist that late night snack, you know, just changing rooms, go read a book in a different room, go do some light stretching, go take a hot shower or bath, go for a walk. And it’s amazing how all of a sudden, it’s almost like flipping a switch where you can get through that craving now. And we’re not trying to deny anyone, a nice glass of wine, you know, Hey, a couple of days on the weekend or the, you know, the fitter or healthier you are, you might expand that to three nights a week or whatnot. Marc (23m 14s): But if we don’t start to kind of pay attention and even designate some of those nights, it just becomes really tough when you’re tired and run down, it’s been a long day and the bottle of wine is sitting there, the beer or whatever it might be for that individual bag of chips, whatever, you know, we’re human. And we’re going to typically go for those types of cravings. Brad (23m 34s): Mm. I guess, especially in the evening after we’ve been worn down and our decision fatigue is accumulating, our willpower is diminishing because we’ve applied willpower in 17 different ways to, to resist watching another YouTube video about high jumping when you’re supposed to be writing a book or whatever the example is. And then we get to the finish line of the day. We conclude that we deserve it. Right. And so everything kind of unravels. I wonder Marc (24m 3s): To jump in bro, like willpower is, you know, it’s a finite resource, right? Like, and this is where we dovetail into the elite of the elite. Like they don’t get up at 5:30 in the morning because they’re disciplined. I mean, they’ve done it so long that discipline turns into automaticity, right? Turns into habit. Like they get up at 5:30 and they don’t ask themselves, should I? Or shouldn’t I get up? They’ve just done it so long. They, they roll out of bed, even if they’re cursing under their breath and they do it. Right. Whereas the rest of us, if it’s early in the morning are not feeling so good. You have that moment. Should I run? Should I stay in bed? Like when you’re teetering on that moment, that’s when we know already there’s going to be a problem. So we’ve got to find some strategies to help to offset. Brad (24m 40s): Okay. Now I got to put myself up on the chopping block on that specific example, right there with sleep. And we champion the, the, you know, the high performing executive, who’s got their morning routine and they’re so disciplined and it’s automatic to get up before the sunrise and send a picture on social media of your watch with the awakening time, like Jocko does all the time. And you know, I come from a lead athletic background, just like you do with coaching the national level players in Canada. And when I was a triathlete, I did everything I could to maximize my sleep no matter what. And so I was obsessed with being in bed as long as possible, rather than being some bad-ass who would answer to the alarm no matter what. Brad (25m 24s): And I know there’s, boy, we’ve got to get our habits in place. We got to get our ass out of bed and do something, or, you know, do something productive rather than eat too much food at nighttime. But where’s that balance point when it comes to sleep and resting your body and answering that voice that says, I don’t really feel like doing my morning workout today Marc (25m 44s): For sure. And I, yeah. I mean, I suppose with the example I was giving us around that idea of like, you know, assuming that sleep is taken care of, then we’re going to get up and do what we need to do. And we’re not going to just say, well, maybe I’ll do that tomorrow. Right. And to your point, I mean, triathletes and endurance athletes are great at this right. Compliance is, is such a huge part of success. I mean the British sports medicine journal a few years back basically found that, you know, if you can’t show up every day to train and compete than just being ill, just being run down, you can’t keep up with the competition because you’re missing training days. And so, you know, they, they summarize that, you know, poor health is incompatible with elite performance. Marc (26m 25s): That’s how not to show it is to just show up every day and get it in. And so, yeah, I mean, sleep’s fundamental. We know, you know, some classic studies by Sheldon Cohen back in the nineties where they have, which you can’t do these days, but they inoculated participants with, with a virus, right. A common cold, and to see who got sick the most. So if you got less than seven hours of sleep, you are three times more likely to get sick. And if you got less than six hours of sleep at night, you were four and a half times more likely to get sick. And so, you know, that’s not, you know, and again, in midlife, this is one of the reasons why parents, but young kids get sick all the time. It’s not just being exposed to what’s at the school, but it’s the fact that if you’re not sleeping as much, you’ve got the combination of increased exposure with suppressed immunity, which is the perfect recipe for, you know, catching something. Marc (27m 13s): So we definitely need to find a way to chip away at least get that seven hours that we’re, you know, the national sleep foundation recommends. But, you know, I think there’s probably times when people are really busy at work, or if it’s, again, parents with young kids where we’ve got a carve out of those spots to maybe find some naps in the day to try to think about our weekly total, rather than just what we can get in a day, because you know, there’s periods where you’re going to get stuck with that maybe six or six and a half for a little bit at a time, and you got to find a way to get through it. Right? Brad (27m 43s): Yeah. I had a great interview learning about this concept of your sleep deficit and that you can imagine this ideal of getting eight, I say eight hours, cause I’m a, I’m a sleep machine, but you know, let’s say eight hours, times six times seven is 56 hours a week. And you can kind of keep this mental note going in your mind or write it down when you traveled and you got on the airplane or woke up early and now your sleep deficit is four hours or whatever. And you will make that up over time one way or another if you’re, if you want to be healthy. And so that might mean finding that nap. There’s an hour there on the weekend. Brad (28m 23s): It’s not ideal, but you can, you can kind of, you know, my sister’s the queen of afternoon naps and she’ll go down for three hours cause she has an extremely busy life as a physician, including night calls and things where her sleep is destroyed, like a, like a first responder. But boy, what a, what a great opportunity to, to imagine this sleep deficit and trying to always get back to a zero score. Marc (28m 46s): That’s I mean, that’s tremendous, that’s what we do with our athletes, but idea of yeah. That weekly sleep total, because you sometimes just always think of how much you can get in tonight. And you know, if you’re only, if you’re only getting six, it’s really hard to go to seven or seven and a half in one jump. And so where else can you find time? So I love that idea of, of throwing in those naps. Another interesting study that came out of Dr. James Betts, that same University of Bath group, people who have short sleep. So you have that night where you don’t have a lot of sleep. What do we all reach for in the morning, a cup of coffee, right? Get us going. They actually found that when you have a short sleep, when you drink that coffee, first thing in the morning, you actually, again, get this really exaggerated. It was up to 50% exaggerated glucose response in the morning. Marc (29m 27s): So it was sort of worsening this stress response. And if those individuals just waited a little longer, right? So rather than that, that day where you’re waking up and you’re tired and you just hold off a couple hours and then have your coffee and you’d actually have a much better nervous system response. So you’re not sort of cracking that whip so hard on an already a sluggish and fatigued nervous system. So that’s, you know, and I’m a coffee lover. So I get it, I get it reaching for the reaching for the pot. I had one client who had an automated coffee maker where it’s already brewing and everything and the mold before he even wakes up. I mean, that’s next level, but, but those are some of the little things we can start to do to just then not be cracking the whip so hard in the nervous system, because, you know, as you know, it allowed up and people can really dig themselves a pretty good hole between the lack of sleep and too much caffeine. Brad (30m 13s): Oh, I love it. So if you are a struggling dragon ass, let’s make sure that we ride that out rather than try to, to overcome it. I feel like the same thing is when you’re you got that stiff lower back before you’re playing your once a week, pickup basketball game and go out there and feel fine. I’d rather have the stiff back because that’s going to limit my mobility and protect me from, you know, having a disastrous injury. Marc (30m 43s): And that’s a great point. Like as soon as you start taking NSAID, ibuprofens and such before exercise, like that’s when you know, you’re, you’re past the tipping point right now, it’s that protective signal of pain is now being overwritten then yeah. You can get yourself into some trouble there. So that’s a very good point. Brad (31m 0s): Let’s go before we continue to cruise on, I want to go back to that ideal of setting yourself up to make fewer decisions and putting these peak performance attributes in place. We kind of went off target when you talked about the elite getting up early, no matter what. So let’s say sleep is taken care of, and then you have a few options at hand when you start your day or when you have time to carve out and you wish you could be better about blank getting to the gym, getting out in the morning, how do we automate this? And also, you know, you can throw in some, some eating things too. Marc (31m 38s): Yeah. I mean to quickly kind of tie up the eating piece. I mean, the concept that we try to use the books called master your morning, which basically means get the right breakfast in which means that the right amount of protein for you and omit the morning snacking, like for most individuals, unless you’re an athlete or somebody who has performance goals, most individuals, we don’t need to snack between breakfast and lunch, right? I mean, even if you’re 10% body fat, you’ve got 30,000 calories, you could run eight marathons with no fuels. Surely we can get from 8:00 AM to 12 noon without eating. Right. And so again, that frees up, you know, reduces the energy intake over the day and, and whatnot. So that’s that on the nutrition side. On the exercise side, there again, there’s some great new research coming out on gentleman named Rob Edinburgh showed that, you know, when we’re doing resistance training in the morning, right, and this is overweight individuals and that same fasted state, the body starts to use more intramuscular triglycerides. Marc (32m 31s): So the fats in the muscle now the cool thing there is that when you use more of those to lift or do your session, that’s actually a really powerful signal to the, to start improving insulin sensitivity because it senses that those fuel gauge is lowering because you’re getting through those intramuscular fats more, more quickly. So that can be a really great strategy of if someone wants to get up and have that coffee and lift. And then on the flip side, I think under appreciated, it’s just how I’m walking. You can do anytime, but walking after a meal, if you’re looking to blunt the glucose response. So again, somebody who’s struggling with higher blood sugars may be pre-diabetic or diabetic, just going for a walk after a meal, which, you know, these days with phones, you can be listening to a podcast, you can be taking courses, you can be taking a walking meeting, you could be doing a million different things while Brad (33m 17s): Watch your Netflix thing, man blocks your net, same thing you’re doing at home. Marc (33m 21s): Yeah. And so I think that that could be a nice one because a lot of times do we can connect that with being outside or we can connect it with going with a friend or a colleague. So you’ve got some connecting with a person, which after COVID is kind of nice to see another actual human. But, but those are some ways in the morning of being able to think about, you know, what you might want to do. And again, it depends on the individual, but what’s some nice options there. Brad (33m 46s): Let’s talk about the, the, the cutting edge now in the elite performers of the world. And what’s, what’s going well? And also, I mean, you hit hard in the book, which is nice. Cause we need to talk about this without any sugarcoating that there’s still so much broke, bro science and old school traditions, you call it. And I still say this permeating the very highest levels of sport, where, you know, an Olympian type performer or a leading professional basketball player, Clay Thompson rehabbing an injury, it goes down with another injury and I’m going to point a finger and saying, look, this guy is a, is a multimillion dollar, a thoroughbred racehorse business entity, economic asset. Brad (34m 28s): And somebody screwed up because you shouldn’t be pulling a tendons out of place as an extremely high performing athletes. So let’s talk about the good and the things that you see, especially on the recovery side, which is such your area of expertise and also the stuff that’s still hanging out there. That’s kind of anywhere from adverse to disgraceful. Marc (34m 48s): Yeah. I mean, it is such a, it’s a challenge even at the highest level. And one of the things that I like to use with clients is, you know, compliance over complexity. Like I think it’s natural that we want to make things more complex, more complex, more complicated, but often, I mean, Brad (35m 5s): You’re dealing with real human clients that, and I know the guy you’re talking about or gal. It’s the ones that asked 17 questions after you make a simple suggestion, like get your protein up to 1.6. Marc (35m 17s): Okay, well, that’s good. We can harness all that passion and energy, but it’s almost like we’ve got to make sure we’re hitting the big rocks because even at the highest level, there’s often an area that we’re missing or that isn’t fully tapped. And that idea of, of big rocks or big buckets, we sometimes call it is that if, if you have a big bucket, even if you only fill that big bucket halfway or two thirds, it’s going to be a lot more beneficial than that little wee thimble or shock glass. If you fill that up, even if you a hundred percent maximize it, you’re still not getting very much bang for your buck. Right? So compliance is big. So when we talk about injuries, you know, low energy availability is this term where we’re not consuming enough caloric intake, not enough protocol, energy than calories, but, and so this is a problem at the highest level. Marc (36m 0s): Cause sometimes we get so focused at, you know, eating clean. It’s nice that that’s sort of a trend that people want to consume more whole foods. And that’s tremendous. And that’s obviously the foundation of any performance nutrition protocol, but we also need to just make sure there’s enough gas in the gas tank to drive the car from LA to New York, right. If there’s not enough fuel in the system, we’re going to expose ourselves to more injuries. And if you combine that with things like lack of sleep, you know, we really become, you know, more susceptible. So those things crop up more than you realize because the sport like basketball is just even an hour of intense training. And the gym is nowhere near, you know, the accelerations, the decelerations, the jumping, landing that you get in a sport like basketball or soccer or American football. Marc (36m 45s): So the caloric demands are just, you know, really high. And this is where, you know, including more juices, more readily available, you know, this is where some ultra processed food you might use just to, to increase the amount of energy that goes in. And it’s always funny when we talk about the general population than athletes, because, you know, it’s, it’s tough to square that, that circle sometimes when we say, well, actually this person I’m going to have them eat some cereal or some pasta because it’s going to make them more hungry so we can get enough meals in the day to get enough fuel in. Right? So almost the opposite of what we’re telling the general population, but because movement’s so high, when you look at their blood sugars are lipid panel and everything else, metabolically, they’re still fantastic. Marc (37m 26s): Right? And so, you know, that’s, that’s a part of it, of that idea of getting enough fuel in. And then the other aspect is that athletes are people too. So it’s funny how, you know, they want to look lean. They want to look, they want to see the six pack. And all of a sudden they’re comparing themselves maybe to a, to a fellow pro and, and now they start changing their fueling plan. Cause they think that, well, my, my uncle’s doing this, or my brother did this or a friend of mine did the XYZ. And again, that tends to fall into this. Well, now we’re eating less well. There’s meal frequency or total energy, and we can get into some, some problems there. So, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s elite athletes, as you know, are different to a certain degree than the rest of us. Marc (38m 9s): But the similarities are, they have struggling to eat the right breakfast too. Right? Like there’s some of those parts of that make it very relatable in the sense that they might just roll into practice after having a croissant rather than eating the right breakfast that they need to eat. Right. And so were some of these messages that we’re telling the rest of our clients, this is what we’re also telling the best of the best. Brad (38m 31s): Right. I suppose you can realize you’re in that category of underfeeding, if you’re a lean have good blood work and not recovering like you, you wish or something like that, which is a small sliver. Marc (38m 47s): Yeah. I mean, these are the more elite, you know, these are the elite of the elite and it’s a different animal, isn’t it? When, and again, if you think of the best golfer, go back to golf, like the best golfer at your local club, who is the scratch golfer is still nowhere near the guys who were on the, on the lower tourists. And they’re still nowhere near the guys were on the big tour. I mean, it’s just, you know, that those jumps that you go through. Or another great one actually from the endurance role was Andy Jones who was doing the Nike, you know, sub two documentary was talking about how he had a friend who was a really elite runner. And so they were doing a warm treadmill test. And I think he got up to like 16, 17 kilometers an hour. Marc (39m 29s): So he’s really running his heart out. And then he gets off there. Then the pros come in and, you know, start their warmup at that speed. It’s like, you know, they’re, they’re feeling it just a different level. So that’s, it does get difficult when we think of the general population, because it’s, you know, they’ve got their own set of rules when it comes to the amount of fuel, but sometimes you see it in the general population when people get really dialed into, you know, certain dietary aspects. But yeah, if you’re struggling with energy, if your blood work’s starting to look a bit funky, you know, if your mood starting to get impacted. And then that’s one to think about. Brad (40m 6s): Yeah. I think I have some personal reference points of this concept where if you get accustomed to eating fewer calories, your body will, down-regulate it, everything, including that you take 48 hours to recover from a session instead of 36. You’re not tapping your foot during the day like you described earlier. And so all these compensations occur, which are really disturbing, including that since you’re not energetic enough to put in the hard work, you’re not going to get as fit and you’re not going to get as lean because you’re not eating enough food. So that’s some, that’s some crazy shit right there. I’d love for you to come in on that. And then I’m going to ask you on the flip side too, but first let’s learn about this pattern that might be more common than we think, including the person who’s got five extra pounds and is stressing about that and cutting back when maybe they should be pounded some more protein, first thing in the morning and your example. Marc (41m 1s): Yeah. I mean, this is where it’s the human body’s fascinating is. I mean, if you go back to this golf analogy, like, you know, you hit balls on the range, you try to groove your swing and there’s certain days where all of a sudden, you know, you’ve just got it. You’ve got the swing cue you like, and all you’re just flushing it. And maybe this goes on for a few days or a week. And in your mind, you sort of think I’ve got it. Like it’s never gonna, I’m never going to lose it again. Right? And then 14 days later, 10 days later, or the very next day, you know, you’re hitting a duck hook into the woods again. And you’re like, what is going on? And so this is where the, you know, the human body again, to your point, the adaptations are always taking place. And so we do have to think about, you know, if that individual has 20 or 30 pounds to lose, and we’re really reducing caloric intake and we’re using certain strategies, you know, as they get fitter and leaner, we’re going to start, you know, potentially change the rules of the game a little bit, you know. Marc (41m 53s): It may require more fuel or they may be more carbohydrate. And you know, and so there are all these nuances, it’s almost like standing on a, on a ball if you will, right. You’ve always got to keep your feet moving to hold that balance. And so, you know, the good news is that most of these tweaks are like five degrees off what people are doing, which is, you know, I’m sure you see with your clients, right. People think that the world is the sky is falling, but really we just need to do a little bit here a little bit there and we’ll get everything back on. And it’s back to that idea of having that long view of that compliance view. Like, no, unfortunately that expectation we get on social media is rapid body transformation in 30 days. And you know, sometimes I’ll tell my clients, well, how good a guitar player can you get in 30 days? Marc (42m 34s): Right. Or how, you know, how’s your Italian after 30 days. Yeah. But when we’re dealing with these kind of complex problems, we’ve got to give ourselves time or even investments, right. How are your investments after 30 days? We need to start taking that longer approach I’m down. It’s terrible. Yeah, no, exactly. Right. And there’s a tremendous strength goes over here in the UK. Dan Clutter St. Mary’s University. And he talks, you know, he’ll ask a client what their goals are for, you know, they’ll say, well, I want to add 20 pounds to my, to my bench press or whatever. They’ll say, great, okay, we’re going to add five pounds a year for the next four years. It’s like completely reframing things in that sense of like, if we actually take it this low, we can really make progress, you know, obviously with the plan and everything else, but you can then start stacking the winds versus what people tend to do is, is that, and of course, you know, your listeners are well, well first and a lot of this stuff, but I’m sure you’ve seen, you know, we go from one approach to the next. Marc (43m 28s): And if, if we’re never kind of tackling those, those challenges head on, and then we end up back in the same place. Brad (43m 35s): Love the golf analogies, man. I’m thinking of my brother, who’s a long time, lifelong champion golfer shooting. He just shot his age at the age of 69. He shot a 68, which would be a two or three under par on the course. So, you know, he he’s a player and he’s been for, for decades. And I remember him answering a question of a friend who had just recently been exposed to golf and was getting really excited. And he said, Wally, how long do you think it would take? If I practice, you know, an hour, every single day to get really good at golf. And he, you know, he, he paused and answered straight up dead pan about 10 years. And that guy’s face went, what are you talking about? Because if you want to go add weight to your bench press or things like that, I think you can, you know, you can get a lot done in six weeks, but the idea of, of, of shooting par in golf and then back to the, the other golf analogies, I think that’s a really important point to strengthen as like your worst day and your most, you know, your, your worst Spinoff track on that cruise or that vacation. Brad (44m 37s): If you’re still, you know, not too bad, then you can recalibrate and continue this forward momentum. But I think that’s the really important thing to identify is we’re not all going to be perfect. But if you have a day where you flaked off and missed out and you know, didn’t hit your checkpoints, you know what? It still wasn’t that bad. Marc (44m 54s): That’s the thing. And the big themes of the book of Peak 40 is like, if you get your morning, right. And things go off the rails too much in the evening and you can hit your protein through the day, you’d be amazed how much progress you can make. And when things go off the rails a year from now, if you come back to those things, it’s a great way to just bring everything back to the middle. You know, it’s like, keep, keep the ball in play. Let’s, let’s get it out of the bush back. It doesn’t even have to be on the fairway yet. As long as it’s in the rough, we can find it. Right. And so that’s where, or the analogy when you go bowling and they have those bumper lanes, you know, you can only go only, it can only get so bad, whereas Brad (45m 28s): Some bowling up in your life, people, I love it. Marc (45m 30s): That’s the thing. I mean, the problem with midlife is that things get so challenging that we speak. We’ll just say, well, screw it. You know? And then now all of a sudden, instead of being 10 or 15 or 20 pounds, you know, I’m sure you see this with your clients. It can quickly get to 30 or 40 pounds. They can quickly get to hypertension and pre-diabetes, and it’s only one that, you know, for a lot of times, and probably speaking more to men here than women, but, you know, it’s the only one until they go to the doctor and the doctor says, you know, you need to go on a statin or you’ve got diabetes where the lights start to go on. And it’s like, Oh shit, I need to do something about this. And, you know, hopefully we don’t have to wait to that, to that point. Right, Brad (46m 6s): Boy, I will say that this ain’t easy and we can be positive and enthusiastic here on the show and talk about our great examples from our own life about my morning routine. It’s great. Mark, let me tell you what it is. You can see it on YouTube, but I, I realized myself, like there’s kind of a, a level, a shelf you have to get up to, to where, in my case, I’m going to reference strength training and, you know, putting my body under heavy resistance load, doing the dead lifts, doing the X three bar. This stuff is pretty strenuous and tiring, especially when you don’t do it regularly. And it’s taken me, I’m going to say several years to get to this, I guess, sort of a, a breakthrough point where I can go out to a gym, like I’m on vacation yesterday with my brother, we went into the fitness center of the Squaw Vallley resort, and I threw some weight around and it felt fine. Brad (46m 57s): And I got a good workout. And I went about my busy day, but I know a couple of few years ago, whenever I was kinda, you know, I was doing other things for fitness, but putting that, putting that resistance load on the bar, boy, I felt it the next day. I was sore. I was tired. And it’s sort of discouraging when you try to do all these, you know, these great checkpoints, another one would be cutting the sugar and the carbs out of your diet. If you try to slightly cut back for the next 30 days, it’s going to suck because it’s, it’s, it’s too difficult, too many addictive properties of these reward foods. And you know, there, there’s some, there’s some justification here for stepping up to the plate and going, you know, I’m going to do this. Brad (47m 41s): It’s 2021 and I’m going to make it work no matter what. And it might be a little difficult at times, but you’re going to have this breakthrough point somewhere in the future where you’re a fit person and you can throw down and, and, and carry on without having to, having to cry about it 24 hours later. Marc (47m 57s): Yeah. A hundred percent. And one of the cool things even researching for Peak 40 was the science of all, you know, what’s all, all, it’s like going out into nature and seeing an ocean or seeing some mountains, as you mentioned, seeing forest, you know, even going to a concert or a sporting event. And it’s pretty amazing that awe triggers this inspiration, right? So if you’re tired and run down and there’s stress at work and stress at home, and it’s like, you don’t even want it to your point. You don’t even want to, like the thought of getting out to exercise or train is just another thing on the to-do list, man. I don’t have time for that. Just get yourself out into nature for a minute. Just, just get exposed to these scenes. And it’s like all of a sudden, there’s a little bit of a spark there, right? Marc (48m 39s): And so inspiration is actually a central theme all and all ties into all aspects of happiness. So both life satisfaction and subjective happiness. And so it’s amazing how on that side of the coin, you know, we talked about habits, which is one end of the spectrum, but at other end, that initial end is that spark of inspiration to kind of light the match. So you can actually start doing some of these things. And I think, you know, when people are struggling, I know last year with COVID, it’s been pretty full on for everybody in terms of the mental health aspect. You know, just getting some space, getting outside, seeing whether it’s a, you know, an ocean, a mountains for us, whatever it might be. But that is a nice way to just reset mentally to say, okay, you can, you can take some of these things on board versus, you know, I know for, you know, with working with various clients, it can just seem like at some point it’s like, it’s just too many things to do in a day to even get started. Brad (49m 31s): Wow. That, and I would predict that once the person takes a few steps out into nature, sometimes the inspiration might occur right on the spot to say, yeah, maybe I will jog down to the, the bridge and turn around, but to have that natural motivation is so beautiful rather than the pressure in the intimidation, which is we know is such a huge factor in the gym scene where people are literally don’t want to go in there to be seen in their workout outfit. And all these things are going through their head that are so tragic. Marc (50m 1s): That’s exactly it. And even like the idea of journaling or like meditation, which are all great, which are all great strategies. I recommend them. But for some people it’s like, it just seems like another thing to have to do or learn, whereas like just walk outside over there to the forest. And it’s amazing how like as light switch it’ll, you know, we see even in the research, anxiety levels, decrease cortisol levels, go down, all these things that will help you to get that, you know, to your point. And then all of a sudden people start doing the things we want them to do without that external motivator, without having to wag your finger and say, do this, do that. You know, once you get that internal motivation going in a client, whether they’re gunning for Tokyo or the rest of us, that’s when we’ve got something to work with. Brad (50m 44s): Right. Oh, that’s nice. We’re now talking in the, the, the forgotten 1% realm of all content on podcasts, social media, internet, because everyone’s wagging that finger and I’m gonna, I’m sure I’m to blame or, you know, someone with all my enthusiasm and well-intentioned, it can be off-putting to people that are too freaking busy or, you know, don’t, don’t live and breathe this stuff. So yeah. Get out into nature, man. That’s that’s our starting point and have your hands empty. Don’t have a fricking snack when you’re out in nature, just breathe and enjoy the trees. Yeah. No energy bars allowed. Marc (51m 21s): So it was amazing. I’m from Toronto and going out to the West coast, whether it’s Vancouver, you know, just the smelling that you get off the plane and the air smells fresher, you know? So, I mean, anytime you can get out wherever you are, you know, definitely helps. Brad (51m 35s): Well, before we wrap up, I’m interested in, what’s working at the recovery category, especially with the elite performers. And part of my question is we’re hit with all this cool high-tech stuff. And I tried the NormaTec boots and they were fantastic. And I’m like, should I get a pair? And then I go, Oh, Oh, they’re $2,000. I don’t know what they cost. I thought I’d pop a couple of hundred bucks or something that cool, but I’m waiting in the background to see like, what are, you know, what are the very best things? You know, I’m a fan of cold exposure and that’s getting a lot of, a lot of publicity, but you know, what’s, what’s the cool stuff that’s happening out there on the cutting edge. That may be affordable too. Marc (52m 16s): No, for sure. I mean, I think if we start even with general population again, I think cold tubs are great, but even for a lot of people, again, it’s that like, Ooh, do I want to get into a cold tub? So hot tubs or have some tremendous benefit as well. When we look at blood pressure, right? You get in somewhere really hot vessels, dilate your cardiac output goes up. And so you can actually improve your blood pressure by just sitting in a nice, a hundred degree, 104 degree, hot tub. You also actually see blood sugar levels improving when you just sit in a hot tub. So it’s actually recommended now if people are, you know, can’t exercise because they’re unfortunately that obese or unfit. Actually just sitting in a hot tub for 14 minutes will improve glucose control. And we can actually start that process to then, you know, what we talked about, get inspired, get moving and all that good stuff. Marc (53m 0s): Now on the recovery side, even at the highest level, there’s always been this back and forth being hot or cold. And you see all the teams now with our performance centers in the NBAs, especially, but football now as well, where there’s this, you know, the hot and different cold tubs, but being able to get in, you know, just to get the blood moving is such a key aspect of it. And so, especially to things that don’t get good blood flow areas like the ankles and wrists. And then so one where, you know, it’s, it’s not necessarily, it’s the oldest new again with, with having some of that contrast of hot and cold. So that’s definitely an area and, you know, it does get tricky. We have cryotherapy, some teams use. Marc (53m 43s): And despite the fact that cold plunges are sort of superior to cryotherapy, you know, sometimes that two minute exposure that wow factor, if we do talk about some of the benefits of pizzazz and you can actually get an athlete to go in there for two minutes and they won’t go into the cold bath and that could be something that’s beneficial, but those NormaTec boots do pretty well. You just got to, you know, make, make friends with your local sports therapist to be able to run some out because they are pretty pricey. Brad (54m 11s): Oh, wow. You’ve covered so much ground. And I love how you’re always threading in the research. You can tell that you’re just up on the finger, on the pulse of everything. Working with real people is also a nice kind of attribute from being purely theoretical and just dealing with studies all days. It’s like, wait, how does this work with my clients? So I’m going to recommend this Peak 40 to everyone. Hey, if you’re under 40, get, get on this before you turn 40. And if you’re over 40 it’s time to grab the book. Maybe tell us a ride that wave as long as you can tell, tell us a further how to connect with you and any, any final thoughts that you want. Marc (54m 45s): Yeah, for sure. Well, listen to the book comes out May 20th. Peak 40. There’s a podcast also we’ll have a short form podcast called Peak 40 which will dive more into some of these specific topics like the breakfast and the late eating. So you can check that out on my website. I’ve got a funny, last name. So Dr. Bubbs dot com slash 40. And if you want to find me on social media, ask any questions that’s at Dr. Bubbs. Brad (55m 8s): Dr. Mark Bubbs, everybody, thank you very much. Thanks for listening. Marc (55m 11s): Appreciate it. Hit ’em along the straight. Brad (55m 15s): Oh yeah. Thank you for listening to the show. I love sharing the experience with you and greatly appreciate your support please. Email podcast@bradventures.com with feedback, suggestions and questions for the Q and A shows. Subscribe to our email list of Brad kearns.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. Brad (56m 1s): 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 soundbite 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 Marc (56m 24s): And remember B.rad.

SaveSave