The Ultimate Guide to Eating Healthy and Improving Your Diet Feat. Max Lugavere

23:35And in tandem with that, it's another reason. And I don't know why I felt the need to mention this in the book, but I felt it was really apropos. It's one of the reasons why people should definitely not use antiseptic mouthwash every day. Because what you're doing with antiseptic mouthwash is you're nuking the bacteria in your mouth that basically reduce nitrate to nitrite, which then can actually, even an acute swishing of antiseptic mouthwash, antiseptic being the key here, can increase your blood pressure because it basically messes up that nitric oxide pathway. They've also shown that, wow, rinsing with mouthwash after exercise can reduce the blood pressure lowering effects of exercise and people who regularly use mouthwash two times or more per day.

24:23And this is about 40 % of the population have 50 % increased risk for developing type two diabetes because nitric oxide is also involved in insulin signaling and they have double the risk of developing hypertension. Okay, brother. Okay. I got to start chewing my food slower and I do you antiseptic mouthwash. So is there any, um, I've so many things to ask you, by the way, I told you guys, you never heard a show like this before. So you're going to write down stuff down and learn stuff. is there any downside? Because we're going to talk about some other stuff here in a minute, and then some of the stuff in the book on preparation is just awesome.

24:53However, is there any downside to eating a plant-based or too many plants or anything like that? Can you overdo that, or is there no downside? Yeah, I love this question. I think there is. I don't prescribe a one-size-fits-all diet. People have different tolerances for fiber quantity, for various compounds in food. I have a friend who, if he goes within six feet, of an allium, which is like garlic, onions, leeks, he gets the worst digestive discomfort ever. So everybody's different. And I also think that there's this push, especially from the vegan community to just eat as much fiber as possible.

25:31We know that fiber is beneficial, but if you, from one day to the next, start eating, if you go from what is typical, which is 15 grams of fiber per day, which is pretty low, I'll admit, to the goal that some people espouse of being 150 grams a day of dietary fiber. You're just setting yourself up for constipation, for all kinds of digestive issues. I was going to ask you, do you need to drink more water if you're going to take in that kind of fiber? You just need to go slowly. Because essentially what it is, is you need to cultivate the microbiome, essentially, the gut flora to be able to assimilate all of that fiber.

26:05Because fiber, I mean, the thing about fiber, we don't absorb it. Fiber is fiber because it passes through the small intestine undigested, and it becomes a fermentable substrate for the 30 trillion bacteria that live in the colon, in the large intestine. But you need to cultivate that bacterial community first. The bacteria of the person listening to this compared to somebody in the Hasda tribe, for example, or an Inuit, we all have these different microbial constitutions. Some of that's cultural and over time it's materialized. This may seem basic, but this is true, correct? That's why some guy from American goes to Mexico on vacation for a long time though, the foods or the waters there affect their digestion differently than somebody who grew up correctly.

26:48Right. Cause you don't have the same immune system. You don't have the same antibodies. You don't have the same gut flora. I mean, the gut is where the majority of our immune system is, is stationed. So, I mean, the gut plays a huge role in, in immune function. What about fish? So you say in the book, know your fish, know your fish. Yeah. What's the deal with that? Why? Well, fish is really important, especially from the standpoint of brain health, which is my - It's your go zone. Yeah. My number one passion. Fish is medicine when it comes to the brain. We have the most robust body of evidence that the compounds in fish, whether it's the omega-3 fatty acids, preformed, plug and play, ready to go for your brain, or protective antioxidants like astaxanthin, all really, really beneficial from a brain health standpoint.

27:30There have been studies that have shown us that one to two servings of fish per week can help prevent dementia in people genetically at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease. Prevent dementia one to two times a week. Is there a particular type of fish that you would recommend over another one? Yeah, I would definitely recommend the wild fatty fish. So salmon is a great option. Sardines also a good option. I mean, whenever they look at, this is how epidemiology works. They look at the population level and they say, who's eating fish? Who isn't? And the people who eat fish, regardless of what kind of fish it is, tend to do better.

28:05Right. You know, so we can't be snobs about this, right? That's why in my book, actually, that's why I have good, better, best. Because to me, like if all you're able to access is canned tuna, right? If like that's all, if you live in a food desert and that's the only kind of fish that you have access to, that's still better than not eating fish. Okay. Ideally, you want, you know, to opt more frequently for a fatty fish like salmon, because it's going to be higher in those omega-3 fatty acids. And wild is preferred over farmed, but any kind of fish is beneficial from the standpoint of the brain.

28:34Fish is also great in minerals like selenium, like vitamin D. See, guys, I got to tell you, I did not eat almost any. And then, actually, when you and I talked the first time, but then reading the book, I'm like, I got to eat more salmon. I just don't make these choices. The other thing about the book, I think it separates it from anything else too, is actually the preparation parts of it. Hmm. So you talk in the book, I want to go through some things about just stuff that's got flavor that you recommend. And I want to give the whole book away because I want everybody to go get the book, which you need to go get the book.

29:03Here's why you should go get the book. There's not another one in its category like it. In other words, if you want to go get a book on intermittent fasting, there are multiple books on that topic you could go get, all of which are probably pretty good, right? But this topic of the preparation of the food and the way that he talks about eating like a genius, I just don't think there's another one like it. So that's my endorsement, number one. But the idea of like, so extra extra virgin olive oil is in the book. Yes. Okay. Talk about it. Like one, it's tastes good. But number one, why is that something that we should be considering using?

29:36And you give recipes and stuff in there in preparation of our food. Oh, I even have an extra virgin olive oil cake, a grain free, gluten free extra virgin olive oil cake in the book with no sugar added, by the way. I love extra virgin olive oil. It's it's one of these foods that just for years I've been obsessed with. And humans have been pressing olives to make extra virgin olive oil for thousands of years at this point. It almost is a perfect food. And especially when you compare it to these grain and seed cooking oils that are so heavily marketed, dirt cheap to produce, high profit margins, toxic to our bodies and the quantity that we're consuming them today.

30:12extra virgin olive oil has super heart healthy monounsaturated fat, which is the best fat to consume liberally. It's actually a kind of fat called oleic acid, which is the most abundant fat found in nature. Breast milk is rich in oleic acid. Beef has very high in oleic acid. So is wild salmon, but oleic acid, olea is actually, it means olive. So we discovered this fat in olive oil centuries ago. And now we know how beneficial it is. It actually, it helps prevent inflammation. It helps make our LDL lipoprotein particles more resistant to oxidation and more resistant to adhesion to macrophages, which is where this sort of like atherosclerotic process begins.

30:58So it's a really healthy fat from the cardiovascular standpoint and brain health relies on cardiovascular health. So it's the primary oil that I use in my cooking and that I recommend using as a sauce and you can cook with it. A lot of people don't realize that there's a lot of misconceptions about that. But the other thing about extra virgin olive oil is aside from the fact that it's a very healthy fat, it's got a superpower that no other fat has. And it's that it contains a compound called oleocanthal, which is essentially an anti-inflammatory compound that is as anti-inflammatory as low dose ibuprofen.

31:31Whoa. Yeah. So over the counter pain relieving medications that are anti-inflammatory, they have side effects. Actually chronic use of ibuprofen is associated with cardiovascular events, but extra virgin olive oil, you're getting all of the, all of the benefit, all of the, the anti-inflammatory effect essentially of a, of a low dose of that, but without any of the negative side effects. You're kidding me. And by the way, none of the taxing on your kidneys or liver. There you go. Either, right? Exactly. There's all these little things in the book. Like, I'll mispronounce stuff, but it doesn't matter because, you know, I understand the concepts of things.

32:03So you're talking about cooking with butter. Yeah. And then there's like, you're like ghee. Like there's this thing ghee that you talk about in the book, right? So everyone else is listening is probably going, you don't know what ghee is? No, I didn't know what ghee was. So what is ghee and why are you so high on it? So ghee is a great fat. So is butter. And we can talk about the differences in the two. They're similar. Ghee is derived from butter. It's clarified butter, essentially. So you take butter, you boil it gently, and then you skim off the milk solids. And what you're left with is this pure fat that's very well tolerated for people that are even the most dairy sensitive because it's free of lactose and it's free of casein.

32:35That's big for a lot of people. Yeah. It's great for high heat cooking. It's a staple in Indian cuisine. That's probably the type of cuisine most known for utilizing ghee. But actually, butter and ghee, while I use it and I love it and it's definitely a part of my diet. I talk in the book about how, um, for certain people, uh, butter actually can raise, um, levels of LDL, which is the, the, the lipoprotein associated with cardiovascular disease. Right. Um, and this is actually kind of interesting and it's distinct from cream. Now this is kind of mind blowing. A lot of people don't realize this, but butter, butter is made from cream and is it, you take cream, you turn it, you get butter.

33:19that churning process disrupts a compound in the cream called milk fat globule membrane. And it makes the butter more prone to driving up levels of LDL, whereas no other dairy product has that problem. So you can consume all the dairy fat you want from cream, from hard cheese and things like that. The consumption of full fat dairy is actually associated with better cardiovascular health with the exception of butter because it lacks this milk fat globule membrane. So for people that are worried about, you know, have risk of cardiovascular disease, butter is one of those foods that I'm like, yeah, enjoy it sometimes.

33:56You know, I guess it's a, it tastes great. It's fairly nutrient dense for a fat, but it's not one of these fats that I, that I'll go overboard with. Okay. Unlike extra virgin olive oil. What about salt? What's our, what's our, do we have misconceptions about salt in general? I know the answer because I'm reading your stuff, but I want to talk about that. So what, let's talk about salt. I love talking about salt. Salt is one of the easiest ways to elevate your cooking. I mean, salt, salt is the one ingredient that takes a single ingredient food, right? Like a piece of meat and turns it into a steak.

34:25Sure does. Right. You need salt. It's all you need. So I'm a huge fan of salt. And I think that we're - That blows my mind hearing you say that. Okay. Yeah. Well, not anymore, but without reading, I would have blown my mind. It's, I mean, a piece of meat by itself is a missed opportunity, right? You got to add salt. And yeah, I think that we've been misguided when it comes to salt. A lot of the nutrition orthodoxy will say, you got to limit your salt, cut out salt, stop adding salt to your food. But actually only 11 % of the salt that Americans ingest every day comes from home cooking and the salt that they add with their salt shakers.

34:58The vast majority of sodium that your average American ingests every single day comes from fast food, restaurant food, and ultra processed foods, canned foods and things like that. So it's not the salt doing the damage, it's the fact that it's associated with those foods, or is it a different type of salt? No, it's the, it's the, it's the foods that that's the associated food associated foods. Yeah. About 25 % of the population are sensitive to sodium. So they're what is, they're what are called, um, salt sensitive hypertensives. And so that's still a minority, right? But about 25 % of the population, if they eat a lot of salt, they'll see their, uh, blood pressure go up by 5 % or more.

35:36And that, um, that statistic or that proportion is higher among people who have hypertension already. But for the vast majority of people, they can eat all the salt that they want and not see their blood pressure go up. If sodium is an issue though, and you are a salt sensitive, if you do find yourself sensitive to salt, I still wouldn't say don't salt your food. I would say cut out the packaged processed foods, the fast food, and you can continue, of course, to add salt to your food to make it palatable because Because even the healthiest foods in the supermarket aren't going to be tasty unless you add salt to them.

36:13So by us telling people to stop adding salt to their foods. And by the way, the number one source of salt in the American diet, the number one, isn't canned food. It isn't processed meats. It's bread and rolls. That's the number one source of sodium in the American diet. Breads. Commercial breads. Yeah. Do you eat bread? You know, I really don't. Your face just said you didn't. No, yeah. I don't eat bread. I eat bread. I'll eat bread. like an almond flour based bread. Because for me, nut consumption is associated with good health. Nuts are very nutrient dense. So if I can find a good quote unquote paleo bread, I'll go to town on that.

36:51And look, if I'm traveling and there's a really good sourdough put in front of me, I'll try that occasionally. But bread is not a staple in my diet. That was my next question. So obviously I want people to get the book because they, and by the way, you should be cooking more. You should be home cooking more. And, but let's say you're not tonight. So to your point, I was going to ask you that. So I'm going out to order. I'm in a restaurant. There's a lot of people eat out or going to eat out inevitably. What's just a good guide when eating out to eat for our brains, to eat for our heart, to eat for our longevity, but yet still enjoy the meal.

37:24Is there, do you have a guide you kind of give yourself when you do that? Yeah. I mean, and I want people to eat out. Like eating out is one of the great aspects of modern life. Eating out with friends. I love, I love to eat out. Now, you can't control every single variable when you're eating out and you shouldn't try to, right? You don't know what kinds of oils they're going to use in the restaurant. And so I think you need to give yourself a break and you need to not try to control every variable. Control the controllables. And I think when going out to a restaurant, the things that I look for, I base my meal around a protein.

37:55So whether that's a piece of steak. Now, I try to eat when I'm home 100 % grass-fed, grass-finished beef. When I'm out at a restaurant, yeah, I really appreciate if a restaurant offers that, but most restaurants don't. And so I don't drive myself crazy. I know that even a piece of grain-fed or grain-finished beef, which is the most commonly available kind of beef in a restaurant, is going to be a pristine source of protein. And if you order something like a filet mignon, it's going to be pricey, but a filet mignon is actually a lean piece of meat anyway. And so lean meat, lean beef, it doesn't really matter what the cow's fed, to be honest, from a nutrition standpoint, because it's lean.

38:30what the cow eats dictates the the nutritional quality of its fat so if you're eating a lean piece of meat like a filet it actually doesn't matter what the cow's eating from a nutritional standpoint so i'll try to get a piece of beef if you know if not that i'll reach for some grilled salmon which i know is probably going to be farmed but it's all good it's still a great source of omega-3s still a pristine source of protein chicken chicken is great white meat dark meat i mean it doesn't really matter um white meat is going to be just leaner and so it's going to contain less calories, more protein.

39:01And then I try to get vegetables. So sauteed vegetables, usually I steer away from because the veggies in restaurants, when they're sauteed, they tend to be sauteed in cheap oils, restaurant oil, you know, like the vegetable oil or the canola oil or, or soybean or worse or corn oil. So I'll try to get grilled veggies or steamed veggies, if that's an option in the restaurant. And, um, and then you could always like sprinkle some salt or some lemon, uh, extra, you can ask for extra virgin olive oil. I love going to restaurants and asking if they can bring out flake salt, which is way better than the table shaker salt.

39:38Yes. Um, I've done that too. Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's really easy to like, to, to manipulate those variables in the restaurant, focus on protein, order a piece of, of meat or fish or chicken or what have you. And then veggies, a side of veggies, a salad. That's, I mean, those are the meals that I get generally and I find it pretty easy to do so. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Progressive loves to help people make smart choices. That's why they offer a tool called Auto Quote Explorer that allows you to compare your Progressive car insurance quote with rates from other companies.

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41:35That was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. So I'm eating. I'm going to ask you heart and brain. I'm eating for my brain. Give me one or two foods. Eat for your brain. Do this, people. And then here's one or two foods to avoid for your brain. All right. Love this. So I would say avocados are an amazing brain food. They have the highest concentration of fat-protecting antioxidants of any fruit or vegetable. And this is of particular relevance to the brain because the brain is made of fat.

42:08And not just any kind of fat, but like a really delicate, damage-prone category of fats called polyunsaturated fats. The brain is constructed of these fats. And so fat-soluble antioxidants are crucial to aging well, cognitively speaking. Avocado is a great source of potassium, which we know helps balance out the effect of sodium on our blood pressure. They're a rich source of carotenoids, which can boost visual processing speed, even in people who are young and healthy. a great source of fiber, very satiating. So avocados are an amazing brain food. I would say the second food, we've already talked about beef a little bit.

42:43We haven't yet really talked about eggs. I'm a huge fan of eggs. Good. I eat a lot of eggs. I'm glad to hear that. Eggs are great. When you consider the fact that an egg yolk is packaged with everything that nature has deemed important to grow a brain, it literally is the ultimate cognitive multivitamin, an egg yolk. Okay. Yeah. So I love egg yolks. And also there was a study in older people that found that choline consumption was associated with slashed risk of developing dementia by 30%, which is, you know, there's no drug on the market that we could say, here, take this. 30%. Yeah. Risk of dementia by 30%, but choline is a really important molecule.

43:22It serves as the backbone to acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter. It's important for learning and memory. Eggs are the number one source of dietary choline. You get, I think like 150 milligrams, um, in just one single egg yolk, which is amazing. Okay. Uh, avoid food for the brain, processed food or anything beyond that. I would say, um, definitely the grain and seed oils, uh, canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil. We know that these fats integrate themselves into our, into our adipose tissue. Um, we've actually seen an increase by about 136 % of the appearance of these fats, linoleic acid in in particular, in adipose tissue over the past 100 years, which is owed to the fact that we're just chronically consuming these cheap oils.

44:08Soybean oil by itself, our consumption of it has gone up 2 ,000 % just in the past 100 years alone. That's a big part of the book, by the way, is the preparation part. And I want them to get the preparation part, but that's a big deal as if it's got corn oil preparation. That's just a big no-no. Yeah. You want to get rid of that stuff. I mean, a little bit here and there certainly won't kill you, but the production of these oils creates trans fats. There's no safe level of trans fat consumption. We know at this point, they're also full, especially when, um, we cook with them under real world conditions, the appearance of, of oxidative byproducts, certain aldehydes and things like that, which we know are damaging to our mitochondria, which is, you know, the organelles in our cells that create energy.

44:48And these oxidative products are found in oils that are available commercially and created under just everyday use. And what about heart? Anything you say, eat this for your heart. From a cardiovascular standpoint? Yeah. I mean, extra virgin olive oil, I think really important. Fish, wild fatty fish is great from a cardiovascular standpoint. Exercise is important. It's not food, but it's - And I think the fiber part is heart related too. If you are really truly, you know, if it does have some LDL reduction capacity in any way, any of the particles, then fiber's a big deal. Yeah, it does. I mean, basically what happens is you release bile acids to help break down fats in the gut.

45:30And bile acids, we use LDL particles to make bile acids. And that LDL is basically taken back up in the ileum, which is the latter end of the digestive tract. but when you consume fiber with your food and especially this gel forming viscous fiber psyllium husk um and other fibers naturally found in foods it traps the ldl particles that and so they're not able to be taken back up in the ileum um in time so you basically pass them okay that's why fiber i think is is so great from a it yanks it you pass it yeah you're brilliant by the way dude thank you i feel the same way about you thank you i told you this like five times last time that we talked, but I just, when I'm talking with you and thank you, I appreciate that fruit.

46:14So here we go. Yeah. So, you know, I get my info from different people. And so I'm curious because I have some friends of mine that say, listen, fruits like ingesting sugar in the body, the body doesn't know the difference. I'm going to ask you whether this is true or not, but it doesn't know the difference. So you're going to get some sort of insulin reaction to it. Then you're going to get more inflammation. And so fruit equals yeast and equals inflammation. I have other friends who say, no, fruit's got all this nutritional benefit to it. It's also got some water benefit to it in many cases.

46:42And so I eat a ton of fruit. So where do you stand on those two ends of the spectrum? I think fruit is great, especially whole fruit. But I do think it's important to make, to bring nuance to the table and to acknowledge that there are different kinds of fruits. You know, we have low sugar fruits like avocados, berries. All berries are great. Cucumbers, citrus, things like that. And then we have high sugar tropical fruits like bananas, for example, or pineapple, mangoes. If you have problems with your glucose tolerance and you're sedentary all day, do I think gorging on grapes and bananas, for example, is a very smart idea?

47:20No. I mean, it's better than gorging on junk food, but I think we could do even better than that. Okay. I think we can look to foods that have less to have a lower glycemic load. Okay. But at the end of the day, fruit is beneficial. And so I don't want to scare anybody away from eating more whole fruit. I personally, you know, my fruit, my daily fruit consumption ranges from zero to two servings a day. And again, all fruits are different. So berries, you know, there's a lot of evidence now showing how supportive berries are to brain health. You know, bananas are a great source of potassium, which can boost cardiovascular health, but are bananas the only source of potassium?

48:02No, actually an avocado has twice the potassium of a banana with all those other benefits to it that I mentioned. And as you mentioned, fruit, it's self-limiting. So again, this is why I don't really place a limit on fruit consumption. It is self-limiting because of the fiber, because of the water. And the fact that fruit comes with that, the fiber and the water, that is important from the standpoint of how the sugar in the fruit affects us physiologically. So there was actually a really interesting study where this wasn't a fruit per se, but they compared the same amount of carbohydrates from wheat.

48:41So they took 50 grams, we'll just say 50 grams of wheat, and they turned it into a porridge. And one porridge, the wheat in one part, one version of the porridge, the wheat was coarsely ground. And in the other, it was much more finely ground. And the finely ground porridge, Again, carbohydrates were controlled for. So the calories were controlled for, right? So same amount of carbohydrates in each bolus, the finely ground wheat porridge and the coarsely ground wheat porridge. And what they found in the finely ground wheat porridge was that it sent blood sugar. The amount, the glycemic impact was way higher, which led to a way higher release of insulin.

49:21and afterwards so it sent the blood sugar way higher in the subjects but then what was really interesting was that it dropped it below baseline afterwards whereas yeah so it led to a blood sugar crash that blood sugar crash that we all try to avoid right because that can create feelings of anxiety and people prone to anxiety, fatigue, hunger irritability right but the coarsely ground porridge is harder for our bodies to digest right and it digests more slowly return blood sugar right back to baseline, right? So going back to the fruit conversation, this is why I think fruit is so great and not something that we ultimately need to worry about, because it's not like we're just juicing the fruit and consuming that sugar.

50:06It has this whole food matrix of fiber and water, and it leads to a very slow infusion of sugar. Whereas you can take the same amount of sugar found in an apple and drink it, and you're not going to have the same effect. You're probably going to see a blood sugar crash. That's one of my favorite things we've talked about so far right there, because that's a definitive example of the difference of that. And just ingesting typical sugar on its own, which is sort of one of the arguments against fruit. I'm not advocating fruit anymore or less than you are. I wouldn't advocate anything because it's not my background, but what about just eating less?

50:37So I'm talking, I want you to address a couple of different things, by the way, I really appreciate you going so deep because you know, this is really valuable to my eyes. I care about the, these folks that are my family listening to this and watching this and their wellbeing. I want them to, live happier, stronger, more energized lives. And you really help people do that, bro. So what about less? And when I say less, as I mean, less often, meaning how do you feel about, you know, um, feeding windows? Um, my, my cardiologist doesn't like to call it intermittent fasting. She likes to call them feeding windows.

51:07Actually, David Sinclair did as well. And then just portion size in general, is that something you're cognizant of, like how much food you're putting in your body, actually, not just calories, but just amount of food and portion size and how often you do or don't eat. Are those things that you think about or focus on? Yeah. I mean, I try not to eat for two to three hours before I go to sleep every night. Okay. That's my primary, um, primary concern is not eating too close to bedtime. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I like to eat, you know, an hour after I wake up. Sometimes I'm not hungry at all and I can go two, three hours after waking up before taking my first bite.

51:45But this all comes back to circadian biology. And, you know, we're seeing now that especially with research on time-restricted eating, a lot of this research is being done by down over at the Salk Institute with Sachin Panda. He's done a lot of, published a lot of really interesting papers on time-restricted eating. But that when we simply honor our body's natural inclination to eat during the day and not eat too much late at night, we see cardiometabolic benefits to our blood pressure, to our blood glucose control. And this is independent of weight. So some will argue that time-restricted eating merely just a way of controlling calories.

52:23And it is that. It can be a very effective way of controlling calories. Time-restricted eating doesn't give you a free ride to eat whatever it is that you want. You can still gain weight while time-restricted eating. I think a lot of a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that time restricted eating or intermittent fasting is this hall pass to, you know, to eat whatever it is that you want. And that somehow calories don't matter if you're time restricted eating, that's false. Right. But independent of calories, it does seem to be the case that there is a cardiometabolic benefit to not eating too late at night.

52:56And so that's what I try to do. You know, we, we see that people who eat late at night, Their hunger patterns are, you know, miswired the next day. And I've anecdotally experienced this myself. When I eat really late at night, my digestion isn't great the next day, and I tend to feel more hungry when I wake up the following day. Well, for me, I sleep a lot better because my body's working to digest food that I eat later at night. And so when I'm not necessarily in full digestion mode, so to speak, I just sleep deeper. But the reason I ask you about portion size, so I want to talk about this, maybe one of the last two things here, is that as you talked earlier about how big these sodas are now, so are portions.

53:31Like you go to, when you do eat out, the portions seem to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You go to an average restaurant now, you're like, my gosh, the amount of food in some places that they're bringing me. And there's been this thing, like I grew up with this, like clean your plate. Yeah. It was a big thing. Here I am 50 years old, but I would sit at a, a lot of us grew up like this. I wasn't even allowed to leave the table if I didn't eat all the food. Mom, I know you're listening to this. I love you. But like, but like there is a portion issue in our culture. And I do think people think, well, I haven't eaten in eight hours.

54:03So I'm going to eat three sizes, fistfuls of steak because I haven't eaten any in 10 hours. So what about portion size? Do you focus on that? Yeah. I mean, I, I personally am a volume eater. I like to eat a lot. You told me that last time. Yeah. I like to eat a lot. And, and I think that the way that that has become something sustainable for me and, you And I'm able to do that without having to think about calories and to portion control all that much is to focus really on the foods that I know are going to be satiating so that I can feel full but still not have over consumed my daily calorie needs.

54:43And the way to do that is to focus really on whole minimally processed food. So you can eat a lot. You can eat a huge volume of food and not consume at the end of the day all that many calories in doing so. I mean, that's the problem with ultra processed foods is that by the time you've eaten those kinds of foods to satiety, you've already over consumed them. Yes. These are the foods like pastas and rolls and breads and cakes and fried foods and chicken dishes like, you know, lasagnas and things like that. But it's the it's the minimally processed foods that allow you to feel like you're eating a lot when in reality you're actually not eating that much because they're just they're just that satiating.

55:21Okay. And so, yeah, I mean, I've done on my Instagram to like side by side depictions where, you know, if you look at the calorie density of your average fast food. This is really good right here. You guys have seen you do this. Go ahead. Yeah. Like the French fries and the soda and the Big Mac. It fits within like, I mean, you can you can basically in two handfuls hold all of that food in two hands. And that's for the most part, it's like 1500 calories worth of food right there. And just you're holding it in two hands. Right. But if you look at foods like wild salmon, fresh vegetables, dark leafy greens, whole fruits, eggs, and stuff like that, the calorie density is way lower for those foods.

56:03Calorie density, there you go. Yeah, the calorie density is lower, but the volume is way higher. Okay. And so volume is one of those things that like, you know, it's really hard from the standpoint, like, look at, look at like any animal, like when left to their own devices, when allowed to eat ad libitum, which, which is a scientific way of saying to, to allow an animal to eat all the, you know, everything that they want. They don't stop. They don't pump the brakes. They have no self, they have no reason to self-regulate the way that we do. Right. But when an animal is eating its biologically appropriate diet, it knows when to stop naturally.

56:39Right. An animal's MO isn't to eat itself to a state of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Very true. So I think that the reason why so many of us struggle with overeating is because it's the food environment. It's not that there's anything wrong with us. I think a lot of people feel like there's a moral failure when they can't regulate their appetites, when they just find themselves eating too much chronically. But it's the foods. It's the ultra-processed junk foods. And it's not even junk foods. It's fast food. it's sugar sweetened beverages and it's not even just food to be honest it's it's our lifestyles you know when you are underslept the next day you're inclined to eat 400 more calories than if you were well slept so it's it's all these factors yeah all these factors come into play and um and so yeah i think that like moderating and trying to like shrink your portion size is one of the reasons why diets fail again and again because you can't just shrink your portion size and expect that to be a sustainable thing for you people want to be able to eat and feel full by the way that What you just said, for those of you that have some guilt about not eating healthy, ask yourself about your satiation level when you're eating, right?

57:44I'm just going through things you've said today. The amount of fiber intake so that you're feeling more full also. Your water intake so that you're feeling more full. And just give yourself a break about that. Maybe it's not the amount of food you're eating but the types of foods you're eating so that you feel fuller sooner. The other little thing I thought about, I'd eat fast. I eat too fast. You said this earlier. It's one of my takeaways for our conversation today. So one i'm losing the benefit of some of that combination of circumstances that causes these Healthy toxins in my body when i'm eating but also the fact that it's not even giving myself time to signal the fact that i'm full Yeah, oftentimes i'm just i'm I do everything fast.

58:19I talk fast. I drive fast I walk fast and I think sometimes our personality dictates even the way we eat And I think it's smart to step back and go. Let me enjoy The flavor of the food. Let me enjoy the meal to some extent. Let me enjoy the conversation It's not a, I think sometimes I'm always in the contest to be first. I don't know if anybody can relate to that. I gotta be the first one finished, first one to order, first one finished for, which is not just insanely stupid thing, but yet I do it when I eat. And I think when I overeat or when I have digestion issues or fatigue after a meal, oftentimes it's not the food I ate.

58:52Sometimes for me, it's just how fast I ate it in some cases. And so I really appreciate you saying, okay, last question. Oh man. Well, there's so many more. I've got 3 ,000 more questions I wanted to get to, but the depth of your answers are so awesome, bro. I love talking to you. I love talking to you, and I want to keep doing it. By the way, guys, I just say this about Max. There's not someone else like him. So follow his stuff. Check out his YouTube. Listen to his podcast. Get Genius Food. Get the book. Get it. So just an in-general question. We've covered a whole bunch of stuff today. We missed something.

59:22We missed a lot of things. But if someone's listening, they go, you know what, man? I'm going to start to pay more attention to how I'm eating. what I'm eating, how I'm eating. Other than what we've covered here today, what would be one more layered thing you'd say? And by the way, don't forget this, either in preparation or the type of food or anything like that, that you would throw in that I didn't ask you that they should just know before I let you go. Oh man. Well, I, a topic that I'm really passionate about is our, our almost constant exposure to environmental toxins. So industrially created compounds that have saturated the food supply that we are unwittingly ingesting on a day-to-day basis that's compromising our health.

1:00:02So compounds like bisphenol A or BPA, endocrine disruptors, like phthalates in our food supply or PFAS chemicals. I would say that getting your food right is super important and probably going to be the lowest hanging fruit for most people. But I also think that people should start to at least gain a sense of awareness about where their food is coming from and to reduce their reliance on foods that come in plastic packages and to minimize their storing of food in plastic packages and certainly the reheating of food in plastic packages. So this is a big problem, like the microwaving of food in plastics, purchasing of sandwiches and other food products in oil-proof paper, wrapped in oil-proof paper.

1:00:44All of these situations increase our exposure to compounds that mess with our hormones. The system of chemicals in our body that guide everything from neurodevelopment to sexual function to where we store our body fat. So becoming aware of where your food is coming from. I mean, there's a study that came out just, I think it was late 2021, that found that fast food was just rife with phthalates. Phthalates are known endocrine disruptors. And so if you're eating a food product that just try to visualize where, you know, how it arrived in your hands, if it had to flow through a Byzantine network of plastic tubing, right, to make it into your food supply to make it into onto your plate, then it's probably something that you should minimize your consumption of.

1:01:36If it's a piece of, you know, and just compare it to a sliced piece of fresh meat or a whole chicken that you roast yourself, for example, it's a lot different. Or, you know, produce that you grab from the supermarket and put in a bag yourself. I mean, that's completely different. But, you know, so many of us today, we're consuming foods in packaging and we think that the packaging is inert, but it's actually not. Under certain circumstances, the chemical constituents of the packaging are able to leach into the food that we're eating. And it screws with us. It affects everything from insulin sensitivity to our predilection for weight gain.

1:02:11So I think, yeah. And I offer some tips in Genius Kitchen to help minimize one's exposure to these kinds of toxic chemicals, which I think is a really important layer that we need to be talking about more.

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1:03:11Uh, Lemu? Is that guy with the binoculars watching us? Cut the camera. They see us. Only pay for what you need at LibertyMutual.com. Liberty, Liberty, Liberty, Liberty. Savings vary. Underwritten by Liberty Mutual Insurance Company and affiliates. Excludes Massachusetts. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes now on to our next guest I got her right next to me everybody this is Paige Hathaway first things first Mike and Nico I don't want to know this they want to know what is the best exercise to build your butt so what like and I know a lot of the ladies are like you're watching this too like give me one exercise one tip from watching this that builds your booty the best what would it if you had to give me one what would it be?

1:03:57One, only one. Okay, you can give me three if you want, but just throw me some. I mean, if I had to do one, it'd probably be something that targets the glutes more like a hip thrust or something like that. Okay, what about squats? Are they good for that or do you not do squats? I do do squats. You do? I do do squats. Yes, I do do squats, but yeah, I mean, it's not the best to target your glutes, but it's a great lower body exercise. I mean, actually all over, but. So give me one more. What's one more great booty building exercise? guys? I mean, I don't want to say like stuff that's going to like for guys because like I was kidding for them.

1:04:29It's really a question for the ladies. They look like they have good glutes. So I don't know. I'm not going there and I totally disagree. Probably something like the Bulgarian split squat would be a really good one. So if you're going to want to build your glutes, the hip thrusters and the Bulgarian split squat too. And they can Google what that is if they don't know what that is right now. Or you can show them after this we'll show i'll do you some bulgarian split squats those are a major part of my routine as you can all tell from looking at me so okay so in all in all seriousness though about your fitness routine you can look like this and not be a complete crazy person about your diet so i was watching something where you were talking about there was a stage of your life where like your diet and your cardio was just cray cray right yeah so talk about what that was like because if you're really going to compete in a show yeah there is this level people ask me like at my age like why Why don't you try to go, you know, I don't want to diet like that.

1:05:20I just don't. Like, I like wine and things other than chicken, you know, like sometimes. So, like, you recommend what diet-wise for people, and even in your own case, you're shredded, you're very, I mean, obviously crazy fit, but you also kind of, you don't do cardio nine days a week and for three hours. And so, take them a little bit through what you do and what you would recommend or you think is at least passable. Of course. So, I used to be super 100, like I said, I'm a 100 % in and 100 % out type of person. And so I used to not like I used to eat like 10 foods. I used to cardio every single day, workout every single day for at least like two hours.

1:05:57Like I was just I mean, when you hit when you get competing, I feel like you get in this competing mode where you just like, I don't know. It's it's something that now that I look back and I'm like, how did I do that? But now, I mean, I believe in more of like an 80 20. So 80 percent clean, 20 percent live your life. Like when I was competing and 100 % in like that type of mentality, I didn't go to family functions. I didn't go to birthdays. I didn't like, I secluded myself. So it wasn't even good for me like mentally because I wasn't around people. I was like, oh, I can't go to that because I might, you know, cheat or I might, then I'm going to feel bad.

1:06:32And then I'm going to have to do cardio. It's just like a downward spiral. And you can't live your life like that. So, I mean, I just, I eat clean 80 % of the time, 20%. And if I'm going somewhere, if I want something, I'm going to have it. I'm just not going to, like, overly indulge in it. You know, moderation is key. Don't beat yourself up about it. Don't go on the StairMaster for an extra hour. Right. But now I'm actually pescatarian. I don't know if you know that. But I get my protein from fish and, like, plant-based stuff. And I just do that for my own health reasons that I have had. And it's worked for me.

1:07:10Can I ask you? Do you mean by your own health reason? I mean, your body didn't respond well to eating other meats? Is that what you mean? Yeah. So for as long as I can remember, I just had a digestion issue. And so I was just researching how to naturally help this. And a lot of it came back to red meat. For you. So for me. Yeah, for me. So, you know, I was like, I'm just going to try cutting meat out altogether and see if I can do that. I can't be vegan. I've learned this. I just can't do it. So I did that for a month and I was like, okay, this isn't working for me. So then I went pescatarian and it works well for me and all my digestion issues that I was having completely went away That's wonderful.

1:07:45Yeah, so you know what? I feel like, you know I'm not one to preach about one diet works better than the other There's so many diets out there and so many of them work wonderfully I just think that you need to find something that works best for you and that you can sustain You can sustain because yeah, because one thing it is It's a lifestyle and if you want to be fit and you want to be healthy for us because so many people yo-yo, right? They gain weight, they lose weight, they gain weight, they lose weight. Because to lose weight, they're not doing something that's sustainable. So you just got to find something that you can do long term and that works for you.

1:08:17I'm huge on that too, Paige. Like I love meeting super fit people who go, hey, I'm also like not a robot. Yes. You know, like I eat a cake once a year. You know, I do something. I eat a little spaghetti, right? Definitely. Because I want people that, you know, some of you listen to this are competing and want to compete. And that's different. Now your asparagus, chicken, and some tilapia, and, like, that's it, right? That's going to be your deal. That's great. You know, I was telling him when we were off camera that, like, competing is one of the, I'm so glad I did that. You know what I mean? Really, it's, you know, everyone should do a show.

1:08:49You know, it just kind of, like, tests your, like, inner, you know what I mean? I agree with you. Like, strength that you have. So I'm not saying anything bad about competing because I competed, and I, like, I mean, you guys are amazing. Same here. But yeah, for me, it's just it's not a sustainable lifestyle for me. Isn't it cool, though, for people watching this that one of the fittest women that is on the circling planet right now is telling you, hey, I have some fun with my food, too. Right. Like what a great thing to know. Now, for an average person watching this, what would you tell them about doing their cardio?

1:09:21You know, I like HIIT cardio best if you're trying to really tone up. What does that mean? Just high intense interval training. but so you're not doing this like rigorous one hour of cardio you're doing you know 20 to 30 minutes hit cardio yeah me too yeah by the way so if you don't know that you can google interval training because for me cardio is something i want to get over with unfortunately that's just me it's not for all of you and so the if i can get the best bang for my buck so to speak it's interval training something i'm exactly the same way and for me i heard you talk about one time before this change you had moved from doing cardio like two hours six days a week to like a couple days a week is what you're basically doing right yeah and I was doing that and you know what if I if I need to like dial in for something like a shoot or something I'll hop on there and do some training or on my leg days even some upper body days I'll put in those like plyos to make my rest more minimal to you know up that high intense training in between my lifts so all these stuff like that one of the things I like that you do on your website you want to talk about this for a minute too is that there's different ways to do your contest or your training for a show meaning there's all kinds of and you do this on your site but you can just do your own contest with you and a transformation for 90 days or 30 days too right it doesn't have to be some bikini show or bodybuilding show but you could say look i'm starting to train right now i'm six feet tall 240 and i want to transform my body over the next 90 days you do some stuff through your site i noticed like that too where you kind of mentor people where they can send you we'll talk about that a little bit for the average person listening to too they can do their own contest right yeah yeah so i do that um online it's just that you know i know that like a lot of people you know going to a trainer can be expensive you know you're paying 40 50 60 80 100 um a session and that can be expensive so i just do something where it holds more accountability online where you can like check in and um i give out i even give out prize money just because, yeah, because 10 ,000 bucks, because, you know, online training can be super, it's hard to stay accountable, you know, it's so hard, you don't go into a trainer, you don't check in, you don't like hear, see me, so I wanted to keep people accountable, and that's, they could do that literally through you if they chose to, you also talked about on your site real quick, different body types too, like not everybody trains the same way, so can they get some access to help from you on that through your site?

1:11:48Yeah. My site's just pagehalfway.com, and you can email me there. You respond to everybody, right? Yeah, yeah. It just blows my mind. So they can do that through your site, right? They can go to your site and get that kind of information too. Yeah, they can email me directly. Okay, and you told me you respond to a lot of this stuff yourself too, right? Yes, even with Instagram. You know, a lot of people are like, do you comment back to people yourself? I'm like, yes, I comment back to people. I reply to people's DMs. I try to. It's unbelievable that you do that. Okay, so a few more things. We don't have too much time left.

1:12:15So overall, if someone was to ask you for just in general, I want to get more fit, what would you say to somebody? Like, here's where I'd start. This is my general advice to you about getting fit. What would you tell them? You know, if someone's not like they don't have a healthy lifestyle or they, you know, they're trying their best to get into it, I would just ease into it. You know, I'm a 100 percent, 100 percent out kind of person, but a lot of people don't have that mentality. So my best piece of advice is take a day at a time. I would, honestly, I would just take, you know, half the week, eat healthy.

1:12:50And then half the week, live what you're doing. And just every day, take a day out and start implementing that healthy lifestyle. I would just do it like a day at a time. Because a lot of people, it is really hard for them. So you want to make it a routine, right? Because a routine is what's going to help you stay on track. and a lot of people can't do the cold turkey type of things. So I would just take it a day at a time, start with one day, start with two days, start with three days, and then make it a lifestyle. Well, I agree a million percent. I'm not as fit as you, but I 100 % agree. That has to be something you're going to maintain.

1:13:28It's so sad for me when I'm in the gym in January and it's packed with all these people with their hopes and ambitions and New Year's resolutions. And then by like February 1st, it's back to the same people again. Everyone's gone because what they started to do wasn't sustainable. So I 100 ,000 % agree. I have a very special man with me here today. Max Lugavere, welcome to the Max Out Show with Ed Milad. Great to have you. Great to be here. And what an appropriate name. I mean, I feel like we're really going to max out today. We are. We're going to max it. My family's prone to both. So there's dementia in my family and there's heart disease in my family.

1:14:03And so, you know, these things matter to me. But when it comes to the, I cut you off there. I apologize. I didn't know you're going to keep going. But is that also true in the brain? Do plaques accumulate in the brain as well, in the vascular areas of the brain? Or is that the neck? Or how does it impact the brain? Well, so the same kinds of vascular problems that you can have anywhere in the body, you can have in the microvasculature that feeds blood and nutrients to the brain. So that's where you can start to have a problem from a vascular standpoint. The amyloid plaques and tau tangles that you're referring to, it's sort of a different machinery there, different mechanism.

1:14:46But nonetheless, the same problems that are going to cause this backup of LDL particles in the blood, that's going to cause inflammation in your blood vessels, chronically elevated blood sugar, all incredibly damaging to the brain. There's no question about it. It can create inflammation in the brain, can damage the blood vessels going up to the brain. And inflammation in the brain is really what is responsible, I think, for this increase in amyloid beta and the tau tangles that we see. So when we talk about amyloid beta and tau, these are the sort of hallmark proteins that are associated with Alzheimer's disease.

1:15:18There are other forms of dementia. You have vascular dementia, as I mentioned. You have Parkinson's disease dementia. You have Lewy body dementia. So dementia is an umbrella category. and Alzheimer's disease is simply the most common form of dementia. And so because it's the most common form of dementia, that's why there's all this research money that goes into it. And, um, and so amyloid is most closely associated with Alzheimer's disease, but we all generate amyloid in our brains. It all, it tends to increase as we get older. Um, and for a long time, amyloid was thought of as sort of the, you know, the, the analogy that, um, you know, what, what cholesterol is to heart disease, amyloid was to Alzheimer's disease.

1:15:56So that analogy works really well. But the same way that we now know that cholesterol is not necessarily the villain in cardiovascular disease. It's sort of like, you know, it's this molecule that's there at the scene of the crime, certainly, but it's not necessarily the causal player, at least in the early stages. The same thing we're now seeing with amyloid. So amyloid for the longest time, because you could easily open up the brain of a deceased person who had died from Alzheimer's disease. And you see these plaques and tangles in the brain. It was thought that amyloid beta was the cause of Alzheimer's disease.

1:16:31So what do we have to do to get this amyloid out of the brain? But, you know, many, many drug trials later, what we've seen is that drugs that are actually effective at reducing amyloid burden in the brain don't cure the disease. So the question has then become, What are the earliest problems or the earliest biomarkers that are associated with Alzheimer's disease that we can intervene on earlier to prevent this amyloid buildup in the first place? And we know that inflammation in the brain, because the brain doesn't really have an immune system the way that the body does, amyloid seems to be responding to neuroinflammation.

1:17:13We also see that sleep is incredibly important when it comes to keeping the brain clean of these plaques. We know over this, just as of a couple of years ago, there's a newly discovered system in the brain called the glymphatic system, which I think many people are starting to become familiar with, that when you sleep, your brain actually flushes cerebrospinal fluid throughout your brain and cleanses it of these proteins that build up over the course of the day. And the thinking is the more of the protein that there is lingering in your brain, the higher the odds that it can basically clump and form the plaques and tangles that we associated with, uh, that we associate with Alzheimer's disease.

1:17:48So that's why that's where sleep really comes into play as well. Okay. I'm glad you went there. So now we're going to shift into some, thank you, by the way, I'm glad we're going to, we're going to shift into some practical stuff. So practical thing, number one, you need to sleep a bunch. It's healthy for your brain. You don't need to understand why it just is. That's number one. Number two, I want to talk, I want to talk at length. Well, in some detail about you went there earlier and I'm glad we're going to go We're going to talk about what we put in our mouths now. And you said processed foods versus, you know, really healthy, raw, real foods, real meats, real greens, what have you.

1:18:20I eat like a lot of people I bet that listen to the show. If I started to add up how much processed food that I eat in a given day or week, it's pretty scary. I'm talking about protein bars, protein chips, things that I, at least in my mind, I think are healthy because they're getting me protein, low calorie, really quick, tastes pretty good. it's a snack, but I mean, I, I ate a ton of processed food. Why is that bad compared to eating what you, I don't know what you would call it, real food every single day? Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's important to make the distinction, right? Like processed food sort of has this really negative connotation associated with it, especially these days.

1:18:58But when you cook your food, you're processing it. So it's not, it's not necessarily that processing is like this, this evil, this evil thing. It's, it's the ultra process. It's when food has just become so pulverized and removed from its natural form that it's hardly recognizable from its original form. You know, when you take a steak or something or a piece of like raw meat and you cook it in your pan, you're processing it. When you put, you know, whole foods in a blender, you're processing that food. The problem with ultra processing, which is what, you know, the food industry does is it creates foods that are what are called what food scientists refer to as hyper palatable.

1:19:34It becomes really difficult to moderate your consumption of those foods. These foods are designed to be over consumed. And by the time you've reached satiety, when eating these foods, you've already over consumed them. You've already. Yeah. They've shown this actually recently, there was a national institutes of health study led by an obesity, obesity researcher named Kevin Hall, you can look up the study that found that when people were given an ultra processed diet, um, to consume ad libitum, meaning like you were able to eat whatever you wanted until you reached a point of satiety, they ended up eating a 500 calorie, um, surplus every single day.

1:20:10Wow. When, you know, when just eating to feel full, which is something that every human being wants to feel right when, when eating food, I mean, it's like, uh, it's a privilege and great thing to be able to feel full. And it's something that we all want, um, when we're, when we're eating they in the crossover trial what they then did was that they gave the same subjects access to a minimally processed diet and to the same degree of satiety so so eating also until they were full and satiated they ended up eating at a calorie deficit of 300 you know 300 something calories yeah so i mean that ultra processed food diet which by the way today is how most people are eating most of the time 60 of the calories that we consume today come from ultra processed foods that right there explains the obesity epidemic, you know, because, because we're, we're just constantly in proximity to these ultra processed foods where it's really difficult to pump the brakes on them.

1:21:02We end up over consuming them. And, and the other problem with these foods is that they're minimally nutritious. So not only are we walking around, you know, with ever expanding waistlines, one in two people by the year 2030 are going to be not just overweight, but obese. and half of us are either type 2 diabetic or pre-diabetic, 90 % of us are deficient in at least one essential nutrient. So we're overfed and we're undernourished. And when you put those two features together, that's why you're seeing accelerated aging. You're seeing, I think, just unprecedented rates of cardiovascular disease, of certain cancers and of dementia.

1:21:43I mean, because the brain partakes in, you know, whatever's going awry in the body, the brain suffers the consequences of that as well. And these ultra processed foods, is there an ingredient or two that must be avoided? Like, hey, this is really toxic and bad for your body. When we're looking at the list of ingredients in something, chemicals in there, is there one or two that are just no-nos? Well, I love that you asked that question, really getting practical. practical. I think that the, that the, that the kinds of ingredients you really want to watch out for are refined grains. So that's one and a refined grain and seed oils.

1:22:18So refined grains, you know, the wheat flour, the rice flour, um, the, you know, the corn flour. I mean, I'm not dogmatic in my approach. Eating a piece, eating a piece of a whole corn on the cob is one of my favorite things to eat in the summer. You know, I eat white rice on my sushi. Like I'm not dogmatic about like, you know, grains are the devil or anything like that. But in these ultra processed foods, I think refined grains really are problematic. I'll give you another reason why actually, just because it's, because it's interesting when you eat, say you eat a handful of whole nuts, right.

1:22:52And you look at the calories in, you know, on the back of the nut package or whatever, and you see whatever, we'll just say it's 500 calories of worth of whole nuts. You're actually only absorbing about 70 % of those calories because, you know, when you chew whole nuts, the particles are too big to be fully digested. It's a whole food. You actually end up pooping out a significant amount of those calories. When you eat pulverized wheat, corn, rice flour in these ultra processed foods, you're absorbing 100 % of those calories. Not only that, not only that so i mean a calorie is not really a calorie when it comes to nutrition facts labels not only that but those calories get absorbed really rapidly and really high up in the small intestine so it basically sends your blood sugar through the roof before your body really even has an ability to you know you're still eating while your body is like you know what do we do with this sudden you know influx of of sugar essentially so i think it's it's important to avoid foods that are based predominantly on those on those kinds of grains very very Very interesting.

1:24:00So a couple of things on going in our mouths again. I've heard you talk about baby broccoli or broccoli sprouts. And this is like, some people think this is splitting hairs, but it's not. I don't understand like, is it like sulfateen or the NRF2 pathways, whatever the heck it is, but I know a little bit, right? Why is baby broccoli or broccoli sprouts way better than like broccoli in particular? Why eat that? That's a good question. So when you chew broccoli sprouts or any cruciferous vegetable, you basically break apart the cell walls where two chemicals that are kept in isolation in the plants unite in your mouth to create a new compound.

1:24:43And that compound, in the case of cruciferous vegetables, is called sulforaphane. And sulforaphane, So, yeah, it's considered an insect, like an insecticide, a natural insecticide that plants create, right? Because plants can't, you know, tooth and nail their way out of, you know, out of being eaten, right? So what they do is they practice chemical warfare. And so they create these compounds that if you were a smaller critter, maybe an insect, a mouse, a mold, the compound would make you sick. And so, you know, when a mouse gnaws on these plants, it creates these compounds. You know, sulforaphane is just one of them, but there's, you know, I mean, the plant kingdom is just full of these like natural defense chemicals.

1:25:30chemicals. What we see is that sulforaphane in somebody like you or me, you know, a big, robust organism actually has a number of beneficial and protective effects via a mechanism called hormesis. So hormesis is when you consume a plant compound. And, you know, if you were to consume a lot of it, it would be toxic, but in small doses, it actually has a beneficial effect, sort of like a counterintuitive beneficial effect. Cause here we have this toxic chemical, but in small doses, it's actually good for you. The same thing actually applies to exercise. You know, you could exercise enough where it would kill you, right?

1:26:03It's a stressor on the body, but in small doses exercise actually makes you more robust, more resilient. We can, you know, sing the praises about exercise, you know, for hours. Um, but sulforaphane is great because it's been shown to increase levels of a compound in the body called glutathione, which is the, yeah, it's the body's master detoxifier, master antioxidant. Um, So it's being studied now as a means of, you know, it's cancer protective effects. It's also been suggested in a small clinical trial, I believe, to reduce symptoms of autism. So for anybody that has that in the family, I think it's worth looking into.

1:26:45You know, it's just one of the many benefits of eating a varied diet that includes cruciferous vegetables. Okay. Glutathione. I love glutathione. So I can't explain this. I'd like you to explain it to me. so I do some I haven't done it in a while just because of COVID but with all my traveling and I get depleted I do IV therapy even just sometime to get hydrated I'll take IV hydration one I'd like your opinion on that actually two what's your opinion on that am I just peeing it all out or does it help but here's what I know when they put glutathione in my IV something amazing happens to my body there's a calming effect I can feel that I feel B12 when they put it in you know you get all wired.

1:27:26The other stuff I don't really feel for some reason, glutathione. I can feel better actually when it's in my body. So do you recommend someone supplements with it? Why is that happening? Or am I crazy? And what do you feel about IV therapy? Yeah, I don't, I don't really recommend, I don't make the recommendation that people supplement with glutathione. I mean, I have gluten, I take sometimes liposomal glutathione supplements, But I, you know, I'm not, I really am pretty convinced that, you know, supplements should be used very diligently and deliberately based on your diet and your specific, you know, deficiencies and, you know, even in some cases genes.

1:28:10But no, I don't, I generally don't recommend that people supplement with it. I just don't think that you need to if you're eating a diet that is supplying the raw materials for your own, your body's own glutathione synthesis. synthesis. So sulfur containing amino acids is very important. Grass-fed beef, eggs, things like that. You know, anything with sulfur in it is actually going to be really good for you. Sulfur is a rate limiting, you know, element in the synthesis of glutathione. And so when you consume, for example, cysteine rich, you know, foods, you're going to basically be supplying that.

1:28:44Also glycine. Glycine is really important. So it's one of the reasons why I think collagen is worth consuming. And collagen is actually a supplement that I think is worth looking into because we don't tend to eat a lot of collagenous tissues at this point. Can you stay on that? You don't think that you break down those supplements in your stomach and you're never getting any benefit to taking something like, I've had other people tell me, hey, you're taking a collagen supplement. You're not getting any of it. It's destroyed before it gets to you. Yeah, you do break it down. So it's not a one-to-one.

1:29:11It's not like you consume collagen and it becomes collagen in your joints, but you are increasing your supply of glycine which we don't consume enough of. Your average person consumes about two grams of glycine every single day. And you create in your body another two grams of glycine. And that is why glycine is actually not considered an essential amino acid because we create it to some degree. But I don't think that we create enough for optimal health, especially today when we consume lots of muscle meat. And the reason for that is, uh, so there have been research calculations that, that speculate that we need about 15 grams of, it depends on, you know, your weight and what, what you're eating, but about 15 grams of glycine a day.

1:29:59Um, and that our needs for glycine increase with higher, uh, consumption of another amino acid, methionine, which is more present in muscle meat. Um, Um, and we, we use, uh, we use glycine to create, um, collagen. So by not, by not consuming adequate glycine, again, we only ingest about, uh, two grams of every single day. Um, you might be actually limiting your body's ability to create, to create collagen and collagen is super important. I mean, it's important for, um, I mean, it's, it's like the most abundant protein in the body and it, and production of it declines as we get older. It's important for the health of your, you know, your veins, your arteries.

1:30:43So, so yeah, it's one of those things that I think if you're not eating collagionous tissue in animal products, I think it's worth supplementing with. Okay. By the way, thank you. I told everybody in the beginning to be like feverishly writing notes. The cool thing about this show is they listen to it in their car. Like, all right, well, I'm going to listen to it. I got to go all the way back and get a notepad out and start writing all this stuff down. So I really appreciate it. Um, and, and for me, you know, I'm a, I'd say I'm borderline obsessed with my own health just because there is dementia in my family.

1:31:10Uh, I, the, I don't know that frankly, it's so long back. I don't know if it was dementia, you know, a particular form of dementia, Alzheimer's specifically, but it's there and certainly heart disease as well. And I liked that. You're telling us some of these markers that we can test for. This is the Ed Myron Show.