The Truth About Wearable Fitness Trackers, Protein Controversy, & the Biggest Sleep Mistakes to Avoid

23:09Shawn Stevenson:I'll have a cup of Reishi, like 45 minutes before bed. Really? Yeah. That helps. But especially if I'm traveling and if I'm wanting to get a reset, I'll have some reishi tea before bed. And I'll blend it with a little bit of fat as well, just a little, because again, it kind of helps to bind with certain nutrients, with the digestion. So maybe this is like some ghee, you know? Really? Yeah, yeah, just a little bit of ghee, maybe a little bit of some stevia or something just to make it a little sweet. But yeah, but I mean, it's earthy. Nobody said reishi is delicious. Yeah, I know, but it's - You know what I'm saying?

23:45But it works. Yeah, it does work.

23:47Shawn Stevenson:People who are about that sleep life have been doing something for years because it just flat out works. It creates a notable improvement to our sleep quality. Multiple studies, including a study that was cited in the Journal of Applied Physiology, suggest that blue light from our devices is especially powerful at suppressing our melatonin production. Now, obviously, we can pull the plug on these things. We could turn off our devices. We could sit them down. We could sit them down, but it's very difficult to do those things in our modern reality and it is what it is. So most of us are going to be interacting with our tech devices, our screens, whether this is television, our laptops, our smartphones in the evenings.

24:32Shawn Stevenson:And one of the ways that again, people that are really about that sleep life, they've been utilizing for years is utilizing some blue light blocking glasses. Now this is super important because the technology has come so far. Most brands of blue light blocking glasses do not block blue light efficiently and they're not actually lab tested to be effective and they don't block other known spectrums of light that have been proven to disrupt our sleep quality like green light for example. That's why I utilize the blue light blocking glasses from Bond Charge. They're scientifically engineered to block out 100 % of melatonin disrupting blue and green light for improved sleep and regulated circadian rhythms.

25:15Shawn Stevenson:These glasses are FDA registered and proven to be effective. And right now you can get 15 % off when you go to bondcharge.com forward slash model and use the code model again, 15 % off that's bondcharge.com forward slash model b-o-n-c-h-a-r-g-e dot com forward slash model use the code model at checkout for 15 % off they've got all kinds of stylus frames get the ones that you vibe with you're gonna look good you're gonna improve your sleep quality and again this technology has come so far they've got all the science there as well if you want to look into that but head over there check them out.

26:02Shawn Stevenson:Take advantage of the discount, 15 % off. Go to bondcharge.com forward slash model. And now back to the show. Because I feel like it's not so much for people and myself. It's not about falling asleep. It's about staying asleep. Do you have any recommendations for how people could actually stay asleep? Because that's the biggest problem I feel that's happening, especially in middle middle age yes so number one we have to we have to move away from adding so much morality to you sleep through the night like you're doing everything right right we have sufficient documentation of people centuries ago waking up basically having two who sleeps, you know, waking up after a certain amount of hours, maybe, you know, having a little snack, maybe having sex, maybe whatever the case might be.

27:02Shawn Stevenson:And then they go to sleep again. But this is a time, again, we didn't have artificial lights. So you're not getting on your phone. It's still dark and it's not safe to be out rummaging around. So you get the rest of your sleep that your body might be looking for. So this doesn't have to be this black or white. Like the reason that we might wake up, which we wake up, we act, all of us wake up, but we're just unaware of it because we're going through our sleep cycles, right? Going through the different state quote stages of sleep. Right. And so there are times when we're at, we have very light sleep where we're kind of out, we can wake up, maybe we move around or whatever.

27:41Shawn Stevenson:And then we just drift back into the, you know, into our sleep. But some people have a more pronounced waking up when moving through those stages. And today, unfortunately, we start doing shit. Maybe we look at our phone or we look at the clock and we're like, oh, shit, I have two hours left. Like, oh, my God. And we start stressing about it. And that is just... It's so unnecessary because you are okay. If you just slept for, you know, five hours and you still had two hours, maybe your body is just ready to get up and that's okay. But a big reason, if this is kind of chronic, and you are seeing the negative side effects, it has a lot to do with cortisol spikes.

28:27Shawn Stevenson:All right, so again, the rhythm, you might be getting some inappropriate release of certain hormones. And it's not all, cortisol is not bad, by the way. But maybe it's just like you're getting a certain spike. And this could be based on when you're eating before bed. Maybe you ate something close to your bedtime or maybe you didn't, maybe you ate too far away from your bedtime and that's not appropriate for you. Because, you know, now it's like, don't eat two hours before you go to bed or three hours or... You know, three hours is the main thing people talk about. That's great for most people, actually.

29:02Shawn Stevenson:For some people, their blood sugar goes too low... Right. ...while they're sleeping. And that can pull you... You'll get an adrenaline boost spike and it can wake you up. And so... Or again, it could be... For most people today, what it really boils down to is we're creating disruption with our natural rhythms because of our devices. And so being on your screen right before bed, watch television, your phone, whatever, we know we need a little bit of time to help our... There are multiple studies on this now. When I shared this almost 15 years ago, it was kind of like, what? Yes, so we know that that's the case.

29:44If we do wake up, just don't get on your phone.

29:49Shawn Stevenson:You could do some breathing exercises, do some breath work. That phone, though, you're right. It just, then there's no way you're going back to bed. But why is it because we're doom scrolling and the blue light and all the things? Would you say - It's fortifying that interruption in your normal rhythm. Right. Oh, yeah. So now, again, you might take a couple of nights off and not get on your phone. and like struggle, your body has to have time to get everything synced up again because our brains are always looking to automate, always. And so this is why it's so important to have, you know, to try to do stuff around the same time to the best of our ability, especially when we're kind of discombobulated.

30:36Shawn Stevenson:So this is why the morning routines and evening routines, they're uber valuable for people who are out of sorts. Yeah. Right? once you have some pretty good rhythms it's okay and this is a problem with the health community now too is it's like you you can't stay up late you know what i mean for if there's an event like no i gotta and i know this because i've been that guy but like it's okay if there's like this thing you got family in town it's okay oh i think i think everything we've we've taken things to such an extreme that nobody has fun anymore nobody has no one's living life anymore it's all about like Like you're tracking your wearables, tracking your blood glucose, tracking your sleep, tracking this, doing that.

31:19Like everything, we're all walking around as robots and then we die, right? Like, you know what I mean? It's just kind of crazy what's happening. Like, I mean, I was going to actually even ask you, like, do you think these wearables are just making us more obsessive or are they actually helping us at this point?

31:35Shawn Stevenson:you know that's a great question thank you for asking this because again when it comes down to any of these things it is so individual right so situationally dependent when it comes to the wearables this conversation for certain people it's a game changer they gamified gamified it it's helped them to stick to their goals they feel good about it they don't feel a sense of stress around it. For others, they become more neurotic. It's become a source of stress. They're always trying to optimize and they're losing track of themselves. They're losing track of what we've survived with and evolved with, which is paying attention to oneself, the data in the body that you live in, paying attention to how you look, how you feel, how you feel, just paying attention to how you actually feel and how you perform like how are you actually moving through the world like paying attention to these very basic data sets in lieu of well i i'm not going to perform at my best because my my you know fitbit or my whoop is telling me that like i only got a 66 percent sleep score and like that's what well that's basically what's happening right so like the thing is as i'm wearing my aura ring which i only started wearing recently i found it in my i wore it for a bit and i put it away like i did with my whoop and everything else and i'm like oh it's here i'm gonna start wearing it again and i'm like i thought i slept well and then it says to me no you didn't sleep well at all you had 66 and blah blah blah the the thing is like i think it just gives people i i think it gives me personally a little bit more anxiety because now i'm like oh my god maybe i did a sleep well man like it gives you all this more neuroses that was like completely unnecessary like what i remember before fitness and wellness became like a massive you know uh business so to speak i was like i was like working out like 25 years ago doing the same like i do the same boring every single day and like i'm not following the trends and i'm just fine and i don't think that maybe you can you can tell me with all your data points are we healthier now when we're now following every data point and doing every single thing, red light, this and that hyperbaric chamber?

33:57Are we healthier? Are we just more neurotic and stressed out?

34:00Shawn Stevenson:This is such a great question. I didn't even know you was going to ask about this, but right now I'm working with somebody who's published a lot of studies and very prominent researcher, research scientist, and working on putting together a pilot study on this stuff because the data doesn't exist yet. Yeah. And so this is something that I've been actually actively, because I see it. Again, a great example, my wife, she loves tracking her data. She loves it. But she's also very, she has a very lighthearted personality to where it's not, she's not going. A whole life. Right. So it's okay either way, but she likes to know it inspires her.

34:45Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Right? And just so people are aware, I'm the guy. They've sent me this stuff in beta. They've reaching out for me to be an early investor. Like, I know all these guys, but I couldn't wholeheartedly get involved because, again, I know that there is this other side of the equation. All that to say, I don't want to rain on anybody's parade at all. If it is working for you and you feel good about it, that's what matters most. and on the other side you've got to be honest like if it's if it's not good for your mental health because again there's nothing worse for your sleep than creating anxiety about your sleep well a hundred percent the other thing i noticed and i just this is just my observation like pattern recognition or observation is that the ogs like people like me or you who've been doing this stuff for our whole life, basically, because it's embodied in us or in our DNA.

35:48We're not so much about all of that. Every major athlete, by the way, I've spoken to, the top and the best in the world. I ask them questions. They're like, I don't know. I don't track it. Or I don't know. I'm not doing that. Or I don't know. I eat okay. They're not as meticulous and crazy. What I think has happened is it's because it's new and trending and it's become such a multi-billion dollar industry and people who are newer to the game they're using these um these little trinkets so to speak to kind of keep them in the game or to keep them or to get them in the game and it kind of maintains the game for them for accountability but when i think it's people who have like it's so embodied in them it's not as as useful or important you know like there are people watching they have their glucose monitor they're taking their uh blood with the other thing that they have they have the aura they have the the what do you call it the whoops they have like they're they look like mr t they're walking around looking like mr t and i guess for them it makes sense right but you know i don't think i don't think it necessarily makes you any healthier or or i think it's just more of it brings on more psychological like psychological neuroses personally.

37:05Shawn Stevenson:Newsflash, Mr. T did not stand for tech. Yeah, exactly. But again, you know, the, some of my friends and colleagues, like really there, they were, you know, we're balanced. Yeah. You know, like I've been brought into like the, you know, the big biohacking conference to, you know, do a keynote just because I'm bringing more grounded, more grounded energy and science. Like, I don't give a shit if you are doing the, you know, like red lighting your nutsack. If you're not even going for a 10 minute walk each day. Well, that's just like, right? Because you're majoring in the minors at that point. Exactly.

37:42You know, you're majoring in the minors. We're looking for these hacks.

37:44Shawn Stevenson:What are the things your genes expect you to do? Exactly. And once you do some of those things, it is, we need to guide ourselves back to ourselves. We're so externally focused today. Everything is. What would you say is the number one most important wellness habit, though, to kind of keep you on point and kind of, you know, for longevity? What would you say the number one? The data is clear and experientially it is beyond clear. If we want to be honest about this. Yep, go ahead. The number one most influential factor on your longevity, on your health, is your relationships. And it's not even close.

38:29Shawn Stevenson:And I'm a science guy. I love nutrition. I love exercise. I wrote the book on sleep wellness. All those things are massive. But nobody affects my sleep habits more than my wife and my kids. No one affects my exercise habits more than my wife and my kids. No one affects what I eat more than my wife and my kids. And one of my most valuable conversations, and it was really an affirmation, because in a recent project that I did, and actually in my latest book, in the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook, I shared one of the largest studies ever conducted on longevity. and this was done by researchers at Brigham Young University and University of North Carolina.

39:19Shawn Stevenson:And this was a meta-analysis of 148 studies, over 300 ,000 people looking at what are the things that determine how long they were going to live. They looked at smoking, they looked at exercise habits, they looked at beating obesity. The number one thing that determined how long people were going to live was the quality of their relationships. People who had strong social bonds had a 50 % increase in longevity versus people who did not, okay? Said another way, people who have healthy relationships have a 50 % reduction in early death from all causes, all causes, all right? Leading that into my conversation and being able to, again, support, uplift the work of, and to really dissect the data with Dr.

40:16Shawn Stevenson:Robert Waldinger. He is the director of the longest running longitudinal study on human longevity ever conducted out of Harvard. And it's been going on for over 80 years. He's the fourth director. And the reason that we resonate with each other so much is that I tend to be, I'm not going to say side-eye, but I tend to be skeptical about stuff. Yeah. You know? But that also made me a good researcher, right? Yeah. So he came into it with skepticism when he was offered the position. He didn't believe just, like, your relationships impact how long you're going to live more than anything else. So he actually took it upon himself to really go through and fact-check the data, decades worth of data.

41:03Shawn Stevenson:He went to other universities. He went to other research labs. Like, can you confirm this? And he was shocked. It's just like, yeah, it's very, very clear. The number one thing that determines how long you're going to live is the quality of your relationships. And so with this being said, now we get into the conversations and I can ask the guy who has the most data, why? Why? Like, it doesn't make sense. from the data what he shared was the number one in kind of factor that they're able to kind of pinpoint is the impact that our relationships have on stress and you're just like well again now we have this emerging conversation around stress now we have all this data affirming how stress is really us up and a recent analysis was published in the journal the american medical Association, and they affirmed that upwards of 80 % of all physician visits today in the United States have a major stress-related component.

42:07Shawn Stevenson:Up to 80%. But our physicians are not talking about stress. Our messages that we're getting are not talking about stress. Like, what the hell even is it? And so we can maybe drive into that conversation in a moment, but for this particular researcher, Dr. Robert Waldinger, he shared with me that yes, stress is making us wildly unhealthy. Healthy social bonds are a very powerful way, the most powerful way to help us to metabolize stress, to process stress. And I asked why, like, what is it? He's just like, because I would think like, oh, it's talking things out, right? It's cathartic, but it's not even that.

42:51Shawn Stevenson:He shared that it's this overarching feeling or this sense of knowing that somebody cares about you, that somebody has your back, that somebody is there for you at the end of the day, even if you had the most stressful day. Just that sense of knowing in this very uncertain universe, it's arguably the greatest gift. And so keeping that in mind, I asked what creates, what are the ingredients of a quote, healthy relationship or these strong social bonds. I was like, so does this mean like, we'll just use romantic relationships. Does this mean like you guys don't fight a lot? He was like, and I'm just kind of imitating, but he was like, no.

43:35Shawn Stevenson:The people who we studied, and we have them on film, we go and track these people down every year and take their blood work, and we have interviews on camera. People with the healthiest long-term relationships fought like cats and dogs. And, you know, again, I'm just like, really? And he was like, but they have a bedrock of affection. They might, like, nitpick with each other and mess with each other, but they touch a lot. They look at each other. They see each other. They honor each other. And even though they might have conflicts, they know that they are their person. Yeah. You know, they are there for them.

44:15Shawn Stevenson:They have their back. They might have their annoyances, and their grievances and their bickering. But those are not the things that create a healthy relationship. And so I've been investigating for the last few years, like what are those ingredients that do create a healthy relationship? And that's really where my mission is at, where my work is at. Because by the way, I haven't shared this before. So I haven't shared this before in an interview. Yeah. When I talked about our relationships impacting, because I just worked out with my wife today, right? And it is one of the most powerful leverage points that we can use for, because if we struggle to be consistent working out.

45:00Shawn Stevenson:This incredible study was published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, and it tracked the exercise habits of people who worked out with their spouse compared to people who worked out without their spouse. Over the course of a one-year study tracking these people. People who worked out without their spouse dropped out of their exercise plan 43 % of the time. People who worked out with their spouse only dropped out 6 % of the time. Working out with their significant other led to them staying consistent with their exercise. It was six times more effective. All right. So again, it's this huge leverage point.

45:39Shawn Stevenson:And some people are just like, well, I don't have a significant other. They're not into it, whatever. Right, right, right. It's not just the significant other, though. And so this is what I haven't shared as well. So this was published in Health Behavior Research, looking at group exercise training to boost exercise compliance and consistency. They found that people who were signed up and engaged in group exercise were up to 97 % more compliant and consistent in exercise over the course of an 11-week study. And that's like otherworldly, 97 % showing up and compliant. And many people have experienced this, you know, the CrossFit movement, for example, or, you know, just their group exercise that they just have to go, whether it's the people there, the teacher, the energy in the room, just not being alone and doing stuff together with a group.

46:33Shawn Stevenson:That's how we evolve. And so it's an epigenetic influence to utilize. So again, it's these relationships. And I could do this for sleep. I could do this for exercise. Again, I could do this for our nutrition. Of course, that's really where the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook was really devoted to, was the impact that our relationships have on our nutrition. And it's crazy. A hundred percent. Well, that's why also lifestyle is so important. I feel like that's why when you're looking for someone, a spouse, it's good to all these things that make the most, the biggest dent is finding someone who you're like-minded, who wants to do these things with you.

47:14for all these reasons that we just talked about, right? That will be your biggest lever point, I think, in staying healthy, happy, and also living the longest. What do you think about, and actually, let me ask you this question because you've been doing this for so long. What would you say is the most popular question or that people ask you about the most? Would it be sleep? Would it be fat loss? what would it be the most popular area? Yeah, it's fat loss. Fat loss, right? Yeah. Still, was that always the way? I think that has always stayed the same, right?

47:54Shawn Stevenson:That's the concern for most people if they're being honest. Honest, right? Because people work out. You can say you're doing it for your health and longevity, which I think is true to some degree. But the biggest driving force is vanity. Wouldn't you say? Yeah. I mean, again, it's okay. Not a bad thing. It's the framing of it. I know. I mean, it's fine. And all these ripple effects happen from it. Nobody's waking up like, I want to look terrible today. No, of course. You know what I mean? And so I find that to be an inroads. It's a gateway drug. Yeah. Yeah, it's a gateway drug. And so, you know, it's a superficial thing.

48:31Shawn Stevenson:But also our outer appearance, so much of our outer world is created by our inner world. Right? But there are people who are superficially attractive or look fit who are wildly unhealthy. Very much so. And I definitely fell into that camp when I was in college, for sure. I looked very fit, but I was not healthy. And also, again, that's a great inroads, but the things that we're talking about are actually the way to get there. Like sleep, for example. I mean, again, this was one of the biggest leverages that I used to get the message across. Part of the reason a sleep wellness book hadn't done well previously was that it was lacking sexiness to be a thousand.

49:18Shawn Stevenson:Like, I made it sexy specifically by connecting it to fat loss. And so scientists at the University of Chicago put people into, it was a ward study. So they're actually like in ward conditions, controlled conditions, where they're not leaving to go to McDonald's. or they're actually in this kind of clinical setting, living there. And looking at the impact that their sleep habits had on fat loss. And so, and this is a crossover study. So not only is this like a controlled trial, they're having test subjects that go through both conditions. One condition being the sleep condition where they're getting adequate sleep.

50:00Shawn Stevenson:In this case, they got to sleep for eight and a half hours. And then there's the sleep deprivation condition where they sleep deprived them. Now they're only getting five and a half hours of sleep at night. After compiling all the, and by the way, same exact diet. They're eating the same amount of calories, same macronutrients, all that stuff. The only difference is one phase of the study, they sleep deprived them. In this study, after compiling all of the data, when people were well-rested, getting adequate sleep, they lost 55 % more body fat. Wow. Okay? And again, I want to stress this, body fat, not weight.

50:41Shawn Stevenson:Because the weight actually, they lost a pretty similar amount of weight in the different conditions because they were on a calorie-restricted diet. You can lose weight, yes. Where's that weight coming from? And so when they were sleep-deprived, their body shifted. There was like a metabolic shift to using more of their muscle mass, burning it off in this weight loss process. Wow. So their body composition changed. Yes. Yes. That's how powerful our sleep is. Because that sleep deprivation, this can be a signal for many things. One of the things it's signaling is a threat. It is a threat. It's a threat to our survival.

51:25Shawn Stevenson:My human is sleep depriving themselves because there must be danger around. That's true. And we want to keep this fat. We can live off this fat. This muscle mass is burning off too many calories. We need to slow our metabolism down because there's obviously a threat around. We're not sleeping enough and we can slow burn this body fat. We're going to work to keep that on, right? That's crazy. That's a big amount. That is not, that's no joke. Well, I know also your appetite for me, if I'm not sleeping, I will eat double the calories because I'm just so much hungrier or my inhibitions go down. Both probably.

52:03Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. Right. So we have the kind of black and white weight loss numbers, but then we also have data on there's a major shift with leptin when we are sleep deprived. Higher, greater increase in ghrelin, which is kind of our glorified hunger hormone. We have many that drive us to eat. We have many that work to kind of quench that appetite, by the way. You know, GLP-1 is something we naturally produce. Leptin and CCK, adiponectin. It isn't just this one. Because again, when I was in school, we did have leptin, ghrelin. Yeah, right. Just these two. But we know that sleep, our sleep quality impacts all that stuff.

52:45You just said a word that I was going to ask you about. Sleep quality versus sleep quantity.

52:50Shawn Stevenson:Yes. yeah what do you say that was a big part of the sleep wellness conversation that i was very passionate about ushering in and changing because even today like i just had a conversation with somebody a couple days ago and they're like so do you do get like you get eight hours of sleep though right seven to eight right i'm just like let's pump your brakes yeah it's okay it's like it's not about that like the quality of the sleep that you're getting you can be in bed or even passed out for eight hours, but wake up feeling like shit and have low energy, it's the quality of those sleep minutes.

53:27Shawn Stevenson:And I liken it to calories, right? The calories, all calories are not the same. The quality of those calories do make a difference. That's such a good point. That's a great analogy. Because, well, I've got a couple of questions on that. First of all, just to finish the sleep part, because I just want to finish it. But is there an amount of REM sleep people get, deep sleep? If you're sleeping a six-hour window, should they be getting an hour? What's normal? What's a normal amount of REM sleep to have? After doing this work this long? Yeah. There is no such thing? Yeah. It depends. It depends on you.

54:08It depends on your needs. Okay, fair.

54:10Shawn Stevenson:If you are training for a final exam versus training for a marathon versus just stress with kids versus like the amount of time that you're going to your body knows what to do. And it's going to be different. It can be different from night to night. Of course, there are going to be patterns. Right. But there isn't any black or white. You should be getting 20 percent this, 40 percent that. It's just it's not like that. So you think, okay, so then if that's the case, if it's more like quality of sleep, you're saying something about... The main thing is efficiency. What I was going to say is you gave the analogy of like calories in, calories out.

54:50Shawn Stevenson:Yes. So that's still a huge argument though, right? There's like literally half the people say calories in like versus calories out. And there's another group that says, no, it's the quality of the calories. You're obviously saying it's about, it's not about the calories in, calories out. Like if I were to have 500 calories of like a Mars bar and french fries, it's not the same of having like a chicken breast. And people still talk about this. Yes. Here's the thing. It's usually coming from people who found success with managing their calories. It's usually coming from people who are inexperienced.

55:28It's usually coming from people who haven't helped a lot of other people with their system.

55:34Shawn Stevenson:Okay. And also, it is a valuable metric. Let me be clear. Managing calories, you absolutely, even in a sleep study, people lost a similar amount of weight by cutting calories. But what did it do to your metabolism? No, you mean cutting sleep. By cutting sleep. Yes, by cutting sleep. What is it doing to your metabolism? What is it doing to the way that your hormones and your neurotransmitters and your organ function, your mitochondria, it's changing you as an individual. It's actually changing how your body operates. And so it is a valuable metric. And somebody like myself, I'm always asking why and also where did it come from?

56:17Shawn Stevenson:So the whole concept of the calorie was actually something that was first manifested in the field of physics. It had nothing to do with nutritional science. and what happened over time was it kind of parlayed its way in and to find out how much energy was in a food they use a bomb calorimeter basically we'll just say we take a banana and we incinerate it we incinerate no actually let's do this let's take um let's take some almonds like maybe use three ounces of almonds completely incinerated and see how much energy how much it's heating up the water, basically. All right, so they use it, the bomb calorimeter, to see how much energy can heat up water.

57:02Shawn Stevenson:And so that tells you how much energy is in there. Okay, so this was 300 calories worth of energy. Number one, your body is not a bomb calorimeter. You're not actually absorbing all of that caloric energy that was dispersed. You are also, there's some indigestible aspects of those almonds. And so there's a study that I cited in my book, Eat Smarter, years ago that was, I'm just paraphrasing, problem with the Atwater system. And the Atwater system is the calorie system that's on all your food today, which they're not using bomb calorimeter anymore. They're just using math. And just designating a certain amount of calories for the grams of protein, a certain amount of calories for the grams of fat, a certain amount of calories for the grams of carbohydrates.

57:52Shawn Stevenson:But with this, they found that when people consumed, we'll say again, 300 calories of almonds, their net gain or net what they're receiving from those almonds was maybe 158 calories. There was a substantial amount of those calories that the body did not metabolize or utilize. And that's not what is that we don't receive that education. All right. So already the calorie conversation is a little sketchy, right? They're trying to measure and manage what's on our wrappers versus our goals. That's just one. This is minor stuff, though. This is minor. Let's get to the more major stuff here. So what I've designated, like I said, I could do 10 of these, are epicaloric controllers.

58:39Shawn Stevenson:They're determining how your body interacts with the calories that you consume. a huge epic caloric controller that we have now designated today and have a lot of data on is our microbiome makeup our gut makeup our microbiome this kind of cascade of all these different microbes has a huge impact on what your body's doing with the calories you consume we can literally have a difference of sometimes hundreds of calories two people eating the same thing. And we see this in twin studies. This is why we know so much data on the microbiome, as far as like obesity, where they can live in the same conditions, affectionately the same diet.

59:26Shawn Stevenson:And then, but one of the twins is obese versus the other, or overweight versus the other. And it's attributed to these categories of bacteria, You know, Firmicutes being one of this kind of broad class. Like, what's their ratio? So that's another thing. Another factor that we're now dealing with today is this term, this blanket statement given to these molecules called obesogens. Obesogens create obesity in the body.

1:00:04Shawn Stevenson:Obesogen, independent of calorie intake. it changes the way your body manages the energy that you're taking in. All right? So these obesogens, and we are exposed to billions of them, billions of them on a regular basis. Again, our air, water, food supply. Right. It's altering the way that people's bodies are interacting with calories. So it's an epicaloric controller. The quality of food. And this is where we're going to get to, like, more hardcore science piece. So in Eat Smarter, I shared this study that went bonkers. And this was published in the journal Food and Nutrition Research. And this was the quality of food itself.

1:00:45Shawn Stevenson:So they had people to consume a meal of ultra-processed foods versus a meal of whole foods to see the impact that it had on their calorie expenditure. So the two meals, same amount of calories again. Same calories. Similar macronutrients. One is ultra-processed cheese product. So like Kraft singles and white bread. The other is a whole, quote, whole food sandwich, multigrain bread, cheddar cheese, okay? And also by a little sidebar, how are they tracking how many calories they're burning? Because what the researchers did was they were monitoring how many calories they burn post ingestion of the sandwich.

1:01:26Shawn Stevenson:Right. Okay. We breathe out most of the calories. When we're losing calories, we breathe them out. Really? That's how our body gets rid of. Because we think like sweating, you know, like getting, but most of it is through our breath, through breathing. Yeah. So anyways, let's put a pin in that. So here's what happened after analyzing the data. When people ate the ultra processed version of the sandwich, there was a dramatic decrease in the amount of calories that their body was burning after eating that sandwich. Really? So we're talking like 40 to upwards of even 60 % suppression of calorie burn after eating that sandwich.

1:02:08Shawn Stevenson:Okay. And so what the researchers can kind of designate was something we'll affectionately call a metabolic or a hormonal clog. Like something happened to gum up the system and to suppress the efficiency of getting rid of those calories they consumed. Now, here's the rub. This is a temporary thing. over the course of the day, your body will probably sort it out how many calories you burn. But if you do that every day, meal after meal, what's going to happen? Your metabolism is going to be totally different. And I know this, this is what, this is how I ate, you know, my university drive-through diet.

1:02:47Shawn Stevenson:And my metabolism was very, very different. And it's not about having an efficient metabolism per se, you know, like burning stuff off quickly because survival as well. but it's having, it's not creating like artificial blockages to where your body's like, what the is this fake cheese stuff? Like, let me just tuck this over here. Maybe my liver can kind of deal with it, but like we got this adipose tissue, we got space on the, you know, on the neck. We can go add some there on your ass or whatever the case might be. Like some of these compounds are sketchy. Let's just, you know, we'll figure this out later.

1:03:24Shawn Stevenson:If you're looking for a way to save on groceries today, like so many families are, cost of living is already going bonkers. We can find a way to save money on our groceries, but the key is the quality of the foods as well. And Wild Pastures delivers 100 % grass-fed, grass-finished beef, pasture-raised pork, pasture-raised chicken, and wild-caught seafood direct to your door at savings of 25 to up to 40 % of what you would find in conventional grocery stores. Now, Wild Pastures doesn't just stop there. They're sourcing their foods from 100 % regenerative family farms. There's no antibiotics, no added hormones, no added steroids, no feedlots, and absolutely no GMOs.

1:04:11Again, fast delivery from their farms direct to your door.

1:04:16Shawn Stevenson:And right now, when you go to wildpastures.com forward slash model with a Wild Pastures subscription, you're going to receive an additional 20 % off for life, free shipping and$15 off your first order. Again, just go to wildpastures.com forward slash model to take advantage. That's W-I-L-D-P-A-S-T-U-R-E-S dot com forward slash model. to take advantage right now. Head over there, check them out. Now back to the show. So this sounds, that's interesting. So it sounds to me, it really depends on your genetics based on like how your body metabolizes some of this stuff. So there's nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics.

1:05:00Yes, but that's only a part of the, it matters.

1:05:05Shawn Stevenson:Okay. But it's only a part of, and I don't want to designate a certain amount, but it is a smaller percentage than a lot of these other epigenetic controllers. So epigenetic means above genetic control. Okay. Okay. Right? Yes, yes, yes. So epicaloric is above calorie control. It's controlling what the calories are doing. Okay. This is where we have to focus because again, calories matter. We can use this as a metric to get an estimate. Right. But these things matter more because they're determining what your body is actually doing with the calories you're consuming. Do you think we're also over protein?

1:05:41Are we just eating way too much protein now because it's become a trend? I feel like everyone's talking about protein, protein, protein. It's impossible to consume the amount of protein that people are... When I say people, I don't know. It's a very general term. Yeah, it's difficult. Yeah, for sure. But to keep lean muscle...

1:06:00Shawn Stevenson:Especially if you're eating real food. If you're eating real food, that's what I mean. And if you're someone who's busy, right? Are you someone who believes that... How else could we keep lean muscle mass on? Yeah. I mean, I think I told you a lot. When I saw you last time, I take aminos. I drink these aminos with leucine. Do you like aminos? Have you taken aminos or no? I mean, there's room for these things, sure. But what would you suggest? How do we... Food first? Food first, always. But what I'm saying is to keep muscle on, which is, of course, the longevity organ. We all talk about that. For sure, yeah.

1:06:39But what are some ways, besides the things we ever, like lifting heavy weights, all the things, like how do we maintain lean muscle mass as we get older?

1:06:51Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. And just with the protein conversation, I'm grateful that we're having the conversation. So I wrote Eat Smarter. I wrote the book. It came out last week of 2020, but I wrote most of it into 2019. Okay. And there was a special section dedicated to protein. Okay, tell me why. Because when I was in college, it was low fat. The conversation was so focused on fat, and fat was villainized. Do you remember, like, snack walls? Of course. Like, I did all that shit. The smart ones, lean cuisines. Lean cuisines, yes. Then it shifted to carbs. Now carbs are the villain. Low carb. You know, again, it has a place.

1:07:33Shawn Stevenson:Low carb has a place. But it becomes this, like, thing where I talked about it earlier with the book situation. and these publishers looking for, they want proof of concept. They want proof of concept. So they love that. When I went in for Eat Smarter for that book deal, I was getting all these different offers. I remember very clearly, they're like, so what kind of book is this? Is this going to be like a keto book? Because again, these things are trending, right? A hundred percent. But what was missing? Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, I was going to say, now everyone's writing a GLP-1 book.

1:08:03There's like 11 books out right now.

1:08:05Shawn Stevenson:Yeah, it's trending. And these are the things that sell. But sorry, what were you going to say? With that being said, protein was just kind of left out of the conversation. And so what I wanted to do is elevate that so that we have intelligent focus on all of them, but also to not hyper-focus on all of them. Because we don't eat protein, carbs, and fat. We eat food. We eat food. It's us obsessing and trying to break down. Good point. and isolate and separate. That being said, protein matters a lot. And this is the reason why. It's not what, it's just about the muscle piece. Of course that matters a lot.

1:08:52It's satiating.

1:08:53Shawn Stevenson:When we're looking at each other, we're mostly seeing the proteins that we've eaten. Oh, okay, that's what you mean. So tissue, so when our genes are sending, you know, like the DNA to RNA to protein. Yes. When we're printing out copies of stuff, building blocks, those are proteins. It matters a lot. Also minerals, I'm seeing your minerals, all that kind of stuff, but protein, building blocks, seriously. Number two, your hormones. They're proteins. We need protein to make that, to make them. Enzymes. Enzymes are required for basically everything to happen in our body to do it. They're proteins.

1:09:35Shawn Stevenson:They're amino acids. acids, amino acid base. That's why I have these aminos. And you keep on looking at me like I'm crazy, but you don't like them, I can tell. I mean, it's, again, it's just, it's a small percentage versus the big movers of like real. Of course. Real food. It's always about real food. I'm a fan. Certain like, you know, the protein supplements, you know, amino acids could be in the mix, but a lot of people are. How many shakes can you have in a day? How many steaks can you have in a day. Like when you're old, like me or whatever, I mean, there's like anxiety over how much protein you're eating.

1:10:08Yeah.

1:10:09Shawn Stevenson:Yeah. And our ability to, you know, um, to actually utilize protein does go down as we get older, but it doesn't have to go down substantially. There's certain things that we could do to still metabolize. That's where the data is really at is for the utilization of protein, especially in, um, in the older populations. It is important to focused more on it. But are we the older population? So not quite, not quite. But what tends to happen, the protein, like we're eating too much protein. That was this, it's a narrative based on our consumption of all these ultra processed foods. It is easier to eat more protein if I'm eating that.

1:10:48Yeah.

1:10:48Shawn Stevenson:Right. But it's also way easier to eat sugar. It's way easy to eat carbohydrates. Yeah. Maybe those things in the, maybe those things are problematic too. But again, we're isolating things. What you found, what most people find is that when you're eating real food, it's difficult to eat a lot of protein. It's like you're just too satisfied. And so we can lean into that because what your body is signaling is that this is something that's satiating. You are getting a lot of value. You're going to find that your mood is better. You're going to find that your, you know, your hunger cues, hunger cravings, hunger and cravings, which are kind of slightly different.

1:11:24Shawn Stevenson:Those things are now more regulated. You're making better food choices. You're sleeping better. All these positive things happen. This doesn't mean that we got to try to force ourselves to eat more protein. But some of us have tricked ourselves into not eating enough protein because of some other things. Maybe this is we get a big satiating effect when we have coffee in the morning with our fat in it, our butter or our cream or our protein, whatever we put in the coffee, and then we don't eat for four hours because of that, right? Yeah. Or maybe we're so dedicated to our intermittent fast and we're missing out on getting in the protein and your body is always looking for being able to automate.

1:12:03Automate, you said, right.

1:12:05Shawn Stevenson:And so you've trained yourself to not eat a lot. And maybe again, so why this matters also is that protein really is the most prominent as a signal for safety, for success. like your body's like because it's used for so many things to regenerate you and to keep you healthy okay so when you're getting in ample amounts of protein this can be very effective with helping to metabolize stress the whole convert cortisol face and like um the cortisol belly like it can really help your body to get safety signals oh okay it's okay to let this weight go Right. Again, not to negate calories, but it's shifting your metabolic blueprint so that it's more efficient in getting rid of body fat.

1:12:58Right.

1:12:59Shawn Stevenson:And we know that that protein helps our bodies to preferentially protect our muscles. Do you think cardio keeps body fat on our bodies or is it helping with losing body fat? The reason why I'm asking is, again, I'm just asking these questions, and I know that there's all these contradictions, right? No cardio, only do that. Have you heard of that 12? I think I asked you last time. The incline 12 and the speed at 3 for 30 minutes. Have you heard of this workout? Yeah, it's very popular. And everyone's doing it. They're saying that's the greatest workout since sliced bread. I think it's fine, but it's not going to change your body composition, right?

1:13:42Shawn Stevenson:It's always something. It's always something, right? Like also HIIT training, also whatever it is. We're not talking about movement for, you know, your steps. Obviously, that's very important. Let's talk about body composition. How do we actually, what are the ways we can change our body composition? Besides lifting weights, is there anything else we can do? Or sleep. Well, sleep. I forgot. obviously sleep, sleep, lifting weights. As far as like cardio being effective for fat loss. like for anything, like losing muscle. Do you think cardio is a good strategy for fat loss? This goes back to end of one.

1:14:22Shawn Stevenson:Yes. Okay. It depends. On who you are. Yes. Yes. It's context driven, right? For some people. You always say that. Because it's the truth. I know. There's not like one thing that's like one thing that suits everybody. Yes. Right? Yeah. There are certain things that they're much more universal. like walking. Because we're bipedal, it's just something our genes expect us to do. Exactly. And also we know that our metabolism works differently when we're walking versus when we're running. It will preferentially go and grab stored fat for fuel a little bit easier versus going through this kind of glycolytic path.

1:14:57No, talk about that. Are you saying that when people walk versus run, you'll burn more fat in the walking?

1:15:03Shawn Stevenson:This is validated because I didn't believe it. I still don't believe it, even though I see it. It doesn't make sense to me either. One of the things that I was taught was that your body will, number one, it's like a LIFO-FIFO, like in accounting class. You know, last in, first out, first in, first out. So your body's going to use the last in, first out. So last in is the food you just ate. It's going to burn through that glycogen cash on hand first for energy processes. Then it'll go and break down glycogen, store glycogen if need be. after it burns through the cash, muscle, liver glycogen, that's like writing a check, right?

1:15:43Shawn Stevenson:It takes a little bit more time. And then it will go to the fat certificates of deposit, right? Then, and only then it will start to... Now, remember this, because when I was doing my certification, there was this chart of getting to the fat-burning zone, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so you got to go through this process to try to get here and so you can start burning fat. In reality, your body is so much smarter than all this bullsh - Yeah. It's going to use energy based on the demands and based on efficiency. What we forget in our mission to lose body fat and to get this body that we want to have, your body's number one driving force is survival.

1:16:30Shawn Stevenson:It wants to survive and it wants to be capable. And so over time, we've evolved because of that walking experience of humans, of walking around, you know, laboring and doing stuff, walking from location to location. Fat is a very efficient, slow-burning fuel, right? And you're not under threat if you're walking. Okay, this is very important. If you're running a long time, based on your biology, this could be, this mother will not stop running. something must be chasing them. Yeah. Or they can't catch their food, we gotta keep going. Okay? Yeah. Not to say that's not valuable to do from time to time, or if that just, if it works for you.

1:17:15Shawn Stevenson:But for most people, it's efficient when we're walking, because it's more parasympathetic. It's not, like, running is very, very sympathetic, fight or flight, it is what it is. And we can go and cleave off, like, there's like an amplification cascade, where we'll start burning off a lot of fatty acids. Not burning off. Releasing stored fatty acids. Yeah, yeah. There's a difference between releasing and burning. It has to get to the mitochondria to be used for fuel. That's a whole other story. Most efficient way to do that is walking, actually. So zone two, you're saying? Fuck the zones. Yeah, okay, thank God.

1:17:49Respectfully. No, please, I can't stand these zones. Zone two. It's the twilight zone. Yeah.

1:17:54Shawn Stevenson:Okay? But just, you know what it's like to just go for, or a relaxing walk, or maybe a little bit more brisk walk. You know, like, you know, just be, it's okay, just be cool. Just go walk. I know. Just walk. Okay? And try, and actually, this is a great opportunity to relax, to get into that parasympathetic, right? We've turned it into now, again, like, we've got the, um, you know, the street warriors with the, you know, with the weighted vest. Of course, everybody's wearing the weighted vest, Sean. I helped to popularize this. My guy, Michael Easter. Yeah. You're the second person that mentioned him today.

1:18:30Yeah. Why did you just mention him just now? Because he, did he talk about this?

1:18:34Shawn Stevenson:He's, I mean, he's arguably the top person as far as like a voice, a research, because he mentioned it in one of his previous books. Which one? He's a New York Times bestselling author. I think it was the Scarcity. Scarcity. The Scarcity something. He was just here. But yeah, but he's, but when he was on my show, it took off like wildfire. Really? It took off like wildfire. Like the social media, all that stuff. The way to invest part? Yeah. What do you say about the Weighted Vest? It's just we do burn more calories. It is more efficient. You're adding more resistance. Yeah. But here's something really cool.

1:19:04Yeah.

1:19:05Shawn Stevenson:So I went to and worked with a leading researcher at UCLA who's a gastroenterologist, actually. and he's been studying gravitational metabolism and how gravity is affecting what our metabolic health is doing, not just our metabolic health, but also like our gut health. Okay. And so what was so cool, and there's this really fascinating study that found that people, when you lose weight, like your gravidostat, you have just like the circadian clocks, just like you have a thermostat in your body trying to regulate your temperature, we have a gravidostat that is your body's kind of buoyancy or resistance to the forces of gravity, all right?

1:19:52Shawn Stevenson:And so when you lose weight and it's already, your gravidostat has been attuned to a certain amount of mass that you're carrying on this planet, what happens is your body is, this is part of the reason why it is difficult to change that set point and to lose weight and to keep it off because your body is looking for, It's not just a superficial thing, but it's looking for stability and safety in this world, in the physics of this reality. And so what the researchers found was that people who wore a weighted vest pound for pound, matching the amount of calories that they lost, kept the weight off much longer.

1:20:33Really?

1:20:34Shawn Stevenson:Yes, they kept it. And some of them, I mean, a study, you know, towards the end of the study, over a year later, maybe the people who didn't do the weighted vest protocol They might have, most often they regain all the weight that they lost. Really? And a little bit more, just again, traditional stuff, traditional means. But maybe these people regain like 20 % of the weight that they lost over the course of a year study, for example. So it's just like, it was basically telling their gravidostat, telling their metabolism, telling their, you know, their brain, their biology that I still have this weight on me, this force on me.

1:21:11Shawn Stevenson:and it's okay basically i don't have to gain all these extra pounds because i'm still carrying this weight around in a sense yeah i don't know that i'm making this very rudimentary no but it actually makes sense to me right now you know what's so interesting about that is we're not wearing the weighted vest for more than an hour a day right so how does that work they're wearing it all day They're weighing in basically their waking hours. Oh, really? Yes. Yeah. So - Yeah, so I failed to mention that part. Yeah. Okay, so that makes sense. So that's why their overall gravitudial, is whatever the word is.

1:21:49Shawn Stevenson:Gravitastat. Right, gravastat. It's tricking the baseline to think it's much heavier than it is. My question is, I wear this weighted vest around all day, but it's only six pounds. Does that count? It's not really that heavy. Of course that counts. Yeah, but it's really small. So what? It's better than zero, I feel. It's very comfortable. I like it. It's just, again, we even got into this. So by the way, let me go ahead and share this study really quickly. Okay, go ahead. I like these studies. I love these studies. There's multiple studies, but just here's one. This one was published in the International Journal of Obesity.

1:22:26Okay.

1:22:27Shawn Stevenson:Analyzed how gravitational loading during conventional calorie-restricted weight loss influences subsequent weight regain. 18 test subjects, six months. This is a crossover study as well. So six months calorie restricted diet standard and six months placed in another arm of the study with the weighted vest worn throughout. And so they were instructing to wear the weighted vest for about 10 hours a day, just living life, doing their typical routine. And again, it was increased by a pound. So they might've started off with a one pound vest, but maybe they had eventually lost five pounds. so they're wearing a five-pound vest.

1:23:06Shawn Stevenson:Okay, so I'm just consolidating all the data here. The weighted vest group's resting metabolic rate, this was the key. Okay, go. The weighted vest group resting metabolic rate only went down by about 16 calories a day because the metabolic rate will compensate as well, right? So that's another reason we regain the weight is that you lose this weight, but your metabolism is gonna slow down because for survival. People, when they didn't use the weighted vest, their metabolic rate went down by nearly 250 calories a day that they're burning less, okay, without the weighted vest. Without the weighted vest.

1:23:42Shawn Stevenson:Wearing the weighted vest, their metabolic rate only went down by 16 calories a day on average. That's it? That's it. 16 calories? This is why they were able to have a greater effect and more stability and consistency with keeping the weight off long term. So yeah, fascinating stuff. That's super fascinating. Dr. Brennan Spiegel is the guy who, you know, I connected with at UCLA. Super smart guy. Yeah. I love that. Because I always think that everyone has a baseline. You know, like, these are all just my, like, genisms. Like, no matter what I read or whatever. But, like, I always thought, like, you know what?

1:24:20Like, there's only so much you can, like, if I feel like my body's very comfortable at a certain weight. Yeah. And I can only tweak it that much here or there. but I'll always come back to baseline if I don't do the things I do. Do you know what I mean? Of course.

1:24:34Shawn Stevenson:Of course. And so I just, so there is accuracy around that. What do you believe in supplementation? Would you think that there are any essentials that you should be taking every day? Or what is your, what do you take every day? If you're deficient, yes. Right. I knew you were going to say that. If you're good and you're eating a well-rounded diet where you don't need to, there's certain, I'm very big where I'm at today. I used to, a lot of stuff. Different times, I've done all the things. I know. I mean, you can't even imagine what my cabinets have looked like. I'm sure. What do they look like today?

1:25:10Shawn Stevenson:Today, what I will occasionally take is an omega-3 supplement. Okay. Occasionally only? Yeah. I mean, because I'm eating a lot of foods that are rich in omega-3s. Okay. And also the quality, the sourcing of those omega-3s matter a lot. Matters a lot, yeah. You know, you ideally want to have something that has astaxanthin in it. Yeah. I take that as a supplement even. Yeah. Is that bad? No, no, no, not at all. It's protective of those omega-3s. Okay. Magnesium occasionally. Occasionally. Vitamin C. You do take vitamin C. Food-based, though. Food-based. So like a concentrate of a vitamin C-dense food, like camu camu berry, amla berry, those kind of things.

1:25:51Shawn Stevenson:Okay. Because synthetic vitamin C, that's what most vitamin C supplements are. that's derived from genetically modified corn syrup corn starch and we've got multiple studies showing that higher incidence of kidney stones um less change and one of these studies was actually done the journal of cardiology looked at camu camu berry c-a-m-u-c-a-m-u vitamin c versus synthetic vitamin c supplement or capsule or the little emergency type packets that you'll see anywhere and had smokers who there is a strong oxidative behavior to take either of these. And so what they found was that there was no beneficial effect on oxidation or antioxidant effect taking a synthetic version.

1:26:40Shawn Stevenson:The test subjects taking the camu camu berry had a notable decrease in C-reactive protein, which is an inflammatory marker, right? So we know the The vitamin C helps, but the source matters. The source matters. So I'll occasionally take vitamin C, omega-3s, and... Yeah, I mean, those are the two main things that I'll occasionally take. But then there's some other stuff in the mix, sometimes like a turmeric supplement here or there, or, you know, maybe an organ complex. That's interesting, though. Because I eat real food, and I eat a lot of good food. You didn't say one that everybody takes is vitamin D.

1:27:16Shawn Stevenson:You see me. You see my complexion? I do. Like I'm outside, I'm getting ample amounts of sun, not against it. Right. I think everyone just jumps on bandwagons and they don't even know. Like I was on that bandwagon and then I checked my, you know, my levels in my blood and I was like three times higher than I should have been. Damn, that's what I can do. Exactly. Because they're like, oh, everyone needs to take vitamin D. So I'm like, I'll take vitamin D. And then I'm like, oh, whoops, I almost poisoned myself with vitamin D. So thanks for being on the podcast. Of course. Yeah, this is awesome. This was amazing.

1:27:51I appreciate you. And what else? That's it. Well, for those of you who don't know Sean, listen to his podcast. He's very, very knowledgeable, as you can see. And we'll do this again, round three, round two and a half. How about that? I love that. All right. Thanks, Sean.

1:28:07Shawn Stevenson:Thank you so much for tuning into this episode today. I hope that you got a lot of value out of this. If you did, you already know what to do. Sharing is caring. Share this with somebody that you love or maybe that you, maybe you just like a little bit or maybe even somebody that you don't like. Like maybe this will help them to be more likable. So regardless of the level of like or love, be generous, share the insights, share the knowledge. It can be transformative for somebody. You never know who you can impact. And listen, we got some epic masterclasses and world leading experts coming your way very, very soon.

1:28:41Shawn Stevenson:So make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day and I'll talk with you soon.