Peptides, Ozempic, Lies + Health Hacks: What Actually Works? with Harley Pasternak

20:18Danielle:What do you think people misunderstand about the body when they think that appetite control equals health? We are incredibly similar to our prehistoric ancestors. And for thousands and thousands and thousands of years, we had a food shortage. We had more demand for food than there was food available to us. And it wasn't long ago that our great grandparents would have to farm and get food and grow their food. And it wasn't so easy. There was not an abundance. It's really only been in the last 60, 70 years, 80 years that we have more food than we need. But the way our minds work, our primitive drives is still the same way it was thousands of years ago for a lot of people.

21:05So when we see food, we eat food because we don't know when we're going to get food again next. Someone puts food in front of you.

21:10Danielle:It's really that primitive. Yeah. You don't necessarily have to be hungry to eat, right? And so I think drugs like these GLP-1s, when someone says they really help with food noise, I think what it's doing is sort of offsetting these primitive drives where if there's food around and we're going to eat it, whether we're happy or sad or hungry or not hungry or bored, especially boredom, you know, we eat. And so that's what's different. We have food everywhere now. Yeah. You can go on your phone and order any food from the world. You used to have to go to Italy to get Italian food. You'd have to go to Japan to get Japanese food.

21:44Now, you order on your thing. Someone's going to bring it to you right here with chopsticks and soy sauce, and you can eat it in your chair.

21:49Danielle:Yeah.

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22:41Danielle:Hero Bread bakes with heart-healthy olive oil and delivers a soft, fluffy, flavorful experience you love. Shop now on Hero.co. Use code IHEART for 10 % off. That's Hero.co. Per serving, not a low-calorie food. Some products contain allulose. See nutrition info on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. I'm Glenn Washington, host of the Snap Judgment Storytelling Podcast from KQED. Every week, Snap deals a new card, like the San Francisco girl selling weed brownies after school who uncovers a secret. Or the Oakland man who invented the wave and never got his credit. Or even the actual Lake Merritt monster.

23:17What? Pick a card. Any card. Snap Judgment from KQED. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. Ryan Reynolds here for Mint Mobile. I don't know if you knew this, but anyone can get the same premium wireless for$15 a month plan that I've been enjoying. It's not just for celebrities. So do like I did and have one of your assistant's assistants switch you to Mint Mobile today. I'm told it's super easy to do at mintmobile.com slash switch.

23:46Danielle:Upfront payment of$45 for three-month plan equivalent to$15 per month required. Intro rate first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. default terms at mintmobile.com. When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them, like a new laptop if you're eligible and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more.

24:18Danielle:Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu.

24:34Danielle:I'm 35, so I grew up as like a lot of the reality shows were weight loss shows. Do you think that those warped our ideas about health and body transformation? They're not as popular anymore. I think those weight loss shows were so bad for people. I mean, it gave people orthorexia, it gave people all kinds of health issues. The biggest loser was originally, I was the star of The Biggest Loser. It was for me. They came to me to be in the show. And the more I learned about the show, I thought this is not a good idea. People are going to get hurt. People could potentially die. You're taking obese people that are deconditioned and you're having them do extreme physical things and you're, you're, you're gamifying dieting for them.

25:20And, and it's just, that doesn't seem good. And then they cast another trainer opposite me who wasn't, who had no background in the field. I think they were an assistant to someone at a, one of the talent agencies and they're like, it's going to be great. They're opposite. You're, you know, you're very science-based and, you know, I've been doing this for a long time and they scream and they yell and they're rough and tough and you'll play off each other. And I just sent them out. Someone's going to get hurt. And I don't think this is really good. I think the messaging is really bad. I don't want to have anything to do with it.

25:48And they threatened to sue me. The network threatened to sue me. And so I remember I had just, was at my 30th birthday. I had just moved to Los Angeles. A client of mine threw me a party at a house. I didn't know anyone. And I sat by myself at the bar drinking Diet Cokes. And the producer of the show came to the party and he's like, who's Harley? Are you Harley? I said, I'm Harley. And he brought the contract with, he's like, dude, they're going to ruin your life. They're going to sue you. You got to do the show. You know, it'll be great. And he's like, you know, why don't you want to do it? And I just sat him down really calmly.

26:15And I said, I don't play this on TV. Like I am this in real life. I help people lose weight and get healthy in real life. I'm not an actor playing that role. And I don't feel safe with it. And he looked at me and he's like, I respect you. And he ripped it up. He's like, I'll take care of it. And he was a really great guy. We've been friends ever since. And then 10 years later, no, gosh, 20 years later, one of the other producers from the show, the creator came to me and said, I respect that you didn't want to do our show 20 years ago. I have a show for you now. And we did a talk show together on ABC and it was terrible, but it was a good experience.

26:49Danielle:I didn't know that. Yeah. Why was it a good experience? It was a good experience because it was more about educating people rather than like how much weight can you lose as quickly as possible. It was about teaching people how to cook, teaching people simple ways to exercise at home, teaching people how to have good sleep habits. It was like take home stuff. I don't know what you can take home from watching The Biggest Loser. Someone loses weight, but they also lose muscle, energy, confidence, trust in their own body. Is that actually a health win? Losing weight is not what you want to do. You want to lose fat.

27:23And so when people are losing 20 pounds, if 10 of that is muscle and 10 is fat, they're less healthy. And so I think it's really important that if you focus on the input rather than the output, I've never owned a scale. I've never weighed anybody. I don't care what you weigh. I don't care what your body fat percentage is. I can't directly control your weight or directly control your body fat. I can indirectly control it. Did you ever read Man's Search for Meaning?

27:48Danielle:It's one of my favorite books. Mine too. Yeah. So Viktor Frankl, he said, you cannot pursue success because success, much like happiness, must ensue and happens as a natural byproduct of dedicating yourself to a process. The more you aim for the end goal, the less likely you are to hit it. So when you're pursuing health, if you focus on the end point, the scale, the measurements, all the things on the biggest loser does or did, you're hooped. You've lost. If you focus on the things you have direct control over, how many times did you move your feet today? How many steps did you take? What time did you go to bed?

28:25What and how much did you eat? If you focus on the things you have, only you can control and you do them to the best of your ability, then you've done the best you can do as a by-product and only as a by-product, you'll lose body fat, you'll get stronger, you'll sleep better, you'll be healthier, you'll be happier. So I focus on the inputs a lot more than focusing on the output.

28:47Danielle:You just mentioned steps and I have to tell you, I think you changed my life because over the last two years, I've been working more hours than I've ever worked and I gain 10 pounds and I work out really hard, like three days a week always. And I'm eating kind of the same way that I always have. And I could not figure out what was going on. And I'm like, I didn't really get that much older. You know, like, I don't think that it's my metabolism the way people like, and even that has been sort of debunked now that your metabolism gets slower as you get older. Your metabolism doesn't get slower because of age.

29:24your metabolism tends to get slower because you've lost muscle tissue.

29:27Danielle:Okay. Is the main driver. Oh, okay. As I was researching for our interview, you became really well known for talking about steps. Yeah. And I realized I work out really hard three days a week and I am totally sedentary other than that. Right. 100 % I am sitting at my computer. That's it. That's the issue. Yeah. We call that NEAT. What is that? Non-exercise activity thermogenesis. I'm neat. Yeah. Yeah. We need to work on your neat. So that 10 ,000 step goal thing, you hear people recently, it's come out that that wasn't a science-based thing and that number was arbitrary and a marketing number.

30:07That was me.

30:08Danielle:I know it was you. So I helped launch Fitbit and I was with Fitbit for a decade, maybe more. And I had just written a book called The World Diet where I traveled around the world to the 10 healthiest countries. Yeah. And I wanted to understand why do they live so much longer than us? lower obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers. And I found that on average, those countries walked almost 10 ,000 steps per day, whereas the average American was 4 ,200 steps per day. So I said, hey, 10 ,000 is the magic number. It's arbitrary, but at the same time, it's not. It comes from somewhere. So yeah. So thank you.

30:40Yeah.

30:40Danielle:Do you eat when you're hungry? I heard you eat five small meals a day. That's changed. I think when I was younger, I had a bigger appetite. Okay. And I could do that, no problem. Maybe now I'm like three meals and a snack. My appetite's definitely shrunk with age. Do you follow intuitive eating, would you say? To some extent, but I'm a creature of habit and there's sort of three or four go-to breakfasts I have every day of my life. And there's one or two go-to lunches I have almost every day of my life. And then dinners are free for all. We have a lot of kids in the house, but I tend to follow from a macro perspective the same, but I don't wait till I'm hungry to eat.

31:18If it's time to eat, I eat.

31:19Danielle:Are all carbs equal? No, not all carbs are equal. Not all people are equal. There's some bad people. That doesn't mean all people are bad. The more a carbohydrate is in its natural state, the better. The less processed, the better. So a potato with the skin is actually really good for you. Mashed potato, a little bit less. Mashed potato with sour cream and butter and bacon bits. Potato chips, french fries. Those are hyper-processed. There's a lot of added oils, not as good. Those are, you know, at that point, a potato chip and a french fry is not even a carb at that point. It's a fat. It gets more of its calories from fat than from potatoes.

31:59An apple is great. An apple juice, less great. Rice is great. Rice flour, less great. So I think the more it's in its natural state, the better.

32:08Danielle:How do you feel about intermittent fasting? I've anecdotally heard from men it works really well for them and then women, not as much. So we used to just call it skipping breakfast. Really? That's what intermittent fasting is. So it's so bad. It's just skipping breakfast. It generally, there's a feeding window and different people who do intermittent fasting have a different feed. It could be a four hour window. It could be a six hour window where you eat all the calories of your day in that window. And that window could be the first four or five hours of the day, the last four or five hours of the day, the middle four or five hours of the day.

32:40And you jam all your calories into that. we have a lot of data from a long time on intermittent fasting. It's called Ramadan. So one month a year, Muslims intermittent fast, right? So they fast all day and then they gorge at night. Theoretically, they can have a early morning meal before they go, you know, but they generally gorge all night and they gain weight. So what we've learned is intermittent fasting in and of itself is no better than eating traditionally for weight loss. It's more about what you eat and how much you eat rather than how you want to spread it out throughout the day.

33:16Danielle:That's very interesting. So people are just condensing their calories if it's working for them. Yeah. Okay. And also there's a sense, there's another issue where there's this sort of permission that you give yourself. If you fast all day and you've got this window to feed, I can eat whatever I want because I didn't eat, this is my only food of the day. If you gorge and over that four-hour window, you eat 4 ,000 calories. And someone, on the other hand, eats three meals evenly throughout the day at 1 ,000 calories each per meal. The person eating 1 ,000 calories each per meal at three meals a day is going to lose more weight or gain less weight than the person gorging on 4 ,000 calories in that window.

33:57Danielle:So my mother is my health inspiration. And I usually don't have anybody talking about science on the podcast because it evades me. So this question is from her. Yeah. She said, I want to talk carbs and fats. If you eat carbs, you burn fat only if you work out. Is that true or false? No, mom. No. So false. So we have three energy systems in the body. Right now, you and I are sitting here, we're talking, we're in the aerobic energy system. Aerobic means with oxygen, we can carry on a conversation. We're almost burning exclusively fat right now. Then the more intense that we get from here, you know, if we were to jog around the block, all of a sudden we're anaerobic.

34:40We're getting more anaerobic. The intensity is higher. We're kind of, we can't carry on a conversation because you're winded. All of a sudden you're without oxygen, you're anaerobic and you're burning more carbohydrates. So you go from fat to fat and carbs, to fat and carbs, to carbs and fat, to mainly carbs. And the more intense you are, it's carbs, carbs to the point that when you're sprinting or weight training, you're in a third energy system called the ATP system. ATP is like the basic currency of energy. You know, the video game Pac-Man, those little power palettes. Imagine each one of those is ATP.

35:15They're little energy balls, right? ATP stands for adenosine triphosphate. Tri. Tri is three. Adenosine is here and there's three phosphate groups, like the letter E. When the top one falls off, it releases energy. And that's how we can blink. That's how we can flex our muscles. that's how we can sprint. But now we're left with a broken ATP. Instead of ATP, it's ADP. It's got two phosphates. It's useless to us. So creatine picks up that loose phosphate group, brings it back, regenerates ATP for us, and now we can blink again. We can flex our muscles again. So those are the three energy systems.

35:53What dictates which substrate we're using, are we burning carbs, are we burning fat, are we burning ATP, is the intensity on what we're doing. So it's not what we ate and you don't only burn energy doing something or other, but tell your mom that talking to her on the phone, mom, right now we're burning fat.

36:09Danielle:She's trying to burn everything. Right. So she needs to go to a hit class or something. Chicago. Right. Perfect. Why? It just sounds like a mom from Chicago asked that question. Yeah. Half of these questions are her. No, I'm kidding. Her other question, and then it's truly back to my questions are how do you control cravings? How do you control cravings? I think some cravings occur because you're hungry. So making sure you're filling yourself up with the right food throughout the day so you're not vulnerable at the wrong times because your blood sugar is low because you're hungry. Cravings can come from boredom.

36:42Cravings can come from having too strict of a diet like orthorexia. So I think allowing yourself some flexibility in any eating plan to eat the things that bring you joy, I think is important so that you never go. I went a whole year and didn't even have birthday cake at my own birthday. Like that's sad. I love chocolate. I'll have some kind of chocolate almost every day, but I'll have a tiny bit.

37:06Danielle:Yeah. I've heard you talk about that, that you don't believe in deprivation. No. Like go eat the pasta in Italy and go eat the French fries in France. 100%. You're not gaining weight because you're eating French fries or because you're eating pasta. You're gaining weight because you're eating too much. When do you think health became something that we try to hack? I want to say, and we can probably look this up, but it was 10 years ago that the average American's New Year's resolution went from money to weight loss. Interesting. I think it was 10 or 11 years ago where it was the first time ever where it wasn't money was the New Year's resolution.

37:42I want to make more money next year. It became, I want to lose weight. So I think health is something we've always had. Back at the turn of the century, Kellogg had these crazy clinics of weight loss. I think if you go back even before that, the Roman gladiators and the palaestras and becoming strong and eating weird animal parts for vitality. I think there's always been this human nature thing of wanting to live forever. We've always had it. And then as we progress in our knowledge and science, we start to think like, maybe this is a thing that I can do. and maybe I have control over how long I live.

38:23So I think we're at an interesting point now, especially with AI, especially with these GLP-1s. I think you're going to see the average lifespan of a human leap a decade out of nowhere.

38:33Danielle:A decade? Maybe. Wow. Knowing that obesity-related deaths are the main cause of death in the West and 100 years ago, it was probably starvation. Yeah. Now we're the other way around, but now we have a treatment for that. Wow. I think you're going to eliminate a lot of type 2 diabetes, a lot of heart disease, a lot of cancers. It's an interesting time we're living in. I'm glad you mentioned AI because I think we feel as if AI could make things easier for us, just the way that these peptides or hacks, so to speak, can make things easier for us. But with AI, the concern is that if we overuse it, we'll lose parts of our brain.

39:11Danielle:Similar to this, I feel like the concern is we lose some of our muscle. What parts of health do you think cannot be outsourced to a shot, a supplement, or a shortcut? Strength training is essential, whether you be taking a GLP-1 or not. I think it's even more important when you're taking a GLP-1. But it's the fountain of youth strength training. Sleep, that's something that no one can do for you. You have to know when to go to bed, when to wake up. You have to not have alcohol before bed if you want to have a good deep sleep. You have to not look at stressful emails and have your phone on all night.

39:44So I think those are things that it can't take away from you. I think relationships, laughter, feeling a sense of community, those are important things that would go away and have gone away with social media. You know, I saw a friend yesterday, I bumped into, I haven't seen in three years. I was so happy to see him. I had so many questions for him. He didn't ask me anything. And he said at the end, he's like, I feel like I know everything about you. I follow you on social media. Your family looks great. You seem like you're doing well with work. You know, you just had that vacation that looked like fun.

40:16And it took away the human interaction, the curiosity, because of social media. So I think maintaining relationships, maintaining community, I think those things are so important.

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41:20Danielle:Hero Bread bakes with heart-healthy olive oil and delivers a soft, fluffy, flavorful experience you love. Shop now on Hero.co. Use code IHEART for 10 % off. That's Hero.co. Per serving, not a low-calorie food. Some products contain allulose. See nutrition info on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. I'm Glenn Washington. Host of Snap Judgment from KQED. Every week, Snap drops you inside someone's biggest decision. The kind of decision you can only make once. With everything on the line, what do you believe? What do you want? And what would you risk to get it? Find out Snap Judgment. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.

42:06Danielle:When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them. Like a new laptop if you're eligible and enroll in select online or on-campus programs. That means flexible and engaging online courses and resources, tuition savings options if you qualify, exceptional student support, and much more. Online nationally or check out their 20 campuses across six states. Start when you're ready and get the support you need. Visit rasmussen.edu.

43:03Danielle:trip at travelnevada.com.

43:12Danielle:Mostly women are listening here. For any woman listening who is thinking, I just don't like strength training or I prefer Pilates, what do you say to her? I just don't like strength training. I don't like brushing my teeth, but I know that I should brush my teeth. I know that I'm better for it. I know that all my teeth will last longer. I know I'll have better breath, maybe even better heart health. So for someone who doesn't like resistance training, I don't think it's an option. It's part of personal hygiene. It's part of taking care of your health. It doesn't mean you need to go to a gym to do it.

43:44It doesn't mean you need to do it for long periods of time. It doesn't mean you need to do Olympic style lifts, but you need to do some degree of resistance training.

43:52Danielle:Are gyms not mandatory in your mind? Gyms. Do you remember the movie Gattaca? It's like a sci-fi movie back in the day with Jude Law. It was mandatory in this movie. It's pretty cool. But I think that the person just needs to understand that resistance training doesn't have to be as daunting as probably in their head they think it is. And they just need to find what works for them. You became known for saying, take 12 ,000 steps a day. And you said it could be 10, right? It's sort of an arbitrary number. Do you feel like if I take these 10 ,000 steps a day for several months that I will no longer be neat?

44:31I think that you should think about increasing what you're doing right now. Don't put a number to it. And whatever you're doing now, gradually increase it over time.

44:44Danielle:Okay. And before you know it, you'll probably get up to that number and you'll feel great. Your body will feel great. Your mind feels great. For me, it's a form of meditation. I love that. You don't need to sweat. You don't need to huff and puff. It doesn't need to be all at once, it can be broken up evenly throughout the day. Everyone really likes it. When they start doing it, it's a habit that everyone feels better for. It's also social. When I meet friends, we'll go for a walk. We'll walk together. When I have a call with a client, I walk and talk. You've been a celebrity trainer for over 30 years.

45:171992. So since you were born almost.

45:19Danielle:Yeah. 91. Yeah. That's wild. When you first started, what was the health trend that people were really getting wrong at the time? That people were getting wrong at the time. So 1992. I feel like we just finished the Reagan era. And it was during the Cold War. And men were all about looking like Schwarzenegger and Stallone. And that was the male ideal. And we didn't do any cardio walking steps of any kind. None? None. Zero. And women were doing a lot of aerobics classes, high, low step classes. They all got, you know, hip replacements from it. Jane Fonda is a client of mine for a long time. She told me that, you know, those Reebok steps just destroyed her hips.

46:06I think that was going on. And then it was an interesting time because we were scared of fat. Fat was the devil.

46:14Danielle:Right. Everything was low fat cottage cheese, low fat butter. Non-fat. Non-fat. Yeah. Everything was non-fat. So we had snack well cookies. You would have boxes of these snack well cookies. I remember I had snack on licorice. It was fat free. So it was fine. Fruit roll ups. That was a big thing. They were fat free. Yeah. Yeah. Fat was the devil. I'm laughing. That's everything that was in my pantry. Yeah. Is there a fitness rule that you used to believe that you think is absolute nonsense now? That I used to believe. Is there a fitness rule that I used to believe? I used to think that, I mean, as a, as a young guy, I was a bodybuilder.

46:47So I used to think workouts would have to be really long. strength training workouts really, really long. And you'd have to do so many exercises for one body part and so many sets for one thing. I mean, that was something I think the idea that

47:00Danielle:called time under tension or something kind of not. I mean, there was no, there was no method. It was like, I did what Arnold did in the seventies, whatever Arnold Schwarzenegger did. I like, that's what I'm doing. There was no science to that. Right. I think were you, you were a body builder. I was a bodybuilder. Yeah. I was an unsuccessful bodybuilder. What does that mean? Because I never took steroids. And so you can't be a competitive bodybuilder if you don't take it. I mean, it was just standard. Everyone did and it was accepted and it was a thing and I never did. And so, yeah. But I would say stretching before a workout, that was something I used to believe in.

47:36I don't anymore.

47:38Danielle:Really? Yeah. The science never supported it. That's good to know. You want to warm up before you work out, but a stretch can actually increase your chance of injury significantly and reduce your strength. It's really, really interesting. The data is profound on this. That's great to know. You've trained people whose bodies become a part of their job. Yes. What do you think that us regular, schmegular people do not fully understand about the time, money, and pressure behind some of these celebrities' bodies? Boy, you know, when people say, oh, celebrities have it easy and they can, you know, they get a trainer and they can get a chef and all that stuff.

48:16No, no, no, no, no. At the end of the day, they're the ones working out. They're the ones showing up to do the work. They're the ones avoiding eating that, you know, extra dessert or candy. They're the ones going to bed early. They're the ones prioritizing their health because their career depends on it.

48:34Danielle:Yeah. And no one can do that for them. When you're training somebody who has a goal, like say it's for a film, do you feel a sense of pride when you watch them? Yeah. It's the greatest feeling in the whole world. Really? Yeah. Whether it be Halle Berry in Catwoman or Robert Downey Jr. or Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man or Gabriel Mocked in The Spirit or Ben Foster in X-Men. I think we've done 200 films at this point. there's a film I'm doing right now with this incredible young actor where he, I don't want to give it away. He has something like Lou Gehrig's disease, but it's worse and it's based on a true story.

49:15And he's like, I got him down from one 75 to one 26 and he's in this wheelchair and he's dying and he looks like he's dying and you can see his lungs and his ribs. And it looks, you know, um, he, seeing him, I feel so much pride. He looks like he's dying, which it's sad to think that like that brings me pride, but that before he even delivers a line, before an actor delivers a line, the viewer sees what they look like. And that tells a story and sets the stage before the lines even read. And so that's the feeling of seeing that. I'm like, I did it. That's how we, he was supposed to look like that.

49:50And we made him look like that. We look at that. We did that. Oh, the feeling's amazing.

49:54Danielle:And it's like, you knew the science, you knew how to do it healthfully. Yeah. Yeah. Now for this particular project, it's interesting because again, I don't want to give it away, but we're going to stop shooting in about two weeks. And then I have to put all the weight back on him and then some to shoot the rest of the film. He has to look like a superhero for the other half of the movie. So he looks like he's dying in one half and the other half, he looks strong and powerful. And so it's a really cool journey. And some of the films I watched growing up, De Niro and Raging Bull was a great example of that.

50:26He went from really lean to really heavy in the same movie. And I think De Niro was one of the first to take his body to extremes in movies. Cape Fear and Raging Bull. And he did an incredible job of transforming his body for movies. He set the stage big time.

50:46Danielle:I would not have known that. Yeah. That's very cool to know. De Niro, I mean, even before he says anything, in Cape Fear, the opening scene, is you see his back tatted up, ripped, muscular. He's doing dips in prison. Yeah. And you're just like, I don't know who that guy is. That guy's yoked. He's muscular. He's like, who is that? And then he stops and he turns around and looks and you're like, that's De Niro? I mean, it's incredible. It's incredible too because not to take anything away from people who are changing their bodies now, but it was before we had any sort of helpful tools like GLPs.

51:18Danielle:Yeah, yeah. There was nothing like that. I mean, you put the work in. I mean, I remember, you know, Seth Rogen in Green Hornet. That's not someone. He was doughy his whole life. he was perfect with his diet. Right. Yeah. If you think of Jessica Simpson and Daisy Dukes or Megan Fox and Transformers, people think, oh, they were beautiful before and they had beautiful bodies before. I got news for you. It's way harder taking someone who's in good shape and putting them in great shape. Like that is way harder. I can get an obese person to lose 50 pounds, but taking someone who looks really good and making them look even better.

51:54That's tough.

51:55Danielle:Is there a moment in time that you felt most proud of your body? Yeah. One month ago. Why? One month ago is the best shape I've been in since I was 25. No way. Yeah. And was it calculated? Um, it was strategic. I just, you know, when I turned 50, something went off in my head and, um, I started prioritizing my myself again and And, uh, and I, I, I really flipped the switch and, you know, I'm in my mid fifties with a six pack and I'm yoked and feeling great and doing it with very short workouts. And it took me a lifetime to be an overnight success. You've heard that story. It took me a lifetime to figure out how to do this easily.

52:42You know, I just, I figured out, I've distilled the essence, like what's the least I need to do to get the most out of it. And so I'm in a good place with that. Yeah.

52:51Danielle:The efficiency of it. Yeah. You're trying to do the most in the least amount of time. And is everybody's body different? Everybody's different, but we're mainly the same. So then you have to tell us what you did. I mean, for me, it was quantity control. That was something I thought I was eating too much of everything. I was still in that old mindset of the bodybuilding days, you know, trying to load myself up with calories to maintain my muscle mass. And I think getting to a certain age and being 225 pounds is just too much. and I didn't want to carry it anymore. And my old, the way I viewed myself was always as this like big yoked guy'd walk into a room.

53:28And then I was like, I'm too old for this. It's not a good look anymore. Like I don't want to be the dude who has to buy double extra large shirts places and has to get special jeans.

53:36Danielle:And when did that go? Like, when did that? It happened over a period of time and more and more and more. And then, and I remember my youngest daughter who's just turned for. I remember her playing with my stomach. Like I was never fat, but I didn't have a six pack anymore. And she would, she would like play with it. And she would just say, daddy has a tummy. Oh my gosh. That's all I needed. I was like, all right, everything changes now. Get the cookies out of the house. This goes on. You're taking the kids to school. I'm going to do in the morning, my workouts. Like everything, everything changes.

54:10Danielle:It's funny. Um, but I feel great. And I also know that, um, you know, strength training is something that didn't wane with me. I changed the way I strength train. So as you're older, you can't handle the volume of workouts that you maybe did when you're younger. You can't recover in the same way. So I work out more often, but much shorter workouts and, and strength training. I love so much. So now I strength train almost every day, but it's for 20 minutes and every day it's different body parts. Um, and it makes me happy. It makes me so happy too. Yeah. Right. I get more endorphin strength training than running a hundred percent.

54:52Danielle:I think women have been sold cardio for a long time. It's finally waning. Do you think cardio is overrated or have we just misunderstood its role? When did the Olympics allow women to run a marathon? When do you think the first year was women were allowed to run a marathon in the Olympics? It must be in the 90s. 80s. 80s. Isn't that incredible? It's horrible. There was no scientific reason. There was this old stereotype that women could damage their reproductive organs if they run because the bouncing up and down. No science behind that. Nothing at all. I actually have one more celebrity question.

55:30Danielle:What do you think every celebrity that you've trained has in common, no matter what their background is? Every celebrity that have in common, no matter their background, is a work ethic. Yeah. And you know, it's funny, the Kardashians, I'll give you a great example. They're not trained actors or musicians or producers or writers, or they don't have a specific skill set that would make them, that would lead you to think that they're going to be successful in the entertainment industry, but those people work hard. Those people are always on time. Those people know everyone's name. Those people have incredible dedication, work ethic, structure.

56:09It's incredible to see. All the most successful people that I work with in the entertainment industry, they all have that in common. They work their butts off. You would imagine that they'd be late for stuff. Nope. They're not. Their time is precious. Everything they're doing is for them. They're coming to work out, not because someone's making them do it or they know it's good for them. Like, my career will be better if I go do this thing now. I will be more successful. I will look better. I'll get more endorsements. I'll get more roles. I'll look better in that music video. I'll have more confidence on stage.

56:46And so I would say the one thing is work ethic. It's incredible to see.

56:50Danielle:I love that answer because it's so controllable. Yeah, absolutely. You've talked a lot about how certain foods have been demonized, whether it's fats or sodium, sugar or carbs. But you are an advocate for carbs in a lot of ways. Are you telling us we can eat all the pizza we want or what does that mean? You can't eat anything all you want. There's nothing you could, you know, if you have, you can die from drinking too much water. I mean, honestly, there's a way where you would drink too much water where that becomes toxic. So I think everything's in moderation. Certain things you can have more often than other things, but there's room for everything in your diet.

57:29Danielle:You have this PATH methodology. Yes. Will you share that? So I tell people to follow the PATH, P-A-T-H. In every meal, you follow the PATH. P stands for a palm of carbohydrates. So it can be whole grains, quinoa, millet, oat, amaranth, teff, barley, farro, rice. It can be sweet potatoes, legumes, lentils, beans, fruits, palmful per meal. A stands for all the vegetables you want. T stands for a thumb of healthy fat, avocado, nuts, seeds, olives. And H stands for your hand, at least the mass of your hand of protein. Chicken, fish, egg whites. I said egg whites, not eggs, egg whites, yogurt, Greek yogurt, plain, unsweetened, or tofu.

58:15I said egg whites because an egg has protein, but an egg is not protein. An egg receives 70 % of its calories from fat and about 30 % from protein. So I'll have one whole egg with the yolk, and then I'll have a bunch of whites with it.

58:32Danielle:Okay. My mom taught me the right thing then.

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1:00:08Danielle:See nutrition info on Hero.co for sodium and sugar content. I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment, the award-winning storytelling podcast from KQED, and every week, Snap deals a new card, like jumping on Rihanna's private plane, or the accidental bank robber or even the man who was swallowed by a hippo. What? Pick a card. Any card. Snap Judgment from KQED. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts. When it comes to advancing your education, you have more options than you think. At Rasmussen University, we find ways to remove barriers, not build them. Like a new laptop if you're eligible and enroll in select online or on-campus programs.

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1:01:48Danielle:I want to hit on something that you shared earlier. You said you did a show going around the world asking people in different cultures what was working for them to try and understand our health better. When it comes to food and movement and the way health is built into daily life, what do you think Americans can learn from other cultures? So I wrote a book called The World Diet. I traveled to the 10 healthiest countries in the world. I wanted to understand what are they eating? What are they doing? That, you know, they're living a decade longer than us, sometimes even more, and they're living better.

1:02:25So I think one of the things I learned is they don't eat a lot of red meat, which is interesting. I'm not telling people to stay away from red meat, but they don't eat a lot of red meat. Some of them eat hardly any. Some of them eat once in a while, but they don't eat a lot of red meat. The other thing is they eat a lot more carbohydrates than we do. So the average American receives just over 40 % of their calories from carbs. But if you look at the healthiest populations in the world, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Denmark, South Korea, China, Singapore, they get over 60 % of their calories from carbohydrates.

1:02:59So they're consuming 50 % more as a percentage of their calories from carbs than we are in the United States. People say, oh, the United States is unhealthy because of the carbs. Nope, not at all. And the carbs we do eat here in the United States are not the carbs we want. It's the sugar in your Frappuccino. It's the breakfast cereal sugar. It's the donuts. It's all of that stuff. It's the ketchup and the barbecue sauce sugar. But the carbs they're eating, they're eating rice. They're eating whole grains. They're eating rye bread. they're eating you know purple sweet potatoes they're doing all these great things and so so that was another thing i noticed that they do that we need to do better i would have never

1:03:39Danielle:guessed that yeah more carbs there's a great stat and i don't want to get it wrong but between 1970 and now we consume 700 more calories per day than we did then i believe it's 1970 i I could be wrong. It could be 1960. I think it's 1970 to now. We consume 700 calories more per day. What percentage of those 700 calories comes from sugar? What percent? 10. Really? 90 % of those extra calories are coming from added fats. So what does that look like? What kinds of foods? Everything has oils in it. Wow. Everything. And we're eating more fats of all kinds. Huh. It's very interesting. That is very interesting.

1:04:25Danielle:What do you think actually changes a person's relationship with their body? What have you seen? What changes their relationship with their body? I think focusing on the inputs changes your relationship with your body because now you have control. Back to your Viktor Frankl quote. Back to the Viktor Frankl quote. I think when you focus on your outputs with your body, it's tough. You know, women have hormone cycles. So, you know, a few weeks, a few days, a month, they're going to be heavier on a scale. And if they're judging their relationship with their body on how heavy they are, they're going to hate their body, even though they've done nothing wrong.

1:05:03It's natural. They're going to retain water because their hormones are at a certain point. I think when you focus on the inputs, you don't even notice that stuff. You're like, I did everything good today. Today's a good day. I'm going to bed. I love my body. I treated it well today. Do you think that, have you seen girls be raised in an environment where they can feel really good about their body, even though there's a culture outside of their home that really disrupts

1:05:32Danielle:it? That's a good question. Have you ever had female clients and you were like, wow, they have a really healthy relationship? That's really impressive. I think certainly the home you grow up in can give a girl a bad physique dysmorphia, a bad eating habits. I think if a girl's raised by a mom or a dad, but usually it's the mom and the mom has a bad relationship with food and is constantly weighing herself and constantly dieting and constantly doing all these things. And the girl grows up and sees that and models their behavior after that. And here's the mom saying, oh, I'm so fat. Oh, I hate how this looks on me.

1:06:09Oh, I hate my legs. then I think that that becomes that translates onto the kids.

1:06:15Danielle:Yeah. We don't have a scale that I'm aware of in my house. I think with my kids, we focus again on the inputs. I'll never say to my kid, oh, you've gained weight. Don't do that. I won't say that. I'll say, let's go for a walk today. Did you go for a walk? Let's go for a walk today. I won't punish them for having something sweet. I'm like, you want something sweet? Make sure you had your vegetables first. So we'll focus on the positive. I'll never forget. I had a friend who's a little older than me. And so she has a daughter. And at the time, I think her daughter was eight or nine. And I was at her house and her daughter came downstairs and she said, my legs are so big.

1:06:59Danielle:And I was like, oh, here we go. And instead, I was so impressed with my friend. She said, I know. Isn't it amazing how strong you are? And the little girl was like, yes, it's awesome. And they had this whole positive interaction. And here I was because of the way I was raised, having a whole different experience. Like I thought it was going to go a whole different way. So I love to see when it is possible. Absolutely. I think getting into weight training at a young age as a guy was really good for me. Yeah. I actually had something called bigorexia, which is the opposite of anorexia. no matter how big or muscular I was, I always thought I was a puny weakling.

1:07:41And this was a common thing guys don't talk about. Um, it was called the Adonis complex as well, bigorexia or the Adonis complex. And so I would wear ultra baggy clothes all the time, even though I was a massive dude in my mind, I was puny. I was tiny. I never took my shirt off on the beach, you know, when I was young and, um, and this is going to sound strange, but what cured me is one time I was dating some girl and I took my shirt off and she said, ew, you're so big. You're too big. That's disgusting. And I'm like, really? She's like, oh, you're too big. The muscles are too big. That's gross.

1:08:17I'm like, really? You don't say. Maybe I am big. And then my head, like it took that to register. It took a girl being grossed out that I was too big and too muscular. Because I'm like, there's no way she's lying. That's an honest opinion she'd give me like, okay. And then like after that, I was like, okay, I'm wearing normal clothes now. And I guess I am big and muscular and this is okay. And now I don't want to be that anymore.

1:08:43Danielle:Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah. Okay. I have some rapid fire for you. The number one carb we should eat on the regular. Berries, all kinds of berries, lots of fiber and phytonutrients. Okay. The fast food place you're okay eating at. All of them. I love McDonald's. I absolutely love McDonald's. I've said it. I can't believe that. I love McDonald's. What's your order? My order is, this is going to seem weird. I love an egg McMuffin, but I get a double egg, no butter, no bacon. And I have two of them. So I have four eggs with two half buns. Sometimes I'll get two cheeseburgers, no onion, and I'll take the top bun off and I'll put them together and make my own double burger with like a small well-done french fry.

1:09:28Oh, I love McDonald's.

1:09:30Danielle:Okay. The number one TikTok trend that you want to debunk. I am about to say something that you're going to laugh at. I don't use TikTok. Love it. I think I have an account, but it's just too much. The health concept that makes you want to facepalm yourself. Where do I begin? Raw milk. That's crazy. Not having a measles vaccine. That's crazy. Most of these peptides today that have never been tested on human beings, they have no safety regulations. That's crazy.

1:10:05Gosh. Oh, some people do this thing where they take their blood out and wash it and put it back in. That's insane.

1:10:14Danielle:That's particularly insane. Not that everything else that you mentioned isn't, but they're saying they're taking plastics out of their blood, but all the tubes that they're - It's plastic. It's plastic. That's insane. And there's no science to support. It's insane. How about colonics? That's insane. Especially coffee colonics. No, let me teach you how to drink coffee. That's, you're doing it wrong. Okay. The celebrity whose health habits we should all follow. The celebrity whose health habits we should all follow. I have a client. If you're into art, you'll know who he is. His name is Jonas Wood, one of the most famous modern artists in the world.

1:10:54He has it down. That guy has just got such incredible what he does. He's got a great balance of walking and hiking and strength training and all the right things. And his diet is incredible.

1:11:03Danielle:The health habit everybody needs. The health hack that everybody needs. Ooh, the health hack. Oh, put your room into a really cold temperature before bed. I'm at 67 degrees. You'll get into deep sleep a lot faster. Fiber maxing, healthy or hyped? Fiber maxing? Boy, maxing anything is not a good idea. Maxing fiber is a really bad idea. You need to leave your house with a diaper. I think having the optimal amount of fiber, both from water soluble and insoluble is a good thing. If somebody were to pick up one book right now of yours, what would you tell them to pick up? The book I would say, I would say the two least successful books I've written are probably the two best books I've written, but they're the least sensationalized.

1:11:54They're the most helpful. One is a book called Five Pounds and one is The World Diet. Books like Body Reset Diet did really well and that's helpful. And Five Factor Diet and Five Factor Fit, those are great books. But I think The World Diet, it's fascinating and helpful. And Five Pounds is really, really helpful.

1:12:12Danielle:What is a book that you've read that changed your life that you think everybody should read? Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning. And it keeps changing. And the more you read it, it just gets better and better and better. I would also say sapiens, um, don't read it linearly. Like it's not a beginning to end story. You can pick it up and read it tangentially and pick up any random two pages and just read it. And it's, it's so fascinating. And I think, I think we have to learn history to understand the present and what's coming. And so many of us don't know, we don't know what happened a month ago or a year ago or five years ago.

1:12:47And, and you can talk about this, whether it be politics, whether it be geography, whether it be medicine, science, all of these things, understanding the history of humanity.

1:12:57Danielle:Yeah. So helpful for understanding what's coming next. Will you grab the question, everything card game beside you and pick whichever card calls to you? Okay. Which expert do you want lessons from? Wow. Which expert do you want? Can I have three? Yeah. Okay. I would say Scotty Shuffler to teach me how to golf better. Okay. I would say Chef Nobu Matsuhisa so I can make the best Japanese food anytime I want. And I would say, can they be dead or alive? Yeah, either. I would say a guy who no one probably remembers named Mike Menser, who wrote the first strength training book on the philosophy of strength training.

1:13:51He ended up in an asylum, actually, when he wrote it. But an amazing guy. Oh, and hold on one more. Arthur Jones.

1:14:00Danielle:Who's that? Who invented strength equipment. He created Nautilus. Cool. And I would say him. I'd want to know. Yeah. I can't believe you were able to rattle those off at the top of your head. I don't know that I would be able to. I got 10 more if you want. I mean, I could keep going. Wow. Okay. I want to do a peptide quiz with you. Okay, sure. Yeah. And even if they're all a no, I think it'll be funny for Instagram. Okay. Okay. So here's our peptide quiz. BPC 159. Does it actually heal injuries or is it bro science? No one knows. GHKCU. Skincare miracle or marketing? No one knows. Trisepatide versus semaglutide.

1:14:39Danielle:What's the real difference? Semaglutide is a GLP-1. Trisepatide is a GLP-1 GIP. So it functions in two ways as opposed to one. It's slightly more effective and has slightly less side effects for some people. Reditrutide, is it the next GLP-1 that's coming for Ozempic? No one knows. Still not done FDA trials. It might not ever be done FDA trials. It might be. But apparently Eli Lilly has something coming after that that's way more effective than red or true tide that might be ready before red or true tide gets FDA approval if it does. So who knows? NAD plus. Zero science to support it. Epitalin, the longevity anti-aging peptide.

1:15:26Danielle:No one knows. PT-141, the libido peptide. No one knows. Melanotin-2, the tanning peptide. No one knows. AOD 9604, the fat-burning peptide that Hollywood is whispering. That one, nobody knows. CJC 1295, ipimoralin, the growth hormone without growth hormone stack. No one knows. And then I heard about the Wolverine stack. I wouldn't give any of these to my kids. I wouldn't give these to my parents. I think life is too short. if you're not nailing your diet, if you're not nailing your strength training, you're not nailing your steps, if you're not nailing your sleep, if you're not nailing your social life, if you're not doing these things and you're focusing on buying a non-scientifically tested drug in the internet from some random dude in a basement somewhere that, you know, because your buddy said my skin turned orange and now it's great.

1:16:31I think you're missing the boat.

1:16:33Danielle:Harley, thank you for your common sense strategy to help. It's so refreshing. Yeah. Thank you. You're welcome.

1:16:46Okay.

1:16:46Danielle:You know what time it is. Today's a good day to have a good day. I'll see you next week.

1:17:05We'll be right back.

1:17:28Relax.

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