Transcript of Transforming Your Health into a Competitive Advantage in Business | Ted Ryce

Testosterone is a symptom of the problem. Clomid, by the way, what it does is it stops this process called aromatization. What is aromatization? It's when testosterone gets converted into estrogen. Guess where that happens? In your fat cells. In fact, women need that because... And women who compete in bodybuilding, in natural bodybuilding without drugs, when they get super lean, their estrogen levels drop. The number one The thing that's causing issues with testosterone is excess body fat, especially visceral body fat. Guys are so quick to go out and take TRT. If you want to do things the right way, you got to fix the root cause. You have to lose the excess body fat.

All right, Ted, dude, so excited to have you on the show. These are some of my favorite shows because I would consider myself like a fitness hobbyist. I would never, ever present myself as I know what I'm talking about, but I love to try all kinds of different exercises, routines. I got a cold plunge, I got a I got to... I love... And what's fun is I like the testing part because you find out what works and what doesn't, but I technically don't know anything. So I love when I get people like yourself on here that I can just pepper with questions, and I know the audience loves it, too. So Thank you so much for your time, my friend.

Yeah, happy to be here. And I appreciate how you're starting out because I deal with a lot of people who they believe they know a lot. And in many cases, they do. But the way I define how good you are at health and fitness is the real-world results. Just like you would say to someone who's giving business advice, Oh, here's what you need to do with your business. You got to do this. You got to run these ads. It's like, Okay, man, you must have a killer business. Actually, we're struggling. It's like, Okay. I don't think I'm going to listen to you then, right? So I think that's really important. And there are people who, and we can talk about this, too, there's a lot of people who get results but don't even know how they're getting them. Like low carb diet people or carnivore diet people. They're like, oh, carnivore diet changed my life. It's like, no, you finally got into a calorie deficit You lost the weight. Your inflammation came down because visceral fat secretes inflammatory chemicals, makes you feel horrible, increases, oxidation and stress in your body and all these things. And you lost that visceral fat, and now you're feeling better.

But you could have used, you could have even done a vegan diet, right? So we can get into all that. You just let me know where you want to start.

Yeah. So I'm going to use this as a personal fitness consulting hour that I get. So I'm just going to... Yes and no. Go for it. I know the audience loves this particular topic. So our audience, and it's a tremendous group, it tends to be men and women who are driven, ambitious. If you listen to all the crazy shit on this show and the people I bring on, and you stick around, then this is where your head is at. And I know fitness is a big part for a lot of people. And I did a poll about six months ago and got some feedback on the audience. And a lot of our listeners tend to be in that 35 to 50 range. We do tend to skew more towards men, but we have a lot of females as well. And people are across the spectrum in their health journey. I didn't get detailed in the question. It was more like, where are you and where would you classify yourself in your health journey right now? And I'd say it's a very broad spectrum. So don't feel like you're being too simple or too complex. There's people across the board that have interest in these topics.

So I really want to focus on the transition in health from 30s to 40s and using that as the construct. One, that's what I just went through. I'm 44 years old. Two, a lot of the people that I interact with peers, even some of the founders and stuff that I coach, they're either coming up to that transition, which tends to be a moment, or they've made the transition into their 40s, and now they're going, Hey, I would like to be fit as long as I can into this second half of my life. So I'd like to use that as our construct as we talk through this, because I know your recommendations or ideas for a 22-year-old would be different for a 50-year-old. So we use that as our construct as we talk through these things. Sure. First and foremost, you have this quote that I think is fantastic and sets the table for our conversation today, which is, Success means nothing if you're exhausted. I love this because it's right to the point. If you're waking up every day and you feel like crap, or you don't have energy, or you're just not excited about who you see in the mirror, that sets the tone for the rest of your day.

So one, I'd like maybe you to talk a little bit, just give us some context around your own health journey and where you've come from and why you've made this your career. And then I want to get into some very specific things and start talking through some Yeah, sure.

Health and fitness saved my life. Everyone thinks when they meet me, Oh, you must have played sports in high school. It must have been a jock, but I wasn't. I was a weed smoking, skateboarding, rock T-shirt wearing guy. When I turned 19, I screwed around in high school, didn't do well, got into college, started really getting into physiology, and I wanted to study neuroscience. In particular, I was super fascinated by it. And then, I don't know how deep you want to get into this, but my nine-year-old brother was kidnapped and murdered. And it's big news, big story in Miami. Anyone who was living in Miami during that time knows my brother's name, Jimmy Rice. Don't look up this story. It's really bad, but it was a very high-profile case. They I ended up catching the guy who did it. But when it comes to my story and how that plays into why I chose health and fitness to dedicate my life to, is because during that time, I was like, Okay, my life is over. I didn't have my parents. My parents were very focused on... They got laws passed, and they did all this great stuff for missing children in the United States, met with two presidents, et cetera.

But I was just falling apart, mentally, emotionally, including physically. I dropped out of school, didn't know what to do with my life. I ended up finding my way into the gym again because although I was the skateboarding party guy, I had lifted weights, too, and I did martial arts. I wasn't completely just... I was a skinny, very active kid. I happened to party, and that was my thing. And I found my way back into the gym, and that was my path to healing. That was my path to getting back to a place where, Oh, there is a light at the end of the tunnel after this terrible, tragic, horrible story, right? That really devastated my family and put me in a dark place that took years to come out of. And again, health and fitness was the thing. And I want to make it relevant to everyone listening because that's a really hard story. Hopefully, nothing like that, even remotely similar to that, will ever happen to I hope. But we all go through hard things. Your parent, best case scenario, you have the best childhood in the world, you're going to watch your parents get old and die.

In fact, a lot of the people in the demographic that you mentioned, that's who I work with, my clients, and we can talk about this because people love to talk about, Oh, my metabolism is slow. It's like, no, you are a caretaker for your dad who has cancer for the second time and your mom who has signs of Alzheimer's. And it's like these things that happen in our social life that really take a toll on our time, on our stress class levels. And so a lot of people in their 40s end up having kids that require a lot of money, attention, and then have parents that require a lot of attention and sometimes money, too. And that's what a lot of people's experience in the '40s are. So what I do is, again, health and fitness help me pull out of that bad place. And I help people who found themselves in a place where like, man, in a way, it's my best time of in my life. I'm in my 40s. I'm more successful than ever more confident in who I am. And I look in the mirror and I don't recognize the person looking back.

And it's like, will I ever be able to get that back? And a lot of people don't believe they can. But I'm here to tell you that it's possible and it's easier than you think.

So I appreciate you sharing that story with us. And while I'm assuming Most people can't relate to the depth and public nature of the tragedy. I appreciate that you shared it to give us some context on we all have things, right? We all have things. And one of the things, guys, that I would caution you on this is don't compare your thing to someone else's thing. Your thing doesn't need to be as perceptually as big or disastrous for it to have a similar impact on you, your body, your mental, your depression, right? So it's not like... For you, it could be getting fired from a job, or it could be a girlfriend, or your wife leaves you, or you're just having problems, or a business partner does something. There's plenty of things that can put us down this spiral and don't feel like your thing isn't as important or whatever. We all have things, and we have to pull ourselves out. And that's what we're here to talk about today, is how do we optimize our physical health? Because I've been saying for a long time on this show, your health is a competitive advantage.

When you're thinking about competitive advantages in business, your health is a competitive And I mean this sincerely. My story with health is I had college athlete, athlete in high school, always just saw myself as this athletic guy. But then into my late 20s, early 30s, I had kids, I was married, working a lot, all the things you just said. In 2017, I am hosting a conference and I'm seeing it. And the final session of a two-day conference was I was doing a fireside chat with our last speaker to close out the day. And I'm standing behind the curtain, and we're like two or three minutes from going on, and I collapse, pass out. My physical health, my drinking too much, not sleeping, eating crap, just all the things. I paid zero attention to any of them because I was so focused on work. And And the speaker had to go out on his own. Essentially, I walked out, sat in the chair after pulling myself back together and basically said, Hey, I think... His name was Michael. Michael wants to get after it. Michael, dude, we're here to see you anyways. Go do your thing.

And I sat in the chair and literally was worried about passing out again while he went and did it, thank God. And no one even knew in the conference it was fine. But I realized I had hit this low. If I can't, at 36 years old or whatever I was, not being Being able to make it through a two-day conference without passing out is bad. And that's when I started my journey. And what I found at that time was, and when I started to lose weight, is all of a sudden I could create more. I could be better for my team members. I could give more attention to my kids at night because I wasn't exhausted by the day. All these amazing things started happening. So someone comes to you, and they're in the situation that I'm in. They want to get better. So you're not convincing them they need to get better. They've come to you and said, Hey, I'm in this place. I'm 20 pounds, 25, whatever it is, 40 pounds overweight from where I would like to be. I don't have energy. How do you start digging in with them? I know a lot of people How do people get stuck on where to start because it feels like such a big thing.

Do I start running? Do I start lifting? Do I take testosterone? Where do I get started with this journey in turning my health around so I can make it a competitive advantage for me in business?

Yeah, and the real answer is hire an expert like me, and they'll be able to guide you through the process in a way that doesn't lead to losing the weight, gaining a back, or overdoing it. But I know that's going to come across self-serving, but that is the truth, right? If you want the fastest path to regaining your health and getting into shape where You can be in the best shape of your life in your 40s, 50s, even 60s, provided you weren't an elite athlete in your 20s, of course. But let's get into the steps separate from that. But I just want to drop that because how do you grow your business the fastest? If you're not already just a business wizard, well, you hire someone to help you. You hire a mentor. You want to get good at golf, you hire someone to to help you. You want to get good at tennis, hire someone to help you. I got my black belt a lot faster. I told you earlier, I got my black belt in jiu-jitsu a lot faster than I had planned on. I was planned on spending a year in Brazil to make it happen.

I thought it would happen in nine months, some eight or nine months. I got in less than six months because I hired someone. I hired the best person I could to train with. It helped me level up, and I was already good. And I think that's another thing. A lot of people are like, oh, but I know what I'm doing. It's like, eh. And here's coming into the part where if you're not sold on working with someone yet, totally cool. But here's what I want you to focus on then. You think you're knowledgeable about health, fitness, diet, and you probably are in a trivia sense. If you go to a party and you can talk about the ergothianine and shittaki and king oyster mushrooms and the solforafane and broccoli sprouts. Fantastic. What results can you get for yourself in health and fitness? What are your numbers, in fact? So that's what I start off clients with. Go get a DEXA scan to see your body fat percentage and also your muscle mass and your, specifically your visceral fat. Not all DEXA scans do them. You have to make sure you go to one that will test how How much visceral fat you have, because if you have that, you're not that healthy.

Because I'll come back to the data in a second. But a big mistake people make is tell them stories. They tell stories about what they're doing instead of about the results. It's like someone in business saying, Hey, we're running ads. I just hired a rock star. Man, our business is crushing it. We're closing deals. How much money are you making this year compared to last year? If that was the goal, let's say. And if it's not different, then it's just talk. I remember a very obese guy telling me, Hey, listen, I drink green juice, and I'm eating the IE, and I'm doing this. I'm doing cardio, I'm lifting weight. It's like you're out of shape. I don't need anything else. What you're saying is completely irrelevant.

And so Today's episode of Finding Peak is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Hiring is not hard because there aren't enough people. It's hard because you're drowning in resumes and starving for candidates who can actually do the job, but not with ZipRecruiter. Ziprecruiter finds amazing candidates for you fast. Right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter. Com/work. That's ziprecruiter. Com/work. The second your job goes live, ZipRecruiter's matching tech goes to work, locking to the right people fast and putting qualified candidates in front of you before your competition even wakes up. See someone you like? Don't wait. Fire off ZipRecruiter's pre-written, Invite to apply, and get top candidates leaning in before anyone else has a shot. Ditch the other hiring sites and let ZipRecruiter find what you're looking for, the needle in the haystack. Four to five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a qualified candidate within their first day. Try it for free at this exclusive web address, ziprecruiter. Com/work. That's Ziprecruiter. Com/w-o-r-k. Again, that's ziprecruiter. Com/work. Ziprecruiter, the smartest way to hire.

And I went through this journey, too, where I had the same thing I had a story about. I also got out of shape in my mid-30s and changed things around after that. But start with data. Go get your blood work. I work with so many high performers. They haven't been to the doctor and gotten blood work in a while. If you're in your 40s, you don't have time to mess around. I had one client, he went and got a CTS, not a CT scan, a calcium score, and it was elevated. Calcium score is how much hard plaque is in your arteries. It should be zero at his age, but it was quite high. Right? And so get the data, get a DEXA scan. If you have heart disease risks in your family, get a calcium score. I had a CT angiogram. I don't even have heart disease in my family. Luckily, it came out fine. Go get your colonoscopy because people are getting colon cancer earlier than before.

Can I ask you one question? Sure, go for it. Dexa scan. So I have one of those The brand that I use is Withings, but it's a DEXA scan scale. How accurate... I know it's probably all relative. You want to see the numbers in general heading in the right direction, but how accurate are those types of scales, like at-home scales?

Yeah, they're typically not, right? You want to go to an in body at the very least, which is bioelectrical impedence, and a DEXA scan is best. Now, a DEXA scan does come with a little bit of radiation, but it's very, very low, right? So do dental X-rays, and so does flying in an airplane.

A little bit of radiation never hurt anybody. You know what I mean?

Yeah, outside my realm of expertise. And I'll tell you, when I know something like a radiation dosage is, it's not something I read a lot about. But anyway, it's not going to... Having a DEXA scan is going to help you a lot.

So one of those scales would be good in general for trends. If you're in the process seeing, obviously, weight, but seeing fat percentage come down, viscer muscle fat percentage, muscle mass going up as a percentage of the body, seeing the trends, it might help. But ultimately, if you want to know where you're at, you need to go to a facility and get a DEXA scan and get an in-body scan so that you have real accurate numbers.

Yeah, DEXA scan is going to be best. And because the within scale, I've seen it trend similarly with DEXA scans or embodied or bioelectrical impedence. But, man, it's just a better guess instead of... Even the DEXA scan has a margin of error, but it's quite low. So yeah, there's always a margin error, but But definitely the DEXA scan is the gold standard when it comes to that.

So I have a Whoop. I'm not wearing it right now because I go through cycles with it because I don't love having it on my wrist, but I love the data. And the scale. So guys, so you know what I'm talking about when I say a withing scale. And there's other brands. This is just one brand. But it's the scales that you step on and you pull the little bar up and you hold it and it sends electricity through your body and figures out these different things. And I found it good for trends, but I've always been like... Because right now it says my body fat is... This morning, it was 7. 7%.

That's not accurate.

And I'm like, Look, I know I've brought my fat.

I can see that right now.

Yeah, I was like, I brought my fat percentage down. That's not right. But to think that I'm 8 % body fat is crazy. That's just not the truth.

You would have veins. And here's how you know how lean you are. It's not what the muscle striations and that type Everything, it's the veins, the vascularity. If you have veins popping, you would have veins popping out on your chest and your abs at that level of body fat. I would see veins on your neck right now at that level of body fat.

Which for those just listening to the audio, I don't have that. And that's also not my goal. It's just that was when I saw that as I work through this, whatever, I've been on a mission the last three or four months to get myself back to where I wanted to I let myself not go, but whatever. It doesn't matter. And I've always been like, this feels good for what direction you're trending, not like you couldn't quote 8 % body fat. That would be insane. You know what I mean?

Another thing about that and low body fat, some guys feel... I think this is a misconception that a lot of people have. The bodybuilders, or let's say, the men's health cover models, when they diet down, Their sex drive is low, their energy is low. Their energy is low. Yeah, they might be seven % body fat, but they're feeling horrible. They look amazing for sure, but a lot of guys, they can't maintain super low body fat because of the hunger that happens, the lethargy, the low libido. You want to drop your testosterone levels into the double digits, which if you're measuring nanograms per deciliter, which is the metric that we use in United States, it's like low as 300 or 280, depending on the lab. I've seen bodybuilders with double digits when they get contest. Now it comes back, right? And these are natural bodybuilders, because if they're taking testosterone, their testosterone will stay at the level that they're injecting, right? But for natural, if you're natural not taking TRT, which I'm not a fan of, by the way, it's going to tank. So just keep that in mind. What you think might be your ideal based on, especially now with social media and with all the the steroid use and the women with the BBLs and getting liposuction.

People get, guys get liposuction on their abs, too. Like, Drake. I don't have anything against people doing any of this stuff. For example, Drake is a rapper/musician, rapper/musician. But you could see, going back, if you look at his photo, if he had this crease in his abdominal area and his arms, you couldn't see any veins. If you were that lean, you would be able to see vascularity on his... You'd see bicep and forearm veins just popping, but he didn't have that. And people use software as well.

It's just crazy times we're living in. And I love that you brought that up because I think this is what happens to a lot of people. My fight is against dad bod. I don't want to be dad bod. Not even so much because I care about the look or whatever. I don't like the look. I don't like the way I feel when I put on weight. But it's more the discipline of it. To me, when When we start putting on the keg belly and we start accepting our back pain and our knee pain, and it's like, to me, that feels more like giving up. You've just acquiesced to life. I refuse to go quietly into the night. I'm going to fight this thing, kicking and screaming as much as I can in terms of taking care, being diligent, focusing on fitness, focusing on what I eat, focusing on mental health and all the different things. I'm not just going to ride out what the universe decides to throw me from a mental and physical health perspective. I'm going to fight it. That's my goal. And really where that came from was not this January we just went past, but the January before.

So I live in upstate New York, used to 66 days of sun. So in January and February, you're basically drinking vitamin D and doing everything you possibly can to not get the winner the Winter Blues. But I'm used to it. No matter what you do, you have this dip in energy, just you don't see the sun, all this stuff. Okay, very used to that. So not this last January, but the January before. So that would be January of 2024. It's like I ran into a brick wall, dude. Couldn't get out of bed, no energy, brain fog, no libido, just the whole thing. And I knew something was different. And I don't have a great GP. Hopefully, she doesn't listen to show, but she's not awesome. I don't trust her. She constantly wants to put me on drugs.

What drugs?

So I traditionally had very high cholesterol. Traditionally, so since I was a kid, I've had a cholesterol over 200. I've always been over 200. And in the last 10 years, I've seen it go from 200 up to the last time. I just got my blood work yesterday, but before that, I was at 275, and it was over indexed on the LDL. But I went, so I go to my GP, and I get this number 275 or whatever it was. 273, something like that. It doesn't matter. She goes, Oh, your cholesterol is high. I'll just write you a prescription for Lipitor. And I was like, I don't want to go on Lipitor. I'm just like, I don't want... One, I just don't like taking things that I feel are unnecessary. And two, I know there are side effects to Lipitor, and I'm just like, I don't want to do that. I don't want to just go on Lipitor. So I had done enough research, cholesterol being an issue for me as long as it has been, to know that that amount of cholesterol, if my plaque is zero, is essentially not an issue, or at least not enough of an issue to go on Lipitor.

So I come back to her and I go, Well, can you write me a ticket to go get a plaque and a plaque scan? Because if my calcium is zero and if my plaque is zero, then I really don't need to go on Lipitor. And she agreed, And I went and it was zero. So that was great.

You got a CT angiogram?

Yeah, I got the whole thing in the- So you got injected with contrast? Yeah. So I got the whole thing and came back zero, which is great. Awesome. Okay. So where I'm going with this is, I ended up getting... It was one of the services that Huberman talks about for men's hormonal testing. I just got an at-home blood test, right? So it comes in the mail, you take the blood, you mail it out, and they send you your And I did that twice because the first time I did it, it was 77 for all testosterone, not just free. And the second time, it was 84. So I'm in the sixth or seventh percentile of men for testosterone, according to the stats, right? So that's not free testosterone, guys. That's all testosterone in my body, which is not good. My free testosterone was five. So I ended up getting a prescription for Enclomadine. I always permit E-N-C-L-O-Encloma. It's a steroid that naturally activates your body's testosterone production ability. So it's not TRT or whatever. You take it sublingual. And after about three months, that had amazing effect. My testosterone came back up. But then I started, this is what sent me down the journey that we're talking about today was because I was like, Oh, my God, I've been relatively relatively healthy since 2017, varying degrees, but for the most part on the healthier side for men my age.

And my testosterone just dropped off the map for two months. And that's what put me down this path of, I'm I'm not, I'm going to fight this thing. Within reason, I'm not going to fly to some shady country and get injected with some experimental chemical. But with as much as I can, as reasonable as I can be, I'm going to do the things necessary to create healthy longevity in my life. And that's how we got to wanting to talk to professionals like yourself who know so much about this stuff. Because if you're not working with an expert, this is the last thing I'm going to say, and I know I'm talking a long time, I apologize. No, no, no. Okay. That's what I'm going to say, to your point about working with an expert. If I wasn't a research OCD psychopath, which is what makes me good at certain aspects of my job. But if I wasn't so willing to invest hours Hours and hours into reading and listening to all these different people and comparing notes and trying to figure out what could work for me and then going out and finding the professionals that could help, I have no idea, and I'm probably still sitting here with super low testosterone, feeling like shit, just thinking this is what my life is.

So going back to your point of working with an expert, I know guys that when someone like Ted comes on a show and it's what he do, and you hear that, you're like, Oh, that's because... No. What Ted said was, And call me, he said, Find somebody that you can work with who can be your guide, because I'm telling you, unless you are a complete psychopath, this is very hard to do yourself, and it will take much longer, and you will make a lot of mistakes. So I just wanted to double into that point that I found a local hormone optimization specialist who I work with here in my local area, and she has completely changed the game for me. But it wasn't until I found her. I was doing all kinds of different things until I found her. So I just wanted to push into, I do think it's very important that if this is important to you, that you find somebody like yourself to work with.

Yeah, definitely. So you're taking Clomid, is that correct? Because you said Clomidine.

I could tell you exactly what it is.

But I'll talk in the Clomiphean, right?

Yeah, and clomiphine.

Yeah. Yes. What that does is it stops. Again, I'm not an expert in this area, but what it does is it stops. So here's what happens, right? Because we can talk about testosterone, because Testosterone is a downstream effect. And so what I mean by that is you might say, Man, my problem, I don't have any money. I don't have any money. That is my problem. It's like, No, no, no. Or, Do you have a Is your job? Is your business? That's a symptom of your problem. So testosterone is a symptom of the problem. Clomid, by the way, what it does, to my recollection, is it stops this process called aromatization. What is aromatization? It's when testosterone gets converted into estrogen. Guess where that happens? In your fat cells. In fact, women need that because... And women who compete in bodybuilding, in natural bodybuilding without drugs, when they get super lean, their estrogen levels drop. The number one thing that's causing issues with testosterone, according to the best literature that we have, is excess body fat, especially visceral body fat. Guys are so quick to go out and take TRT or some other type of medication.

And look, you know what? I've put things in my body, MDMA, alcohol. Alcohol is one of the worst things you can do. But I'm not judging, but if you want to do things the right way, you got to fix the root cause. And the root cause is this. It's like you have to lose the excess body fat. And another thing about that is we know that there's what's called a personal fat threshold. For example, Chinese people get diabetes at a lower BMI, so at a lower weight. Bmi is just a measurement of your height and your weight. They get higher rates of obesity at a lower BMI than Americans do. But why is that? Well, some people have a genetic predisposition to having diabetes or insulin resistance at lower levels of body fat. Just like I had a CT angiogram, too, my calcium score is zero. I had what's called zero stenosis in my arteries, so there's no signs of any type of issues. With my heart, with my arteries. I'm 48 years old, but I had a precancerous polyp removed from my colon back in 2021, and I have to get colonoscopies. Quite frequently.

Why? Because I had a genetic predisposition to it. You can't compare yourself to people. That's why, going back to the second thing I said, first was hire an expert to help you. But the second was get the data. You don't want to tell yourself a story about how you're doing. Go get a DEXA scan. Go get your blood work. Go get a VO2 max Because that's a VO2 max test is something that measures cardiorrespiratory fitness. In other words, how fit you are cardiovascularly. Because a lot of people aren't very fit cardiovascularly, especially if you're fat, right? If you got If you have excess body fat, if you got a big belly, you may be going out and pushing yourself, and it feels like you're pushing yourself. But the issue is you're already out of shape. You're already... Your body is under stress already, right? You have what's Oxidation is higher. Oxidative stress is higher. If you're too overweight, you're going to have some sleep apnea, so your sleep isn't going to be good. You're going to already have issues. And as we get older, to your point earlier, age is not just a number. It's a good thing to say that, and you should say that if you're currently saying that.

But the reality is this, even if you're doing everything perfect. Let's take... This person doesn't exist, but let's just imagine there's a lean, fit person. They've been fit their whole life. They're Olympic-level cyclists, VO2 max. They've been doing the same thing. They've never changed. The only thing that's changed is their age. Their VO2 max is going to come down. We're super focused on building muscle and strength, which is the foundation, in my opinion. But VO2 max is something where you can get your strength. You can be strong and have muscle in your '50s, '60s, '70s, not a problem. But your VO2 max is like, it's like you have an opportunity. The younger you are, the more you can invest in it to build it up, and then the less the decline, right? And every year that goes by, you're missing out on that if you're not doing dedicated cardiovascular training. Our levels of what's called low-grade chronic inflammation go up. Scientists call it inflammaging, right? And so these levels of inflammation go up, even If you're doing everything right, and if you're not doing everything right, which is 99. 9% of us, unless you're part of the Schimani tribe in Bolivia, living off the land, hunting your food, which none of us listening to this are.

You're not as healthy as you think. Modern life is just... It is what it is. That's why we have to work so hard to stay healthy, is we're really working against the amazing and fun life that we've created. But it's a bit far away from, let's say, what our biology is designed for.

Yeah. Okay. So good news with the Enclomiphine. I used it for about a year, and then my doctor and I cycled off of it once we felt we had everything stabilized. So it was more of like, get yourself fixed, and then all the things that you said. So it was funny. Basically, what she said to me was, In order to get you back to operational speed, we're going to use this tool for a period of time. And then in the meantime, what I need you to do is get your ship together. Because in the end of 2023, I was selling a company. There was a lot of stress. I was exiting. There's all this stuff going on. So 2023, I'd put on about 10 or 15 pounds from where I'd like to me, which is pretty much where I am today. So some of that and just all the things. I'm just as susceptible as anybody else to the, Oh, I'll just have one drink tonight because I earned it because I worked so hard today. That shit adds up. And I have a bunch of questions on some individual things that I'm going to save for the end and maybe we'll do a rapid fire section.

But there's two additional topics that I want to touch on that I know a lot of people are thinking about, hearing about. And let's start with the big one, and that's GLP-1s. And as I share with you in the pre-show, and I don't know that I've ever shared this on the show, but I'm obviously... It is what it is. I take Trisepitide, Monjorno, which is a second-generation GLP-1. I take a microdose of that. I take one point something milliliters or milligrams or whatever the metric is. I take it once a week. I'll give you what I have seen as the result. Sure. The reason that I wanted to take it, and I did months and months of research on this. So one, it wasn't about fat loss. I was already on that journey and knew how to do The things that I was the most interested in were, one, reducing food noise. So one of the things that I found is with the microdose, all my food noise is gone. Still like to eat protein. I still hit my calorie numbers. It's not like I'm just not hungry, but I don't think about food all day.

You know what I mean? I don't get cravings. I'm not craving. I'm just like, Oh, I'm hungry. I'm going to go eat eggs, or I'm going to go do whatever. Inflammation, which also comes with reduction in fat, but there's some anti-inflammation. And then the other one was I wanted to completely cut sugar for the most part, any processed sugar outside of fruits or whatever out of my diet. And what I found is, again, with the micro dose, I have zero desire for sugar. And part of that was my mom went prediabetic about six months ago. So there's a little bit of nervousness in me that there might be a hereditary to that or whatever. And I was like, I'm not a big sugar guy to begin with. So I have really enjoyed it. I've had no stomach issues. I feel like I wake up with energy. I feel, like I said, no food noise. The inflammation stuff has been great. And in general, it's been a very positive experience. But again, I'm taking less than what is normally a microdose for most people if they're going to do it. So that's where I'm at with these.

But obviously, we started, we were talking in the green room, and you started giving me your response, and I was like, No, I want to get into it in the show. So talk to us about DLP ones, and you're not going to hurt my feelings. So share your honest opinions on how people should be thinking about these positive use cases, places where you need to be careful, et cetera?

Yeah. I'm a little bit more biased against using testosterone because guys are like, No, I couldn't lose the fat. And then I started taking TRT. It's like, No, you're eating too many calories. You think you know that you're training properly, but you're actually not. And then you take testosterone, you build muscle. We've done studies where people, or one group goes into the gym, starts lifting weights. The other group sits on the couch and injects testosterone. I forget the levels that they use because it's really not something I know. The the specific dosage is. But anyway, the point is the people who sat on the couch and took testosterone gain muscle. The more muscle you have, the easier it is to lose fat, right? Because your body mass goes up. By the way, what do you think is the number one thing that determines how many calories or how many calories you burn per day? What's the number one thing, do you think?

Did you walk?

How many steps? How much you weigh? A 300 pound person requires way more calories to maintain. It's like people saying, Hey, let's forgive the debt of the college students. It's like, Well, someone has to pay for that. You cannot build fat. You can't move to a desert island and be starving and eating bugs and climbing trees for coconuts and cracking them open and barely getting by and maintaining a 300 pound body if you're 5'9 or 5'11. It's It's not going to happen. You simply don't have the energy to do it. Now, this might sound controversial, but it's not. There's a lot of what's called metabolic war data showing this is the case. So anyway, I know I I don't want to went off on a tangent, but I wanted to just be clear about that before moving on to GLP-1s, where I work with clients who take GLP-1s. I'm not as against them. The reason is, I I think taking TRT because you think it's just a total cop-out. Unless you've been had a traumatic brain injury or you had a testicular injury and you actually need it, I think it's a total cop-out. And there's so many doctors who will prescribe it.

Like, Come on in, let's do some TRT. When it comes to GLP-1, here's what changes my mind about it. We know that to some extent Obesity is heritable. Really good person on this is Stephen Guianne. He was on the Joe Rogan show, and he's written a book. I've had him on my show a bunch of times. When I first had him on, he's a neurobiologist that studies obesity. I was like, what the hell does neuroscience have to do with obesity? But the biggest breakthroughs in obesity, including GLP-1s, have come from neuroscience in science. In fact, what do GOP ones do? All they do is they affect the reward part of your brain to quiet it down so that you're not like, oh, man, I'm feeling a little stressed. Let me go get some M&Ms or whatever the case is. So we know that there's obesity, and this is something I changed my mind on as I've matured and educated myself. It's like, okay, there's a reason that I work with clients are extremely successful DECA millionaires, and they're 260 pounds at 5 foot 11. And it's not because they're lazy or lack work ethic Uh-uh.

And then I work with guys, Don't struggle as much. And it's like, Okay, something's going on here. And some people just have, This is all a brain issue. And some people, if If it helps, here's my thoughts on it. If do the right thing because you don't want it to be a cop-out. I've talked to people who wanted to work with me, and they're like, But I'm taking a GLP-1. It's like, well, 25 % of what you lost is muscle because you aren't doing the right things. You don't know how much protein you're eating. You're not lifting weights. I'm glad that you feel better, and that's great. But I'm striving for... I help people who want to achieve excellence here.

That's the Ozempic face that people talk about, right? So when you do none of the work, when you continue to eat the same macro percentages, which normally are over indexed towards carbs instead of protein, and you're not weight lifting weights, et cetera, and you're just taking the GLP-1s, that's when you get that gray sunken face look that you've seen in a lot of celebrities. This was one of the biggest things when I was doing my own research was I'm trying to get as close to my body weight, which is 195 pounds in protein. If I can be within 70% of that, I'm happy. Some days you go a little bigger, whatever. But that has been a big part of not having any, I feel, any structural changes is all I really did was ramp up the protein and keep the carbs enough so I had energy. And that way, you don't get that Ozempic face that people talk about. And if you Google Ozempic face, you'll see some pretty gnarly-looking things. I've not done that, actually. Oh, yeah. They got a ton. And what you see is your skin starts to turn a little gray because they're not eating enough protein, they're not eating enough food in general.

And they get this skinny fat, sunken face look, right? Because all that's happening, they're not doing anything to improve their body structure. They're literally just eating less calories because the GLP-1s is telling their body, I was not giving them that indication. It's really wild. So don't get Ozempic face. All right, keep going. Sorry.

Yeah. And starting off with lower dosages, I think. I've worked with several clients on GLP-1 agonists, and yeah, one of them still struggles. So it doesn't work the same for everyone. And it's something that you have to commit to long term. In other words, the research shows that when people stop taking it, they gain the weight back. I don't know about microdoses and what we know about that, but the food noise comes back. And depending on who you are and how much food noise you have to deal with, maybe it makes sense to take a microdose for a long time. Now, here's the thing. I've created a framework. I call it the metabolic reset sequence. There are ways that you can manage your hunger and cravings without Again, depending on who you are and how much you struggle, you still might have to... I'm not against using GLP-1 agonist, but again, in the context of doing the right things. Yes. And I'll say this, too. If you're someone who's like, I'm never going to do the right thing. I'm going to drink alcohol. I'm going to eat what I want. I'm not going to exercise.

But, yeah, give me a shot. I'll take shot, though. It's like, okay, then do that.

It's better than losing your life to being overweight. But I agree with you. And just so everyone knows, part of my protocol is I have made necessary physical activity and diet changes and structures and discipline to go along with it. It's not like this wasn't just like, Oh, I'm overweight. I want to lose weight. This was like, Look, I'm trying to optimize myself. I know the places that I'm weak. I know the places that I need help with and the things that I want to keep out of my body. I'm interested in your take on this if you feel differently, but to me, sugar is the fucking devil, right?

No, disagree.

Okay, yeah, you hit me with that. Yeah, no, I meant that. Look, sugar, the devil, okay?

I'll start by saying this. Sugar is found in fruit. It's not structurally... There's different types of sugar, fructose, sucrose, galactose, lactose. But it's not... So it's not really sugar. And going back to this brain thing, because nobody is over eating oranges. There might be someone who's doing that, but that's a different problem. What we're really talking about, the thing that hijacks people's brain, if you When you think about sugar, tell me a food that... Oh, that's a high sugar food. Tell me what you think of.

I think of candies, baked goods, cupcakes, treats, ice cream. Let's go with that. Yeah, that shit.

So candy, for sure. Like, jelly beans, that's like 100 % sugar. Most people, though, if they're eating ice cream or cookies, crumble cookies or whatever, if you look at the fat content, the calories coming from fat are much higher or they're equal to sugar. So what it really is, and I want to say this, too, I was low carb, staunch low carb for 10 years until I got fat in my mid-30s. And I was like, I'm doing everything right. Why did this happen to me? And I was so frustrated. And now I get into arguments with the low carb community all the time because of this. So sugar being the If you have metabolic dysfunction, meaning if you're prediabetic or diabetic, the more sugar you have, the more it's going to disrupt your blood sugar for sure. However, what even causes diabetes?

What do you think? I don't know the answer. I know it has something to do with insulin resistance, our inability to create insulin.

What causes that is fat deposits in your pancreas, which your pancreas is what secretes It's insulin. What this really is, you cannot cure diabetes by doing low carb. You cure diabetes by losing fat. I think the medical community uses remission or whatever They don't say cure. Can you cure diabetes? That's for a medical doctor to really explain the nuance there. But I'll tell you this, I've worked with diabetics and people with prediabetic blood sugar levels. The way you drop it is by two ways. Number one, build more muscle because your muscles are a sink for glucose. You store carbohydrate in your muscles. It's called glycaogen. For some people, sugar is a performance-enhancing food or drug or whatever you want to call it. But if you're sitting around and jacking up your blood sugar levels because you're munching on And gummy bears or whatever. Yeah, okay. It's probably going to mess you up more if you keep that up and you're not doing any type of exercise. And in general, you have high levels of body fat for sure. But it's throwing eating sugar is like throwing gasoline on the fire. What's causing the fire? It is the fact that you have too much body fat and specifically fat in your organs, the visceral fat.

And again, one of the biggest issues is liver fat. People have non-alcoholic fatty liver. It's being diagnosed at higher and higher rates. These aren't people who are drinking a lot, right? So why is that happening? Well, it's because fat deposits start to get into the liver, start causing it to start disrupting its function. Really, the answer is not about going back to data, right? Because I eat sugar. Let's go beyond just using macronutrients or a type of macronutrient, subtype of macronutrient sugar, which is a carbohydrate. What is the root problem? Let's say if you're not under 20% body fat, you've got work to do. If you've got a belly, you've got work to do. If you don't lift weights at all, you got work to do. Or if you have high hemoglobin A1c, which is a measure of elevated blood sugar over the course of several months, you've got work to do. If you have fasting insulin, fasting glucose high, C-peptide high, the answer is not in the food you eat, it's in your blood work, it's in your body fat percentage. Now look, if that's a helpful heuristic for you to not eat sugar, I'm not saying to you or to anyone listening, No, you got to eat sugar.

That's not true. It's definitely not helping you. But I want to make sure that we're clear on, let's say, you want to make sure that if your business is having a problem, you don't say, Well, we need to hire more sales guys, or you want to be sure, is it because we don't have enough sales guys to handle the volume? Or do the guys just need better training?

You want to get the root cause, not symptom.

You want to get to the root cause. And so look, sugar... And here's something else. Saturated fat never gets talked about because fat was demonized in the '80s unfairly, and now it shifted to sugar, which is now being demonized unfairly, and or carbohydrates, generally, and sugar, specifically, without the conversation with all the nuance, because that's really the issue here is nutrition is very nuanced. For example, there are studies showing if you wanted to increase the liver fat in someone, we know that saturated fat, having a higher percentage of calories coming from saturated fat increases liver fat faster than sugar does. Nobody talks about it. Why? It's not popular to talk about. It comes from research. Research is boring. Scientists don't explain it well. I'm not saying saturated fat is bad either. Because, again, it's how much Are you eating and who's eating it? Because if I eat saturated fat, guess what? I can see my abs. I've got veins on my shoulder. I'm lean. It's not going to be a big deal versus someone who's out of shape. Again, it's these things that people are missing. So especially if you'll see a lot of people in the keto and carnivore community, I have this one screenshot from someone.

Now, we have studies proving this, but it's always It's fun to share the anecdotes. I take screenshots from these groups. There was a guy doing keto. He was in a carnivore group on Facebook. He was doing keto. He lost a bunch of 40 pounds, I believe the weight was. He switched to carnivore to get even leaner because that's got to be the answer. And he gained 20 pounds back after doing it. And he was dumbfounded, why? And people are doing mental gymnastics in those groups. It's completely insane what you read in there. But the answer is this. If you go from doing keto, which I don't like it, but at least you're getting veggies and doing other things, and you're filling yourself up with more than just meat. What most carnivore people do Because they show it off in their photos, their social media photos, they're cooking ribeye in butter and then eating bacon and eating cheeseburgers covered in cheese, like I'm sorry, hamburger is covered in cheese. It's like, dude, if you overdo your calories, and especially if a lot of them, and it's easy to overdo your calories from fat. In fact, the biggest change in the American diet is more calories are coming from fat than before.

Now, in the form of vegetable oils, usually because there's been an increase in junk food, basically. And so people are eating more more junk food, eating bigger size portions. But yeah, it's a more nuanced conversation.

Ted, so do you have a few more minutes? I know we're over our time. Yeah, let's do it. Okay, so I want to hit you with a little rapid fire section, maybe spend two, three minutes on each one of these because I think we could probably do entire episodes on each one of these things that I want to hit, and I'm going to jump around a little bit. So the first one I want to talk about is- Can I say one One more thing before we go on?

Yeah, please. I know I said something controversial. So here's what I want you to do. If you're like, No, this guy is full of it. He doesn't know what he's talking about. There's an influencer on TikTok that said something different. And so here's what I want you to do. You can either do a couple of things, actually. There's something called... Now, I don't endorse these, but just as an experiment for a few days. There's something called the potato hack, where you eat nothing but potatoes. And potatoes, people demonize carbs. And say they make you fat. Potatoes actually score very high on an insetide. In other words, it's hard to eat a lot of them unless they're doctored up or embellished with cheese and sour cream, etc. So do the potato hack. Look at what it is. It's basically eating potatoes, right? Boiled potatoes. You will lose weight because you're not going to want to eat a bunch of potatoes, right? You just naturally start bringing your calories low and eating less. So do it for three days and you'll lose fat. If you want to test the sugar thing, do a juice cleanse. A juice, it's not really a cleanse.

You're just losing body fat and you're drinking nothing but juice, which is sugar. And I don't love fruit juice, generally, except for maybe pomegranate juice. Story for another time. But you will lose weight in three days of doing that. Now you'll gain it back as soon as you go back to your old diet. But you can prove to yourself that sugar does not cause you to gain weight. It can cause you to lose it and improve your... If you did, I wouldn't recommend going and have your blood done before and after, but you could do it. Because of the low calories, because on a juice cleanse, you're having something in the neighborhood of 1,000 or 1,200 calories per day in juice. It's really hard to drink that much juice. And you can see that- Sorry.

This is what I'm struggling. I don't mean to interrupt you. The reason that I've been struggling is my children convinced me to get a kitten, and the kitten won't leave me alone. I apologize for the one at home. It'll last two minutes. He has been messing with me, and I had to just get him out of the screen. I apologize, Ted.

Cats listen to no one, right? My much to their own being.

I'm such a sucker to allow my children to talk me into getting this kitten, and it's whatever. It's all good. I apologize.

So anyway, you can try that experiment. And that's what I suggest that you do. Try these experiments Because to be honest, people don't have the knowledge or experience to really even know. Maybe I come across, hopefully I come across as knowledgeable and confident in what I do because I am. But you don't know me. So I might be just another person. Test these things and you will see that you can improve metabolic health and lose weight doing things that you wouldn't think were even possible. Again, I don't condone those as ways of living, but just as an experiment.

Yeah. And I think what I love about that is exactly what you said, the experiment part, right? I'd say my fitness journey being not an expert, armchair, just hacking my own body. It's just been experiments, right? Everything's been an experiment. Does lifting weights, or does boxing, or does running, or does... And then once you find the things that seem to work for you, what's the cadence? What's the rhythm? How often? I was seven days a week lifting weights for a while. I realized that was too much. Then it was a lot of it. Some of the stuff that I do, too, just so everyone's clear, and the listeners know this about me, sometimes it's just mental health stuff. So it's not even like I'm going to the gym to lift weights because I'm trying to get jacked or thinking. That's even the right thing to do. Your body needs a chance to respond. Your muscles need a chance to regrow and all that. But it was more like mental. But I realized I wasn't At a certain point, at a certain number of months of that, I stopped feeling as good. I stopped getting gains.

And I said, Okay, I got to dial it back. And now two heavy lifts, maybe three a week has become a good rhythm. And you You said this over and over in different ways, and I think it's just a core point here is, one, we have to be intentional with this stuff, right? Two, there is absolute value in data and knowledge. So you're actual stats, as you've mentioned, working with someone who knows how to interpret those stats and apply them to you and what your goals are, et cetera. And if you do that and think of these things as tests, like the potato hack or a juice cleanse, whatever, right? All they're really doing is helping you get better in tuned. If I'm taking what you said, these little tests help you get in tune with what works and what doesn't, which then allows you to eventually come up with the routine that puts you in the best place. I mean, that's what we're trying to get to. And I think thinking of these things as tests or experiments is absolutely the right way, guys. And too often, we just get caught up on, like you said, I'm going to do a keto.

And keto is hard as hell, and it's very difficult, especially for the age, this 35 to 50 range that we're talking about, because you have kids, you have a spouse or a partner. Your job is probably the most stressful it has ever been at that point, right? Because you're either growing it, if you're an owner or a founder, or you're trying to raise up your career and advance to the next level. So you have all this reality that isn't just, I'm going to wake up every day and spend every minute that I'm awake thinking about my physical and mental health. So it's about finding that cadence. And to that extent, I wanted to hit you with three over-the-counter, now over-the-counter in most places, we'll call them chemical compounds and their impact on our body. And the first is nicotine. Tucker Carlson as Alps, Joe Rogan's putting in Zins. Talk to me a little bit about nicotine. I just saw Dave Asprey was on a buddy of mine's show, the Mic Unplug Show, which I highly recommend everyone listen to if you're into business stuff. And he was talking about five milligrams a day of nicotine is great for mental health and fighting off dementia and all this shit.

One, is nicotine used positive at all? Because some people will tell you just in general, it's terrible. Don't listen to anybody. Two, is there amount or range that feels like it does have some positive benefits? And walk us through nicotine real quick.

That's a random one, but I'll tell you, I might smoke a cigar every once in a while, but I respond very poorly to nicotine. We know that it's similar to caffeine in that it can enhance cognitive function, but it's more addictive. It can cause cardiovascular issues. I went into The best thing that you can do to improve cognitive function is to get lean. Make sure your VO2 max is high. In other words, spend time doing cardio, things like zone 2 and HIIT training, and lose fat, sleep well, and caffeine is a preferred... I wouldn't mess around with nicotine, especially if you have an addictive tendency towards addiction.

Yeah, and I'll double into just personally So I use that, Tucker Caustlin's Alp brand, mostly because they have a three milligram that seems to work very well. I do one, maybe two a day. I do have an addictive personality. And what I found is because I have pretty hardcore hyperactivity, and I found that, one, it does help me focus a little. And when I first started using these, because of the focus enhancements, which were very positive for me, at a low dose, if I kept dosing myself during the day, I felt awful in the evening. Awful. So I have to be very careful. One, two, three A kilogram a day tops. If I go to a third or a fourth, I immediately... And if you're not hydrated enough, the cardiovascular stuff, you can start to feel some heart palpitations, light in the head. So I would agree. This isn't my favorite thing. I have found that a small small dose has a positive effect. But if I go past the small dose, I see rapid negative impact. So I would agree. Stay away from it, guys, if you can. If you do, go way lower than...

They're selling sixes, nines, fourteens in stores. Oh, my gosh. 13 milligrams in stores. A 13 milligram pouch of Zin, which I think Zin is the only brand in the States right now that sells anything over 10, that's going to put you on your ass. There is no reason to have that much nicotine in your body, in my opinion. Okay, the The next one I want to talk about is weed. New York State, it's legal now. It's legal a lot of places. It's become commonplace. If you drive down the road, in most states that it's legalized, you're driving by cars, you could smell it everywhere. It has become very normalized in our life now. What should you be thinking about with weed? Are there any positives to it outside of the recreational take you away from yourself, or is this just pure And if you're going to use the substance, understand why you're using it. Don't try to convince yourself of anything else, and just understand there's negatives to it.

Yeah, look, that was my drug of choice, right? And every once in a while, I still might do it depending on the circumstances. But yeah, there's nothing healthy about weed, right? If you have cancer and if it helps stimulate your appetite, in that situation, it's like, do what you need to do. But if you're trying to optimize health and your overall... I don't want to say healthy because it's a rare thing in today's society. But let's say you're focused on health and you have no major chronic illnesses, it's not going to help you. It messes with your brain. Chemistry makes you more likely to have anxiety. Again, I think that the poison is in the dose. And certainly, aside from the cannabinoids that are in marijuana, combustion, breathing in smoke, or now we know vapes. Vapes are in particular, we're starting to learn this pretty bad for your lungs. You're stuck in Haling smoke is not good for you. It doesn't matter where the smoke is from.

Yeah. Okay, good. So I'd say in the second half of my adult life, I've tried to replace... When In the days when I'm running the excuse play of I need to land the ship, you know what I mean? When I'm running that excuse play for my own mental, I've transitioned a little away from alcohol, and I don't drink as much, or substantially less. But what I found was, and I liked it for that reason at first, but I found that continued use over time, even once or twice a week, I lost my snappiness. I've always prided myself on for better or for worse, I could index things in my brain fairly quickly. I felt like it just throttled that ability, and I really didn't like it. I've substantially in the last six months or so downshifted on that because, again, if it doesn't have a positive impact, you're not just using it for recreation, for recreational purposes, which is okay. No judgment on anyone who decides to do that. But the idea that you can smoke or take edibles every night before bed, you're just harming yourself. That's not a victimless crime, I guess, if your brain would be the victim in that standpoint.

Yeah, we know it affects sleep architecture. I believe it suppresses rem sleep in particular, if I remember correctly. It's not really that necessary to... It's not good for you. Alcohol, too, not good you. Past two drinks a week, we know that there's risks start happening. No amount of alcohol is good for you. And listen, I drink. I'm not saying that with any moral judgment. Just own your decisions. We all live and we die, and we have to decide what experiences we want along the way. And I think it's okay. I'm in Brazil right now. I drink wine here. I like Cadeñas, which are sugar with fruit and just a liquor called cachaza shaken up. I don't like other types of drinks. I like that one. And so, yeah, I'll do it every once in a while. But I don't make any excuses about or try to, what do you call it? Justify. Using euphemisms. It's not good for me. It can be fun. And I think there is some benefit to that because I do believe that health goes beyond just the physical. It has to do with social, has to do with psychological. And some people would argue spiritual, right?

So I think there can be an argument made for it. But again, if you don't want to justify chronic use. You shouldn't be doing anything every week, even drinking every week. If you're going through a period where you're going out and meeting with clients, okay, but you need to rein it in. You shouldn't be doing any of that every week.

There's definitely some mental catharsis in sitting around with your bros, having a couple cocktails, talking shit for a couple hours.

100 %.

There's catharsis in that, right? No, I think that's phenomenal. You want to get high?

Join Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Yeah, that's what everybody says. That's what everybody says.

I've been doing it for 20 years, man. The amount of complexity is, it's not as probably doing the Birdman suits or squirrel suits, whatever they're called, right? It's not as crazy as that, but it's super stimulating. You never get to the top. It's just spiraling levels of complexity and challenge for your brain. And you make a lot of friends, too. There's a great social aspect because it calms guys down with their attitude because everybody gets their butt kicked in there, right? Yeah. Or got their butt kicked along the way. Some people are really good. I train with this one guy, four-time world champion. Yeah, I don't think he gets his butt kicked very often. But anyway, so I believe, too, just modern life is so easy. I know it's hard. It's stressful. It's weird. I'm going through... We're running ads right now and trying to figure out what the combination of ads to scale our business. And it's super frustrating. But on the other hand, life has never been easier. You're not suffering from the Shamani tribe in Bolivia, for example. They're untouched by processed food. They're 70 years old, and they have no cardiovascular disease, no plaque in their arteries at 70.

They have unheard of cardiovascular health. But guess what? They're dying from infectious diseases. They get a... You know what I mean? We're living such a good life. It gets a little boring. So we have, especially if we're high performers, we come home after a hard day at work solving problems and complex issues and being creative. And then you're home, you're like, Man, I'm watching TV, and this series is boring. Let me have some popcorn, a little bit of wine, or maybe a few caramels. And we're suffering from life being too good.

Yeah, there's too much availability. There's not enough challenge to get to the resources to make them scarce enough that we consider them. We just go to the store, buy another bag of whatever, and pop it in our face. All right, I want to wrap up. I appreciate your time. This has been amazing. We've gone so many different directions and talked I've got so much stuff, and I really appreciate your opinion. The last thing that I just want to ask you, and we don't have to spend a lot of time here, but I mentioned that I used to wear Whoop. I know there's aura rings. I get a lot of questions from people, and again, not an expert, so this is why I have guys like you on because I want to know. One, do you think wearing these devices adds real value? I love the stats as a high performance crazy person, but I don't always know. What I find is I go in cycles. I'll wear the Whoop for three months. I'll figure out how to calibrate myself and what the impact is. Guys, I can tell you point blank, weed and alcohol absolutely impact your sleep.

If you've ever worn a Whoop or a ring, 100 %, you can see the difference. Number one, number one thing The thing that helps me sleep is sex before bed, like good sex before bed. So really interesting. I'm not throwing that line out there, ladies, just letting you know what the result came back.

For me, too, or any type of light exercise or somewhat vigorous exercise, depending on the mood.

But I guess my question is, if I'm starting a journey, so we've talked about this person, is it worth investing in an Aura ring or a to help us stay on track, to have metrics, to watch trends, et cetera? Are these devices worth the investment? I know they're not terribly expensive, but it's a couple of hundred bucks, and maybe there's a monthly fee or whatever to some of them, depending on what you get. Is it worth investing in these items to help us along? Is the juice worth the squeeze? I guess, is what I'm asking.

So I'm wearing an Aura ring right now. I got the Gen 4. For me, it's worth it. But here's the thing, I don't pay attention to most of what Aura talks about. The readiness score, I throw that out, right? Because what they do, they try to gamify it to, one, make it more proprietary. Also, look, people are super... Their attention sucks. So they get bored with the same stats. So you can tell over the... I've been using an Aura ring since, I think, 2019, and you can tell Auras evolved. I'm like, Man, just tell me what I want to know. There's other stuff. Some A lot of it's interesting, but a lot of it doesn't replace solid testing like what I talked about earlier. But what is solid about it is it can track your… I don't like the Whoop. Oura Ring has studies comparing it to somnography, which is the gold standard of measuring sleep architecture or sleep quality. Whoop doesn't, to my knowledge. Maybe they've done something more recently, but so Orr is the gold standard in It's still not as good as going and getting a sleep study, though, if you need one, but it can help you change your behavior.

I have fragmented sleep. I wake up. It helps me to dial in my bedtime. The things that matter are like, what time are you going to bed? Because if you're going to bed at different times, even if you're sleeping eight hours, you're going to feel the effects of that, the circadian disruption. Your sleep efficiency, How long... Out of the time you're in bed, how long were you actually asleep? How long you were asleep? How much movement? As far as the different phases, because people are writing articles about, Here's how to optimize your RM sleep. There's even arguments from sleep doctors who use polysomnography about what phase starts when and how many phases. I don't think Aura is quite at the level. So you have to know what to pay attention to. Generally speaking, though, if you buy it and just mess around because you're not quite at the point where you want to hire someone to help you, try it. If it does get you. Because the thing is, people buy supplements and it motivates them, even though they don't know what their blood work is. They just read something or someone on Instagram. So they buy it and it...

It's like this health, a small win for their health, and it That's the motive. The big thing is, does it help you behaviorally? And if it does improve because you can quantify your steps or your sleep, I'd say it's worth it. Yeah, I'd say In general, it's worth it. But it's good to be intentional and know some of the things. I don't give a shit about your readiness score. I've had some of my best workouts with a bad sleep and in a bad readiness score. Or if you had sex right before bed and your heart rate's elevated, and then you fall asleep, or we'll say, Hey, your heart rate was elevated last night, but you actually slept well. It was not elevated Because you're thinking about... Some of my clients, I have a client who's just being made CEO because there was this big issue with the CEO and his son and some craziness happening. And so It's not because of mental stress. It's because you do a little bit of exercise before bed. So you have to have some knowledge if you really want to understand what to pay attention to and whatnot. But if it generally...

Give it a try. If you're struggling with your health and a little bit of quantification and gamification can help get you more active, then go for it.

Yeah. Ted, I appreciate it, man. This has been phenomenal. I appreciate you following around, going all different directions. But this has really been a master class, man. I think we've given people some great things to dig into. If they want to go deeper into your world, get to know you better, follow your work, and maybe even ultimately work with you, where's the best place for them to go?

Yeah, you can find my podcast on Apple or iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts, Legendary Life, Ted Rice. My last name spelled R-Y-C-E. So watch out for that. But if you want to learn more about the metabolic reset sequence that I do, you can go watch a free master class that I've put together. It's about 30 minutes long. You go to legendarylifepodcast. Com/free.

Awesome. Guys, I'll have the links, too. So whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening wherever you listen, just scroll down into the description or the show notes, and I'll have links to all this stuff. Ted, I appreciate the hell out of you, man. I'd love to have you back sometime because I got a million more questions that we didn't even get to. Let's do it. But love it, dude. This has been fantastic. I appreciate all the extra time, and I wish you nothing but the best.

Thanks, Ryan. Really appreciate it. It was my pleasure.