Former UKSF Anthony Stazicker: Fuelling A 7-Day Everest Mission & Military Food Regimes

31:17So it would just, everything was just crammed into that day and eating as much as we can. If we were external of the camp and we were on a exercise, for example, we might be out in the field, they would say, for let's say five days to a week at times. And that camp, I'm assuming you're there at weekends as well, there's no time? Yeah, no, at weekends, depending again on what stage you are in training, you can go home for weekends. Not all of the weekends, but some. depending on when you sort of finished will determine whether or not you'd sort of just stay down and go out with the guys or whether you would actually make the journey back home.

31:52But for the field scenario, bits and pieces, the food changed obviously dramatically. That's when we're on rations. So NATO rations, and they have got a lot better now. I've seen them, but... Well, let's save the rations for a second before we get into that. The reason why I ask is when most people leave home, they figure out how to cook, but you didn't. No. Everything was provided. Was there any cooking education when you went home on weekends? Was your nan still looking after you and feeding you? How did your relationship with cooking develop at this stage? And did you have any moments that were quite...

32:27Yeah, so that's a good question. Yeah, and actually looking back now, I've never been a cook. I don't really like cooking, especially. And I think it's for that reason I've always been cooked for, whether that was you know my nan or school or uh the military or you know professional sport i've always kind of been catered for and looked after so for me if i had to fend for myself it would be the easiest most simplest thing that i could do to be to be honest okay so were there any like favorite cheap meals quick easy thing like favorite things that you had when you're in the military like did they do special meals on a friday that you looked forward to was there any like moments like that or it was really just calories in i'm starving i've worked out four hours no for me it was always just calories just eat i had that my association to food has always been around fuel fuel and not it doesn't matter if i enjoy it much like when you turn up to the gas station and you fill up your car it's just pump the fuel in don't take too long do it as quickly as you can it's a transaction and then i'm away very transactional did you miss anything about your nan's cooking like the real home cooked food surely eating in a buffet canteen every day four meals a day is yeah i mean the thing the thing that i did miss was what we sort of touched on earlier just being around family and actually not having to rush every time i was in the military food was rushed it was a we have not got long here imagine all these different troops of 30 to 40 to 50 people in you turn up it's a mad rush you're literally sprinting across camp to get to the you know the canteen and now you could get there you might be first or you might be last and that's just a huge queue and constantly you're just looking at your watch because if you know you're late for the next detail you're going to get thrashed so it was come on i just need to be quick here and then when you finally sit down you might only have let's say 15 minutes to actually eat all of this food that you just laid out that pleasurable moment sit down family no pleasure because i assumed like military you've got a troop of 40 50 people that moment might be actually quite nice with the boys sitting down having a chat catching up on you know your injuries and whatever from training but actually it was 15 minutes need to get this in very transactional yeah and has that has that made you eat quicker now oh good question there was definitely some parts of that where you would sit down the guys like what's just happened you know we've just been pasted and or you know what's coming next i after lunch you could have a pt session so you're like i need the food but i also don't want to be sick so you know it's kind of eat what you can And typically you're just sweating while you're trying to eat, but you are having that moment with everybody, sort of laughing at your own misery, I guess.

35:06Laughing at your own misery. Was there anything strange that you'd look back on that the military fed you that you think, what's going on? Probably just the rations, to be honest. So when you're out in the field, you would have a kind of a box that would last a day, and that has to last you a day. So if you're out for five days, you'll have all of your rations given to you, and it's up to you then to sort of cut them all down, allocate it all, put it all into your kit and your bag and your burger and your big bag. and you'd carry everything with you. So I found that quite hard, sort of rationing.

35:34They're called rations, right? So you ration your kind of food, but at the same time you're still working extremely hard. So you're on a sort of... Did they calorie control them? So it's like you need 4 ,000 calories. Yeah, so they did the science behind it. They worked it out typically what a soldier would need in the field under these conditions. And there's different types of rations. There's winter rations, there's summer rations, there's Arctic rations, freeze-dried, there's all sorts. Can you break down a typical ration pack? Yeah, so you'd have three meals. You would have a breakfast, so it would look like a little silver foil bag.

36:06You'd get out your kind of cooking stuff, and then in your kind of metal mug you'd put some water in it, fill it halfway, you'd get the sachet silver thing, and this might be a beans and sausage. So you'd pop that in. Freeze-dried? No, it wasn't freeze-dried. No, it was in a foil bag. Basically like wet inside? Yes, yeah. So that would go in, boil that up. While you're waiting, you might have some sort of biscuits with that or whatever you've got and some pate on biscuits. And then you'd crack that open and it was just throw that in, a beans and sausage, whatever it was. And that would equate to however many calories.

36:42They're quite calorie-dense. So that would be your breakfast. You might have a cup of tea or a coffee with that as well. And it's kind of clean it all away. Lunchtime wasn't typically one of those hot meals. It was something else, like, again, the biscuits or whatever you could get. like McVitties? Oh, I wish. Biscuit browns, which will send shivers through military people listening and watching. Biscuit browns sort of, again, just provided calories, but we'd also have sort of a fruit biscuit as well. But they were just, biscuit browns were in a green sort of, I could still sort of see them now, and then the fruit biscuits were in like a sort of a pink foil thing that was just packed up.

37:21And these things, I mean, it's quite scary, isn't it, now looking back, because the expiry date would be in like 50 years, and you're like, what the hell is in that? Yeah, but I need it. And then the evening one, you'd have a different meal, you know, corned beef hash, which makes me feel a bit sick. Corned beef hash. Corned beef gash, as the lads would call it, or a curry or something like that. And again, you'd just be throwing that down and just taking in the calories. And did you ever find yourself in situations where you're just like, I'm starving, this isn't enough? Because you've explained three meals, but you were eating four in camp.

37:54Yeah, yeah, quite a lot. You would feel quite hungry when you're out in the field, to be honest. Yeah. But I guess the kind of body adapts to that. But there was enough calories in a ration pack if you ate everything, but sometimes people wouldn't. They'd just think, oh, you'd always just be doing the trade with people. Who wants that? Who's wanting me for that? Typically, between 40 people, you can make something work or get at least something that you're happy with. You'd have a dessert as well, which was just a mess, really. Rice pudding was always the one that people wanted. Stick some jam in there, you know.

38:26You could imagine that would be quite nice. It's quite calorie dense. And Tabasco sauce could pretty much fix anything in the military. So just put a load of Tabasco sauce on and away you go. Interesting. Yeah, but I mean, I think if you're out in the field, is it a priority to carry dessert with you? It's calories. For us, it was just... The training team would always insist, look, make sure you eat everything. And as I transitioned from the training then into the military and the Royal Marines and then later on into special forces and the selection process, which is arguably the hardest job interview I've ever had in my life to join UK Special Forces.

39:00That process takes about nine months. Now, different sort of phases without going into too much detail in terms of the kind of hills phase, which is four weeks of running around with lots of big heavyweights on your back over the kind of Welsh hills. And again, you're back into sort of a camp mentality. We're all in it together, but everyone's out for themselves. It's a selection course. You're on your own, but you know people potentially. and from that point it was all about making sure that you had enough fuel inside you for the demands it was a very very physically demanding course they're like the special forces is like the grueling we're going to try and break you and hope you fail yeah yeah of mentality yeah of course and there's sort of two aspects to that one is much like the military do with most things they just knock the fun out of everything that you do whether it's parachuting diving they just diving that sounds fun you know skiing us that's fun there's loads of weight and at night and it's just miserable but the selection mask off just for fun exactly yeah exactly so that selection process is designed to at the end of it make sure they have the right person that is able to do the job at the end and it has to be that way and it hasn't really changed that much since day dart for that reason you know the the kind of standard is set and that's it you either hit the standard or you don't and there's different phases of physical uh and then team through the jungle which again is different sort of food and everything else and then uh tactical stuff in terms of weapons and shooting so as that grueling process of like these you know everyone's heard the special forces military crazy stories of how that navy seal training goes down in the u.s did the fuel change did you get more calories did they feed you better nutrition or was it you just had to grit and bear it mental toughness and get through this yeah probably a combination of all those things you've just said so that there was always food on so but for the first phase on the hills you're thinking i'm going to be out here for sort of seven to eight hours on the hill i'm carrying what i'm eating and drinking uh with me uh on top of what all my other sort of weight that i have to carry but in the morning in the in the um in the canteen there's just as much food as you can eat again it's just fill your plate up.

41:11And at times you just, especially in the morning, I'm not a massive eater in the morning as well. I typically just have a banana and, you know, all the kind of tonics and everything else that I have and the vitamins and bits and pieces, but I'm fine. And this changes, of course, if I'm doing different stuff, but on a normal morning, I don't really like to eat that much. I don't feel hungry. So there's times where you're sat down and you're just forcing food in, going, I know I need it, even though I don't feel hungry. It doesn't develop a great relationship with food. No, no. Do you think that's like bled into your life now?

41:44No, I don't think so. It's just made me aware of when and how I probably should eat. So I still train a lot at the moment. And I've always had probably a strange relationship to that point with food. And again, just seeing it as fuel. So if I know I've got a busy day or I'm at the gym or have a non-typical day of not being in the office, then I'll eat more. you know and if i'm working out more i just eat more to kind of um bridge that sort of gap whereas if it's just a normal morning and i think well i'm not doing much today or i'm just going to just have a banana but i'm into sort of protein shakes and all these different sort of pills and potions and powders and and everything else okay so but let's take it forward then into you obviously served in afghanistan what's it like then because this is a different vibe this isn't training courses camps where they can set on a nice meal this is you're out in a field on an operation in 40 celsius heat potentially in the desert how do they keep you fueled for that it's um i mean it's just a copy and paste isn't it right the military um try and keep the same kind of standards and food wherever you go so now this is different depending on what unit you're serving with as well if you're in the kind of the big green machine and then the military and Typically, when you turn up to a camp out in Afghanistan, for example, everything is secure within the kind of gates, secure as you can get out in a battlefield or out in war.

43:15But it was always food. But typically what we could do is go to the different canteens of different nations. So you have a sort of a British, and this is more in special forces. If you're in the regular army, you just go to your own sort of canteen. And that's just a copy paste of what you'd eat at home or in your military base in the UK, right? But when we were special forces, we could do pretty much whatever we wanted, right? We could eat wherever we wanted to eat. We had passes to access everywhere. And also, it sounds strange saying this, but they had a boardwalk in Kandahar airfield, which was huge.

43:48By this stage, it was a fully functioning sort of town almost, It was full of multi-nation military units. So on this boardwalk, they'd have Tim Hortons, they'd have Pizza Hut, they'd have all these kind of crazy things. They'd literally bring the fast food with you. Yeah, so Americanism maybe, but certainly we dived into that. But actually, it gives us a chance to go around to all these different canteens. It was interesting to see what the difference was between going to the UK canteen and the American canteen and the European canteens and stuff. So it was, you could typically see the variation and the differences between the kind of cuisine that was laid down.

44:28Okay, so get the canteens, but kind of on missions. And I appreciate this is a life and death situation. So food becomes just a necessity rather than, you know, you're just trying to stay alive and complete your mission. But were there considerations? You're the best of the best. You're the elite of your, you know, military operation. How do they fuel you? How do they make sure you perform at your best? how do you make sure your energy levels stay up? I mean, it's 40 Celsius. Do they give you electrolytes in your water to help you hydrate or did it not go that far? It was more just calories. Yeah, it's a good question.

45:02I think when you are in special forces, it is kind of big boys rules, right? You're not kind of looked over, continually monitored. You know, you are expected to be of that standard. And guys are. You know, we train to a very high standard to make sure that we are physically prepared for the very demanding missions. Um, and for us, food was personal as a more of a personal choice. But again, it was because we'd been through that process of military and courses and everything else. We know the demands on the body. Typically, you know how many calories you need, right? So everybody's different. You know, I have, I have a five foot seven and a half and three quarters, but there's some big dudes in there, right?

45:40There's some big six foot four guys that are just monsters and they need three, three x what i'm eating you know and yeah so typically it would it would almost be uh determined by the individual so i know what my body needs i know how much food i need pre during and post uh in terms of the recovery process as well which a lot of people don't think about we're not all carb adapted where we probably should be the desert everyone thinks yes 40 degrees but the temperature range does swing so in the day 40 degrees at night minus really and i sweat a lot so salt for me was a big thing so I would take salt tablets and have electrolyte drinks in my uh my water bladder so again missions would vary so depending on was that you or was that the military saying you need these electrolytes take the salt we'd been educated so there were doctors there were medics that had been out with us we have very very specialist people with us uh everything from our training and and and recovery was not monitored but it was advised in terms of what we should be doing now typically bloke's going, yeah, whatever, I'm just going to go and do a massive heavy squat session and then brilliant, we're out at night.

46:46And then I'm sort of walking around on target, regretting my decisions. But no, typically it was more, for me, it was more focused around not so much mission, but individual and training, you know, and the recovery and knowing what I needed. Look, honestly, I've been caught out before, you know, on special forces missions at night and I've run out of water, you know, and you think, fuck, because it was only supposed to be a two, three hour job. And it turned into 10 or whatever. And it extends for various reasons. And then to think, shit, you know, I was only supposed to be out here two or three hours.

47:16And you learn the hard way, right? As much as life. And then you think I'll always carry a spare water bottle. For me, it was a Lucozade. So I'd think Lucozade and then break in case of emergency. And I'd also carry a small kind of emergency ration pack with me as well. It was just taped up, wrapped up, left in the bottom of my kit. And it was sort of, again, break in case of it. That would be sort of protein bars, carb bars, all that kind of stuff. and this bottle of leucosate. So, yeah. High carbohydrate, fast fuel. Fast fuel, sugars, just stuff to keep you going. But the operations were intense, right?

47:48We're running around. And, you know, the action on target could take two, three hours, four hours, and maybe longer. If we had casualties or injuries, that would then extend the mission and make it more complex. Were you ever caught out with no food for a while? Not no food. In terms of a meal, probably yes. but I would just be snacking on the things if I wanted to, right? We had bars and normally there's enough between the guys and we could help each other out. But, yeah, I never sort of was in a situation where I was like, shit, I've got no food for an extended period of time. The water in the desert, pretty fundamental.

48:25Yeah, pretty hard to come by. Pretty painful, that experience. Yeah. What was the emotion of that like? It was more the embarrassment, I think, for me, being a professional guy and having to turn around to one of the other guys and say, I'm out of water. you know and I learned the hard way through that because we carry these you know camelbacks the bladders that would go in between our kit and you have the straw coming around and you just suck it now the problem with that is you have lots of water with electrolytes and things in but you can't monitor it there's no visual to all you get is at the end the oh shit I'm out I'm out um and then that's when you'd have the sort of water bottles that you can then monitor um but yeah that's an embarrassing moment of guys anybody got any spare water and you get the look of spare we're in the fucking desert you know the thing's spare here but then you know the guys would look after you but it's yeah i mean that was one of my first tours and and yeah one of the very first kind of jobs that i went out on and you do you just learn the hard way so interestingly you mentioned the feeling because if i was in the desert and i ran out of water my first feeling probably would be oh my god i'm going to be in real trouble here if i don't sort this out because nutritionally like water's fundamental for us all we can live without food for a bit but not water so I'd be scared but you said it was about embarrassment with the guys which interestingly was just similar to the embarrassment you felt when you were giving school tickets in yeah good question but I think there was embarrassment is the same but actually that they're slightly separated so the embarrassment for me was mainly around not having the money to pay for the food whereas the embarrassment in the military the time i ran out of water was a professional embarrassment it was oh shit you know are they going to look are they going to think who's this cowboy who's this idiot you know we're in the special forces and you run out of water you idiot you know that kind of embarrassment um yeah and it's something that you and look we trained for this as well we absolutely i've pushed my body physically and mentally uh you know further than i thought was possible i'd been in these situations before when i did the hills section of selection it was during summer and it was one of the hottest summers on record we actually had one guy die on our course as well you know through dehydration and stuff so i'd been i've pushed my body to the extreme i know how far i can push my body before i eventually would you know succumb to that so uh yeah i've had that weird sort of relationship to it in the extreme i guess that's a scary thought though because i always assumed when you look at those special forces things things you know they're going to push you to the absolute limit but just make sure you're just within the bounds of safety but someone die yeah well you're a volunteer this is what messes with a lot of people's mind typically when you're in the in the Royal Marines for example you go on a course I did a sniper course so when you're when it's a course and it's controlled you never fit not once on a course you go put your hand up and go this is too hard I'm done you just do it whereas selection you're a volunteer so this constantly messes with your mind this thought process of why on earth am I putting my mind and body through this pain and anguish um and I could just at any stage go yep I'm done I'm kind of voluntary withdrawing I've had enough of this get me off the bus stop the bus I've had enough yeah um and I think that does play on people's minds and and they lean into that as well so you know typically they they make everything miserable so reduce your sleep reduce water reduce food you know make in terms of adding cold and all those stresses they apply everything at the worst times when you're cold wet miserable hungry not thinking straight sleep deprived they'll then throw in a complex task and that what they're really doing there is just removing those masks and then saying okay who is staz we want to see who the real staz is wow fair play well done you for getting through it and you know absolutely killing it but let's let's move it forward a little bit the military rations are interesting you run out of water in the desert that's crazy but you know today you're not in military anymore um you have a family you've got three kids and a wife and you have taken a lot of different food experiences into your today what does your day-to-day normal everyday stars look like today from a food perspective this is where i'm about to get told off isn't it so um i'm a kind of i'm very fortunate like Ruby my wife is fantastic typically does all of the cooking looks after all the sort of food aspects not just for me but for the family for everybody and it's always cooked meals you know look don't get me wrong we have takeaways every now and again and treats when we want to and I'll do the barbecues and bits and pieces but I think given my history and my association to cooking I think leave it to the professionals right and Ruby's a far better cook than me so I try to help out I'm the little sous chef that jumps in every now and again but a typical day you know for me it's um I sort of talk through the foods and things that I would eat or consume breakfast lunch dinner I'm curious yeah normally I'm up about half six uh and then I'm straight to the gym so hit the gym at like half seven so I've got an hour I'm a slow mover which is hard to believe being a military former military man I'm a slow mover in the morning um so I like to take my time I don't like to feel rushed so I'll get up the kids will usually get up around quarter to seven seven o 'clock so i'll have that kind of 15 20 minutes to myself or half an hour uh cup of tea me and ruby take her one upstairs and then she's sort of looking after the kids getting them ready for school um and you kind of it's that kind of balance then isn't it you and compromise as as a couple as you do it's my time to train and work out is the morning so uh and then my wife typically who does sort of pilates and netball and bits and pieces will do that in the evening and then i'll do i'll sort of hand over take over do the do the dad stuff in the evening, the baths and the beds and bits and pieces.

54:08But for me, it's wake up, a little routine. I'm on TRT at the moment. I've been doing that for about 20 months, testosterone replacement therapy through Dr. Rob. About two years ago, I'm kind of going off piece here, but about two years ago, I started feeling very fatigued, very tired, unusual for me. I thought something was wrong, went to the doctor, NHS doctor, you're fine, off you go, you know, suck it up basically. still felt something wasn't right. Went to see a private doctor, Dr. Rob Stevens from the Men's Health Clinic, had all my bloods taken and sort of noticed that my testosterone was lower than it should have been for my age, but also more so for what I was doing in terms of my output, you know, climbing mountains, running a business, being a dad, training five, six, seven times, sometimes a week.

55:00But more importantly, how I felt, you know, it was more of a holistic approach. Let's look at all the other things first before this and sleep and nutrition and everything and when we really dived into that um and i also had a lot of brain fog so i typically wasn't very sharp i was struggling for memory recall just general conversations and business and everything else i just felt a lot of fog and uh which was difficult for me because i've never really experienced that before so my morning routine now consists of you know the testosterone replacement therapy stuff but with that then it's quite good it's like a little process for me lay everything out the tonic goes into the water you know into the liter water bottle that I then take to the gym.

55:35In between that, I have like a curcumin drink as well, which is like my water to down the little supplements that I have in between that, like D3 and K2s and all that sort of stuff. So that's all done. So I get the water in straight away. So I'm sort of hydrated from obviously sleeping with the curcumin drink. The tonic goes into the big drink, which goes to the gym with me. And I'll have a banana. If I'm feeling especially hungry, I might put a slice of toast in there or I'll have the kind of some porridge with some honey on but time and feeling dependent You can deal with just banana straight to the gym.

56:10Straight to the gym, banana and I'm good. Immediately after the gym session, I'll have a protein shake so that's just a whey protein whatever it is off the shelf. I'll either have that at the gym or I'll have that back at the office where I've got the kind of protein powders and bits and pieces and at that stage I'll put all the little powders and stuff in there, superfood bits and pieces I normally start to get hungry around mid-morning so if I've got food or something it's normally another banana to be honest I can eat two, three, four bananas five bananas sometimes in a day but that's a kind of a snack if I'm having a cup of tea it might be a Kit Kat or a biscuit but typically I try and stay away from it but I have got a sweet tooth and then lunch again I was having sort of meal preps things sent to me Let's stop on breakfast I need to delve into it I tried to skip over that quickly No, well listen I mean, you know, you're obviously jacked.

57:01You work out. Big guy. You're eating just bananas, which there's nothing wrong with bananas in their own right, but you know, it's sugar and carbohydrates, there's nothing and some vitamins in there. But there's nothing that's really going to sustain you. So if you've got an energy problem, obviously the testosterone thing can be part of it and TRT can be part of that routine to fix it. But I wonder whether you just actually, if it sounds like you're not getting enough fuel in the morning, because I always say to everyone, you've got to eat protein and fats in the morning. So you've got your protein shake, but arguably, depending on the brand, you might get 20, 25 grams of protein in there.

57:41It's not the same as a meal, right? Drinking your calories is not the same as having the food structures and matrices that's in real food and eating the fiber and, you know, potentially, you know, Greek yogurt with nuts and seeds and then a bit of berries. So I'm getting a rounded meal. But do you think your breakfast, like, could that be contributing to your poor energy? Potentially, yeah. So it's a good question. I think it's something that I probably should look into in more detail. But I typically feel okay in the morning. I feel like sort of tired when I wake up, but then I feel energized.

58:15Like in the gym, like a gym session, I feel good. I feel fine, right? So I don't feel like I'm lacking energy or kind of go. But I think we can go into it in a little bit more detail later on. But for Everest, I certainly sort of upped that. So when I was training, my training volume was increased sort of 12 hours a week. I was certainly eating more. Like breakfast was a thing, but I'm sort of being honest with my current state now. Like a typical, normal, ordinary day. We want to know everyday stars and then we'll get into the Everest in a little bit. But when I was training for that and all the training volume was increased, I would have a porridge with sort of raspberries or blueberries and honey on that.

58:55Yeah. Okay, cool. And then lunch? Lunch. You're at the office? If I'm at the office, it could be a mungo, so a sandwich or something locally. But again, for Everest, I was having meal prep stuff sent to me because the calories I was burning, I'd sometimes have two of these meal preps, one in mid-morning and one at lunch, maybe 12 or 1. So that was a kind of a lunch basis and again, some fruit and bananas and bits of a banana. But typically now it just depends. I might have some food left over from the night before I've kind of boxed up and I'll take in and that could be anything sort of pastas, carbs, you know, spit, spit, bolognese, whatever it is, the food that we've had the night before.

59:35Or it's a sandwich from the local shop. So I try and get it at least, I say fresh. Yeah, I could see the face. Fresh sandwiches. You're looking at faces looking at me. But I won't go to like a Tesco and have a meal deal. That just breaks me. I just think they just, it just looks and feels better. Oh, so you go to a deli and get a proper sandwich. Yeah, a proper deli sandwich, which at least looks all fresh in terms of the ingredients they're putting in there. They've made it that day. Yeah, they've made it that day. Nice. Okay. So that's lunch and then on to dinner? Dinner, yeah. What's Ruby cooking?

1:00:02Yeah, it varies. You know, typically it does vary, but we have different meals pretty much every day. But my favourite is sort of steak and pretty easy steak and that could be some potatoes, vegetables and bits and pieces. And that normally is, well, it is always done as a family, which is kind of nice and kind of cool. Now it's difficult because the kids are quite hard to sort of, they normally wouldn't eat what we're eating. and oddly, actually, well, maybe not oddly, Albie, who's eight, I've got, so Lucas, my old, is 13. He lives with my former partner up north. So in the house, it's me, Ruby, Albie, who's eight, and Huey, who's four.

1:00:38And little brother normally just does what big brother does and wants what he wants. But Albie's sort of not really into meat at all. I mean, he might have a bacon sandwich now and again, but for whatever reason, I think he's made the connection and association himself to, that's a fill-in-the-blank, a pig or what I don't but actually doesn't like the consistency or the taste so he's quite bland with the food in terms of like um pastas and bits and pieces and yeah Ruby's left sort of pulling her hair out at times I've got visions of military you've got to eat your broccoli yeah no no because I do try and break that train although it is frustrating because you're like oh god you need you know and they're all very outgoing very sporty play a lot of football and lots of after school activities and bits and pieces but I don't want to be that person that's kind of going you must eat this and this and maybe try a bit of reverse cycle it's fine if you don't want it it's fine but that is your dinner that's your food and uh you know we're not going to make anything else so it's up to you and he has gone to you know to bed a couple of times i'm starving well you know that you could have had that food shall i get the food again now i've saved it it's in the you know so there's always the kind of push and the pull of being a dad and it's difficult but they are they eat really well and you know have lots of fruit in the morning they're very very good with that bowls of fruit and multivitamins which they have probiotic little yogurt drinks the the nice stuff which the nice stuff what's that oh god i've got it on my phone it's those little things i think what actimel no something else it's similar but it's the kind of organic nice one um okay fine we'll get to that in a minute let's quickly then go through that's your day i want to ask the good the bad and the healthy so can you tell me one good thing that you currently are doing for your diet food family um i think it's just being or introducing hopefully good varied food across like vegetables and fruit um and the meals that we have together are cooked at home using where we can organic products and not processed and trying to remove all the the oils and all this kind of stuff and that's i'm not to you know i'm not to blame for that not to blame i'm not i can't take credit for that that is completely my wife ruby well done ruby yeah she's very very good at that um so i'm that's a very good positive the negative the bad oh give us the bad what is the bad there's got to be some yeah what's your weak spot um sweets oh god i've got such a sweet tooth so we're not very sort of biscuity in the house and bits and pieces and savory and crisps and bits and pieces but sweets we absolutely destroy sweets and i'm leading the charge here as well on this so what's your go-to jelly snakes uh i absolutely love a jelly snake and to be honest i'm not too fussy i like um midget gems the little straws the kind of fizzy stuff haribo i just get stuck right in yeah the funny thing about sweets is you can actually like cut the sugar in content by half dependent on the variety you choose oh what do you mean so like if you get some bad offenders skittles sour patch kids they're between 60 and 75 percent sugar in you know it's just pure sugar you're eating so good it tastes so good right but at the same time you said you like haribo and you can get haribo zing fest which is about 32 percent sugar so basically half um do you know what i think my problem is with it um I'm quite an addictive personality.

1:04:07So I can't just have like one or two. I'm kind of like three, four, five. I'm like, stop eating the kids' sweets, you know. The whole bag's gone. Yeah, I just get stuck right in, unfortunately. That's the thing. I'm genuinely the same. If there's a big bag of crisps in the house, it's gone. Like it's not surviving the night. But I'm just disciplined and don't buy it in the first place so it's not in the cupboard. because if it's in the cupboard, it literally talks to you from the cupboard. It's like Jumanji, isn't it? It starts beating and you think, what's that noise? I'm fixing them downstairs again.

1:04:40But you're like a bit bored at work or you're just a bit like, oh, I've had a hard day and then it's talking to you and it's there. But if it's not in the house, it's not there. I think for me it's like seeing it as a tree and it's kind of, I'm pretty on point through the day and the other parts and training hard. And, you know, I feel like I've always had a good or healthy association to performance and the way I look that I feel then, okay, it's okay to have a little bit or so. You want to treat yourself. We've all got vices. And I think, you know, it's not, there's worse things to be had. All right.

1:05:11So what about the healthy? What's like the thing you're most proud of? You gave Ruby on credit, but you've got to be doing something really good for your health. Food related or food supplements, whatever. I think, yeah, it's the supplements and everything else. So it's keeping on top of, you know, those routines in the morning through the day when I'm training in salts, electrolytes, all the probiotic bits and pieces that I have and the vitamins and all the pills and potions, I guess we can call them. But then health as well. I've always been health has been an integral and vital part of who I am and is formed, you know, and I've sort of seen the benefit of I think you work out quite quickly.

1:05:48I'm not the smartest kid in the room, but I can at least be very fit and make myself fit. And that in itself provides opportunities. Yeah. Well, you're looking good. Thank you. 41, yeah. Killing it. Love it. So this is the segment we're all excited for, and you've already mentioned it. I want to get your phone. Yes. And I want to see what some of the things are in your cupboard. We need to get behind the scenes. Dangerous. Just the good stuff though, right? No. No, no. I want to see all of it, warts and all, because the reality is we all have our guilty pleasures and we have our little things that we need to manage.

1:06:26So I've taken some photos of some of the pills and the potions, and then so it's kind of from there to the dangerous thing on your phone. Hand it over. Dangerous handing someone your phone. No, not left, not left. Go right. Some of it's not safe for work. And then Ruby sent me some stuff this morning because we had an Ocado delivery that came in very middle class. Ocado delivered. and yeah with some of the kind of food then that we have the organic sort of chicken and bits and pieces of the eggs and stuff like that well so you've i mean i want to get into the food your supplements you've got iron supplement yeah take that for your energy presumably yes yeah have you tested to see if you're low iron yeah so that was more in relation to but i've carried it on rightly or wrongly i have my bloods taken every three months but i was low on iron but that was and we go on this in a bit more detail later around everest and i was sleeping in a hypoxic tent which you know increases my hemoglobin but it has a big effect on your iron okay interesting and then you got a bottle of kefir which you know i'm a big fan of but you've got the flavored one oh no come on i thought we did well that's just added sugar the fruit puree is essentially a free sugar because they strip out all the fiber and just keep all the sugar in of the fruit so they do a non-flavored version they do plain kefir oh is it that hard i mean you've been through military sas yeah yeah maybe not but the kids might moan i don't know oh is it for the kids we all yeah all of us pretty much but yeah the kids as well you've got to get them on the plane we slip the probiotic stuff into that as well so i mean your kids are a bit older than mine but like my son jacks he eats 90 dark chocolate and he's three and he loves it dark chocolate yeah but they only know what they know and that's what i think a bit about the parenting responsibility is if you make that switch you go to plane they're just going to have to deal with it and after a few days of moaning they'll get on with it it's just when they go to their mate's house isn't it they go what what's this what is this stuff you can't avoid that they come back you can't avoid that and you can't avoid the times they're going to be eating out at mate's house and whatever but at the same time i always just think if you make the home environment solid that's your sort of 80 good food, healthy, unprocessed, and then when you're out, do what you want.

1:08:39I don't like that rule. You sort of touched on it there, but that 80-20 rule, I try and sort of put that across most of the things that I do, not just food-wise. I feel like you're only showing me the good stuff here. You've got organic chicken breast, organic raspberries, organic free-range eggs, and kimchi. Yeah, and what's the other stuff? We don't have rice. It's the, oh God, what's it called now? She'll be screaming at the thing telling me what it is. You don't have rice. Oh God, it looks like rice. it's the little stuff that's what like cauliflower rice or something like that no it's um mixes in with like a grain or something else like a replacement yeah it's like a replacement for rice but it's just a tasty rice but i can't remember what it is i'll remember after yeah some obscure rice alternative more protein or anything like that i think it is yeah and it's all kind of um it's like it's got no bad well limited badness in it as well okay it's a good thing i mean look you've got organic milk in your shop as well which is a good thing the good stuff What's that?

1:09:33Homogenized? Unhomogenized? Dalesford organic? Dalesford, yes. Yeah, it comes in that weird sort of thing that's very hard to pour, but not good? Less processed? No, good. Oh. Good. Unhomogenized milk is better, I believe, because it's a step less of processing because they're not mixing the fat through, so it keeps it more in its original form. And studies show that people can digest it better. A lot of people can be lactose intolerant or struggle to digest milk, but when you process it less, people can cope with it much better. I love full-fat milk. If I'm not on that, I just love full-fat. Is it just in your coffee and your tea or is it something you're drinking?

1:10:10Coffee, tea, but I add it to my protein shakes as well. And your protein shakes. Okay, so you're getting a good serving of milk a day. You need a good one. Nice. Well, great work. That's always good to see, but I feel like you still might be hiding something. Yeah, 100%. Maybe. So we've got to go into quick fire. Yes. Because here I might be able to get behind the scenes of some of your dangerous things. Favourite guilty pleasure takeaway? I love Five Guys. Five Guys? The burgers and the fries. Yeah. The fries. Yeah, just lamb meal. Everything, yeah. It's great. And the milkshake, yeah. Oh, and the milkshake.

1:10:47Yeah, give me the milkshake as well, yeah. See, this is the problem. Why not? I'm committed by that stage. but this is where the the fast food meal turns from a burger which arguably you could get away with because it's meat and some bread and it's a bit of carbs bit protein bit of fat to a 1500 calorie crazy ultra processed meal with the deep fried french fries and then the milkshake which they're putting all sorts of stuff in and there's tons of sugar in that milkshake i don't know the five guys numbers yeah but we're talking not just like oh it's a lot of sugar yeah yeah whatever it's a one-off it's like two times your daily recommended intake in one drink potentially i don't know the five guys numbers but i know the mcdonald's numbers and they're up there so it's probably never get you never get milkshake at mcdonald's now can you they're always fucking broken but yeah are they yeah i don't seem to go there i mean so i've been told so you go regularly and you can't get them.

1:11:45Next question, next question. All right, quick energy boosting snack. Bananas, as boring as it is. Apples, bananas, I tend to go into fruit. It's a great shout. I don't think you can go wrong with fruit. Comfort meal after brutal training. Carb, something carb-based. So it'll be like a pasta, pasta-based stuff with some creamy sauce and a meat, typically chicken. You love a creamy pasta. One food you can't stand. One thing that I don't really understand is celery. I know it's not really a food, but the taste and everything else. And people go mad for it. I know it's good cleansing and all this sort of stuff.

1:12:22But, yeah, that kind of stuff. I don't think anyone goes mad for celery. Like, it's so stringy and doesn't have a nice day. Yeah, it doesn't look good. People have salt on it and then they put it in a drink. And I think, what are you doing? Yeah, anyway. Yeah. No, I don't think you need celery juice to be healthy. That's for sure. One health hack you've learned and now live by. Oh, health hack. To eat a better, bigger breakfast, because you just taught me that. No, I think health hacks for me is more around making sure that I've never counted calories, and there's the whole calorie deficit bits and pieces, but it's mainly understanding the relationship between my output and then what I'm eating is probably my hack.

1:13:00I don't eat for eating's sake. I won't just sort of sit there and gorge. If I've had a meal, I typically don't have a dessert. A dessert for me would be a yogurt or something like that, so it's never a sort of a pudding, if that makes sense. Yeah, yeah, okay. And then the weirdest thing you saw a fellow soldier eat. Oh. What were they doing? It's got to be PC. No. It doesn't have to be PC. Come on. Okay, good question. I think it's probably harking back to just those bloody rations and mixing things in. Some people would mix these certain meals together, i.e. went low on time. So mixing a corned beef hash meal that they've boiled and then putting in their dessert, like the rice pudding.

1:13:50Because they think, well, it's all going in. I'll just mix it together. And I just think, oh, that's slightly sadistic. Not sure those flavours work together. No. And they'd eat Tabasco sauce and away it went, yeah. That is pretty rogue. One random question. Did you ever eat the local food when you were there? Yes, depending on where we were or where we were operating. But in the city or in Kabul, for example, lots of street food and bits and pieces. Yeah, I absolutely would. And the breads and everything else that they would cook. Good food, right? It was good, tasty. Interesting. No dodgy stomachs?

1:14:23No, I've always been all right. Normally, I don't have sort of a weak stomach, so I'm normally okay. Yeah, because I can't imagine you'd want a running trip to the toilet when you're on a mission. No, not ideal. No, interesting. Well, good you sampled it. I think it's, you know, because typically those places just cook food a lot more traditionally and it's a lot more as food used to be and it can be very good and very healthy. Like I was in Turkey a couple of summers ago and, you know, the lavash you're eating in Turkey is just, it's unprocessed bread. They make it with like three ingredients and they just make it fresh every day.

1:14:56You just pick it up at the baker's and off you go and it's just amazing stuff. All right. So one thing we haven't touched on then is Everest. I need to get into what went into that because it sounds pretty extreme and crazy loads of people have ambitions to do you know challenges and like oh I'm gonna run a half marathon I'm gonna run a marathon to like feel good about myself and do a challenge but you just took it to the next level climbed up on Everest and I watched your video and it scared the hell out of me uh just seeing the top you on the top of Everest and the kind of peak edge that was just snow and i was watching it go couldn't that snow just fall away right now like this is super dangerous and loads of people have died why how what when talk us through it how the food and nutrition was yeah i mean good question i'm sort of about i've been back for it'll be approaching eight weeks i think this this friday um yeah a monumental kind of achievement i'm very fortunate to be a part of that team.

1:15:58Let's start with the why, I guess. And like most crazy adventures, they start over too many beers. You wake up in the morning, what have I done? I'm in a WhatsApp group every seven days. What does that mean? Yeah, what have I signed up to here? But actually, I wasn't on that. It was sort of dreamt up by a couple of guys, Kev Godlington and Al Carnes, the now serving veterans MP. We're all former military guys from our kind of organization. So two kind of from the Marines and Navy side of things and then two from the Army and then, you know, that side of the fence. I love adventure. You know, I love pushing myself.

1:16:41Since I've left, it's difficult because when you leave the organization that I was in, you know, you attach so much of your identity to what you used to do, right? I'm Stas, I'm Special Forces, and it holds weight and value in that echo chamber of the military. You know, you're the rock stars, the cowboys, look at me. It's all fucking great. And then you leave, you're on sort of civvy street, you know, and typically nobody really cares. And then we're building a business and a brand with the other co-founder, Louis. And you have to sort of almost reinvent yourself in terms of the business perspective and family and everything else.

1:17:12So I've always wanted to continue to push myself, but do meaningful things as well. So not always self-serving, but typically a lot of these things are, whether it's a marathon or whatever that is. I always try and attach it to a goal, and that's typically around fundraising. And for us, our main why, the main reasons were to raise veteran profiles. To my point earlier, when you leave the military, there's a lot of stigma. A lot of guys don't know what to do, don't know where to turn. Who wants a sniper? Anybody want to employ a sniper, a demolitions guy, a special forces guy? There are transferable skills, yes, but typically it's an unknown place.

1:17:51And you've been so institutionalized through food, through training, through everything. You have to reinvent yourself, you know, and that's difficult. And we're not all mad, bad and sad as we leave the military and it has had a kind of a bad rap. So we wanted to raise veterans profiles. And we also wanted to raise as much money as possible for veteran charities. Obviously, clear that's something very close to our hearts and in particular bereaved military kids. So Kev Godlington, who climbed with us, he's the patron of Scotty's Little Soldiers. and for us it was okay let's raise the awareness let's show the world that we're all former veterans this is what we can do we're going to raise everybody up and the profile around veterans and veterans within the community and the good that we can do and the give back that we can provide and let's raise as much money and awareness as possible whilst doing this crazy mission the how we did it was was slightly different so you said seven days how long does it normally take Yeah, that's a great question.

1:18:45So typically to climb Everest, it's an eight week sort of expedition. So you would typically fly out from the UK. You know, this is all done through tour operators or guiding operators. And there's lots of different ones on the mountain. Basecamp in itself is like a small little strange ecosystem and world, but they're just filled with different tour operators. For us, we went with the world-leading tour operator, Furtenback Adventures. They specialize in what they call lightning or speed ascents. Even a speed ascent for those guys is four weeks. So they cut a traditional expedition in half, and they do that through a couple of different methods, really.

1:19:23So typically you go out for eight weeks, you go there, you fly in, you walk up, you do all the trail from Kathmandu to Tumbuche, all this kind of stuff. And within that 12-day track to base camp, your body is getting used to the altitude, it's acclimatizing. We touched on red blood cells earlier and the physiological adaptation that the body needs to even operate in that environment. Base camp sits around 5 ,300 meters. Everest, I mean, I'll use it as a reference point because walking here, the shard was right in front of me. It's 30 shards stacked on top of each other. 30? It's, yeah, 29 ,500 feet, 8 ,848 meters.

1:20:02base camp though he sits at 5 300 meters and we thought okay we want to do this differently so it raises more profile um let's do it in seven days this will be a fastest known time door to door we're going to leave london we're going to fly in to katmandu from katmandu helicopter into base camp from base camp it's all the kit and equipment on and then we move through the through the stages two days up two days down and then fly back all within seven days back into London. So you went, it wasn't seven days up, it was two days. No, door to door. Two days. That was leaving my house day one and back at my house day seven, or day six and a half.

1:20:38Isn't that just a bit more dangerous? It is. Well, I don't think, so there's a couple of sort of arguments around that. Look, and sort of broadly speaking, and to your point earlier, it's inherently dangerous, you know. Climbing sort of high altitude mountaineering is dangerous, right? And with that comes the risk, but also the reward, and then also the sense of adventure. But the lack of preparation for your body to kind of acclimatize. Yeah, so we pre-acclimatized at home. So everything was sort of monitored by doctors and the Furtenback Adventure Company. They'd done this before, but it's in a four-week period.

1:21:14Now, Garth, who climbed with us, he had the current record of three weeks, and he actually said, we can do this quicker if the stars align logistically, if everything lines up through all the transport and there are a lot of things out of your control, right? But if we can control that as much as possible, actually time on task on the mountain, we could do this with a small four-man team, you know, Sherpas. We had two Sherpas each helping us. We're on supplemented oxygen. But the most important aspect of that, you're right, was the pre-acclimatization at home. So we all pre-acclimatized. I spent over 600 hours in a hypoxic tent.

1:21:50So it looks like a regular tent, you know, that you would go camping in, but it goes over the spare bed. the uh ruby wasn't interested in having that over the main bed it's hematically sealed you jump in there every night so we were sleeping at altitude or reduced oxygen level which simulates altitude right um the bit of basically a little tube goes into that runs off into an r2d2 looking machine like that you get in the uh in hospitals and what this would do is every night you put the setting on there and through the course of that sort of three months 600 hours we would gradually be going higher and higher so we'd spend about three or four days typically at a reduced oxygen state or simulated altitude once the body adapts to that and gets used to it we'd go a little bit higher a little bit higher maybe a bit down and we'd also do the rotations from there as well so if you're on the mountain typically you'd have to pass through the most dangerous part is the Cumbu Icefall from base camp to camp one it's a shifting glacier so that it's kind of looks like Narnia it's a beautiful kind of place but you move through there at night because it shifts less the ice is frozen nobody really moves through there in the daytime because the ice doctors that go out the sherpa teams and and credits to those guys they are the backbone of the mountain these guys typically fix the route in the line so they'll go out with the ladders and that's maybe where you've seen some of the stuff where people are walking across ladders with their crampons huge huge drops but this because it's a shifting glacier it's constantly moving so they're forever going out tweaking changing making sure it's safe and passable um but we did all the rotations at home So we were going up to, I think the highest we went in the tent is 7 ,300 metres.

1:23:22And we can now start, this is every morning I've got the iPad out, I was feeding my data back in. Typically I'm looking at my blood oxygen level, so SBO readings, my heart rate before getting into the tent and then after getting into the tent. Regular blood checks from the doctors, irons, iron infusions, all this kind of stuff to make sure that, you know, my haemoglobin was kind of through the roof by the time I was ready to go. but that's a very fine balance and a kind of measurement between having super thick red oxygenated blood in your body but then making sure that you have the VO2 and the cardiovascular system that can cope with that, right?

1:23:58Because if you don't, it can lead to heart attacks and more stress on the body. Obviously, that's the acclimatization part but when you're climbing Everest and when you're preparing for it, there's a lot that goes into that from a nutrition, food, supplement point of view. What were you doing to kind of look after that process and physically as well? Was that long distance running for endurance or was it lifting weights in the gym? A combination of all those things. I'm very fortunate, surrounded by a great team. I had a personal trainer, Mark Rhodes, and he really dialed into my fitness regime or my training protocol.

1:24:33And that was like a block. It typically would last anywhere between 8 to 12 hours a week of training. That would consist of gym sort of physical strength resistance training. So sort of three sessions of that. And then I would have a lot of bike sessions. So a lot of time spent in my garage on the static kind of Watt bike, just looking at the brick wall, headphones in, and they're just kind of low zone two aerobic capacity building sessions. And then at the weekend, I'd have a long time on feet sessions. But it wasn't beasting myself, which was a bit of a mindset shift for me personally, thinking it's Everest, I've just got to thrash myself till the wheels fall off.

1:25:12Well, actually it was very, very calculated and scientific in terms of the approach. A lot of zone two aerobic building stuff. And actually before all this started, we went to the Altitude Centre in London who specialised in sort of supporting and getting people ready to climb high altitude mountains. We were all tested. So our VO2 maxes were tested, lactate threshold. That would then set the kind of benchmark or the training block for us as individuals because we're all different, right? And we all train differently. We all adapt differently and at different stages. So it wasn't just a let's get something off the internet and plug and play.

1:25:46We were all very, very specific with ourselves and had a lot of help and support on that front. But yeah, typically it was eight to 12 weeks of all sorts of kind of gym, cycling, running. More importantly, though, trying not to get injured. So for us, we couldn't afford to be injured. We had to be very scientific, but incrementally increase our VO2 maxes and our aerobic capacity. Because actually when you're on the hill climbing, you're on supplemented oxygen in bits and pieces, you're moving very slowly. It's all very methodical, all very precise for the most part. And you're trying to keep your heart rate down.

1:26:21I think we were the first team that I know of that were on the hill and being monitored by all the doctors. When we flew into base camp, there was a doctor, we had mammograms, everything was checked to make sure that they were happy to let us go onto the hill. You know, we'd done all the hypoxic training, which was the most important part of the training, the making sure that our bodies were physiologically ready for that. We had the red blood cell counts that were in the right sort of zones and area. But yeah, it was super professional from the outset. We were training like professional athletes.

1:26:50The beauty and the benefit was that we were at home, right? We weren't out on the hill. Typically when you're out on the mountain, in my opinion, So to sort of hopefully round off where it's seven days quicker. Actually, I think for me, speed was safety. And it mitigated and managed the risks of being out on the mountain. And lots of people, when we turned up, they had what's called a kumbu cough. You know, you're out there, you're at altitude, lots of people coughing, coughing up blood and just having a miserable time of it. The food as well, lots of people having bad bellies and everything else.

1:27:22So for me, I thought the least amount of time I can spend in that environment at that altitude is better for me as an individual. I turn up, I'm fully trained. And if you've been out there for weeks and you're waiting, you're not getting fitter. You're actually, your body's degrading, you know, slowly but surely. You're not getting fitter. Food's not great. You're not sleeping great at altitude either. So it's all these kind of, you know, mixed things that for me added up to our success. the food for me for the training and the lead up to Everest again was monitored training long endurance stuff and a really good rounded professional program of mixed activity food what was the nutrition like preparing your body for it and then taking that further what was it like on the hill I know you were only there for seven days but you still had to eat what was going in your body yeah good question I think for the training blocks before going out to Everest we had to become carb adapted because I knew what food was available on the hill so we very um that was a conscious decision to become carb adapted so when I was training it was lots of carbs carb like gels and bits and pieces and the carb sachets which I then would test and take out on the hill with me food it was just I couldn't eat enough the the kind of advice I was given was eat as much as you can you're training so much um all the hypoxic training is taking its toll just get as much food good quality food in you as possible uh look i've got the metabolism of a small boy as well you know i've never sort of had an ounce of fat on me really so i knew that there was no sort of risk of me going oh i might get my pot on weight that didn't even enter my brain it was more keep fueling myself before going out did the conversation ever turn into nutrients though specifically because i get the fuel obviously you're trained in the fuel methodology in the military but what about micronutrients right were they considered were you on a tailored supplement regime yes yeah all that sort of stuff was monitored as well in terms of take this all these sort of again pills and potions just more added to my what is now normal day so lots more nutrients and supplements and bits and pieces um once we got out on the hill it was quite funny actually and and al karns who climbed with us who's the uh former mp he was like i'm sticking to what I know, it was like, I'm going to carry and take military rations, but new ones now that are a little bit better than when we went through training.

1:29:41And we were all sort of laughing going, what are you doing? Are you joking? That's a part of my past. I don't want to eat a ration pack ever again in my life. But actually it served him quite well, you know, and all of us, you know, look, we turned up on the hill. We were physically very, very ready, all very fit. We were all adapted through the hypoxic training mythology. We're all tested by, you know, checked by doctors. But on the hill, it's different. It's hard. And it's much like being in the field or on an exercise in the military, of which we're all used to and quite comfortable with, if that makes sense.

1:30:12So if the food wasn't great or we weren't getting the meals that people are potentially used to, for us, that's fine. You know, mentally did not affect us. And there are times when we could eat at the different camps. So base camp, you get food cooked for you. That's fine. We didn't even spend a night in base camp, though. So it was in, get our kit on, and we're off that night. we go up to camp one but between camp one uh sorry base camp and camp one we were hit by an avalanche as well which is nothing to do with nutrition but just as a kind of a mindset thing um i've got the footage for you after maybe you can show that but we were caught in a pretty serious avalanche again dusted ourselves off you know shook ourselves off and carried on up to camp one there's food at camp one if you want it but typically it's just very quick noodles or something like that just get a bit of food in but for me i knew what my body needed when i'm training because I saw that as yes we're mountaineering right on the hill but I saw my body in terms of requirement is similar to training so I had lots of sterka stuff lots of carb sachets lots of gels salt electrolyte tablets I'd be putting into my water and I knew I could run on that like for an extended period of time at least until I could get a freeze-dried meal and it was just freeze-dried meals past camp two it's just freeze-dried and the Sherpas would move around and they boil the water you just hand them the freeze-dried stuff it comes back and for me it was i don't even i couldn't even tell you what what was in there is in terms of what it was but their their freeze-dried meals that are very very calorie um sort of dense and that was it it would just get that stuff down and then i'd have some things that i would like maybe some protein bars uh and biltong had a lot of biltong thanks to kev who took that out uh good snack yeah and we'd be trading things for but give me some biltong and trade stuff so yeah yeah no i mean listen i'm not an expert and I don't know these things it's probably more for your professional team to question but like for me what comes into my mind with the energy gels like I've run a marathon before I lived on them when I was running the marathon you have to get that sugar and that carb in but when I look at them today the first ingredient is maltodextrin which is a starch from corn and it's you know basically pure glucose when it converts into your body but it's nutrient devoid and i just question whether you'd be in a better place if you had the sugars as well but with some of the nutrition because the nutrition fuels your body on a cellular level in a way that pure sugar just can't and so that's a bit i mean it's someone in the comments can probably answer it better than i can but it's just i just don't know what the kind of not alternative is but what you can do especially higher up especially when you get to camp four in the death zone above 8 ,000 meters.

1:32:46It's every man for himself, and you're just not surviving. Because I felt great on the hill. I felt really good. I felt very strong. I never felt really hungry, which then can be a problem because similar to the cold, you don't want to eat. You might not feel hungry, but that's not necessarily saying you don't need the food or the nutrients. I felt good, though. I did feel okay on task. But again, that's because of the short period of time that we were there. It's interesting. Very interesting I mean fascinating story So you mentioned it was a record What was the record? So door to door Under seven days From going to London To the top of Mount Everest And back to London In under seven days That's the quickest time That anybody has done that World record?

1:33:27Yes Well I don't know So much world They call it an FKT Fastest known time Okay well No one else has done it So it's a world record right? Yes that's the quickest Anybody's done that From London Up to the top And back to London yes Absolutely amazing I mean congratulations Because that's insane And I think one thing You've proven to our listeners over and over again is you can do whatever you want to do if you put your mind to it and you focus and you just you know you push your body to these extremes right that a lot of people don't do we're comfortable we're on the sofa at home watching the tv and it's hard to push yourself so you've got you've got something in you in your mind in your body whatever it is that can take it to this next level and be an inspiration thank you for coming in stas it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you and i hope our listeners can be a little bit inspired and get some of the good, the bad and the healthy from today's episode.

1:34:16Thank you so much, mate. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Just one small favor to ask. If you could leave us a review or follow the podcast, it enables us to build this show in a better way, create more interesting stories, get better guests and continue the conversation of real food and real health for people with our real talk approach. So a little bit of support, two seconds from you guys will make a huge difference to this so we can continue on our mission to make everybody a little bit healthier.

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