If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump, mind pump, with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. This is the third time we've had Lane on the show. It's always fun because he's probably one of the most polarizing people that we bring on our show. This episode, I love, a lot of hate it for our boy. This episode had the most like information, like nutrition information, science information. This is, I'm gonna say, this is like diet talk. Yeah, yeah. If you're into diet talk, you know, have fun with this. I didn't even ask you how you felt about this one, so this was not a favorite. August News Fest. Oh, wow. Big time for me. Wow, so this was not a favorite for you. Because we didn't talk so much about his personal life and stuff. That's funny because this was a favorite for me too. Well, I know because it's in your guy's realm of like, you know, really optimizing your diet.  So I could see that. But yeah, for me, it was like. Oh, wow, I didn't even think about that for you because it was such a, it was so much my favorite episode with Lane so far that I just assumed that we all thought that, but I didn't even think that Justin may not enjoy it as much as we did. No, he got real deep into science and macros and reverse dieting. That was great talk on reverse dieting. Oh, this is a great one for that.  And I finally feel like, what is this, the third or fourth time now that we've interviewed Lane and we've been around him several times now. I finally feel like he's really comfortable. He was the most comfortable for sure. Right. Didn't you feel that way? Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, so I think it was by far the best just because of that, because I didn't feel his like, every other time I felt nervous energy from him. Right.  We got, yeah, we got Dr. Lane Norton on this one. Whereas the other ones we talked more about personal stuff and his life and it was a good. Yeah, the other ones I felt like we were kind of poking at him more. Although don't give me, don't worry. I still jabbed him plenty of times. You know what's funny that the mutual respect that we have for him and vice versa is really awesome. He is a good, generally a good person, honest person can be polarizing because he's very passionate and opinionated, but good information. And you know what? He talked about a lot of things that were mime pup kinda-esque in this episode. Yeah, I found very interesting. Yeah, talked about intuitive eating a little bit, you know, and we talked a little bit of some stuff that we find kind of fascinating. But anyway, it was a really, really good episode. He came here with Holly, his girlfriend. She's not on this episode, but I did do a YouTube video with her discussing reverse dieting, because this is a, it's a fascinating topic. You know, how to get your metabolism to essentially speed up, like get your body to burn more calories without gaining more body fat, which is a position I think a lot of people listening would wanna be in. But anyway, you can find Lane Norton on his own podcast that's a Physique Science Radio. His website is biolane.com. He's on Instagram, excuse me, at Biolane, I believe. And I think that's pretty much it, right? I mean, we got the Holly video you just did too that's gonna be dropping, right? That's on MimePumpTV on YouTube. Right, some of you guys, we still have people that don't subscribe to the MimePumpTV, which is on YouTube, that it's completely different content than what we put here. So I don't know if you know that. I think some people think that it's just mirroring. Different conversation. Yeah, we bring a lot of professionals on to give their, you know, awesome gems in there and like educate. That's right. And of course, I do wanna mention if you are interested in any of our maps, fitness programs, which are designed for specific goals, or if you're interested in like a nutrition guide or a fasting guide, or how to do occlusion on your arms and legs properly, we have those all available as well. Those are all on our website, MimePumpMedia.com, you can click on any of the programs and learn more about them. But without any further ado, here we are interviewing Dr. Lane Norton. Adieu. We're all friends here. Yeah. It's a safe space. It's a safe space. It is a very safe space. You guys who've never like seen inside this show, like you're literally inside a box right now. Yeah, we, well, you hear it next door how loud it is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Say what? You know why it's all crazy next door? Why? It's bomb proof. Look in what you're gonna call it. It's the... Memorial Day. Is it Murph? Oh, Murph. Oh, that's why. Yeah, cause it is, yeah, this is day he passed. Dude, there's, I was wondering why it's so crazy next door. I'm like, they don't have like five people over there right now. There's like a huge party over there. No wonder there's people wearing weight vests running out. Yeah, the Murph. That's part of it. Yeah, that's what they're doing. That's an awesome tribute actually. Oh, it's if you know the story. It's brilliant is what it is. It's brilliant in my opinion. I mean that's... Did you guys read the book? No. Oh man. Like the movie was good, but the book was awesome. Was it better? Loan Survivor. Yeah. But that's... Oh, you're talking about that? Oh, Loan Survivor. Oh, that's not, so that's not Murph. That's Marcus LaTrell. No, no, I know it is, but I believe... Oh, I've read that. That's my favorite book, bro. The guy who died, that was, I believe that was Murphy. Was it his best friend? Was that Murph? I thought so. I thought so. Maybe I got it wrong. That's a good quote. You know what? I don't know if that's the same guy or not. I don't know that. Now that's gonna bug me. There you go. Now Doug will pull it up. Look that up.  No, no, I don't think it's disrespect no matter what, because I mean, it's a tribute to them. And that talk about, that's my favorite all-time book.  It says how the event has grown. You're gonna have to scroll up there. Oh, that is him. Look at it. Michael Murphy. Michael, yeah.   Dude, I have all these, like when it comes to memory, I'm kind of a freak. Yeah, I feel you. Yeah. I have a really photographic memory. I just remember everything. You care about that, right?  Yeah, yeah. Like, I was like, they don't really teach history in Australian schools that much. So like, I was given a whole history lesson of like, why World War I and World War II started. Probably because Australia wasn't really involved. Actually, you know, they're SAS, they're actually pretty badass. Like, their special forces are actually legit. Oh, for sure. They were involved. It's just, you know, in the Pacific theater, it's just that, you know, a country of 23 million, with the same population as the state of Florida. Exactly. You only do so much. Exactly. You know what I mean? Like, and they're pretty laid back.   They had some boomerang attacks that really destroyed it. We call them cosy planes. Some didgeridoo battles. Hey, I love the Australians, so let's be honest. They're actually big fans of our show. I think it's because we cuss and are humor. Yeah. That's what I love about them is you can, there's nothing inappropriate over it.  It's like their favorite work. I love people that say it all the time. So Holly, Holly debates this, but Holly is a very, Holly is like a very proper person.  I'm like, bam. Really? Like, she's like, well, maybe they're really feral people. She's just feral, you know. Like gangster. Yeah. I'm like, I don't know, babe.   Record stop.  Like it's almost, it's almost like a word you just, pretty soon we'll just say the C word. You know what I mean? You can't say it.  I thought it was great. That was wonderful. For those of us that think we can actually say this just because we're actually talking about other people who say it. So it's totally fine, you know.  You know what I mean? Like you don't feel safe, you know.  So it's not discriminatory at all. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like white, black, gay, and woman. I feel like you can argue that with any word. They're all made up anyways, dude. Yeah, that's true. They're all made up words anyways. I love Adam over there. It's just words, man. It is.  Where did they come from, bro? You never hear Satan thought about that. Have you watched Monk Debates yet? Monk Debates. Oh, you've never seen that channel? You get introduced.  You will like it. Bro, they take controversial subjects and then they take two experts from either side and have them debate, but very intelligently. And so like I watched about 40 minutes of one last night where it was about religion. Is religion more of a good force in the world or bad or something like that? And on one side you had Tony Blair who used to be the Prime Minister of the UK who was also like a devout Catholic. And then you had Christopher Hitchens. This is before he passed away. He's the author of God Is Not Great or something like that or whatever. Anyway, it's a fascinating platform. Really good, cool stuff. You probably, you'd like it. Yeah, that's so subjective, you know. I mean, I'd probably err on the side of, I think it's probably caused more harm. Oh, you think so? I disagree. Well, listen, I could be swayed, you know. Cause for some people, like I think on an individual. So I think a person is usually pretty smart.  If you know what I mean, like groups of people. Oh, I hear what you're saying.  You're right, you're right. Group mind, yeah. Yeah, so like, but an individual, I think I've seen a lot of individuals whose religion has made a really positive impact in their life, you know. Cause for me, and I'm not saying this is right or wrong, it's just how I'm wired. Like I don't need the idea of an afterlife to think that I should be a good person and live a good life.  Yeah. But for some people, that kind of makes them despondent and the idea of something after that is what motivates them or even just a relationship with God, a higher purpose. I think it's important that people, cause I was at one point, I was atheist and I think it's important for, I'm not anymore, but I think it's important for people to understand that their basis of morality, as much as they'd like to say it's not based in religion, the reality is if you grew up in Western society and you say, look, I'm ethical and moral, those foundations came from in Western societies from a Judeo-Christian background. So like the concept of individual liberty, that is 100% a Judeo-Christian creation and the concept of do unto others and treat people nicely and all that stuff. Cause if we didn't have that, and the evidence for this is the 20th century, if we don't have that foundation, humans do crazy shit, do terrible stuff. What's one of the first things that totalitarian regimes do when they take control, They get rid of religion. They get rid of religion. The fascists did this with Hitler and Mussolini and the communists did this with Mao of China and Stalin.  Human nature clearly shows that we need to believe in something. So when you eliminate religion, then people tend to worship other things like money, sex, drugs, work, science. Waiting for the bad part. I'm just kidding, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. But anyway, it's a great platform.  I could see you going on there, debating someone in fitness and health or something like that. But that's why we have Twitter. Yeah, right. We're trying to get Sal into that. Don't you feel like he fits really well in the Twitter scene? I actually think that Twitter is the most difficult social media in terms of you have to, you know, if you wanna be intelligent, you have to be entertaining, intelligent, and do that in, well now it's 280 characters, right?  I feel like I'm pretty good on Twitter.  Actually, somebody the other day was like, you really like, they're basically saying that I was not intelligent cause I use the F word. I'm like, actually the research says that people who are intelligent tend to curse more, not less. Well, I'm just the one that can do it cause I don't have a boss, I'm my own boss.  Hold on a second, I love my job.  I got a question for you. Who are you responding to? Is it just a regular person on Twitter? So not always. Some 12 year old of me. Yeah, yeah.  I feel like you don't, I feel like you get lessons thrown at you, the same lessons that you still learn. Stop engaging with these trolls. No, you know, what for a lot? Well, it probably does good for business though. I would think because it attracts attention. People, people, let's be honest, people thrive off of the drama.   Like we've all watched it before. No matter if you think it's trash TV or not, you tune into it because people want to see drama. Yeah, they do.  If you can find a way to educate through that, I think there's value to it. I realize that like when you're debating somebody who's already got their mind made up, you're not changing their mind. What I'm doing it for is like. Do the people. The people who are watching. My buddy Ed, who's into guns, he always says when he gets into debate on Facebook about guns, he's not trying to change that person's opinion. He's just hoping that there's somebody who's watching who's maybe in the middle about stuff and maybe he can change their opinion. That's how I look at it with what I'm doing. Like, I don't actually think, I was debating with them. You know, it's interesting. Every camp has kind of zealotry. You talk about people wanting to belong to something. Like, so we worship other things. That's all tribal. People, yeah, humans are tribal. So like, I can give a great example of that, of that happening to me. Like, so I'm a gun guy. You guys know. Libertarian. And I was an NRA member for a while and I don't have any problem with the NRA. I mean, I think in a way it's kind of necessary evil to not evil, but kind of balance out the anti-gun legislation that's out there. Because for the love of God, if the NRA wasn't around, we probably would have already had all the guns taken away. So, but like, there is a certain narrative that goes along with being an NRA member that doesn't just have to do with guns. It's almost like a lifestyle of conservatism, right? And I found myself kind of being like, starting to agree with more stuff that I didn't really actually agree with. Do you know what I mean? Because I felt being part of that group.  What am I talking about?  But I can see how people get sucked into that, right? So, what I've found is like, I've kind of gone back, okay, what's the worst? The anti-artificial sweetener, zealots, no offense, Sal. No, Sal's not a zealot. The vegans, the low carbers, I gotta tell you, I find the low carb zealots probably the most annoying. Well, that's just because it's right now. Right now, the ketogenic diet is like the fucking... Oh, they are so sure of themselves. Well, it's because of what's coming. It's what we're seeing right now in the last year or two. You know what strengthens it? The reason why they're acting that way? Well, two things. First off, when people start to... Joe Rogan. When people start to dissolve, we'll go there in a second, if you want. When people start to dissolve their individualism for collectivism, that's when you see people becoming zealots and starting to adopt what other people believe, even though they don't necessarily believe it themselves. Like, if the label conservatism means you feel this way about all these different things. Liberal means you have to feel, and people will end up putting themselves in that box because they start to adopt that collectivist mentality. It's very dangerous. It's a very dangerous thing to do, but with low carb, part of the reason why they're so strong in their position or there's a lot of zealotry there is because I feel like they're countering decades of shitty information when it comes to fat. You know what I mean? So it's like, if you want to strengthen zealotry, the best thing you could possibly do is hit it with force or lots of... And then they'll just hunker down in their position. Yeah, there was actually a study done that looked, it was for political stuff, but it showed that whether you gave someone evidence that supported their belief or countered their belief, both were equally effective in strengthening their belief in that thing, right? So like, one of the things I pride myself on is I think I'm relatively open-minded. Nobody's completely open-minded, and you probably shouldn't be because otherwise you're just buying everything, right? So one of my favorite things is be open-minded but not so open-minded that your brain falls out, you know? Or stand for something or you'll fall for anything. Yeah, I mean, so it, you know, you've always kind of, you know, I kind of got myself a little bit painted into the IFIM, you know, Count Macros thing, but the reason I do that is because I think it's, you know, if you just restrict calories or track your macros, you're 90% of the way there for most stuff. Now, am I saying that you can get the same health benefits by doing, you know, eating absolute garbage foods as you can by eating single ingredient, whole foods, nutrient rich? No, I'm not saying that, but I think most people would get a, would get really damn far just doing that, right? That's debatable. Sure it is. That's debatable. 90% is a strong number to say that. I'm just telling you. I would, well, I would argue that the piece that's most neglected that people don't talk about enough is the psychological piece. 100%. I think that that's 90%. I think the macros is 10%, or 9%, and then everything else is 1%. That's what I think. Well, think about this way. I think so much is the psychological piece. Anybody can follow something. Well, here, let's look at this way, Lane. Why are, why do, why would I, for example, recommend whole foods versus processed foods? Strap on, we're about to go down the rabbit hole. Yeah, let's do it.  Whoa, that came out way too easy. That came out way too easy for you, bro. What you been doing this weekend, Lane? What kid, little pegging? Strap on? A little bit of a Freudian stuff there. Yeah, we should talk to Holly later. Where's Holly? God, Jimmy's so embarrassed. She's got strong hips. I saw her deadlift. Wow. Wow, we're not even 10 minutes in already. I thought you walked that way because your mobility was bad. So, no, so here's the deal. Can processed foods be healthy? Definitely. But processed foods, speaking about the psychological aspect, are designed to be so hyper-palatable. It's so much more difficult to not overeat when your diet is comprised of these foods. And so the psychological piece is so important. Like if I tell someone, look, dramatically reduce your processed food intake, what's likely gonna happen, and by the way, this is from experience, so I don't know if there's any studies done on this specific topic. This is just on my own experience. When people reduce their processed food intake, they tend to eat less because it's easy to eat 2,000 calories of potato chips. It's hard to eat 2,000 calories of plain white, baked potato without salt or butter, you know what I'm saying? And I completely agree with you on that. So this is the thing when I get in these debates on Twitter, I'll end up going around to, dude, we're actually arguing the same thing. So my problem with low-carb zealots is they'll say things reasonable like, oh, well, it helps with satiety and people tend to eat less. That is actually, satiety tends to be pretty individual. There's some people who actually do better with higher carb, lower fat. However, it looks like low-carb on the whole tends to do a little bit better. It tends to do a little bit better. And what I'll tell people is that is a perfectly reasonable reason to do low-carb. Absolutely 100%. If that helps you be more cognizant and reduce your intake, by all means do low-carb. But don't tell me it's magic because it's not magic.   I'm not anti-low carb. You guys know me. I have some people who do low-carb. I have some people who do keto, right? Because that's what they actually enjoy. But just don't tell me it is magic because if you do that, then I'm gonna call you on it. And that is more, so I was on Mixed Mental Arts a few weeks ago. Really enjoyed that podcast with Brian Callan.  Really enjoyed that podcast. Yeah, he actually said he had a man crush on me by the end, which was nice. Oh, very cool. Because I'll be honest, I booked the podcast to be blatantly honest, not even knowing who Brian Callan was.   So I'm like Googling on my phone while I'm doing the podcast. So I did that podcast while I had food poisoning, like literally had thrown up two hours before I did that podcast.    And I said, yeah, absolutely, they probably will, but because they reduced their calorie intake, right? You, I have seen it. I have done experiments on it. You can overfeed with keto and get somebody to gain body fat. Of course. 100%.  Well, dude, you know what happened to me? Cause I eat relatively low carb most of the time, not all the time, but most of it just works better for me and it feels better. But I also sometimes go very, very hard keto, especially when I come out of a fast. And something that I just learned recently, we had Dr. Michael Ruscio on the show as a gut health specialist. Brilliant guy. You should have him on your show.  And he talked about histamine intolerance and how some people with gut issues can develop issues where their body's just not getting rid of histamine fast enough, especially when they're consuming foods that are really high in histamine or that cause a release of histamine.  And I was noticing these interesting effects where I was getting kind of brain fog. I wasn't feeling great. I'd crash after eating with my energy. And it took some time, but it started happening. Like, what's going on? Why am I feeling this way? So we talked about histamine intolerance and really there's no way to test for it except for remove the foods, see what happens, and then maybe supplement with- A lot of gut and health issues are like that. Elimination diet, see what you add back in. And so I did.  And so it just goes to show you like this way. There's so much individualized. There's so much of an individual variance with nutrition, it's insane. What works well for one person, it's like a fingerprint, especially when you look at your gut flora and then the emotional connections to food.  It's like, you can say general, you can give people general advice. And part of that general advice is, yeah, you gotta take in less calories than you burn, you're not gonna lose weight. That's actually a law of physics. I mean, if you could get around that, I mean, we need to study that because you've just discovered like a way to create something out of nothing. Well, people get confused because people will say things like, well, I don't believe in calories in, calories out because I was in a calorie deficit, I didn't lose weight. No, you weren't in a deficit. By definition, you were not in a deficit. I think what confuses people is they'll go online and put into a calculator what their deficit should be and they'll do that and not lose weight. Well, I'm sorry, that means it wasn't your deficit. So basically we know what makes up calories in versus calories out, right? So we know calories in is literally just the energy we eat that goes in. Pretty simple. What is more complex is the calories outside of the equation. Very complex. So you have, while the concept is very simple, what makes up calories out is a very complicated and we don't fully understand and it's individual too, by the way. So like your RMR for most people is the bulk of their, is about 60% of your daily total energy expenditure. Then you have NEET, which is very modifiable, up to, it seems like around 500 calories a day, possibly even more. Oh, more than that. I think probably more than that in extreme circumstances. And that's non-exercise adaptive thermogenesis. So basically like fidgeting and- Just your movement that's not working out. Walking. Cleaning. Yeah, non-voluntary movement. Non-purposeful, non-voluntary movement.  Most of those are modifiable. We all know somebody who does two hours on the treadmill every day and can't seem to lose weight. Even though they say, well, I burned 2,000 calories. Well, I actually know you didn't. Your body, look at marathon runners.  Let's talk about this. And maintain their weight. Let's talk about it. Because they're so efficient. Yeah, metabolic adaptation is fascinating. They did a study on modern hunter gatherers, the Hodza tribe. It's H-A-D-Z-A and you can look this up and we'll make sure to put it in the show notes. But they threw, and they used very sophisticated means to test how many calories these people were burning on a regular basis. And there were several tests that they compiled and generated an average from. Now they went into, the researchers went into the study, fully expecting that these modern hunter gatherers burned way more calories in the average westerner. They thought for sure, they're gonna be burning like two or three times as many calories because, and this is a, it's totally plausible. This hypothesis is totally understandable.  What they found was far more fascinating. They burned just a little bit more calories than the average westerner.  Of course it does.  And what I mean by real life is without the modern advancements of, there it is right there. Very, very fascinating. They didn't burn that many more calories. Metabolic adaptation is insane and that's this perfect way to segue into reverse dieting because I know early on you got a lot of heat for talking about this. And you might still be getting heat. So let's talk about this for a second. What is reverse dieting? I'm the Lon McDonald's favorite person in the world. Hi, Lyle. What is reverse dieting and how does it work or at least what are the results of reverse dieting? So, me, I'm not very good at being concise but I'll do my best to be concise. So basically what I had started to notice with people was that, especially, I worked with a lot of competitors but I see this with the average person too. I started to realize how big this was for the average person. Competitors are just an extreme version of it. Right, correct. I had, especially women, because they tend to just diet more than men.  Like, go read some of McLean's work.  What I noticed was people were like, they'd come to me and they were maintaining their weight on extremely low levels of calories. Stuff that didn't even make sense. And at first I was kind of like, all right, well, they're just under reporting. And I would have them track and really track, you know? And some of them were, but a lot of them weren't. And so some of these people are- Did this shatter your paradigm at the moment? Cause you understood nutrition, you understood chemistry. Were you like, this is bull, this is crazy. I had never dealt with that myself, right? Well, we talk about this all the time. It was the same experience for us.  I was like, my clients got to be lying to me.  Yeah, and you get into it. And even if there is under reporting, it still can't possibly explain some of the stuff you're seeing. And yeah, it's just, well, look at, let's just go with this. Let's look at bariatric surgery. Have you ever seen somebody who had bariatric surgery who got really lean? You don't see it. They lose weight, mostly, some actually don't. But they lose weight, but they stop at a certain point. Even though they're consuming 900, 1000 calories a day. Well, how?   What it gives a damn bout is you staying alive long enough to pass on your genetic material, hopefully numerous times based on evolution.   But more so than that, what I had noticed was that people who tended to diet in a certain cyclical kind of diet cycle were in way worse shape in terms of metabolically than other people. So people who tended to crash diet or fad diet or just spend a lot of their time in a calculated deficit without giving themselves enough time to recover metabolically, those were the people who did really bad. And the people who did the worst were people who basically would diet for long periods of time and then some event would hit, whether it be a show, a wedding, whatever, they're always dieting for something and they would basically binge eat their way back up to or their previous weight or more, right? And these people would be very overweight or more than what they'd want and would have like incredibly low intakes for their weight and lean body mass. It just wouldn't make sense. Now the heat I got was, you know, basically mostly from Law MacDonald who just kept pointing out, who just kept, you know, harping on the fact that, well, the studies show that metabolic adaptations only 15%, that your BMR is only modifiable through 15%, which I think is an average is probably right. But if an average is 15%, then that means there's outliers who are 35 and 40%. My friend, Chris Foss, he did a case study on himself. He was the first natural bodybuilding contest prep case study.  Chris is probably like 85 kilos of lean body mass for a natural guy. That's a big dude. And he did a contest prep 24 weeks. I prepped him for it.  He started out, his BMR was 2,400 calories a day. You know what his BMR was by the end? 12.85. Wow. 12.85. Now he's probably an outlier. He was very, I noticed his metabolism adapted very quickly. So he was- Well, you know, that goes to the point what Ben Pokolski talked to us about like the benefits of guys that are bodybuilders in size. We made a comment on an interview we did with him about like how, you know, in order to be like this, you know, Olympian bodybuilder, you've got to have these freak genetics, the steroids, the hard training, all of it together. And then Sal brought up the point, the ability to eat tons of food in order to support all that muscle. And Ben actually corrected him. He goes, no, it's not that. It's actually the other way. It's that you have the ability to hang on to that much muscle with as little calories as you need possibly. Yeah, yeah, and it made sense.  And he's like, no, no, no. It's being able to eat like 4,000 calories a day and still get this big. Yeah. And efficiency, right? So, you know, you looked at Chris, when you took out like the difference in movement and the difference in his lean body mass and whatnot, it was like a 33% metabolic adaptation. Which, so metabolic adaptation is basically long time ago. And one of the things that my PhD advisor, Don Layman, brilliant man was actually wrong about though, was he told me, he thought that the decrease in metabolic rate from dieting and from age was simply due to loss of lean body mass. And I disagreed with him at the time, but there just wasn't much research on it. Now we know the research and it says that, yes, your metabolic rate does slow down from just overall dropping mass. But metabolic adaptation, it's always more than you would predict by that. And metabolic adaptation is that difference. How much more do you, does your metabolism slow down than predicted by your loss of lean body mass and body fat? There's so much more to it that we currently understand. Lean body mass plays a role and it plays a large role, but there's a lot of unknowns and it's fascinating because look, here's the deal. This is why I don't like studies that show, oh, 15% is really where metabolic adaptation can happen and that's what it looks like. Here's the deal, we know how efficient the body can get.  Now that's an extreme case, but the body can really become efficient. I also know through experience and here's the deal. This is why, this is why it's inside. Look at anorexics, look at anorexics who survive for long periods of time with very little calories. Yeah, 500 calories a day. And here's my beef with scientists. I love science, I love information, I love knowledge, but knowledge without experience is not, it's just ideas and information. Wisdom comes from combining the two and many times experience will show you things that we don't necessarily have the information to explain, but I can tell you as a trainer, having worked with thousands of clients and having done this for 20 years, that I've took, look, I had a client, I told this show, so we were on Tom Billu's Health Impact, which is his channel on YouTube. And I told this, and I told the story and it got a little bit heat from it from people because I knew people would freak out over it, but I had a client who was running 20 miles a week, barely doing any resistance training. She was consuming like 16 or 1700 calories a day, which if you consider all our activity was not that much. And I changed her workout, changed her approach and by the end of it, she was consuming almost 2400 calories a day. She was still working out a lot, but she wasn't running nearly as much. And she was leaner. And it's, you can do that, you can do that with your body, but it's... Yeah, let's talk about anecdote a little bit. Yeah, let's get into that, because I think, and I know I've seen a little bit of like the tension and the trolling a bit on the pseudosciences out there and pervades the industry, but is there any value to that from a scientific perspective? I mean, so like getting back, I never answered your question about reverse dieting. We'll get there. And reverse dieting is just basically slow, controlled editions of calories to raise metabolic rate while hopefully minimizing body fat gain.  I don't remember calories necessarily, but I had one girl who went from 120 grams of carbs per day and like 45 grams of fat to over 300 grams of carbohydrate intake and 70 grams of fat and lost 10 pounds during that time period. And okay, yes, maybe she changed her resistance that does not make up for the amount that calories that were added in. Holly, Holly was, she just started a reverse dieting. She's I think 11 weeks in. She started at 1,400 calories. She's up to over 2,000, has not gained any weight and her training has actually been less. So she actually, she's doing more power lifting based training. She went from more bodybuilding style with super sets, you know, a lot of volume to more intensity, less volume, longer rest between sets and almost no cardio. Which by the way, do you advise, I advise that when I reverse diet somebody, I actually like to switch them from, because typically people are training in the more hypertrophy based training and super setting and that that's what they've done or high circuit type training to lose weight. So switching them over to a strength based program while I'm also adding calories tends to do really well. I think this is that psychological component, especially for women. If you can shift their focus from, oh my God, I'm fat, I wanna lose this weight to, holy shit, this is cool about how strong I'm getting, right? Even though they're not losing weight, maybe gaining a little bit, they become more and more okay with it because they see the positives of strength training and getting stronger, right? And that becomes addictive as opposed to trying to lose weight, right? So I think that's that psychological component. And yes, that can be really helpful. But yeah, I mean like you're gonna sit there and tell me that like Holly gained five kilos of lean body mass and that explains the difference in her memory. No, it doesn't, like, and she's not moving more. Like I'm with her every day. We're literally sitting in an office every day. Like our activity is the same, you know? And maybe she does fidget more and I don't see it.  So when she goes to diet back down next time. Easy. It's gonna be much easier because she's only four kilos above stage weight. That's gonna be a lot easier to lose than when she was maintaining her body weight on 1600 calories a day, trying to crush herself to lose that weight. What I found is the perfect combination because I do think that a structured, you know, targeted resistance training routine should be combined with reverse dieting because not necessarily because you need the extra lean body mass. Like you said, that doesn't account for all of it. But I do think when you're asking your body to adapt in a way that makes it quote unquote less efficient with calories and you start feeding it more, you're gonna get a better effect than if you don't do that and you just feed someone more, in which case you may actually get someone just gaining more body fat. And resistance training does that because when you're asking the body to get stronger, it's not worried about efficiency. It needs thicker muscle fibers to produce more force. When you're asking your body to become to gain more stamina and endurance, you're asking for it to become, you don't need big muscle fibers for that. You don't need big muscle, a lot of force for endurance. You just need muscle fibers that can contract repeatedly, you know, for long periods of time. But you also are asking your body to become more efficient because let's be honest, an hour of resistance training for strength burns what? A third of the calories of an hour of cardio.  And so that's what ends up happening. Now, I've also heard this and I agree with it. Does that mean it's healthy? Like in other words, is it healthy to get your body to wanna burn more calories? I don't think so. Now, I'm not using context here yet. So I'm gonna get there in just a second, but- I know what you're getting at. Yeah, I don't think it's healthier because obviously more potential for inflammation, you're processing more food, there's more things happening in the body, lower calories over long periods of time, seems to be better for longevity and all that stuff. But in the context of modern life, you want a fast metabolism. Well, so two things, a lot of stuff to unwrap there. But the calorie restriction component of longevity doesn't seem to be as clear-cut as we made it out to be. Seems to be really beneficial in animals. The human data just doesn't support it yet. Now, it's hard to get really super controlled studies and I acknowledge- Yeah, especially now. Who the hell's- I acknowledge that. Who the hell's under eating these days? Keep in mind, two things I wanna point out. Going back, Greg Knuckles, you guys know Greg Knuckles? I know the name. Yeah, I know the name. Follow him and have him on your podcast at some point. He's fabulous. He said something that I thought was really, really important. He said, science-y science bros. So there's two mistakes that people tend to make. Science-y science bros tend to make the mistake that because something reported in a study is an average, that's where it's reported. They assume that the average will work for everyone. Bros tend to make the mistake of this one thing worked for me so it will work for everyone. The reality is, is that we should probably start with the average is the most high probability to work for most people. But we also need to acknowledge that something will likely work better for somebody else. I mean, there's studies in resistance training where they show people do 12 weeks of resistance training and don't get stronger. Who are untrained, right? Outliers, right? There's also studies that show people never pick up a barbell and in 12 weeks they're squatting 400 pounds, right? So there's hyper responders for everything. The other thing is with the calories and longevity and health, you have to, I think we need to keep in mind that it's like, think about your time, right? So we have to acknowledge that if we want to do this podcast, we're taking time away from something else we could be doing, spending time with family, going out doing something fun, although this is fun, you know, bowling, whatever, right? So we're taking some time, we're putting it towards this, it's taking away from something else. If something is, I think we kind of have this idea that we're gonna be able to find this diet that's great for preventing cancer, great for preventing cardiovascular disease, good for gut health. The fact of the matter is, if you're on something that maybe prevents cardiovascular disease, it might not be the best thing for cancer. People don't wanna acknowledge that, but it probably is true. If you want something with the optimal body composition, it might not be the best thing for longevity. If you want something for the best gut health, it might not be the best thing for, you know, cardiovascular disease. For sure, the best thing for longevity is not the best thing for performance. For sure. So we need to have an honest conversation and acknowledge that and what is your goal, right? So these people that, most of these dudes who, like I've had this debate on Twitter recently, who are promoting like a low carb lifestyle, like, well, you just talk about macros, you don't talk about overall health. I'm like, all right, well fine, let's talk about overall health and let's talk about how you're eating, okay? Because there's evidence that keto ain't the best for longevity either, bro. You know? So it's, what are we talking about? We're talking about body composition, we're talking about performance, we're talking about longevity. Because I can tell you what's best for longevity, lift weights, modestly, walk, do some cardiovascular exercise, do some calorie restriction, and stay at about 15 to 20% body fat.  People want to be ripped. They don't want to hear that, right? So, you know, to make a metabolism inefficient, right? That means you're having to cycle through more energy metabolism. That the idea that creating more ATP, more dissipation of energy, that creates more redox species, more, you know, more inflammation, that sort of thing. Now, I will say, I think that it's a big difference between giving a very controlled dose of a stressor and controlled overfeeding versus somebody who's just sitting on the couch banging down potato chips, right? Oh, huge difference, of course. I think that most people, if you're doing resistance training and you're just controlling your diet, right? Does that make sense?  Sure, at what point, what point are we overworking the digestive system? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Because I think that has to be a point that's made too, because every other system we can over train, over work, out do, over stress. You know what I think? I think that there is some population studies that suggest that calorie restriction, long periods of time contributes to longevity, but there's a lot of stuff in there to unpack. There's a lot of factors. But what I would say is, what about, what about, you know, the fact that, so the idea with making our metabolisms more inefficient is so that at some point, we can calorie restrict and it's more effective, right? For body composition. So what I'm not saying is always overfeed. Sure. I'm saying, you know, because dieting, I've seen people diet their way into fatness, all right? So is that really healthier? No, not at all. So we see, I know exactly what we're talking about. I saw that all the time. But what I was gonna say is, I think where we see the health benefits of restricting calories may not come necessarily from restricting calories, although there are some benefits to that as well. I think it comes from- How the body responds to it. We're just the absence of food, like fasting.  When you wanna look at, you know, being able to switch in and out of ketosis very easily and how ketosis has some medical applications, humans probably went into ketosis on and off all the time. You go without food for 24 hours, 48 hours, which probably happened quite a bit. You're in ketosis, right? Some people go into ketosis when they go to sleep. Just happens. And that's where I think some of the health benefits come from. Some of the detriments of overfeeding ourselves too many calories, wrong foods, all that stuff. I get all that. But I think the other side of it is, we eat all the time, all the time. Like, most people who grow up in these modern, developed Western societies, never went without food for longer than 18 hours. And what we're learning now is that maybe Dr. Volter Longo says it's another operating system that's necessary that we tap into where we go without food sometimes.  Think about that. I think controlled periods of underfeeding are very important, you know? I think you get a lot of the benefits from that. I think why I say you gotta be careful is because, you know, while I was doing research for my book that I wrote, you guys, we talked about in the last podcast, the Contest Prep book, it was basically, I just did a lot of research on dieting and the dieting studies that are out there. And actually, I'll probably do an updated version of the book because I just found some new shit, like really recently, out of University of Denver.  Absolutely fascinating.  So we used to think about adipose tissue as it was just basically like a sponge, right?  Adipose tissue is an organ. It fits every definition of an organ. It secretes its own hormones, it integrates hormonal signals, it talks to other organs, it talks to the brain a lot, and the gut. It interacts with the immune system through the central nervous system. Hell yeah. I mean, adipokines are cytokines secreted by adipose tissue, right? So what they found is that dieting places a stress on the extracellular matrix of adipose tissue, which by the way is not uniform throughout the body. Different depots of adipose have differential effects on things like metabolic rate and hunger, okay? So for example, when you're coming back out of a diet, regaining body fat, like recovering from a diet, say in the case of a contest prep competitor, a lot of people, I don't know if you guys can speak to this, have noticed that they gain fat differentially from how they stored it before. You tend to regain it in your abdominal, in your trunk. You also tend to recover your lean body mass slowest in your trunk. The trunk abdominal fat seems to have a less beneficial effect on metabolic rate and the trunk lean body mass has more impact on metabolic rate than extremely lean body mass. So you tend to regain lean body mass post-diet in your extremities versus your trunk. And they find that you don't really recover your metabolic rate until you regain that in your trunk in some studies. Yeah, very, very interesting. So that stress on the extracellular matrix when you diet, combined with the changes in your thyroid hormone and also the effects of leptin. So we think about leptin, you guys I'm sure are very familiar with leptin, controlled, we think by the fat cell size.  What's interesting is actually, it's also sensitive to the flux of energy across the cell. So if you overfeed even for a short period of time, you'll increase leptin. Now it's usually not high enough and of enough duration to cause a meaningful impact on long-term metabolic rate. But in that phase of transition between ending a diet and beginning recovery or maintenance, your leptin levels and your adipose tissue is more responsive to short-term changes in energy intake than it is the long-term cell size of the adipose tissue. So if you rapidly overfeed, your body will actually respond more sensitively to that compared to if you, so for example, if you binge ate 5,000 calories at the end of a diet, compared to being, haven't been dieting, just kind of maintenance or overfeeding. 300 every now and then, whatever. Yeah, yeah, you overfeed by 5,000 calories. You're much, much, much more likely to store excessive body fat after you've been dieting. Not only that, you are likely to trigger the differentiation of the preadipocyte into a fully formed adipocyte. So why is that important? Well, it makes it harder to get lean.  We used to think that preadipocyte differentiation into adipocytes only happened if you ate so much and you became so grossly obese that your body could no longer store it, right? And you had to make new adipocytes. We're now finding that that's not the case. It's also a flux question.  I did not know that, and this must be new because it used to be like puberty, third trimester pregnancy, and that's kind of... So we also used to think that adipose tissue just sat there, right? It was just a set cell number. Now we know that new adipocytes are being formed constantly and old adipocytes being turned over constantly, okay? So now that is very tightly regulated. It's almost always a net of zero. But when you restrict and you do it for a long period of time and more aggressive, you start to tip the scale when you start to add calories back in, if you do it too aggressively, you tip the scale towards formation of preadipocyte differentiation, but still maintaining or lowering your elimination of old fat cells. Wow. So what's your theory then on that point then with carb cycling? Of doing it in a short term like that? See that the question is we don't really know like how long does this take to trigger, right? Can you do it in one meal or does it take 10 days or what is it, right? We don't really know. What we do know is that there was a rat study done by the same researcher that's absolutely fascinating. So they took rats that were 700 grams and they dieted them down to 600 grams. So they lost a seventh of their body weight which is reasonable for a lot of humans, right? You're talking about somebody who's 210 pounds going down to 180. Right.  The fat cell number was pretty much the same at the beginning as it was at the end. I think they started out with 37 million, they ended with 39 million. Now there's a lot of, I don't want people to think that's a meaningful difference. It wasn't statistically significant. You mean the other way around, right? 39 to 37. No, no, they started with 37 into a 39. It's still not. But it's not statistically different. No, because they have to average them anyway. Because it's not a perfect measurement, right? So could they have gained, who knows? But the size had shrunk quite a bit, right? Expected. Then they just ad-libitum-fed them. They gave them however much food they wanted. Within early relapse, their fat cell size had actually shrunk a little bit more. So they'd only regained 20 grams back. They'd only regained a fifth of what they lost. Their fat cell number increased by 50%. They had 55 million fat cells. Wow. Now you know what, if you look at it from an evolutionary standpoint, it makes perfect sense. Of course it does. If you're constantly cycling through these high periods of- And you finally get your hunt. You finally get food. Your body's getting better at surviving longer without food, it's just adapting. So think about, so not only if you were, does your body wanna become more efficient if you were in a famine or a low calorie and not burn so much, it also would want to be able to perfectly capture the energy when you finally came across it, right? You don't wanna, so you come across a, I don't know, a kill, right? As a hunter-gatherer. That meat is not gonna keep for very long.  Like, and you need to be able to store that energy. You don't wanna dissipate at this heat. You don't wanna have a thermogenesis. You wanna store as much of it as you can. So why would you make new fat cells? Well, you can, I think, this is me going out on a limb. I think there's probably a limit to how much energy flux can go across each individual cell per unit time, right? And so the pre-adiposites form, they differentiate as a way to, in the short term, be able to accommodate that energy, right? Now the problem is, with people who are trying to get lean when they do this, where they're basically, they diet for something and then they binge eat at the end of it, which is a lot of people, by the way. Perfect storm. You're creating a really bad situation, right? Cause now you've got these extra, and we don't know if you can get rid of them. So people ask me all the time, we don't know. I was just gonna say, because whenever we observe an adaptive phenomenon in the body, oftentimes, I can't think of a time when this doesn't happen, the adaptive response can go in the opposite as well.  So interestingly, no. Even with things like lipo, what tends to happen is if you have lipo and you're taking fat cells out, it just stimulates your bone marrow to produce more of it. I think, I believe they come from bone marrow. I believe that's where they start. So I'll finish the thoughts on this study cause you guys will find this fascinating. It still fits with body fat set point and cell size is controlling kind of long-term leptin secretion and body weight. So they continue to let the rats overfeed. They hit their pre-diet weight of 700 grams, but interestingly, every individual fat cell was still smaller, right? Because now there's more overall fat cells, right? So each individual cell as they get back to their previous body fat percentage is going to be smaller. And since leptin secretion is controlled for by the size of the individual fat cell, their bodies, the hypothesis is still perceived that they were in a deficit because the size of the fat cell was still reduced. So even though the same weight as before. Exactly. They did not stop regaining weight until 740 grams. Wow.  So it's controlling. Am I blowing your mind? Yeah.  Correct. So you're fucked.  We've observed this phenomenon forever in fitness where people diet binge, diet binge, diet binge each cycle gets harder every single time. More difficult each time. And then of course the people blame it on age and stuff like that. It's not that. No, it's not that. I think these adipose tissue adaptations are just as important, if not more important than the actual effects on metabolic rate because it's affecting your long term potential for fat storage. Have you seen the studies on how cold affects fat and it turns it into, it activates the immune system to get it to become more thermogenic and become turned into brown fat? Yeah. There's some fascinating studies on that as well. But I think you're 100% right. I think the adaptation. Of course I am. Yeah. Just kidding. Kidding everybody out there. You were real likable for a second like I was. We were doing so well. I had to blow it. I want to get back to Holly though because I know there's got to be a lot of women that are listening right now that are probably eating 1,000 to 1,500 calories and wish they could be eating 2,000 calories. Could you kind of step us through like what does that look like week over week and are there certain types of foods that you choose to add in? Yeah, so there are a few things in terms of I think what people could really gain a lot from is ending their diets better, okay? So hopefully we're dieting with an end point, right? Like in terms of like we don't want to be calorically restricted forever.  Because, okay, longevity, whatever, but also, hey, quality of life. Right? Of course. So first thing is have a plan when you're done.  Like, yeah, that's gonna be the recipe for exactly what we're talking about, all right? So I tell people in that situation, hey, get ready early, then reverse diet into your vacation, right? So hopefully you maintain that leanness. Brilliant. And now your metabolic rate is faster. So hey, you have that three.  And it doesn't mean I'm fasting for the rest of the day. You know, like I can still have dinner. And what she loves more than anything is just the flexibility in her lifestyle. Even if you flexible diet, 1,400 calories is not something that's flexible, right? You have half-piece cheesecake done. You know what I mean? So that's one of the things she's commented on. So one, have a plan. Two, a higher protein diet, possibly because the lean body mass regenerative effects as well as the satiety effects. Now, when you say high, explain high to you. You know, two to two. Because people here are high in the body and we grow two and a half grams, three grams. Per pound, yeah. So if you want to go by, you know, a scientist speaking grams per kilo of lean body mass, but if you want the general bro rule, 0.8 to 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight is gonna be, is gonna get you there. One to one's an easy one to remember. You know, the whole rule of- In relatively lean individuals, you don't want to- Yeah, that's why we usually use lean body mass. We say two to three grams per kilo of lean body mass is probably a better metric. And that's what we use and we have our own like, I don't want to call it an algorithm, but like a sheet of calculations we work up for clients that help us come to these measurements. Holly's way more detailed with that than I am. But so high protein diet and then slow controlled additions of calories. So that your body, your body it's, you're giving yourself some recovery, you're gonna feel better. And I mean, you can even, people think, oh my God, what am I, add five grams of carbs a week? No, no, like you finish a diet, you can probably increase your intake by 50% and you're not going to hit that threshold for causing formation of new fat cells. I'm just guessing, okay. But like at the end of her diet, she wanted to be very conservative because she likes being lean, you know? She actually, she tells me she abhor is getting her period. She hates it. She's like, I don't know how women deal with this. I don't want it. So she wants to stay lean enough to avoid that. And also just she likes being lean. She's been an athlete her whole life. She just likes being lean, who doesn't? But so we were very conservative. So we started out, I think she ended her diet like 130 grams of carbs a day and like 40 grams of fat, something like that. And I think she started at like 45 grams of fat and 150 grams of carbs. She was very, very conservative. And just slow controlled additions. And what's funny is people will go, well, adding 10 grams of carbs in a week, like that's a sneeze. Like even food labels aren't that accurate. How's it, you have to think about it as from week to week, there may not be much difference. But if you add 10 grams of carbs and two grams of fat every week for 10 weeks, that's a significant difference. That's what I was just going to ask. So you're going really slow. You're adding 10 grams here, you know, five grams. Well, it's all relative. It's relative to her size. We're talking about somebody eating 1400 calories. If we're trying to reverse somebody's. Is there a percent that you, and it's got to depend on the person. So it's usually like, I'm like, I usually increase carbs and fats. I usually whole protein study as long as it's already sufficient. Most people are already eating enough protein who are listening to this podcast, right? We're not having to convince anybody. We're not trying to convince grandma that a high protein diet is good. Like most people listening here know this. But like carbs and fats, like increasing like two to 8% per week, so that's kind of like the area we live in. But usually like at the end of the diet, I like somebody to do kind of an initial calorie boost just to help get them to something that's, Holly's a freak, you know. Most people would not be able to end a diet and then adhere to basically diet numbers for the next six weeks while they're coming out of that deficit, right? So, you know, I tell people, you have to have an honest conversation about what your goals are and what you're willing to accommodate for.   I used to pick like for females, I'd have, you know, 30 calories or so and that's, I would just go by calories and then I'd make, you know, low glycemic carbohydrates is what I'd introduce. Do you have specific foods that you choose and do you have, is there certain things for men or women that you do differently? Cause you guys are still coaching a lot of clients, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We probably have about a hundred clients between the two of us. Do you deal with this a lot? I mean, are you guys having to reverse a lot of people?  I have a lot of female clients too, but, you know, seeing her reverse diet series on YouTube has actually gotten her so many clients just from, it's so funny, you can show data, you can show hypothesis, we can talk about it, but when they see it, of course, when they see a girl doing it, they go, like me talking about it as a dude, they go, okay, well, he doesn't understand, even though I do, I know the physiology, but then seeing a woman do it, they go, okay, I want her to coach me, right? So yeah, we have a lot of people who are reverse dieting. I think because it's something we're passionate about, we talk about it a lot, we just tend to attract those kinds of clients, which is actually probably one of the toughest demographics for clients, to be honest. For sure. Well, because they're coming to you with a lot of issues. They are broken, dude. Well, yeah, go back to the psychological piece. Why? I think psychological piece is so important. Is this not, like some, I had one girl, she did everything I asked of her, like, and she has gained 25 pounds in a conservative reverse diet.  You know what, we got to talk about this. She's just now gotten over 2,000 calories. I was just gonna say, this is an important thing to understand, because I've worked with clients too, and you tell them sometimes, you're gonna have to, if you wanna get out of this hole, sometimes you have to gain weight. It might get worse before it gets better. Do you guys actually? So what do you say to them? Because 25 pound weight gain to somebody who's down with metabolism. Yeah, they just go, yeah. What I tell them is, staying in the same cycle is going to keep producing what you've gotten. Okay? So if you want something different, you have to make a different decision. And yeah, the idea of maybe you having to gain weight, I mean, a lot of women come to me and they're like, I'm not willing to accommodate any weight gain. I said, well, then maybe you're... You're not ready. You know, like sometimes to undo years of telling your body there is famine and doing what the researcher McLean calls, he called this, activating your body's self-defense systems, which are numerous, redundant, and powerful, okay? So telling your body this, it may take years to fix. Now, most clients don't give you that kind of time because while I'm over here saying, yeah, you may have to gain some weight. It may take a few years to fix.  Or this thing is gonna fix all the problems. Plus you're dealing with somebody who's probably got insecurities with their body. Of course. And you gotta tell them you're gonna gain weight for two years. Possibly. Yeah, maybe, you know, that's a tough one. I have a few other theories in regards to this. We had someone on the podcast recently who said that perhaps the central nervous system is remembering some of the- Oh, I absolutely think there's diet memory. 100%. Yeah. And when you look at it that way, when you look at the whole organism and the central nervous system being involved in remembering diets as past famines and all that stuff, for me, in my experience, I've had a lot of success when I work with people like this where they have damaged metabolism. And not only do I slowly reverse them out of it, not only do I make the focus strength training type, resistance training, straight sets, long rest, that type of stuff, because that seems to help. And I also reduce cardio because I see how cardio tends to keep the metabolism efficient. Oh yeah.  Well not to mention most of those people that fall on a trap are the type A type personalities that are like to get after it, right? They get after it at work, they get after it in their family life, their relationships, and they crush it in the gym. It's like... Well stress is a memory trigger for a lot of tissues in the body. Like even like me, I'll get lower back pain when I get stressed out. Oh for sure. Even though there might not be anything structurally wrong, I will get it, you know? Even though I was six months- You're sounding very esoteric right now. That's a little woo-woo right there. You know what I'm saying? To do some body work? Right. So, you know. Cool. Move that chi around. Strap on something. Yeah, hey, you know what happens?  Yeah, you know, it's, I think like I said, I've always been a pretty open minded person. And there's, you know, like going back to, like just in terms of religion, you'll never hear me say, God doesn't exist. Or a higher power doesn't exist. Cause I can't prove that it doesn't, right?  Cause, yeah, you can't prove that it does exist. You can only kind of have feels, but I can't prove that it doesn't either, right? And that's like, you know, we're finding out more and more that the brain has an impact on everything. I tell people when like, when I've had them reversing for a while, what happens a lot is they tend to, when they start cutting again, they get like hyper stressed.  Cause they're afraid they're not going to lose weight and it's not going to work and this and that. And I'm like, you have to believe that this is going to work. You need to believe that this is going to work. Tell yourself it's going to work. Talk yourself through why it's going to work. Just like I visualize a big, every big lift I've ever hit, I had lifted that weight a thousand times in my mind before I ever touched it.    Cutting should be like war.   They're like, oh, they're not really serious, but they're restricting.  That's what I see with Keto right now, big time. I don't think people realize how much this is gonna be a major backlash with Keto I think in the next couple of years is, I run in a ton of clients that are Keto four days of the week. Yeah, which they're not actually Keto then. Right, right, exactly.  And that's why I tell people we're gonna do Keto low carb. Hey, that's fine, but you better be ready to make that a lifestyle. Right, right. Because if you're constantly taking yourself in and out of ketosis, that's gonna be tough. Like, ketogenic, they adapting phase, like the Keto flu, it sucks, right?  I think it's important you come out of it every once in a while if you're Keto, unless it's medicinal, medical, ketogenic diet. But this, if you do it like that, like two days on, three days on, one day off, whatever, you're carb cycling. Even that, or even down. That's all it is. Even that, if you're just coming out on a one day out of the week, if you're coming out without a structure to it, I don't think it's safe at all. Because most people are treating it just like every other diet. I'm on this diet for four or five days.  They don't count. What I always tell people is, if your diet's so great, why do you feel like you need to cheat on it? Right. It's okay. Well, Keto's the greatest thing ever. Oh God, I can't wait to get my fries and burger all the weekends. Not banging other food. I do, I want to stay on the, because I still want to get like a more tangible things from you with the Holly things. I know there's people out, and I know it's a generic question. I keep going back to, but are there specific foods that you like to recommend? Like, yeah, I'm sorry. I mean, where do you normally go for adding? You know, it's, everybody's different. You've got a really, you know, like a good example is Holly. She doesn't have an off switch. We literally have a lock box at our house because I like my Reese's PCs and I like my Reese's Cups and I like my Skittles, you know, here and there. She can't, she can't have it. Maybe it'll get different in the future after she's had, you know, more time and a surplus. I'm the same way too though. I can't, if it's not in my house, I won't touch it. I'm good. Oh, it's so funny. If it's in the house, I'm going to come get it.  So she's used to been living on her own, doing her own thing, setting up her life exactly how she wants to set it up. In fact, it was funny the other day. She said something like, I just want to do what I want to do when I want to do it. And I'm like, babe, that's not a reasonable expectation for most people, you know?  She wouldn't have anything in her house. She would only have, and literally like, not even like her cupboards when I went to visit her one time were bare, you know? Like she only had as much food in her house as she would eat for the week, right? That was it. And that was how she balanced her calories for the week.  Yeah, I'd say it's more self-aware. For me, it's self-awareness.  We could have it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I always had candy all the way into my 20s. I mean, I never not had candy in my car, candy in my house. I used to finish almost every night with Ben and Jerry's ice cream. And I maintained a very lean physique because I was playing sports and I was lifting all the time. So I had a really bad relationship with sugar. Then as I got older, life slowed down, like I can't do that anymore. So for me, it's like, it's not an eating disorder. It's just, I know that, hey, if I have it in the house, it's not a temptation.  But if it's down in my freezer and I smoke a little weed and I'm watching my favorite show, I would for sure walk downstairs and go do that. And that's for her. It's just pure accessibility. Like actually, I wouldn't even need a lock box. If we just like put it outside in the fridge outside, she won't touch it. It's just not close to her. It's more of a stress response, you know? But so she kind of just added in foods that she had been consuming a lot of anyway, because when you're going up from 1,400 to 1,500 calories, it's not like you're getting a bunch more food. You're adding like one ounce of something. You're adding one ounce of this or one ounce of that. She was kind of still including like really feeling high satiety, high volume, low calorie foods.  Like she can do some of those because she really likes a lot of food volume, you know? I think that that's also really interesting stuff. We gave a co-siminars with mental Henselman's and her girlfriend, his girlfriend, Sana. And Sana talked a lot about the science of satiety.  So yeah, so if you have a plate that contrasts the color of your food, you won't eat as much. I think it's like 20, 30%. And then if you serve on a smaller plate, so that's another thing that people don't, they underestimate the sociological aspects of food. I'll tell people, like when was the last time you went to an event that did not have food? And if you went to an event that didn't have food, you would think it was weird, right? Like so, and then also, dinner plates. Dinner plates in the 1800s were like this big. Nobody could see this because I'm, you know. They were small. They were small. They've increased by like 50% in size. You know who knows a lot about this?  Of course they do. The color of their food, the texture, the amount of pressure you do apply in order to crunch the food. Like they actually spend a lot of money on this stuff knowing that they dial all, it's no different than like internet marketing where they know the color and the, you know, the font and all that stuff. Yes, funneling. It's all, they split test everything and figure out like what is gonna make you eat more, which is why I'm always like process food, man. Be careful because that's just designed to make you eat more and it works really well. And I think one of the things is like, when I talk about like my goal for most people is get them to a point where they're kind of intuitive eating, right? If they're not getting ready for a bodybuilding show we're not targeted. You just bore my heart right now. But like when I say intuitive, I don't mean kind of going by hunger signals because our hunger signals in this day and age are kind of- Right, I think we're all on the same page and agree that intuitive eating is a destination you want, you should be trying to get to. Most people are no where ready for that. And to be honest, if you've ever had an eating disorder intuitive eating is probably not a reasonable expectation for you. Your hunger signals are pretty much fucked. Just because of your association of food with different things. What I mean by intuitive eating is just like what I do now. So I don't have like an app that I log my food in and I don't weigh my food and I go out to eat and stuff but I'm just kind of keeping a running track in my head of okay, I think that was about 50 grams of protein and 75 grams of carbs and 15 grams of fat, that sort of thing. And I just, by the end, I'm probably a few hundred calories off per day but here's the other thing. I don't think maintenance calories is a set point. I think it's a range. Of course. I think you have a high end of maintenance that you maintain your body weight on and you have a low end that you maintain your body weight on and that's why I also tell people, people will say, well, if I reverse dieted up slowly, should I diet back down that way? Absolutely not. Because here's the example I give. I was listening to a researcher and he was saying, well, obesity, if we look at it from age 20 to age 70 is basically overeating by about 20 calories per day. So he was just saying, if we just cut 20 calories out of our diet, we could stop obesity.  Your body will adapt. Your body will just adapt to it. Yep, it'll adapt. It has to be a big enough of a drop because for the same reason reverse dieting can work in terms of not having as much weight gain as you would predict based on the amount of calories you add in. If you diet too slow, you'll have the same thing in reverse, right? Where you're actually not dropping weight. Now, there is another end of that. The other side of that is the psychological piece in which going slow may be easier and more feasible for people. Right. Well, there's been going too fast. I was gonna say there's threshold. I was gonna say there's an extreme on both sides, right? Because if you were to diet, I mean, we're saying it's better to go harder, but if you were to go so hard that you're restricting. It's too big of a change in your life. It's too big of a restriction. Right, because eventually you may see. You're not gonna adhere to it. Because I see this a lot, which you probably see this with a lot of the competitors and people you guys coach is they go to the diet and they boom right away. They cut 1,500, 2,000 calories out of their diet. Yes, too much. Way too much, too fast. And what I'll say is like, okay, so we have this maintenance range. And I think generally it's about 200 to 300 calories, right? So if you're in the middle, you could probably drop 100 or 150 calories and really not lose much weight meaningfully. You could probably add 100 to 150 calories and not lose much weight or not gain much weight meaningfully if you're sitting in the middle, right?  Minimum effective dose. Right, minimum effective dose, right? So we talk about this with volume. Like I had a podcast with Eric Helm's, Mike Israel-Tall and Greg Knuckles where we're kind of arguing max recoverable volume versus minimum effective dose. And I said, for advanced people, that's actually gonna be about the same thing. It's about this. You're actually arguing the same thing, what do you believe it about? But like for diet, I agree with Adam. Like you don't wanna just, like if you start out and you're eating 30,000 calories at age, cut it down to 2,000.  And now you've gotta drop it again. Now there is interesting information with diet breaks. Like being, I'm just reviewing it. I'm actually gonna be on a paper or we're submitting it with some of the people who did the diet break research. I don't know how familiar you guys are with this research. But there was a recent study where they, so if you look at like refeeds or high carb days or carb cycling, if you equate calories for the week, it doesn't seem to make a difference on fat loss. What's really interesting is there was a study that was recently done called the Matador study. And they took people and they either straight calorically restricted them for 16 weeks. Oh, I saw this. Or they did it for intermittently. So the- It's like undulating or whatever. Right, so they would have people diet for two weeks, eat it maintenance for two weeks. Diet for two weeks, eat it maintenance. Diet for two weeks, eat it maintenance. So one group dieted for 16 weeks. The other dieted for 16 weeks, but with two weeks of diet breaks in between. So the total time was 30 weeks, right? We did a YouTube on this.   That is per week of caloric restriction. They lost more fat and lost more weight. And the group that was straight dieted for 16 weeks, they had metabolic adaptation. So they lost their metabolic rate decreased to a greater extent that would be predicted by the amount of fat and lean body mass they lost. Their metabolism slowed down quite a bit. I agree with this. We did a YouTube on this. We call this mini cutting and mini bulks, which we've been preaching this for three years. And when this study came out, it confirmed what we had experienced training clients, which is, I would never put someone on a 12 week straight deficit. I would always put them on a general deficit, but I'd always intermittently throw in surpluses. Yeah, surpluses are maintenance and it just prevents that metabolic adaptation. Now the challenge with that is saying what we're saying right now. Attainments. Yeah. The challenge with that is saying what we're saying right now though and people hanging on to that and they're going, oh cool. So the boys say that I should underlay it. I should have some of these high days, low days. Well then I'm just going to wait until I feel like I want to eat more and I'll eat more. And then this goes back to the psychological piece for me is that, you know, people's... It's got to be controlled. Yeah, people's hunger signals are so off.  And then when you're on it, you're eating good and you're moving around. Like those are the days that you should be eating that surplus. That's a good point. And that's something else I want to bring up with you, Lane, is we talk about how it's hard to trust the hunger signals how hard it is to control whether or not we overeat or whatever. From my standpoint, now consider my context, right? I'm somebody that came from the whole eat every two or three hours, overfeed all the time, build muscle mentality, right? For me, fasting was by far the most effective thing I've ever done in helping me become more intuitive with my eating. Because for somebody who fed themselves so often all the time, going without food for 48 to 72 hours, there's the health benefits. We all know that and the anti-inflammatory effects and all that stuff. But psychologically speaking, or some people will say spiritually, my disconnection from food really allowed me to understand hunger signals. Because I thought I knew what hunger was. I thought I'd always fell, but in reality, it's always cravings. Where people think hunger is as cravings. Appetite versus hunger is different. Yeah, and cravings are connected to emotions, context, people around you, am I at the movies? Now I want popcorn or now I want a beer because I'm having pizza or whatever. Hunger is totally different. And so for people like myself, because I would never recommend fasting as someone who has an eating disorder like bulimia, orthorexia or anorexia. But for people in our space, fasting, if you wanna talk about getting to a space where you can eat more intuitively, one of the best tools I've ever used. Because when you break those chains, it does a few different things.  The other thing too is, boy, your perception of food changes, scientifically speaking, I'm sure those receptors that down-regulate and all this other stuff that happens. For example, you eat a lot of candy, fruit doesn't taste as sweet. It just tastes more bland.  Yeah, your taste receptors are actually very adaptable. Like you take somebody, like just take, we were in Thailand a couple weeks ago and don't ever tell somebody in Thailand that you want your food spicy. Oh, did you do that?  Oh, bad idea, dude. Like, if you tell them you want no spice, then it'll be like the right amount of spice. Cause they can't taste it. Like if it's something that's like, if they went to America and had American food bland, they can't taste anything.  Same thing happens with sugar, right? Like I actually tend to like things very sweet cause I have a little bit of sweet tooth.  Or if you have somebody who like is used to a really high salt diet, if you give them something low sodium, it can have all the flavors in the world, but they can't taste it because they're so used to a really high sodium food or high sodium foods. That's me.  Yeah. Really?     Like, it just, you know. What do you think with Sean Baker going around talking all that? Clarnivore diet. Yeah, you've seen him. I know you have, he's on Joe. That's autoimmune issues 100%. Yeah, so I think that in general, if you tell somebody eat more protein, I think that that's probably good advice. I think eating only meat is probably not great advice, to be honest, because there are a lot of issues with, you know, like fiber is good, dude. Like fiber is good for your GI. All the research we have, I mean, admittedly it's correlation, but, you know, meat, I will say clearly, I don't think meat causes cancer in and of itself. There's a very high associated with colorectal cancer and processed meats. I think that's more to do with the fact that people who eat more processed meats tend to have just overall more unhealthy lifestyles. I agree.  Well, people who eat more red meat tend to not exercise. They tend to not eat much fiber and they tend to eat more charred portions of meat, which have what are called polyaromatic hydrocarbons, which are also chrysanogenic. But if you correct for all those three things, the association with meat and cancer is pretty weak. But again, I think, you know, if my research and people I've worked with over the years have taught me anything, it's that most things are okay in small doses, even things we would consider bad. Some things are a caveat to that. Trans fats, there doesn't seem to be like a good dose of a trans fat.  Don't trans fats appear in nature also in some cases? I think, yeah, well, I mean, it's just chemistry, right? So you have, you know, it's just a cis versus a trans double bond and a fatty acid. So there's, so too much of anything tends to be a bad thing. It's just way more complex than people want to admit. No, I think if- And I also think, look, human body's pretty adaptable. You can get away with a lot of things for a pretty time. So you can eat just potatoes for a little while and be okay. There's a banana diet, whatever. And then you can say, look, I just eat potatoes and I feel healthy. And it's like, well, yeah, keep it up long enough and then maybe see what happens. Well, and again, like people are going on this diet and they're like, oh, I feel so much better. You feel better because you're losing weight and your blood sugar is normalizing and all that, but you could have got at that still eating some carbohydrate, you know? Like it's the restriction that matters, you know?  What's the name of it? I forget. I don't think they have a name yet. No, they do. I saw it on his Instagram. Well, no, that's a different one, I think. Oh, it is. That's a different one. Okay, what are you talking about then? Yeah, so they filmed me for two hours and we went through a lot of different diets.  And the fact is if we could just get people to do like three things, they would be so much healthier, you know?  Exercise a little more and get some sleep. Like that's 95% of it, you know? Plus the perfect diet, if you do find the perfect diet for you, that's the perfect diet for you right now. Yeah.  And I don't know about you, Lane, but the further we go, you know, the longer I'm in fitness, the deeper I get, the more I realize- We're getting back to the strap on? Yeah.  And before he ate, he looked like he prayed over his food. I don't know what he was doing, he took a second, did something, and then started eating. And later on, I asked him, I said, are you praying before you eat? Cause I didn't think he was religious. And he goes, no, he goes, I ask, and this is what he said, and I'm paraphrasing. I asked the food if it wants to be a part of my body, I asked my body if it wants the food, and he does this whole esoteric thing. And as I'm listening to him like, well, that sounds ridiculous, that's silly. But then I think about it, and I realize across all cultures and religions forever, there's always, there's a practice that people tend to do before eating. And I do know, and we just talked about this earlier in this episode, how important state of mind is to digestion, to health, to all these different things. I mean, I could think of something right now and change neurochemicals. I can change hormone fluctuations just by a thought.  Then we're on. That's Holly, actually. I can't, like if I try to eat as fast as she does, I can't do it. So it makes a big difference. I was the same way. And I think it's trained from me training myself to compete and get so many meals in to get my calories up. So it was a game changer when I don't, was it Paul that we met with who it was when with the water thing? Paul. And I never, I've never like actually tried to eat my food with no fluid whatsoever.  I'm taking a bite, I'm rinsed, washing it down. I'm taking pills worth of food. I'm not really chewing it. But these things make a big difference. And then we spoke to another gut health expert and they were like, oh no, I recommend to all my clients with really bad gut issues after we've identified whether or not there's issues with imbalances of gut microbiome and damage and all that stuff. One of the things, practices that we tell them is learn to meditate right before you eat, five minutes of meditation then eat. And it makes a big difference. And speaking from someone who has, who's had gut issues in the past, it does make a big difference. So my question to you is, do you find yourself like the deeper you get in the realm of health and fitness, the more you start to look, the more you start to see all these other, what you may have considered weird and esoteric and stupid five years ago, now you're starting to say things that maybe you would have laughed at five years ago. Sure. Wasn't religion our first science? I mean, wasn't it? Well, I think it's, everything matters. It just depends on how much it matters. So I try to keep in mind, what is the hierarchy of importance? What are the big rocks? Because if you want to get right down it, we're talking about plate size and consumption and all that kind of stuff. If you want to do every single thing right, it can be like a full-time job, you know what I mean? So people don't have that time. So I'm just trying to give them a few things and a few concepts that they can take home. Cause the average person, it's just so hard. Again, like your time is limited, right? So people ask, how do I not get fleeced by people? And as bad as it sounds, you kind of have to pick people who you trust, you know? That's, Greg Knuckle said something that was really pertinent and I loved it. Cause I never thought about it this way, but it's so true. And I think you guys will have a hope. He said, people are really good at determining whether someone else has more knowledge on a subject than they do, right? So you talk to somebody for a few minutes, typically you can tell if they have more knowledge about something than you do. What they're really bad at is determining of two people who have more knowledge than them, who is the more knowledgeable of the two. They're really bad at that, right? Like I love fishing, right? And I follow a few different shows. But if, you know, let's say two anglers that are experts are having a debate about which not is better for a top water lure.  Oh, well he says this one actually allows more lure movement and all that kind of stuff. I'm just gonna end up probably siding with the person who I like better. You're gonna side with the better communicator, the better salesman. So, and that's one of the problems out there is scientists typically aren't good communicators. Terrible.   Now I like talking, so I'm a little bit of an aberration in terms of a scientist. But we tend to be poor communicators. But the other thing we do is, you know, scientists with integrity usually put things in context, right? So when you talk to me, I'm sitting here saying, well, yeah, this thing matters, but you have to think about it in terms of this thing. And you know, it's not magic. And where's there's somebody out there saying very confidently, very authoritatively, nope, it's insulin, it's carbs. This is why you're fat, this is why you can't lose weight.  Who are you gonna go with the person who's really, really confident a lot?  But I've met some people who don't have degrees in nutrition, who are very, very intelligent, right?  What I say is, what the difference is, is our levels of confidence, right? If somebody's had to do a higher degree, typically that was really difficult, and it required them to do a lot of thinking and fail a lot and to get to that point. So, I automatically tend to give them a little bit more credibility, right? So, it just increases my confidence in that person. It doesn't mean they're foolproof, right? It just increases my level of confidence, right? And the more you learn, there's a phrase, I forgot what the phrase was, but the more you learn, at a certain point you realize, like, oh shit, I know way less than I thought I did. Oh, 100%. And I can't- Dunning-Cougar effect. There you go, there you go. Yeah, that's a real thing. Hell yeah. Yeah, I think, but I will say this in terms of our industry. I'll say this, Elaine, you've been in it a while.  The fitness industry is one of the worst. But generally speaking, the average consumer seems to be more informed than they were 15 years ago. I agree with that.  The idea of, you know, flexible dieting or anything like that, that would just be, nope, just eat chicken and rice, you know? Like- Most of us have been lifting for over 15 years. Our education came from muscle and fitness. Yeah, I had a pro bodybuilder contact me.  Like, he eats only chicken every day except for oatmeal, which he'll have in the morning and no vegetables. And then when he gets his last five weeks, it's tilapia and- Yeah, I'm like, oh, you're only deficient in about 50 million different things, you know? Plus, you're having, Holly actually, when she was in Australia, some of the guys she knew that were pro bodybuilders there, she did a nutritional analysis of their diets and found that they were like, frank deficient in some nutrients and like were consuming toxic levels of selenium. Like, so, and unfortunately we looked at these as people- What were they, what were they intaking? I forget what it was. But they were, yeah, these people are like our beacons of nutrition. No, they shouldn't be. I think they look the way they do in spite of, in spite of their diet and training. Yes. Well, it goes back to what you were saying at the very beginning is the calories thing is that calories is one of the bigger rocks still. And so if you're somebody who can restrict a lot of calories and expend a lot for a long period of time, like it's inevitable you're gonna lean out. You know what I'm saying? Like, you will start to get shredded if you do that long enough. Yeah, if you're only eating chicken, it's pretty easy to glorify your strength. Yeah. You know, it's, but somebody will look at them and say, wow, they look great.  Like if I was, if I was pudgy, I wouldn't get business. Dude, I'll tell you, I always enjoy talking with you on the podcast. And you know, I know you can, you have strong opinions, but you back them up with science and you can be, some people think you're abrasive. I see you as a very open-minded person who's open to discussion. And I appreciate that. Whether I agree with you or not. And I do often agree with you. I really do.  And I, I appreciate, but I do appreciate your openness to discuss. And I wish there were more people like that in fitness. I will say this though. And I'll go on record saying this. I think, no, cause I know last time I talked to you. You're trying to get a fast again. Yes.  The psychological component of it. I did fast when I had food poisoning. I didn't eat chips. It doesn't count. It doesn't count. It's got to be voluntary. Do like a 48 hour fast. It's, you know what? Talking about the way you talk about Holly and her relationship to food, it will blow your mind because you'll, you'll break the chains long enough to make those examinations and talk about intuitive eating. It takes it to a whole new level. Absolutely a whole new level. It also just added another tool to your already crazy tool belt that you can use with clients too. I use it all the time as a tool for clients to teach them. Especially with our bodybuilder type clients that are so attached to the six meals. It's the ones that really benefit. Six to eight meals a day.  Go, Hey, guess what? Tomorrow we're fasting. Ah! I'm gonna lose all my muscle. Right. Freak out on it. Yeah. And I don't think that, you know, you're going to lose all your muscle from fasting or anything like that. I think that it's not, you know, it's not going to be an anabolic situation, but I don't think you're going to lose a bunch of muscle from it, you know. Especially not one day. Yeah. You might, you might if you go three days, but it comes right back. It's not a big deal. Yeah. That's the other thing. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I try to be, like I said, open minded.  He's like, Oh, well, nutrition is just memorization.  Like really? What was the debate over? The insulin's the cause of every problem from war to famine to, you know, whatever. How many debates a day are you in these days? I can't keep up anymore. I used to keep up with some of the trials.  Oh, that's him getting at Joe Rogan. I know Joe Rogan's asked for like a year and a half now. Two years. Ben is probably a very nice guy. Oh, you guys, you would love him. He may be a little too pseudo science for him. I dislike his marketing approach, but that's, you know, that's just the very first time he interviewed us. I called him out on it. Very first time. Remember that? We were talking to this.  But you know what? That's what I probably could learn from marketing stuff because I'm terrible at marketing myself. And there is. By the end, I'm like, Oh, by the way, I have a contest prep book and I coach people.  Right after you get done pumpkin somebody.  Thanks, Ben. Appreciate that segue. I'll tell you what though, but if you meet Ben and you get to know him, cause at first there's no other human on this earth. He's so like that for real. There's no other human on this earth that I would want more than Ben Greenfield stretching the boundaries. Yeah.   And I want to know about it. Like that's the guy I want to know who went and applied it to himself because his level of intelligence, the way he lives his life is so consistent that when he adds these variables, he's a really cool person to talk to as far as like what he sees or notices. There's, I've never met somebody so consistent with their life as this guy. To a, to a fault. I mean, it's, Oh, it's this thing, man. It's this thing. Well, I mean like my thing is like, and I don't want to come at Rogan too much because I actually really liked Joe Rogan. Like I think- You're just trying to give us a chance. Be careful. He's a big mind pump fan. He listens a lot. So.  I've, you know what?  If he ever wants me, I would be totally up for that. You know what I mean? Why do you think he doesn't want you on a show? I don't know. He follows me on Twitter. So I don't know. Oh, so he does follow you on Twitter? Yeah.  I mean, that's not how I am. I feel like he would want you on the show. That would work well. Maybe it's your approach. You know, maybe.  So I don't know.  It's his podcast. He can do whatever the hell he wants with it. Have you and Andy linked up yet? I know Andy. We talk every once in a while. I like Andy. Yeah, I like him too. He's very good. Very smart guy. But, you know, like, that kind of frustrated me a little bit because it's just like, I just noticed with nutrition more than anything, he kind of has people on to confirm his bias. You know what I mean? I'm really glad he had Andy on.   So if you kind of fall into that track of, oh, this worked really well for me and I like it.  It's like, all right, we're going to have pseudo science guests on but we can't have a real scientist on, you know? Like, I mean, but that's probably, it might be the approach I don't see that. Yeah, I think when you insult the guy on the show, you're almost insulting the show. No, but here's the thing is I actually think Joe Rogan is a very, very, very smart guy and I really enjoy listening to him. Like, that's how I learned anything about MMA was I loved MMA, I loved watching the UFC, mostly a lot of it because I actually stopped watching really because he wasn't on it anymore. Like, because like, he made grappling fun to watch, you know, because he explained exactly what was going on. And he's a libertarian, you know, we have a lot of the same views. So I think he's actually a very intelligent, pretty open-minded guy.  What frustrates me is I feel like he's kind of gotten taken for a ride by a few people who he trusts. You know what I mean? So maybe that's okay, this is what I'll tell you. I think you're wrong and I think that... Probably. I think Joe is that intelligent and that so many...  So Joe's smart knowing that like he's got a relationship with the guy already, he's all over the place and that's absolutely where he wants to take him because that's what's gonna drive views. And so I think there's more strategy behind... Oh, probably. Right, he caught Sean Baker on the way up, right when Sean Baker was, he got... Did he get Jordan Peterson too? Did he get Jordan Peterson on the way up? Yeah. I mean, I think it's more about that than it is like, oh, I respect it. I mean, that's how... When we bring guests... So you're saying my career's on the way down?  We've talked a lot of...  Yeah, we've talked a lot about Strap On... Except all ejected by Balsam. Nutrition this whole episode. But I wanna take us and like speculate a little because I think it's fun when we get another intelligent guy on here to talk about things that we don't always know everything about but fun to debate, stuff like this. What are your thoughts? Have you seen Ready Player One, first of all? No, I haven't yet. Okay, so that's beside the point. I just wanna ask your thoughts on what you think that tech is doing to us and humans, like I'm noticing some things right now with posture, even with myself that I never... Yeah, like it's really, it's worse than I thought and I'm aware of it, right? So I can't imagine some of these kids, also the addictive properties that come with it if you read like Andy Galpin's Unplugged or Adam Attler's Irresistible, both great books along these lines. But what do you think about tech and in general what it could be doing to us overall health-wise? I think it's like anything, there's good and bad stuff. I think tech is gonna help people get more information and more ability to do things, like just look at the apps that are out there, just write down the tracking and measuring your heart rate variability and doing these sorts of things. And in the future, we're gonna be able to get quick tests to know, oh, well you have this genetic polymorphism, you should do XYZ. See, but with that point being made, don't you think that's making us even more disconnected? It's a good example that was when we first got navigation. How cool was it when we no longer had to open up these big-ass maps? I don't even remember anybody's phone number. No, you're right. Right, so my point is that these things that we celebrate as, and I'm a fan too, and I'm not knocking, I'm just speculating here. I mean, don't you think that it could get to the point where you become so disconnected because you rely on all these tools? Yeah, of course.  Because who even knows how to like, okay, somebody can repair an iPhone, but setting up a basic, from the bottom up, electrical circuit and whatnot, there's people that do it, but we'd have been allowed a world of hurt. Oh, yeah.  So, I mean, there's pluses and minuses. I think overall, anytime there's some kind of technological advancement, it's always gonna be, there's pluses and minuses to it, right? But I think that one of the things I've learned about life is change is inevitable, and it's coming whether you like it or not, right? So that whether or not it's a good or bad thing, it's here, so I agree with you. Like if somebody with cervical spine issues, right? Like looking down at your phone, like I actually try to make a conscious effort to go, like put my phone up at eye level and not just bend down to look at it, right? And not be slumped over and whatnot. I think that there are things that are going to help offset some of those things. I think overall, if I had to say one or the other, I think tech is probably a good thing. Yeah, I would agree. Do you regulate your usage of your, like not you're in a relationship, do you find like, okay, I'm gonna only have phone time at this time because it's taken away from- So one of the things I've had to acknowledge and as something that was a drawback on me is I tend to be way too engaged in social media, in my emails and all that kind of stuff. But I'm just a very motivated person. Like I wanna make a difference. I really enjoy interacting with people. This gives me ability to interact with people. And in my past relationship, that was a big gripe. And you know what, rightly so. That's something that I have to take accountability for is like I was way too into my phone. Like how my head, part of that was because if you're unhappy, you kind of distract yourself and whatnot. But yeah, that was my fault, you know? And now like I can say, I'm still in it too much, 100% but I can say that, you know, like when Holly and I go out, like if we're gonna bring the phones out, we're like, all right, I'm gonna do a post about this. Is that okay? Because just maybe we haven't had time to do that or whatever. And then if we both agree to it, then it's fine to have it out. But after that, phones go away and we don't look at them, you know? When I'm with my kids, I used to be on my phone all the time. Now when I'm with my kids, I'm with my kids.  And I'm trying to be with my kids and be conscious and have fun. And you know what? I've actually enjoyed that time so much more now. Right, right. But yeah, Holly called me out on it many times. She's like, I love Lane, you're my favorite person in the world. You're everything I want in a relationship. When I get Lane, you know? She's like, but when your head's in your phone, I don't get Lane, you know? So she's like, if you want more for me, you should give me more. She's 100% right. Let's see, that's great communication from her and self-awareness on your part. How many people do you think are like that though? You know what? We read a book, well, sorry. We listened to it, a audio book called Your Brain on Love, the Neurobiology of Healthy Relationships by Stan Tatkin. And he's a neuroscientist who studies attachment theory in children. And basically, you know, a lot of the book is basically like your relationship with your parents dictates a lot of how you interact with your partner.  So Holly would be like, what's like an island? So when she gets stressed, her kind of auto-regulation response is like, if she'll get, if she gets stressed enough, she literally won't talk. Like you cannot get her to talk if she's stressed up. Whereas if I'm really stressed out, I'm like over-communicating. Like I'm trying to, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like I'm really trying to like, like what's wrong, what's wrong with you? Like that sort of thing. And like it's been really hard to like, like I'm the kind of person that like, if she's stressed out, I want to know what the problem is, I want to fix the problem. I want to help the problem. I've had to get to the point where, oh, if she's like really stressed out and getting to the point where she's not talking anymore, communicating anymore, that means she needs space and I need to go outside or go for a walk or something like that and just give her some space. And that usually does the trick, you know? But that's so weird for me because the best thing, like if I'm stressed out, the best thing she can do is just walk and give me a hug. You know what I mean? But that's why like, and people tend to give affection and love the way they want to receive it. Have you read the love languages yet? That's a good one for you guys to read. So that's part of it, right? So like, I'm a, my number one thing by far is words of affirmation.  So now having my partner, you know, and that like is, that's like all the way at the bottom of her list. So it is not a natural intuitive thing for her to give compliments, right? And then number two, at least with her is like physical touch. So like just like, and her things are quality time and acts of service, right? So she's so busy and she has so much going on. Like how she perceives it is, Lane did the dishes, Lane cleaned this up because I'm, she calls me the man who sees no mess. Like knowing that I took that time out of my day to give her back time. That's like, like, that's how it's, but like, I think a lot of people, you know, in the book, Stan Tatkin, he talked about how after age 25, if you fall in love with somebody, like, yeah, you can make mistakes, but most people's picker isn't broken, you know, after age 25, like you fall in love with somebody because something is familiar to you, right? And we don't exactly know what causes it, but something causes it. And people say, oh, I keep picking the wrong person or this and that. And the reality is, is you probably, one, I heard another podcast, I think it was with the guy who was inside Quest. Tom? Tom, yeah. Actually, I messed up there. I actually like Tom, but he's awesome. But he said, him and his partner or wife, I'm not sure if they're married. Lisa, they do relationship theory. Yeah, and they were like, you have to give somebody the keys to the kingdom, right? Like you have to tell, this is really hard for some people, it's like to tell them, hey, I need this. Cause you're afraid of being judged or whatever, but you have to tell your partner, I need this. Lisa, Lisa, Bill, you talked about that on our show when we interviewed her, she talked about, that was a practice they do every week, which I actually implemented after them where Katrina and I, at the end of the week, we'll look at, and they call it their one selfish desire. Like what's your one selfish desire that you want selfishly this week or that you want to do, whatever that may be, whether it be I want to go sit at a bar and go watch the basketball playoffs, you know, or whatever, or I want to go sit on the beach and read by myself or whatever it may be, how important that is to the relationship. Yeah, but like people say, oh, communication, communication, communication, but not just talking, but like actually saying, this is what I need. And so basically relationships come down to, can that other person meet what you need in a relationship and can you meet what they need?  And if you can't meet their needs or aren't willing to meet their needs, because sometimes, like I said, Holly doesn't, she's not really a complimentative person. She's not like mean or anything like that. It's just not something that's intuitive for her, right? But she also knows that she doesn't have to do it a bunch, but I need that. Like that's something that I actually need, right? So I'll see it too sometimes where it's like, not natural to her, but she'll go ahead and say it anyway. You look nice today. But I appreciate that because I appreciate that even more so because I know it doesn't come naturally. So that actually took, as weird as it sounds, that actually took some kind of self-sacrifice to do that, right? Just like when I make the bed or because like, if it was up to me, I'd eat off paper plates and I'd never make my bed. My mind, why the hell would I make the bed? I'm just gonna get back into it, right? So that is not something that's intuitive with me, but I do it because I know it's important to her, right? So all that kind of stuff. And you know, we still like, the other thing Stan Tadkin talked about that I really liked was he said, get out of your mind the idea that there's a low maintenance human, like there is no such thing.   Most people do better with a partner than they do. Or strap on jokes. Most people do better with a partner because two people can do more than one, right? But yeah, just listening to that, I would encourage anybody listening to a show who's in self-development, go get that book. Even if you're single, go get that book because you'll understand yourself way better. And it's better to, some people would be scared off in a relationship with somebody who said, hey, this is important to me, this is what I need.  Nothing like, and I'm speaking from personal experience, nothing like a divorce to really get you to reflect and become growth-minded when it comes to relationship. Well, and being accountable for the reasons that I was unhappy were partly self-induced. That's right, that's right. But that takes a lot of self-awareness and you know, situations like that, you can either crumble under them or you can look at them and be like, all right, let's learn from this.   So I think that it's, and it's funny cause I still get people like who'll like really just, rake me over the coals for what happened on my social media, this and that.  Now when we talked last, you were still kind of going through the whole avatar thing. Are you, is that done and over with? That's all done. Done, done. Everything work out the way you wanted to and.  So I think it was probably fair, you know? And you know what? Like I don't really look at what they're doing. I don't even know if they're still in existence. I really, you know, I don't really follow what they were doing. Most of that I got from you, so I don't know if they're growing or not or dying or what's going on with the business model. Yeah, no idea. I kind of look at that as like a, you know, it's like, do you want to look up your ex-girlfriend's stuff and see what she's doing? Probably, you know, if she's doing bad, it's probably not going to help you. If she's doing great, it's not going to help you. It's nice to see when she gets fat, you know what I'm saying? Come on, let's be honest. You know what I'm saying? It does make you feel good inside a little bit. Come on.  And you know, really don't, I don't really think about it much day to day. Well, so what does that look like for you right now? I mean, you're sounding like you've got a major client load. If you guys are managing almost a hundred people, that's a lot of people to be managing for sure. I would assume that that's the majority of what you're doing right now. Are you touring and doing a lot of seminars right now? What are you doing? We're doing a little bit of everything. You know, we're, we put a lot into the e-book. How's that going? Very well, very well.  Which was for an e-book on bodybuilding. It's pretty legit. That's fantastic. Yeah, it's pretty legit. And you know, I'll definitely be doing, you know, we've thought about doing an audio book of that. Also possibly doing a hard, like an actual physical copy of that, that's possible. Doing more e-books.  Like I would love to go back and do an updated version and then do a fat loss book, do a powerlifting book, do all this kind of stuff. Oh, excellent. We're also, you know, I can't really do an automated nutrition system right now for reasons I can't discuss. Oh yeah. Discussed. How long is that for, by the way? But I understand that there is a demand for that. But what we, what I can do is, you know, exercise, automation stuff. So we've done the workout builder on Biolane.com. So basically we now put up, you know, different training templates that are customizable and this is my coach, Andres and I. So he's my powerlifting coach. Really, really smart guy. You guys are gonna love talking to him. Very brilliant. Especially when it comes to stress management. And we have all these templates and basically it's like 13 bucks a month and you get access to all these templates that range from, they cover the whole gambit.  If you're a high level powerlifter, we've got that, you know. If you're a big time bodybuilder, we've got that. So for 13 bucks a month, it's, it's, it's hard to beat. We've had a lot of really positive feedback. People say, man, it's the best 13 bucks a month I spend.  And so we're focusing on that, you know, putting more into that. We're also putting more into just like research and like, you know, basically like building for the future. You know, understanding like, like Holly and I go through so much research and even to keep so much data on our own clients. Just so in the future, like we can, you know, make things that are better.  You can't do anything with a nutrition calculator. It's probably part of the mediation. Bro, that's fucking. We're all speculating. In our business, what we do, like that's crazy to me, like that they could even get, make that happen.   You can't even talk about it even. There's a non-disclosure. I mean, there's a non-disparagement clause. So, you know, it's kind of.  Find a way. I'm really interested in this. And I think that's just for our profession and what we do, I mean, you're cutting one of your limbs off. Like, come on.  Yeah. But, you know, sometimes to get something and not take it to the point where both parties get destroyed and when you're talking about mediation, both parties have to compromise. Okay, so part of that is you compromising too. It's not just like they said, this is the. He probably got something in returns. Typically how it works. Like, I'll get this, you get that type of deal. There's, I'll just say that both sides made compromises. Okay. And that's obviously a major compromise for you, right? Of course. Yeah, so. Wow.  Like, sometimes things don't work out. Just like a relationship. It doesn't mean that people are evil people or anything like that. Business is business. You know? Shit happens. You work, you and Holly work together and did you just buy a house together? Yeah, so we just bought a house. Okay, are you? In grass, it looks beautiful. Yeah, it's gorgeous. Is there any, do you have any fear of like commitment? Cause you guys are working together, bought a house together very quickly. Do you ever get scared? Like, I don't want to. Do you ever think she came after you just to get closer to us? Sometimes I feel like that.  And it's funny, like, I'll pretty much get people on like a weekly basis who will basically, in a very nice way, inform me that I'm punching above my weight class. Oh my God. I'll kick my coverage. You know, kind of give me this look like, so what do you got going on? I'm like, hey, I'm all right, you know? She's packing here.  Yeah, right. And I had somebody, somebody was like, oh, she's just going after a green card. I can tell you she does not like America so far. Like she much prefers Australian culture, but it's more important to her to be with the person she loves than to, you know, be in a place she loves. Cause she knows, she also knows that like, part of it's just adapting, you know, and then she will get there and she'll like it. But I just kind of had to chuckle about that. I'm just like, okay, guy. But, you know, she's just as, in terms of like what she's sacrificed and what she's had to do and all that, we're on a level playing field.  Like what if I'm doing the wrong thing? Does that ever happen or are you guys pretty?  Yeah. You know, like even to fall in love is a risk, you know, cause it's like anybody who's done it, you're literally like, it's like, literally letting go. You know what I mean? Like you literally have to let go to fall in love. So if you want, So it's falling.  But you know, I don't want to look back and live my life and have, you know, like it's a great partnership right now. And I hope it, you know, and I think that the big thing about her is she's very self-aware and I like to think I'm the same way. And we're very focused on trying to improve in terms of how we interact and that sort of thing. And I don't think there's many people out there who do that, you know what I mean? People kind of go, well, I am how I am and you need to adapt to me. Now you guys seem to have some really good communication. You seem to have a really playful relationship from what you guys show. She's very funny. Yeah. Like she's actually really one of the funniest people I've been around. Which I think it's really important to have that in a relationship. Now, if there is something that slips you guys up or causes a fight, is there something typical that you guys are having to work around like? You know, I don't really fight much. Like she's got her things that annoy me and I've got my things that annoy her. I don't think we've really had like too many fights. What annoys her about you that you're working on? Uh, messy. Oh, are you messy? And I tend to be disorganized. So like, even like today, like I mean she wasn't really clear on what her role was gonna be today, like in terms of like videos and that sort of thing. Like, and she has this thing like, she's very beautiful and she hates the idea of just being like somebody good looking who's put on camera just to be good looking.  You know, I must have said something that made her think that she was just gonna be like- The model. The model. And she said that, she was like, I don't just want to be a fitness model, you know? And, cause basically she doesn't want to be unemployed. It's always funny when I see that on Instagram, it says fitness model. I'm like, so you're unemployed. So yeah, that's a big thing for her. So I do a poor job of sometimes communicating like when I've like set up something for business, that probably annoys her.  Do you guys have an assistant or anybody that keeps you guys overnight? Our assistant, David, he's awesome. David Mathis, I'll give him a shout out. Like he's been, so he actually reached out to us cause he was at, I went and spoke to some people in Bill Campbell's lab at USF. Bill Campbell's a friend of mine. And David was there. David was an army medic who beat anorexia. Like literally went to the hospital, was dying. He beat anorexia. And I know I can talk about this cause we've talked about it before on air. And David actually reached out to us after, cause we talked like when we were there for a few minutes. And he was like, you know, I live in the Tampa Bay area. He's like, you know, if you guys ever need anything, like I would just love to help. Anyway, I can. And I was like, well, really we need a lot of help cause this is when this was like right in the middle of the shit was hitting the fan and flying all over the room. You know what I mean? So this would have been like October of last year. And man, he's been such a helpful guy. Like so now he's actually, we've kind of groomed him under us and he's actually a coach under Biolain now. So like he's taking on clients and like he's such a passionate guy and he does such a great job for us. Like, and he worked, I couldn't afford to pay him cause I was paying 20 grand to attorneys every month. You know, like I couldn't afford to pay him. And I told him like, man, I can't afford to pay you. All I can offer you is experience right now. He never complained. He never resented us for it. You know, now we're in a position to be able to be able to pay him. And you know, he did just a good work when he wasn't getting paid is when he's getting paid. That's cool. You know, he's a great, great guy. So like we are, Holly and I talk about how lucky we are to have David in our lives all the time.  So is that, is there already trainers in place besides him? So just David for now, cause we don't have enough, we don't have enough spillover just yet. But yeah, we would like to do that where we've got, you know, people we trust under us because one, not everybody can afford our time, right? But they still want to get somebody that they trust that that, and some people honestly just want us like there were some people who bought the book just cause they liked me and want to support me, who didn't, who weren't even really that interested in the book, they were like, they talk about all the time like, you guys don't have anything to buy. Like we just want to, I want to support you, you know? Like, so if you want to support us right now, you can buy my book and Holly's recipe book. But you know, like- Yeah, we have to work on those commercials. Yeah, exactly.  I'm like, either don't say anything or buy it, buy it now. But yeah, it's, you know, David's been awesome. And yeah, we'll like, eventually as we bring in people, hopefully people we trust really well. Who's the young guy that videos for you too? Kibira, and Kibira is awesome.  And you know, like he- You can see that transition in the cool videos that you started doing. Yeah, so Kibira, Kibira had no experience with, like he just did video editing for fun. And he was like, he was like telling me, he's like, he lived in Boston.  And I was like, I'm not gonna let you do that for free and move your whole life, you know. And he sent me a video. He made this like comeback video for me for powerlifting. And it was with, you know, everybody, it was just footage he took from online.  It was awesome. And he said something to me that made me change my mind.   You do not want to be around it. And he was like, dude, that is the best stuff to get right now. People seeing you when you're vulnerable. Do you know how many people that's going to help? And he said, he said a live from Gary Vaynerchuk. He's like, don't just be involved. Don't just do your process. Document the process. He's like, cause that is going to make it so much better.  That's why they resonate with you guys, right? That's why they're listening to the podcast because you can like some information but if you don't like the person that's disseminating it, you just go find it somewhere else, you know? So people like and want to support you. So, you know, and by, it's tough because a lot of people just want to separate personal and business. I'm sorry, when you own your own business, it is personal. Well, especially today. You know what I mean? Today, we're in a whole different ballroom. You're your own brand. 15, 20 years ago, it wasn't like that. And I'm, I've always been a really open person, you know? So like some things I don't disseminate because of legal reasons and also just for just trying to be respectful, you know? But yeah, like I share my stuff in hopes that people will learn from, cause the only way we're born we're a blank state, right? The only way you learn is you make mistakes. Either something works or it doesn't work. If it works, you keep doing it. If it doesn't work, you stop doing it, right?  So we know we don't put our hand on the stove, not because we never suddenly put our hands on the stove because we saw somebody else put their hands on the stove, right? So yeah, that's kind of why I share this stuff. And but, you know, my team, like Kibira's out here now. Andress, our coach is out here now. He's doing more business with us in terms of making training templates for Biolane. And he writes a lot of articles for the site. David, Kibira, Andress. Now that Kibira's came on, have you felt like a different energy around your audience and the people that are listening to you? Are you getting like, because he's starting to show that side of you? Because I know you have put some videos out there that really have been vulnerable and humanizing. Like, so have you seen the tone and the people following you change at all? Or is it still pretty consistent? It's still pretty consistent. But I, you know, I think it's getting more of across my personality a little bit better, you know? So it's more representative of who you really are. I mean, after one of the last shows that you did with us, you switched over a lot of people that didn't like you, that listened to us that, I mean, that what you were, you're still today. We actually got a lot of comments. Yeah, you're still today probably the most talked about person in our private forum. It's awesome.  But you tend to win people over every time you come on the show.  You know, like, I can say that, you know? Like you guys even said something earlier and you said something and I go, oh, I don't know. I don't really know much about that.  There's a lot of, man, there's a lot of people who just cannot admit when they've done wrong. I said, man, when you have passion and conviction and you know, you're gonna have an opinion and not everyone's gonna agree with you. If you try to live your life by having everybody agree with you all the time, that's a shitty way to win. Say nothing, do nothing, be nothing. Exactly. Boring. Aristotle. My mother, she gave me some great advice. It might be, you know, this is, I'll bring it back to mom because my mom is one of the strongest people I know. Mom's been dealing with a health issue for, she's a private person so I don't wanna put it all out there.  In fact, my dad, they were talking there at night and mom said, dad turned to her and dad said, you know, Ellen, you're the toughest lady I know. I've been with you for 43 years and you're the toughest woman I know. And I would say that is a hundred. Even Holly, when she met my mom, she goes, the first time they met was not a, it was very high stress, we'll just put it that way. Oh, wow. But they get along great now.  But mom said to me when I was 15 years old because I had my peers, you know, didn't accept me. And I just, I was so caught up in like trying to make people happy and trying to please people. And I'm still that way to a little extent. I'm a very empathetic person. So I tend to, if people aren't happy around me or unhappy with me, I tend to be unhappy.  And it doesn't matter how much you try to please them. So you might as well be who you are. And at least you know that the people like you for who you really are.   I think he said, I'd rather you hate me for everything I am than love me for something I'm not. And that's kind of how I feel like, you know. Would you say that's one of the best traits that you picked up from your mother? Yeah, and hard work. My parents are very hardworking people. They're very passionate people and definitely very opinionated, hardheaded people. Like you don't have, my mom's from the Eisenman side. And we always say, you don't have to ask an Eisenman what their opinion is because they're telling it to you. My grandfather was like my hero and growing up like the most intelligent man I've ever met, greatest generation, World War II, like legitimate war hero. Although he'd never talk about it. I have a lot of respect for people that speak their mind though.  You know what I mean? But like, man, the