Episode 539: Angelo Keely: Essential Amino Acids for Fat Loss Without Muscle Loss and Better Recovery

23:52And the thing is, there are different qualities of protein based on how dense they are in these essential amino acids, how bioavailable they are, the proportion of them, and so it really, really matters. The quality of the essential amino acids you're getting in your diet will directly impact all of these things. Okay, so what are the best quality amino acids, proteins that we should be focusing on? So what I'll do is I'll give you like a spectrum of like what the impact is. Okay. So I would say on the—first of all, I want to say if you're not under stress and you are young, like let's say you're 20 years old and you're not training that hard and you're not overweight, you generally eat pretty well.

24:38Everything I'm about to say is less important. I'm being real. Like the amount of protein you need to eat, the quality of the protein is less important. All of these things become more important if we're overweight and we're trying to lose fat or we're particularly over 40 or we're really trying to train hard and like put on muscle. You know, it's like, it's under stress where everything I'm about to say matters a lot more. And aging. And aging. I would say over 40, and honestly, aging is the greatest stress-induced physiology. Like if you're talking about a state of being that this matters the most for, it is aging.

25:12And thus it's all of us over 40. Yeah. And it only gets more intense as you get older. So on the very, very far end. By the way, when you're 20, you can do anything. Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm saying. And I think that's the art. There's always these arguments like plant protein versus animal protein or this protein powder, amino acids, and people like go and use studies and talk about things and like, yeah, it all gets blended together. And it's like for some groups, this is less important. For others, it's more important. Yeah. I think this is extremely important for people who are over 40, for sure.

25:40Extremely important. Yeah. This is why, that's why you're here. Extremely important for people over 40. And I would just say, like, I mean, like - And who are active. Yeah. I mean, quick side note, like, my son is a very competitive basketball player. He's, you know, almost 13, but he trains a lot. For him, it actually does matter. He's under a lot of stress. So, like, for him, I do think about protein, nutrition, and amino acids because he's not, he's exercising like three hours a day. Exactly. I was going to say also for people who are active, who are very active, who are, who are trying to like operate in terms of in their brain at a high level.

26:13You want to be like really optimized. Yeah. You want to be optimized. You can't eat like a little as you, as you get older, it's impossible. That's why this, that's why this is so important because I don't think anyone knows you don't know what you don't know. Right. Yeah. So go on. Okay. So on the very far end of the spectrum in terms of protein quality, you have plant proteins. Right. And that's not to like offend anyone or to get into argument, but it's like, it simply is the case that plant proteins outside of a very few, like tofu and like soy proteins are very high quality. They're the closest to like animal proteins.

26:43And they get a lot of bad rep because of phytoestrogens. But like, it's honestly pretty bunk. You look at like even male bodybuilders who consume a lot of like soy and like they have higher testosterone levels than the ones who don't. Like - Really? Yeah, the soy thing is like, that's a whole nother argument too. but like if I was, if you're plant-based, I would encourage you to eat soy. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. I mean, you got to look out for other things like GMO and chemicals and pesticides. I just find you're eating a lot of extra calories when you're eating plant protein. Yeah. So here's going to say on the very far end, you have plant proteins and this is basically any kind of protein that comes from a plant.

27:15And the reason why it's the lowest quality protein is because our body's ability to digest that protein and break it down, right? Via like proteolytic enzymes. Like, and this is not about like, oh, you know, how much do I chew or what do I need to eat? Like, it's literally like we have certain chemicals in our body that help us break down proteins. Totally. And they're less compatible with the plant-based proteins. And so when we try to get the amino acids out of them, we can't get as many. On top of that, they're covered in carbohydrates typically. Exactly. So they're very caloric. So you have to eat a lot of it.

27:47You have to eat five, 10 times the amount of it as you would if you ate our super dense animal protein to get the same amount of protein. Yes, like I was telling you yesterday when we were together, you know, you said this, that if you eat kidney beans, for example, for protein, you'd have to have like 750 calories versus like a 250 calorie piece of steak to get the same quality or caliber of protein or like amount of protein. Well, impact. I would just say like the impact of the protein because rather than just talking about grams of protein, it's like how much of it can I actually digest and also like…

28:22And bloating and okay, that's a whole other thing. So anyway, so that's kind of on the very, very far end, right? Then, and there's a few, spirulina actually is a remarkably good plant protein, but how much spirulina are you going to eat? I was going to say spirulina is a really good, but also it's not like a lot of these plant proteins are not satiating. No. That's the other issue. So you're going to have to eat. You're going to have to eat again, a lot of calories of like carbs, et cetera, you know? So, so that's kind of on the far end. Then you start getting into just honestly, whole food animal proteins are all.

28:49What about dairy? Like yogurt? Dairy is excellent. So I was going to say, if you choose to be vegetarian, like, I mean, yogurt is incredible. Dairy is like one of the highest quality protein. So are eggs. Like the most bioavailable protein there is. Awesome protein. But also beef, chicken, pork, fish. Like these are all great, excellent protein sources. But here's what like I think becomes more interesting and people don't realize. And this is where we really get into like essential amino acids. So in a protein, all of these proteins I just talked about, they're made up of these 20 amino acids.

29:22Imagine like 20 little different types of grains of sand that can make up the brick. Nine of them are essential, which by definition means you have to eat them. Like if something's essential in nutrition, it just means your body can't make it. Right. Non-essential, literally your body can take those essential nutrients. It can take leucine, isoleucine, and turn it into another amino acid like glycine. Like it actually has the ability to synthesize new amino acids, your body does. but you have to eat the essential ones. On top of that, the essential amino acids are the active component. And I will describe what that means now.

29:54When I eat some beef, and I'm gonna give you a specific amount because there's really interesting studies on this. I eat 30 grams of beef protein and I digest that. There's a certain amount of essential amino acids in that. And this is kind of shocking though, but it's like only about a quarter of beef is actually protein. Because it's full of water, like when you weigh it. Of course. Of the weight, right? It's full of water. There's other micronutrients in it. There's fats. There's other things. About a quarter of it. And then of that, less than half of that is essential amino acids. So you get this big piece of meat, and actually 12 % is the essential amino acids.

30:34It's a quite small amount. And what your body is doing is when it digests that meat, this 30 grams of beef protein, it really is just reading for the essential amino acids. and that peak of those essential amino acids when they hit the blood, that is what tells your body, hey, Jen, it's actually okay for you to break down these old skin tissues, these old liver proteins and rebuild and make new ones. And the more amount of essential amino acids that hit the blood at once is what corresponds to your body saying, let's, it's called turnover, like whole body protein turnover and muscle protein turnover.

31:11Like, let's break down the old proteins and make new ones. So here's what's shocking. 30 grams of beef protein generates more whole body protein synthesis, this whole protein turnover in your body, than if you ate twice the amount of that, 70 grams of beef protein, but you ate that beef protein as part of a mixed meal. When you eat the beef with broccoli, with potatoes, which I just want to be really clear, I'm not in any way like endorsing some kind of orthorexic like, you know, we had dinner, like I eat a nice whole mixed meal. And that's part of like, I think being a healthy person is like eating whole meals and getting lots of micronutrients.

31:48But when you talk about protein synthesis and why this would start to matter as we get older and how to optimize our diet. So you're saying eating protein by itself is way more effective than eating, mixing protein with other foods. For the purpose of stimulating this protein synthesis, of telling the body to make new proteins. That is so interesting. So let's say, for example, I have a piece of salmon with green beans, would it be less effective than me just eating a piece of salmon on its own? For the purpose of protein turnover, yes. But that's not how I would suggest that you try to construct your diet.

32:24I wouldn't be like, all right, now I'm going to start eating my salmon on its own, and then I'm going to wait an hour, and then I'm going to eat my fiber. Well, because there's a whole thing about that too. People eat food separately because of all the other theories and benefits, they say. Yeah. And this is not a theory. This is very well documented protein and amino acid nutrition science by the leaders of the whole field of academia over the last 20 years. It's like multiple studies, multiple people. Again, and for anyone who's really interested in this stuff, go check out the International Society of Sports Nutrition.

32:57They have a great paper on specifically on essential amino acids that as an overview of this, but they'll link out to tons of other pieces. So that alone should kind of blow your mind. But here's a crazier thing. Whey protein powder stimulates three times. It's actually, here's where I really want to break it down. What is important is the amount of the essential amino acids that are in your blood. Okay. Okay. And when you consume whey protein powder, because it's even more bioavailable, it has less of the other, you know, it's a more concentrated form of the protein, right? It increases those EAA levels three times as much as beef protein does, like a whole steak.

33:40You take 20 grams of steak or 20 grams of beef protein from steak or 20 grams of whey protein, you'll get three times the impact from the whey protein. From whey protein. Why? And again, it's not, it is simply because it is more bioavailable and these amino acids hit the blood more quickly. So a kind of quick hack, and we're going to get to essential amino acids in a second now, but me rather than saying like, yeah, you need to always separate all your meals. I'd be like, no, like have an awesome dinner with your family where you eat fiber, which is also good for you and all the micronutrients and like all these other things and have a piece of salmon and have some rice or whatever else you like for like a healthy carb.

34:16And when you think about how am I going to snack in the middle of the day, maybe it's not just like one more meal or what, or even, you know, like beef jerky or something. It's like the protein shake might actually be a much better bang for your buck. It's going to have less calories and it's going to have a way greater impact on this protein synthesis. Like why you're even trying to consume the protein. Like there are ways to kind of, and that's how I think supplements can really be used rather than replacing your core meals and real nutrition. That's when like supplementing. That's when supplement starts to make sense.

34:48But here's now the mind blowing impact of what you, when you think about essential amino acids. So now there's this other category of product called essential amino acids. And even when you get whey protein powder, which I love, like my company makes whey, we make, in my opinion, like the best whey protein. But like, whey protein's awesome. But even when you get whey protein, a whey protein, grass-fed, whey protein isolate, highest quality, most premium, cleanest thing, of that protein, less than 45 % is essential amino acids. Most of it is the non-essential, which are not bad, they're good, they have good things that they do, but they don't increase the protein synthesis at all, zero.

35:30And there are very clear studies that show this. Increasing the amount of non-essential, no increase. So when you take an essential amino acid supplement, and it's all the essential, it's only the essential amino acids, you're only getting the active component. When you give that to young adults, and we'll get into like aging adults, the impact versus whey protein is 3x. So like you want to take five grams of essential amino acids, it's going to have three times the impact as five grams of whey protein. Or more equivalently, it's more like five grams of essential amino acids is going to be the same as like, you know, 15 grams of whey protein for a young adult.

36:07And the reason for that is somewhat obvious. One is it's entirely, it's only the essential amino acids, whereas half of the whey protein is these other things. But on top of that, it's immediately digested. It goes into the bloodstream immediately. So even better than, say, just trying to have a whey protein shake in the middle of the day, just take some essential amino acids and you're getting a way bigger impact than a whey protein shake, but even a huger, huger is not a real word. I like that word. A much larger impact than trying to eat a can of tuna or chicken breast or one more meal. It's a way more efficient and effective way to get that boost.

36:45And I think as we see, as we talk about getting older, you need every edge you can get. Yes, exactly. That's what I've noticed.

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38:44That's fatty15.com slash habits, code habits. And you can find the link in the show notes. Now let's get back to the episode.

39:01So you're telling me, just so I'm breaking, I want to kind of just like summarize that. Or maybe, so having a scoop or two of whey protein is actually more effective than actually for your protein synthesis than having a steak? Yes. Okay. And then how about, is whey protein more effective than having salmon? Yes. Okay. So overall, the overarching thing that you said is whey protein is the best form of protein that you can get overall. Okay. So I want to be clear. I'm talking less about the idea of like whey protein because I'll just say - No, but you're talking about - What I'm going to say, when you have yogurt and there's that clear liquid on the top, that's whey protein.

39:49So make sure you don't throw that away. Stir that in. Really? Yeah. So stir that in. Yeah. I always like throw it away. Really? Yeah. I mean, there's other liquids in it too, but I would definitely keep that. Oh, that's good to know. Give me more tips like that. Yeah, so whey protein is a protein source that naturally is a part of dairy. I understand. So what I'm saying is isolated protein powder, particularly whey protein powder, it's the one that has the most amount of studies behind it and studies that compare it in this way that we're talking about. Taking a whey protein powder as a supplement on its own is definitely going to outperform any type of whole food animal protein, a piece of salmon, a piece of chicken, a piece of beef, et cetera, by many times.

40:33Does that mean that we would build muscle easier or better with that whey protein than we would with a salmon, a steak, or whatever, whatever? In the context of supplementation, I would say yes. I think the only reason why I want to kind of hedge that is I'm not encouraging people to stop eating real food. No, of course. Because there are other good things in the salmon. There are fats in the salmon. And eating a mixed meal and having carbs are really good for you and like recovering from training, et cetera. But when we're talking - Okay, we're going to be very, very clear. This is just for one very specific point.

41:06But for building lean muscle - For building lean muscle, if you're trying to hit much higher daily protein targets - Whey protein. To do that, a whey protein powder is going to be way more effective than just trying to eat more whole food protein. Okay, so here's the thing. Now, what if we just take our aminos and not do the other things? Like, let's say we— If you replaced it, if instead of whey protein— Instead of whey— You only did the amino acids. Yes. Better. Better than the whey protein. The better solution for supplementing, you know, already like a high-protein diet and trying to live the super vibrant life and have really good muscle and be lean and have good hair and skin and all that.

41:46Amino acids are the supplement that are going to outperform whey protein. And basically outperform and also get and will allow you to get your, the amount of protein you actually need for all the other kind of benefits you bought. Yeah, because when your body's eating protein, it's trying to get these essential amino acids. That's what it wants. And you're giving it that in this more highly concentrated form. So you're saying, okay, there's 20 amino acids. Like your supplement gives you nine essential. What happens to the other ones? What happens to them when? Like, for example, I've been mixing your aminos with water, the mango one I like, a side issue.

42:23And it has nine amino acids, right? Essential nine. So the other 11. So that's not obviously in the thing. Our bodies are producing it itself. It's not as essential because what happens to them? Like, why does the supplement not have 20? Why does it only have nine? Okay. So in— Like L-glutamine is a perfect example. Yeah, so here, which is a good amino acid and has other specific functions that it does. So it's not like you don't need these things. But here, where do we get them? Maybe here's a, well, you get it. Here's why you should eat meat every day. Okay. You do need some of that every day.

42:59Okay. So if I was just giving you basic guidance, what I would say is like, don't go below 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight of real food every day. Okay. That's what I would, I would just, I would like make that a fundamental base. I think that's, that's pretty clear. and that is because there's a certain amount of protein you need to just function. Like for your immune health, for your brain health. Well, here's the deal. If you eat less protein than that as a young, healthy adult, so I'm saying 20-year-old again, not performing, et cetera, you literally, all of your luxury proteins, your muscle, your skin, your hair, all these, they're going to start to degrade.

43:36And why is that? It's because of this. Like literally if I go a few hours is technically all it takes, But let's just say I go a day without consuming any protein. And now I literally have these parts of my liver that need new liver proteins to be replaced. They're breaking down. They have to be rebuilt. And it's pulling everything, all the amino acids out of my blood that it can to help rebuild them. And it can't find them, right? Where does it get them from? I'm not eating new protein. What does it do? Right. It literally breaks down my muscle tissue. Your muscle tissue is your reservoir of amino acids for the rest of your body.

44:13And that is why when people diet, oftentimes they start to lose lots of muscle. It's why when we get older, we start to lose lots of muscle. It's because our ability to utilize proteins in our diet, to get these amino acids to rebuild our heart tissue, to support our liver. So the main idea is there's a certain amount of amino acids you just need to even just have basic functioning. And there's a certain amount of non-essential amino acids that you wouldn't want to like force your body to have to synthesize them all. Like, and by eating them in food, you get them. But what I would say is like the cow, right?

44:47The cow's meat, like its proteins are made in an ideal way for that cow to just be a cow. For it to like function and live. Yes, of course. Like the structure of its tissue. It wasn't made, it's not like made so that it's perfect. It's the perfect protein for us. So when we eat a cow and we eat some of that beef, What happens is some of the amino acids we like really want and really use, all of the essential amino acids, and we can use some of the non-essential, but a lot of the non-essential we don't actually need. And so they get converted into sugars. They get converted into urea, et cetera.

45:22They get converted into other things and we don't actually use them all. So it doesn't, we use them for energy, but we don't use them actually in a substantive way to actually help rebuild our proteins. And so maybe the simplest way of describing it is it's good to eat whole food protein because it's got micronutrients, minerals, et cetera, and it has some of these non-essential, but we need a lot less of them than we need of the essential. So I got a bunch of questions just about this because, number one, I went to get my blood work done, and I was told to take L-glutamine, which is an amino acid, right?

45:54Do I need to take, if I just took your amino acid, which are the nine essentials, can I not take the L-glutamine or does that have a separate function and benefit? That has a separate function. And what that is likely pointing to, like, I don't know your specific health situation, but there's a unique, you have a unique health condition that is necessitating you to consume more L-glutamine. It's not just like every woman your age is in that situation. So you're talking about a very unique situation. And those cases do exist for people, like where they need more L-glutamine, they need more iron, this person needs to consume more vitamin D, this person needs to...

46:33I'm just depleted in everything, which is true, which is, by the way, what I was saying before we started is that I think it's so crucial for people to not just... This is what I learned, that when I got... I just got my blood work done. And I think what people get stuck in this loop is when they get their blood work and they start taking all the supplements, they end up just taking the same supplements for like years on end without, you know, really kind of checking if they even need those, if they're deficient in it, what their body actually needs now. Because what I need now at my age was very different than what I need three years ago or even 10 years ago, right?

47:06So now these amino acids like are essential for my overall like well-being and what I was going to say to you. And so now I've like, that's become part of my daily morning routine. I never took amino acids before. I didn't know about them, but what I was going to say, I didn't know about the importance of like how you need to incorporate them. But what I was going to say is like, if you, if you're someone who's even on a GLP-1 or even a runner where it breaks down your lean muscle mass, if you just incorporated like this amino acid supplement, would it enhance and benefit you like exponentially?

47:43Exponentially. So let's just talk the GLP one user. I'm going to make it even broader. If you were cutting calories and it can be drug induced or it can be my fitness pal and diet coach, whatever is getting you to eat less food. If you're eating less food, you are going to lose weight. So there's, there are these kind of basic rules of thermodynamic dynamics and the way that the body works that it's like, I burn a certain amount of calories per day. And if I consume less than I burn, then what happens is two things happen. One is my fat stores, I start to use them. And it's actually like people like are always frustrated with our body fat, like in contemporary society, because we have too much of it.

48:21But it's actually a very cool mechanism that it's like, if you have a bunch of food at one time, you can eat it. And you'll actually store the excess food on your body. So that then when you're hungry later on, you can live off of it. It's like imagine living in the woods. And it's like you kill this animal and you eat it all and you can like actually store it other rather rather than just trying to keep it in a cooler. Most people don't want to be storing it, but I understand what you're saying. But I'm saying that's where it came from. And so that's what happens. Now you suddenly eat less, and what happens is you burn off that fat, that excess store.

48:50But what also happens is that you burn muscle. You burn a lot of muscle when you lose weight. What's the percentage, do you know, like 30 %? Yeah, so it depends. Here's what I'd say, though. And this math is not perfect math, but I'll give you a few pretty clear, you know, validated figures. In general, there's this idea at about a 3 ,500 calorie deficit. If I eat 3 ,500 calories less than I need, I'll burn about a pound of fat. And it's about 750 calories for a pound of muscle. So considerably less of a caloric deficit will burn, will eat away at your muscle. Now it's not a perfect mix of these, but it's like, well then how does your body choose which it's burning and why?

49:30And you know, like what happens? But typically what happens if you do a very aggressive calorie restriction and that could be, you know, like I'm trying to lose, and I'm saying aggressive, like two pounds a week, which I think lots of people think is not crazy, but that's actually on the upper limit of like what's sustainable over time. And if you're on a GLP-1 or something and you're losing four or five pounds a week, the likelihood is that out of the first 10 pounds that you lose, about four pounds will be muscle and six pounds will be fat. So 40%. Over a long term, over the course of like nine months, it ends up being about 25 to 30 % is muscle loss.

50:05So that's a lot of muscle. And what I would tell you is no one is like, I promise you, you're not wanting to lose muscle. No one's wanting to lose muscle. It's hard to build back. Muscle is very metabolically intensive. When you have more muscle, you burn more calories. At rest, when you're working out, it helps you stay strong. It helps you look lean in tone, et cetera. So it's like you don't want to lose muscle. And the difference between losing 10 pounds of fat only or losing six pounds of fat and four pounds of muscle is very different. It's different for your metabolism. you're going to look totally different.

50:36So the ideal situation would be whether you're dieting or you're taking a GLP-1, how can you lose 10 pounds of fat and lose no muscle? How can you lose 20 pounds of fat and lose no muscle? Or maybe 19 pounds of fat and one pound of muscle. And there is a way to do it. And so a series of really awesome recent studies actually sponsored by the Department of Defense, and it was through the University of Arkansas Medical Branch that did all this research. Basically, and they were trying to study it with people in the military who are undergoing like calorie deprivation, carrying large packs, et cetera.

51:05What happens when we cut calories? And how much more of essential amino acids do we need to give these people to ensure that they stay in a net protein balance, meaning they don't lose muscle. They don't start breaking down their muscle to serve their liver and to serve their heart. And what they found was that a 30 % caloric deficit, so let's just say for simple terms, a 2000 calorie a day diet is like your, this is what you eat every day. You'll stay the same way. If you cut 600 calories, which is about 30%, which over the course of a week is a little over a pound of weight loss, so it's not something super aggressive, you need a 300 % increase.

51:46A three-fold increase in essential amino acids in each serving to not have muscle loss. That's a lot more. That's like a ton more. That's a lot more. I think the GLP one is super important because people are looking not necessarily better. They're smaller versions of what they were potentially, but a lot of the people I see have lost a lot of their muscle mass. And once they get off of that drug, everybody I know who's gotten off of it has gained their weight back very fast within like a month, like 40 pounds in a month. And it's because they lost all of their muscle, which we just talked about, is how you end up having a higher metabolism to burn calories, right?

52:32And it's going to be that much harder to ever lose the weight again. It's the same problem that always existed with yo-yo dieting. It's like you starve yourself and then you go back to the behaviors and you start, like, you have to find a sustainable way long-term in order to, and I'm not against GLP wines. I'm saying if that's your long-term sustainable way. No, but what I'm saying is this is a hack for it. But you have to be thinking about muscle during it. And it is possible. And so what I would say is if you are doing some type of, you know, restrictive dieting or a GLP-1 medication, I would be looking at taking essential amino acids, and we should get more into this, leucine-enriched essential amino acids.

53:06It matters. It's not just like any amino acids that you can find out there on Amazon or something or whatever brand or even if a famous person is promoting it. The science is very specific. A leucine-enriched essential amino acid supplement, I'd be taking two servings of that or three servings of that a couple times per day. Really? So it's quite a bit. But again, that's if you're doing this kind of aggressive, like you're taking a drug. Right. You're definitely not eating enough protein. Yeah. Or you're doing this like very aggressive calorie counting. Like really you, you have, you have such a good chance of having like zero, like little to zero muscle loss.

53:41If you do that while also doing this type of aggressive dieting. This is a massive hack. If you're taking a GLP one, in my opinion, The only way I thought you were framing is like rather than almost being like a hack or a shortcut, it's actually like a really thoughtful way to actually be healthy. Like if you if you really you're not just chasing the short term high of like, I lost a bunch of weight. Like, who do you really want to be? No, I think you really want to be this like vital, strong, fit, beautiful, handsome person. You know, whatever you live a long time. It's like you can't you got to think about your muscle.

54:16Well, I also I think that's true. The reason why I'm calling it a hack is, number one, people understand the fact that like, well, well, I would hope that most of these people are lost their appetite. So it's really hard to get that much protein intake, right? So they're struggling on that. I think also you need to do strength training, all these things. But if they are at least taking us, this is an easy, an easy way to kind of an easy integration into their daily routine that can really help save their muscle, why wouldn't everybody do it? That's the first part. Totally. Okay. Like it's a no, like to me, I'm all about no brainers.

54:51Like make my life as easy and simple as possible to get the maximum like, you know, um, effects to me, that's what it would be. Another one is like, I was saying running or like high, like running. Cause I'm a big, I love like to me, there's no better like cardio than running to clear my mind, to enhance my mood. I love running. I love running. And yet I know as I'm an old woman now, my joints are falling apart, you know, like it breaks down a lot of lean muscle mass, all the things. But I can't stop it because of the mental health benefits, right? So I want to, but I'm like, oh shit, what am I going to do?

55:28Because I love it, but yet like I don't want my muscle to break down. So if I started to, if I take these amino acids, that would also help me preserve my muscle. Incredibly. And that's one of the, I think, a really cool tool for something like Keon Aminos is that you take it before you run and you don't, it's not like you ate a bunch of food. It's not like you're heavy. Because I would say you also could try to eat some like chicken 45 minutes before you run. It's like, that's pretty hard. Some turkey slices. But you could take a serving or a couple servings before you go run. And you're not only helping preserve, this is actually really important.

56:00You're not only helping preserve that lean muscle during that period, but you're also actually helping replace the older proteins that are in your muscle. So you're literally going to enhance your muscle tissue by doing that. See, that to me, again, is a major improve hack. I would call it a hack or like strategy. I didn't mean to challenge you by challenging hack. I was just like trying to go to. No, by the way, I usually don't like that word. I hate that word. But to me, I would say strategy. Strategy, tool, like obvious thing to do, like foundational, like this makes too much sense. Well, because like I'm so concerned with being older, like over 40, loving to run.

56:37it's not as easy when I was 20, right? Like I didn't have to care. Even 30, now I'm like, oh shit, like I am not. I'm not building muscle as fast, right? So, or as I'm very concerned with like breaking down what I do have to preserve, right? So I'm looking for any easy tool or strategy to maintain everything I have as long as I have it, right? So my question to you then is, how does aminos, how are they different than creatine? Because the creatine, everyone talks about creatine. oh my God, creatine, creatine, protein, creatine. It's all you hear, right? Like maybe my algorithm is different than yours, but every second reel, every second post is happy, you know, the creatine and I'm taking this and I'm adding protein and like, what is the difference between creatine and aminos?

57:21If I, if I take aminos, do I need creatine? Like, can you talk about that stuff? So create a couple of quick soundbites. Creatine's awesome. I think it's worth taking. If I could convert you to take it to, I would. Okay. I would say that the essential amino acids are more important. Okay. And here's why. And it actually ties into something that you said, but I'm also going to get to what creatine is and how it works and why it's cool. Okay. So you were saying like, hey, strength training is also important. I 100 % agree. Like actually doing strength training is something that you cannot get from nutrition alone.

57:53Like we're having all this whole conversation about, should I take the whey protein or the amino acids or the food? It's like, it really does matter and choosing those essential amino acids as a supplement is going to outperform everything else, but they ultimately will not replace training your muscles. Like actually putting your muscles under duress and picking up heavy things and moving them. Like you're just, there's a lot of other really important things that happen in doing that. But what is incredible about essential amino acids is that they work even when you're not, they help exercise.

58:21Like I said, you take them before you run, you take them before you exercise, and they are going to have an amazingly synergistic effect with the exercise. The blood flow from the exercise pushes them into the muscles and you get way more benefit from the exercise than if you had not taken them. But you take them on their own and they have amazing benefit. That is not really true about creatine. And an amazing study that exemplifies this is quite old. It's actually from, there were a series of studies that NASA sponsored, but the really big one is in 2005. And basically they were trying to figure out how to help astronauts not lose muscle mass in space because there isn't resistance training, right?

58:57It's very difficult. There's no weight, there's no gravity, right? And so, you know, they sponsored a lot of different studies, but one was essential amino acids. So they actually, this is with young adults where they put them at bed rest for 28 days. So imagine, imagine agreeing to that study. I'm going to like be in a bed and go to the bathroom and spend like be all day long, 28 days. They got to eat normal meals, three meals a day. But on top of that, They had to take essential amino acids, 10 grams twice a day. And then they were trying to see like what would happen. After 28 days of bed rest, there was no net muscle loss, complete lack of movement.

59:34These people did nothing. They're in bed for 28 days, no training of the muscles, nothing. And yet they lost no muscle mass. They did lose some muscle function. Like when they went back to train, they couldn't lift quite as much weight, but they literally lost no muscle mass. And so why and how is that? That is the kind of quintessential explanation of how when you consume a high dose of these essential amino acids and they hit the blood, they literally help rebuild and maintain your existing muscle mass. So it's a very unique thing that happens. Now, you cannot get that from creatine. Why? Well, what is creatine?

1:00:08Creatine, in its simplest terms, is an energy source. It's not as simple as this, but it's closer like the way I was talking about carbohydrates and fat. but it's like this super, it's like nitro. Like if you ever played video games as a kid, it's like a nitro boost. Yes, well, I played Donkey Kong in Pac-Man. Donkey Kong, yeah. But if you think about like a nit, like it's like this boost. And what it is basically is that when you eat creatine, which comes from red meat, some fish, or you supplement it, it gets stored in your muscle tissue. Okay, I know that. As this thing called phosphocreatine.

1:00:40And then what happens is when you're doing different types of exercise, you know, you're familiar with aerobic and anaerobic. exercise. That's different times you get from running. And basically it's about how your body converts sugars and carbohydrates to create this thing called ATP. Well, when you're lifting weights or you're doing something really intense, you're doing pull-ups or you're doing bench press or you're squatting, your body is not thinking about aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. There's this energy system called the phosphocreatine energy system. And basically what it does is it takes the phosphocreatine that is stored in your muscle and it converts, it uses it to very quickly convert ATP more quickly.

1:01:16So when you have more phosphocreatine in your muscle, you're able to oftentimes do two more pull-ups, two more reps of that whatever weight you were at before. Yeah, you're basically able to lift more and do more intense exercise. So creatine's real benefit is for strength training. It is going to make it to where you can do strength training better because you have more energy stored in your muscle to lift more weights and to do more intense exercise. That is its primary most study benefit. Now there's a whole set of like cognitive benefits we can get into. I was gonna say, what about the cognitive benefits and the brain health?

1:01:51And people are now are like upping it from five milligrams to 10 milligrams because of the brain. Yeah, so let's get into that. I mean, that's also good. And there is some good signs for that. Although I would just caution and say, a lot of it is overstated and over-marketed. Really? And there are really good things. And I am a person who takes 10 grams a day for very specific reasons. But so just one last thing. So comparison between the aminos and the creatine, the aminos are going to protect and build your muscle even if you don't exercise and makes tons of sense to just take generally for that reason.

1:02:22And they are ultimately going to, they're going to correct and overcome the anabolic resistance that comes from aging. When you get older and you can't utilize this protein that you used to use as well, and you need more essential amino acids, you particularly need a higher dose of leucine with them, which again, I think when we get to like formulas, I'll explain why this matters. Creatine will never do that. More chicken will never do that. The only thing that will do that is a leucine enriched essential amino acid. It is the only thing that is going to help your body, Jen, to maintain and build that muscle.

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1:04:10What about branched-chain amino acids, like the BCAAs that we all hear? We've heard those. Yeah, so branched-chain amino acids are basically a stepping stone in the research around amino acids. Got it, okay. That at one point in time, we thought if you consume them, it's basically just the three. It's three very important essential amino acids. Oh, okay. You need all nine. It's only three of them. And in the progress of research at one point in time, 20 years ago, we thought, actually 25 years ago, at least now, we thought the research community that maybe you could just take them. In the same way I'm saying, you know, these essential amino acids are way better than whey protein.

1:04:48At one point in time, we thought maybe those branch chain, those BCAAs were. And what's been uncovered is they're not. They're insufficient. If you take them on their own, there's zero anabolic impact. And there's even potentially catabolic impact. but a lot of people have built businesses around them. A hundred percent. And so there's a ton of money in it. And so, and people still understand it. And so people are still making products and selling it. That's really, that's really good info because that's like, you know, when people were like, are gym rats or people who are really into like health and fitness, they're like, they take their BCAAs, they take their L-carnitine, they take all these things that like, maybe most people don't maybe know about.

1:05:26Yeah. So you're saying those BCAs are just three aminos. What we're talking about are nine aminos, which is - It's inclusive of those three. Of course. But it'd be like if you're trying to run a football team and you only had a - We forgot the quarterback. No, you had like, oh, we're going to, this whole team, all we need is the quarterback, the running back and the wide receiver. And it's like, well, like, where's your offensive line that's like protecting all these guys? Right, right, right. You're going to get crushed. And so that's what happened is you get crushed. Okay, that's interesting.

1:05:54I like to, thank you for telling me that because I didn't know that. And actually people were asking me when I was talking about me starting to take aminos now in my water and like how I met you and I really liked all this stuff. They're like, I take BCAAs. I'm like, oh, okay, let me find out about it. You know what I mean? Okay, so my next big question to you is for every decade. I know that I think you're saying every decade, the amount of protein we need are different. What happens? Can you kind of talk and tell us about what we need in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and so forth? Yes. So when you eat protein and you're younger, your body's more optimized to get the essential amino acids out of it.

1:06:34Yes. We know that when we're 20s. I don't care about the 20s, to be honest. I know, I know. No offense to the people who are 20 listening. And it actually goes back to this. It's a quick connection to this BCAA conversation. The quarterback is this one amino acid called leucine. And I would say it's like the quarterback. And we used to think - Yeah, you bring it up a lot, leucine. What if you just take leucine, right? And it's like, it doesn't work. You can't run a whole football team with just your quarterback. It doesn't work. But as we get older, what happens is two things. One, how our ability to digest the protein degrades.

1:07:05So when you're 50, you don't digest the protein as well as you did when you were 20. But more importantly, even when you digest that protein, and you eat the chicken, and it gets broken down, and the amino acids go into your blood, your body doesn't read the signal as strong. It's like it knows that there's the essential amino acids there. It sees that there's some leucine, but it's just kind of like timid. It's like it doesn't really. Yeah. And exactly why that is, there's not a very clear explanation. It's more like it's a behavior in the body that we have observed. And that's very clear. And so what we realized then is like, well, then your body needs a higher dose of protein at once or a higher dose of essential amino acids and ultimately a higher dose of this leucine all at once in order to get a better response.

1:07:55And what we found over many studies is that if you just increase that leucine, you'll actually overcome all of the resistance. So I'm gonna give you an example and then I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna tell you the 20, 30, 40, 50 thing. So as I said earlier, when you take essential amino acids, it's about three times the impact is whey protein. Right. Right, gram for gram. Yeah. When you're 60, if you add more leucine to that formula of those essential amino acids, it's six times the impact as the whey protein. Wow. And so like, why is that? Did like the amino acids get more powerful? You know what happened?

1:08:32No, our body's ability to utilize the amino acids in the whey protein goes down and we get worse and worse at utilizing it. We're just simply not as sensitive to it, But that extra signal, like basically spiking it with more of that leucine, our body's like, oh, I see it. It basically can read the signal and it can understand it. So as you get older, this importance around either eating more protein or the importance of getting higher amounts of leucine in an essential amino acid supplement or as part of your protein powder, whatever it is, it is going to overcome that. And so really the guide is this.

1:09:12It's less like exactly how much protein you need to eat, which I can give you a guide for. But what I would say is a leucine-enriched essential amino acid, basically like Keon aminos is 40 % leucine. That's the threshold you need to hit. When you are in your 20s, it's going to be about three times as impactful as whey protein. By the time you're 40, it's about four times. By the time you're 50, it's about five times. And we've seen very clearly in studies that in your 60s, three grams of leucine-enriched essential amino acids has the same impact as 20 grams of whey protein, over six times the impact.

1:09:46Wow. So it's like this tiny, like one scoop, you know, is equal to 30 grams of whey protein. And we already saw before, too, it's worth even more than like steak. You know, it's going to be the equivalent to 60 or more grams of like a steak protein. Then why are people not talking about aminos and they're always talking about creatine? Like in middle age, I'm talking. I think that there's just always different. I mean, this is like, maybe I'm being too cynical here, but it's like, it's marketing trends. Why is creatine suddenly being talked about? Like creatine is... Been around forever. Creatine's been around forever.

1:10:25But this is an interesting also situation because you could say the same thing about creatine five years ago. When the ISSN, International Society of Sports Nutrition, did their report on creatine, I think they had like 120 studies cited. When they did it on essential amino acids, they had 137. Really? So we're talking like, we're talking a scope of something that's been studied a lot, you know, not like on par with something like creatine. But five years ago, no one was selling creatine to middle-aged women. Like no one even talked about it. It was just as beneficial to them. It made just as much sense.

1:10:57simply their marketing and business trends that come and go and develop. And sometimes they're great. Like I would say creatine is a great supplement that makes a lot of sense for middle-aged people to start taking. And particularly women who were never marketed it before. If they work out. If they work out. So if a woman is listening to this - But you should work out. I know. Listen, you're preaching to the converted. Okay. I understand that. Trust me. Yeah. But if someone is not working out, right? Is it worth taking creatine? Like if they're just doing hikes and walks, they're not lifting heavy weight.

1:11:32They're doing hikes and walks and an occasional Pilates class. Do they need to take creatine? First of all, you don't need to take anything. Right. Life, there's all kinds of ways of doing life. But what I would say is you're going to get a lot less benefit from it. The primary benefits that I think you're going to get in terms of body composition and being stronger over the course of your life is gonna be from taking creatine and doing strength training. Those two together are where you get the bulk of the benefits and where there's been the most amount of research. Quick caveat, there is research for cognitive benefits.

1:12:08What I would say though is taking creatine is not just gonna like make you smarter. Basically, in the same way that your muscle stores these phosphocreatine stores to like create energy quickly, your brain does the same thing. If you give yourself enough creatine, and that's why you have to take these much larger doses because your muscle absorbs most of it. There's enough extra leftover to put into your brain than under duress. So you're really sleep deprived, for example, or you're under some kind of like crazy stress. It's really, we don't have a study for stress. We have a study, we have studies specifically for sleep deprivation.

1:12:42Then your ability to focus and for memory, there are some slight improvements. There are improvements to focus and memory. And that's why I take it and I experience it. It's kind of like my insurance for whether I slept good or not that night. And originally I was just taking 10 grams like on days when I didn't sleep well. And I built it into a habit where it's like I take it every day because it's like a slight cognitive edge, particularly under stress. When you look at older adults, it's much higher doses. We're looking at 25 grams a day. So five scoops. Like that's a lot more than a typical person takes.

1:13:13It has this impact in older adults and the elderly to improve things like memory and focus. It doesn't improve overall executive functioning. And there are not studies that it prevents or corrects dementia. That is not something that is real. The studies that have been around there, even in a dementia-based population, is they just showed that there were increased creatine stores in the brain, which we would think and know already. If you take a bunch of creatine, you're going to store more in the brain. So I think I just share that because I think these studies, these claims get stretched and pushed.

1:13:43And my company makes creatine. I love creatine. I take it every day. You got to be like real with people about what it actually does and doesn't do and not like mislead people. Well, listen, recently my mother, like last year, got diagnosed with Alzheimer's, which has been really horrible. I'm really sorry, Jen. Thank you. And I was all about this creatine, like, oh, she takes 40 grams, but 50 grams, you know, would that really help? And honestly, I've spoken to so many different doctors who are like the best in the world in brain health and Alzheimer's and they're like, that's a myth that creatine is actually helpful for things like that.

1:14:20Like when you're younger, it can help you with brain fog and cognitive, you know, all the cognitive things. But once you hit, like if you have that gene or if you're already like on that path, creatine is not gonna, it's not coming to save you. It's not saving you. And the only slight modification I'd make to that, it's like I try to enter everything with like humility and I would just say like, it hasn't been proven yet. Yeah. Like people act like that is a thing. Right. And there is no data that shows that. And so giving people that hope, it's just people wanting to like have a smart take on something.

1:14:54I know, but it's so dangerous. I know because you've got these, and here's an interesting context, and this has got to be for a whole nother conversation. Okay. But is, if there is something that does help prevent that. Okay. The number one thing I would look at is omega-3s. Yes, we talked about this. This is going to be a whole nother podcast. But with omega-3s, they do have long-term epidemiological data that shows that greater intake of omega-3s and thus greater amounts of your red blood cells being made of them is directly correlated to, I can't remember if it's a 15 or 20 % reduction in the risk of dementia.

1:15:32That's pretty significant. So I would say if your mom was being diagnosed and you want to avoid it, I would start taking a higher dose of a high-quality omega-3 every day. That is a real thing. Creatine has not been shown to do that. Well, I was going to say, I got my blood work back, and I did talk about that, and then that's what really was the outcome. Omega-3 may help move the needle, but creatine, that's just very much like it's kind of like a wives' tale, like a myth at this point. There's no real data. I don't even know how it happened or where it happened. There are, there's at least one study where they, where they measured.

1:16:11Calling the benefits. There are definitely, there are definitely studies giving it to older people to improve things like focus and short-term memory, but not, not dementia memory. We're talking about totally different type of memory function. That was my point. But then there's another study where they gave it to people with dementia and they measured if they had like increased phosphocreatine in the brain, which they, it'd be like measuring like, Hey, if I give you, if I give you this creatine, is there more in your brain? and they show that like, yes, there is. And it was in a population that had dementia.

1:16:42And so then people stretch that to say like, oh, it's got all these other benefits that this other study showed. It's just people, honestly, it's people who I think don't know how to read studies and or are more focused on doing marketing and trying to get attention and having a hot take than like actually - If it behooves them in a way to talk about it. Okay, so answer me, riddle me this. If it was one, okay? And you sell both creatine and aminos. So he's not biased here. If you can only take one, if you're a 50-year-old. Aminos. I love it. If you're a 40-year-old. Aminos. Okay. If you're a 60-year-old.

1:17:23Aminos. So aminos over creatine every single time. Absolutely. Like for my parents today, for my mid-40s wife, for me. for like, if you just look at the, the research around it and around the benefits you're going to get from it, like that's the one that I would choose. That said, the first thing I do every single morning is I take aminos and creatine together. So it's, they don't have to be, you're not choosing. I'm not choosing. But if you are someone who doesn't want to take, I'm trying to get someone to start a new habit. Cause this is the big thing. We actually started this towards the beginning of this conversation.

1:17:53You're saying someone starts taking a supplement and they just keep taking it. Exactly my point. Which honestly, adherence is the biggest part health. We can debate all day what the best exercise is or what the best blah, blah is, but it's like, what are you willing to do every day? And what I would say is like, if you're, if I'm just trying to help someone just do one more thing every day, like there's one nutritional change I would make one supplement to take. I would absolutely always tell them, take the aminos in all of these cases we gave. Then I would say, do the creatine. Then once they started taking the aminos every day and they started getting those benefits and they're like, Hey, is there like anything else I should take, immediately I'd be like creatine or omega.

1:18:31Like those are the, those are the ones where I'm like, Hey, these are things that, um, aminos is your number one. That's my number one. Okay. By the way, if you take aminos when you're fasting, does it satiate you or can you? Yes. So is there like some type of study or any type of like data on if you are a person who fasts and you also take aminos, does it satiate you? Does it help you keep your lean muscle. I'm not a fasting person, but I know a lot of people do these fasts. Yeah. So here's the, I think, like really interesting data on this. When you go through any extended period of time, and again, if you're 20 years old, this doesn't matter.

1:19:06If you're over 40, this matters a lot more. So like, listen up. Like fasting is different for us as we get older. When you go a few hours without consuming protein and you stress the body even greater through something like exercise, right? You are provoking the body to want to break down muscle tissue to supply the rest of the body with amino acids. Like you are provoking the body to do that. And so if you don't want to do that and you want to maintain your lean muscle, then it is crucial that you think about timing and you try to consume amino acids, either via a piece of salmon, protein shake, or essential amino acids every few hours throughout the day, regardless of whether you're like doing some kind of extended fast or not.

1:19:47And if you're doing extended fasting, then you definitely like you're, you're in, you're having even more stress induced physiological state. Does it break your fast though? No, it doesn't break your fast. Right. Because the blood sugar and all the things. It's not spiking your blood sugar. I mean, all this thing about breaking your fast, it's like, how do you even define it? But like, there's no digestive, there's like zero digestive stress. It's not having some kind of spike on your blood sugar. And more importantly, and this is getting into like a bit more of like the cell impacts, but there have been studies that have shown that taking essential amino, again, leucine and rich essential amino acids stimulates more mitochondrial biogenesis than fasting alone.

1:20:30So if you actually take it, you are encouraging your body to develop new mitochondria. Now, this is not like a human out. This is not like a human study. These are like in vitro type studies, but all of these, all of these types of cell-based studies are, you know, cell-based studies. How about for, and just overall, if you, does it, because it helps you feel satiated and if you eat it, if you, sorry, if you drink it or take the supplements, would you, would it help satiate you to a place where you're not as hungry to eat junk food because of that? I eat a lot of protein, right? Because I don't want to eat, like it satiates me.

1:21:04It's the only thing that satiates me and keeps my blood sugar stable, right? Would I have that same benefit or same? Yes. Yeah. And the simple answer is that basically the essential amino acids are hitting those same types of cues that help satiate that need to try to basically get your protein requirements met. On top of that, and this goes a little bit more into how mood gets regulated, et cetera. So when you take an amino acid supplement, and this would matter, again, around formula, but when it has these higher amounts of phenylalanine in it, we're getting a little nerdy here, relative to very low tryptophan, it actually improves and increases the amount of dopamine levels in your brain that also have this more like alert, focused, attentive level to it.

1:21:48So when you think about like not being hungry, part of it is like, you know, blood sugar. Part of it's feeling kind of cranky. So part of it's having your actual like neurotransmitter balance being slightly off and feeling kind of sleepy. Like there's a lot of things that are going on and there's like hunger hormones that are getting triggered. And so amino acids are playing on multiple levels all at once. It's not like just one thing's happening. I just find it so interesting how it's completely so under the radar. Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where, again, I think you could say the exact same thing for creatine five years ago to Gen Pop.

1:22:22Five years ago, any 20-year-old gym bro knows what creatine is. Everybody did. But like my wife did. I mean, like she maybe heard like her high school boyfriend took it, but she didn't know what it was. And now every single one of her friends, you know. And now they're all interested. Now she's like, you've been making creatine all these years? I was like, yeah, I've been making creatine all these years. Isn't that funny? But I know a lot of women who also don't want to take creatine because there's such a stigma against it. People think it's a Jim Bro, meathead type of supplement because I remember when they were in high school that their boyfriends were taking it and they were getting really buff.

1:22:56Yeah, and there's fear of bloating and water retention. But you do have water. And there's probably even fear of maybe building too much muscle. There's all kinds of ideas that square out there. Or bulking up. Yeah. Bulking up. Yeah, which I would just say that's another interesting point about creatine research is that what has been shown is that creatine absolutely increases like strength gains in women, but almost little to no hypertrophy, meaning the muscle mass doesn't actually get bigger. Really? Yeah. Isn't that interesting? That is. Yeah. It's like, which is kind of normal in general between men and women.

1:23:26Now, all people are different and you have dudes who can't put on muscle. You have women who can put on muscle really easily, but typically men build more mass more quickly. So it's pretty in alignment with like general biology of men and women. Would you say that amino acids would have the same, like can it bloat you like creatine or there's no side effects? No, there is no, I mean, and again, I would caution people about like the ideas of bloating on creatine and potentially should maybe take less. But there is an aspect of creatine is drawing more water with it into the muscle. Got it. And thus you're having more intracellular water in the muscle and your muscle is actually filling up more with water.

1:24:04So your muscles are getting a little bit bigger, a little bit puffier. Right, right, right, right. Whereas like with aminos, there is none of that. There is no, you're not drawing any more water into the muscle. You're literally just replacing the older muscle fibers with newer, better ones. And if you're doing it with exercising especially too, like you're pushing the amino acids into the muscle. I know you said earlier about taking your aminos first thing or before you work out, right? Does it really matter if you take them at night or if you take them in the afternoon? afternoon this one of those tough things where it's like from like a brand perspective if i was trying to like sell the product it's like when anytime it's just take them every day just take them every day make it a habit like whatever gets you to make a habit you know it's like for me in my little customized life it's like i like taking it first thing in the morning because i'm not really hungry first thing in the morning but i want the benefits of that of what protein gives me first thing in the morning it sets up my day well so i'm getting this totally hyper concentrated form of that immediately.

1:25:03And then I can wait a couple hours until I eat. So it sustains that, like that satiate, like that. Oh yeah. I feel great. Yeah. And it gives me, and so I'm not intentionally trying to, I'm not like trying to be a fast, a fasting person, but I guess I naturally do. Right. Like I don't eat first thing in the morning, but we all fast to some, to some degree, you don't eat all the time. Right. Yeah. We were joking yesterday. I know. I don't know about that. I like to eat all the time. Yeah. So, I mean, it does. It helps satiate me. And like for me, that's a really good habit. So I always know I'm going to take it first thing in the morning.

1:25:36And then after that, it becomes, you know, I talked another time with you where it's like sometimes I know I want to eat. I need to eat. I only have so much time. I'm going to try to eat some vegetables. I'm going to try to eat some fiber, vegetables and fruits. And I want to get some protein in. But I don't want to eat five eggs. Yes. So it's like I eat a couple eggs and I take some aminos with it. And so it can also be taken with food to basically enhance the total amino acid intake of that food, to enhance the protein quality of that food. That's what I do actually in the morning now. I've been eating my eggs because it's part of my habit.

1:26:05Like I habit stack it, right? So I have my eggs and my fruit. And then like maybe like 40 minutes later, I have my little mixture of my aminos and then I work out. That's great. Yeah, that's what I do. That's great. And again, what's most important is if you do it every day. Exactly. That's how you're going to get there. With anything in life. With anything in life. Anything has to be consistent. If you do anything once in a while, it does nothing. People always, you know, people ask all the time, well, what's the most effective exercise? The one that you actually do. That's it. That's the bottom line, right?

1:26:32Like I can tell you to do this, that, the other thing, but if you hate it and you don't do it, it doesn't matter. So you have to be consistent with everything that you want any kind of results with. Is there anything else about aminos that I'm forgetting to ask you that is really relevant and important that people can really benefit from? I think just like in this kind of conversation, we've like circled around it and talked about a lot, but I would just say if this is actually something that someone wants to look into, like, you know, what's like the right product to get, right? We come on here, we talk about this educationally, right?

1:27:02But like, what's the version I should get? I would just offer a guide to like how to find the right amino acid supplement. And the first thing I would start with is this doesn't necessarily have to be true for every single product out there, but for amino acids, proprietary blends are bad. What that means is if you look at the back of an amino acid label and it says five grams essential amino acids, and then it just lists the amino acids, but doesn't tell you how much of each one, do not buy that product. Really? And the reason for that is because the proportions of amino acids really matter. And we'll get into that in a second, right?

1:27:35Like, like I'll tell you what the right proportions are, but they really matter. Like all these things we've been talking about today, these are based off of a very open public debate and set of different research groups doing studies, critiquing the other person's study, trying another study, like it's pretty clear what the formulas should be. And there's no good reason to like hide it. And the proportions of them really matter. And I can get into that in a second about why. But the other point I would say is when it's hidden like that, it's just for business reasons. I'll just tell you that.

1:28:07Like it's, I have some proprietary blend and I can tell you whatever my blah, blah, blah marketing story is about it. But it also enables me to have much looser quality specs. I don't have to meet label claim on exactly how much amino acid is in there. I can change the amount of each amino acid with each batch if I want to, because I don't, I'm not held to any specific thing. All I have to do is make sure there's five grams in there. I can use with, I can use cheaper sources. I can use different amounts of like the potency. It is, it's a, it's a hack if you're trying to like have much more flexibility around your quality standards.

1:28:38So when you see proprietary blend on amino acids, I wouldn't run run. You definitely want it to tell you the exact amount of each one. So that's number one. Number two is you need all nine to be listed. Yeah. Right. So it's like if it's just three or some just do eight and they say like histamine is conditional, histamine is conditional. And it's like, it's not like it's again, there's lots of if there's anyone that's the least important for particularly for muscle protein synthesis, it's tryptophan. And you're going to see it should be the lowest and at the bottom. And that's because it's the least important, but definitely not like leaving out histidine or any amino acids.

1:29:14Well, I think it's really important that you said that. And I'll tell you why. I've talked about this many times on the show is that because it's the wild, wild west in the supplement space, you have to be extremely discerning of where you get your supplements from. So the fact that I know you, I know how you source, I know your manufacturing, I know you as a human being, you're only doing the highest level of everything possible, the quality, the way you do everything. Super important, not just with your aminos, but with the creatine and with omegas. Like we had a whole conversation last night over the omegas.

1:29:46I think to me, knowing where you're getting your stuff in general is extremely important. And so like Keon, I know is at that high standard, but people should be like do their research. And that was a great point that you said about looking in the back for the aminos because people just take things at face value and they think, oh, this company is selling aminos. This one's exactly the same as that one. Not true. It's not true. And often sometimes even like maybe someone you respect or I respect and like that has a platform, it's on board and promotes a brand or something. A lot of times that's the problem.

1:30:20And it's like you've got to look at the label yourself. Like you've got to do some of your own research on it and look at the label. Of course, you can't rely on what's out there. And that's what I'm saying. I did my own research and that's the thing. People can trust me, but they can trust me to an extent. They should also look on their own, right? That's a very important part of it. also, I didn't ask you, I've been remiss to ask you, and I was curious, it's probably a whole other podcast too, collagen, because collagen is also one of these very spoken about supplements. Everyone's taking collagen.

1:30:47There's a lot of misrepresentation of how good or bad collagen is. Some say it's garbage as a supplement. Some say it's not garbage. What's your take? So I'm going to answer the collagen question, but I want to finish it by doing a segue from the formula thing. One last point, because I mentioned leucine so many times. Oh my God, did you ever? But here's the last thing. When you look at the label, and I'll just, I'll give you a shortcut on this. Like, you don't, no one needs to buy, you don't have to buy Keon or whatever, but it really is the formula. But they should. But it's the formula that's Keon.

1:31:16And basically it's based off of - And by the way, you guys should buy Keon. I'm not just saying that. The reason why he's on here is not because, is because he is the leader in this area. I'm not putting on some like mediocre person. He's doing it right. And that to me is why you're here. So anyway, continue on. So it's like the proportions of the amino acids, they're based on human skeletal muscle within very specific increases to certain amino acids. You get leucine to 40%. You increase the isoleucine and the valine, and you increase to match their original proportions. And I'm getting nerdy here.

1:31:49You're losing people at this point. I know, but I'm just telling you, or trust me or whatever, but I'm trying to give you the research and increase the lysine because the lysine is slower to get into the muscle tissue. And that's how we end up with that formula. And then you don't need any other stuff in it. If it's flavored, it should be flavored with clean stuff. You don't need other fancy mumbo jumbo, whatever their new, whatever the thing is, whatever they're trying to sell that week, you need the nine essential amino acids. Like that's what it is in those proportions. Okay. So now collagen.

1:32:12So with collagen, it's an interesting idea. And I think the hypothesis is like what made sense to pursue, which is, Hey, like our skin has a lot of collagen in it and it's made up of collagen, a certain type of protein. And so is like joint tissue, et cetera. What if we ate a bunch of another animal's collagen? Like we literally ground up the collagen of another animal. Would that then help our body develop more? Do you sell collagen? I don't sell collagen. Okay, there you go. That's all I need to know. That's all I need to know. Thank you. Thank you. So it's an interesting idea and it hasn't been proven out very well.

1:32:49Thank you. It has not been proven out very well. It hasn't been proven out well. There are studies by the collagen industry specifically that show improvements. But what I would say is that if, yeah, like it's just very light. Just tell us right. Okay, fine. So I want to clip this one because I think it's important. Yeah. What are the main benefits of taking amino? Go. Lean muscle, overall improved metabolism, better skin, hair, nails, and mood. So six. I mean, that's what comes to mind. Recovery, energy during exercise. incredible recovery from exercise energy. I'm going to tell you one more.

1:33:29Yeah, what's another one? Body composition. Yeah, body. I mean, and that was my attitude around like lean muscle and metabolism is basically it's going to help you to maintain lean muscle and burn more calories. And so that's less fat, more muscle. People like that. People like less fat, more muscle, don't they? I mean, typically. That's what most of us are trying to get. I think so. All right, Angelo, thank you for being on this show. I think this is probably like a very long podcast. Yeah, it's about an hour and a half more, maybe. Oh, my gosh. I know. Well, thanks for... It's actually almost more.

1:33:59Sorry for droning on, Jan and everyone else. I know. Well, you didn't drone that much. I stopped you at the last drone. But, okay, guys. So, Keon, I know you're not really much on Instagram, which I love about you. I don't do. I don't do the personal branding. You're not interested in that. I don't care. This is what I like about this guy. He's not interested in promoting himself. He is here because he really truly believes in what he does and his company and the production and the benefits. And I really admire that because everyone here is always like promoting themselves, like blah, blah, blah.

1:34:30You don't give a rat's ass. You want people to know about the benefits of aminos. You've built a whole company around it. And so anyway, I'm happy I've sat down with you. I've learned a lot. I hope you guys at home or wherever you are have learned why aminos are so invaluable for your life. And if they want to know more about Keon or aminos or whatever else you have going on in the Keon world, where can they find you? This place called the Internet. Oh, the Internet, huh? No, I don't mean to sound like a smart ass. But for real, I mean, like, we're on Instagram at Keon. We obviously have a website.

1:35:05It's getkeon.com, G-E-T-K-I-O-N.com. And I think there's a special link for your audience. Yes, there is a special link if you guys want to try it. Getpeon.com slash... I don't even know it. We'll figure it out. But I will tell you something. Once you start it, you're going to be hooked because it is a no-brainer. I know we called it a hack, but it's a strategy, a tool. I don't care. Use whatever euphemism you want. It's really, really good. It works, exactly. So thank you. Bye. Thanks, Jen.

1:35:39Joan Bates