Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.
Today we're talking about something almost everyone gets wrong when it comes to fat loss and staying toned, thinking the answer is simply eating more protein. But what actually drives muscle repair are the essential amino acids inside that protein. And this matters more than most people realize. Muscle loss doesn't start in your 60s. For many of us, it begins after 30. And if you're dieting, training hard, or trying to stay lean as you age, that process can accelerate even faster. That's why I'm super excited to talk to Angelo Keeley today. Angelo is the CEO of Kion and has spent more than 2 decades studying nutrition, performance, and the science of amino acids. In this episode, he explains why not all protein works the same, why essential amino acids can outperform protein powder from muscle synthesis and how they can help you lose fat without losing muscle. We also talk about the hidden muscle loss risk during GLP-1 weight loss, why leucine becomes more important as we age, and how amino acids can improve recovery. If you care about staying lean, strong, and metabolically healthy as you get older, this conversation is definitely worth paying attention to.
So let's get into it. All right, you guys, welcome to Habits and Hustle. We have a friend of mine, a new friend actually, who's on the podcast today. His name is Angelo Keely. He is the founder of a company called Kion, and I really wanted him to be a guest for multiple reasons, one being that he is the expert of experts on something that I think most of us don't know anything about, which is amino acids. Very overlooked. And so he has graced me and us with his presence to tell us everything we need to know to really optimize our health. One thing that we never seem to ever focus on. So without further ado, thank you for being on Habits and Hustle.
Thanks for having me, Jenn.
It's so great to see you.
I'm excited to be here. I'm excited to see you again.
I know, I know. We met really for the first time face to face. What was that? Eudaimonia, right? Yeah. And we like deep dived into so many things. First of all, you are the most fascinating person. That I've met in a very long time. Your story is very interesting, unique. Can you kind of just give us an overview before we even deep dive into Aminos and all the, and all, all the things, who you are, what you're about, and you know, what kind of led you to where you are sitting here?
Well, those are big questions. I know who you are and what you're about. You know, I think honestly a lot of who I am and what I'm about, it's maybe not as relevant to amino acids, like as we talked before, like I really love my family. So like, who am I? I'm, I'm a dad and a husband and I just like really like being part of a family and raising kids and yeah, just relationships.
You figured that out well. You figured—
Yeah. But if the question is more like, how did I end up here on the show? How do we know each other now? And why do I know stuff about amino acids? I can tell that story.
Well, I think there's a lot of like, there's like a lot of dovetails here, right? Because how you grew up with your, your parents and how you became like someone who became very specialized in this one area, I think is very interesting. So yes, why don't you kind of just say like, what kind of, how did, what kind of was your story to kind of even start a supplement company in the first place?
So it does go back really far. It goes back to childhood. My parents, I was born and raised outside Austin, Texas to very hippie parents, like, born at home, not vaccinated, didn't go to a doctor till I was 7. Like, old school, very hippie. My parents owned a natural health food store, a natural health food restaurant, and we actually moved to Austin because my dad was like an early partner in Whole Foods trying to do a restaurant business. And so, like, they were very— they were like hippies, but they were also entrepreneurs. And I—
That's interesting. Yeah, that's like kind of an oxymoron, right? Like that to me, they're so hippie, but yet also very— they had a business.
Yeah, I think that's— I mean, so maybe— yeah, I mean, they're very hippie, but yeah, they were like— I mean, my dad's from the East Coast and he's like a kind of old school East Coast, like alpha intense dude, a hustler. Not in a hustle, I think, in the bad— I think in the terms that you use the word hustle.
Yes.
You know, it's like make things happen. So of that spirit, but you know, he went to Woodstock and got exposed to, like, herbs. And, you know, and so, yes, I mean, imagine this guy with a super long beard, crazy long hair, who's like the exclusive importer of Korean ginseng to Mexico. Like, that's who my dad was.
Exactly. Okay. It was very interesting the way you described him to me and in your story. I found it to be fascinating. If you don't remember, I was like hanging on every word, and so was my friend with all the stuff. So, okay, so that's that. So yes, so you grew up, your parents had a, had like a health food store, the Whole Foods thing. I thought was very interesting. Then what?
Yeah. So the one other thing I name in that is that my parents were pescatarians and I think that was maybe like a thing at that time. It was more popular in, in that region. And yeah, so we ate a lot of vegetable-based, like plant-based proteins, tofu, but we also ate fish some. And because of that, my parents talked a lot about protein, like as a little kid. I knew you need to eat beans and rice together. You should eat quinoa and lentils together if we're not going to have like fish tonight. So I was, I was brought up in that. My mom gave me amino acids as a kid. She was a very committed master swimmer. And so my parents were into fitness and they were into health, but they're also like hippies, right? And so I was just like brought up in that. I, you know, naturally though, as you grow up, you create your own path at some point. Like, you don't just take the program that your parents give you. And I think one maybe thing that makes that more intense in my environment was that my parents were very more entrepreneurial, kind of like very untraditional, alternative.
Manic's not maybe the right word, but like you got to like figure out your own path. Like there was not like a, oh, Andrew, you should just do this and do that. It's like even at the dinner tables, you got to like fight for your ideas, etc. And so when I grew up, it was always me like creating my own path, learning my own lessons. And I learned very hard lessons. So when I was You know, when I was around, you know, I got getting into high school, like, now I'm eating whatever I want to eat, doing whatever I want to do, taking lots of drugs. And I have this very terrible experience when I'm 16 and a half where I take too much LSD. I'm in the wrong neighborhood. I provoke some people that are way more hardcore than me, and they stab me twice in the back. They stab me in the knee. So I have, you know, huge scar down my abdomen. I had to get my patella tendon reattached, and then they beat me literally to almost like a pulp. So I wake up in the hospital days later from this, and that began like a really long journey for me in terms of healing my, my mind around it.
Like, obviously, like, emotionally and psychologically, like, I had PTSD from that. And totally, which, I mean, just a really bad trip will do that to you, but you go through that kind of— or that type of physical trauma, but you combine them, it was like deep. And physically, like, I, you know, I couldn't walk for a long time and I had to recover.
And how long couldn't you walk for?
It actually was faster than you think. I mean, that's amazing, like, just contemporary medicine and being a kid. It's like, I think I was— within a few months, like, I was laid up for a while, but it'd be like if you tore, you know, your ACL, whatever, 20 years ago.
Wow.
Yeah, so, you know, but I go through that, and that's a crazy story.
You just woke up one day, like, stabbed, like, woke up, like, being stabbed, and you don't even know who did it, how it happened, nothing.
I mean, I blacked out a lot of the experience. I mean, it's kind of— there's more. I mean, there'd be a whole nother story to go down.
I know, I know. Basically, but you remember, I couldn't believe, like, that, like, when you told me that story initially, I was like, like, that's just— that's like, you did— you said it so by the way, like it wasn't a big— like, that, that is— that actually would— I would think would kind of define the trajectory of your life. That's a major trauma in your life, right? That would change how you do everything.
It was very transformative, and I think there's all different ways of talking about it. You know, one I think when I was at that age, two big things came up for me. One was this idea of like almost like the absolute value scale in life. Like we're always trying to increase and get more and more and more positive. But actually, when you experience something that dark or suffering or like these really terrible things, it broadens your whole perspective. And suddenly, like, the palette of life experience is broader and bigger. And like, you— I was able to value more things in life than I was prior to that, because before I had just— I hadn't suffered like that ever, right? And then I think the other thing that comes up too is just when you— this is what I realized through that, was that whether I make decisions or I don't make decisions, or I define something I want or I don't define something I want, I am creating my life all the time. Whatever I have in mind, the actions I choose to do every day, the beliefs that I have, like, that is going to manifest what my life becomes.
And actually, like, my— these other kind of hippie friends of one— the parents of one of my friends gave me this book, like Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain, which is like an old school kind of creative visualization book. And I read that and it really— it influenced me that I think to understand and see that like, yeah, like I, I'm going to create my life. And I think a lot of people that doesn't happen until you're 40, maybe like you realize you've just been following the recipe that your parents or society or whatever gave you.
Totally.
So that was the blessing for me. While it was this like terrible, painful experience, it made me really value life. It made me realize I can create my life. And, you know, bad things don't actually have to be that bad. They can just be part of the recipe.
It's so interesting you say that. It's like all about how your perspective— what your perspective is and how you choose to— like, how you choose to utilize whatever that experience is. I'm reading a book right now. I think I was telling you, maybe I wasn't. The Courage to Be Disliked. Yeah, right now. I was telling you.
Yeah.
And it's the book. The book starts by talking about that. Like, you're not a victim. Of your past. It's all about how you choose to, or what you choose and how you choose to perceive that and then move forward with that. Right. And how you see something is— can be very different how someone else sees something. And then it's a ripple effect. Right.
I mean, I 100% believe in that.
Yeah, me too.
And I think that whole experience, and even now reflecting back on it in my life, gave me humility around— this is kind of paradoxical what I'm saying now. It's like I create my life and the decisions I make are going to define what happens to me next. And I don't want to sit around like kind of blaming things in the past or all that. And what is it like? What was it in me that opened me up to this possibility of like having even this attitude or being positive about it?
Right.
And it's like, I don't know, but I'll accept that as like luck or grace or— there's also a bunch of stuff I'm not in charge of, you know, I think, I think of all different types of people in life right now that have gone through something hard and some people figure it out and it turns into this positive thing and some people get stuck in it.
Yeah.
And it's like, I guess I don't sit around judging the people that haven't figured it out as like, why don't you like suck it up?
Right.
Figure it out. Part of it's like, I'm just, I'm grateful that I got like—
that you don't just suck it up, that you actually suck it up and just get— yeah, go with it.
And whatever that is, like whether it's some willpower or I'm blessed or whatever, like I accept and I'm grateful for it and it has worked out for me.
And maybe also that, that really bad thing that happened to you gave you the impetus and the power to kind of do all these things because you didn't want to waste your life. You had much more of an expansive idea of how to live life to the fullest and experience things and go places because your life is so interesting. And so that's a whole other podcast completely. But then how did I end up in supplements? Yeah, how did you end up in supplements?
Yeah. So I think that basically kickstarted this personal health journey for me. That wasn't my parents, that was mine. And that was around. Like, and not just playing sports, but like real fitness and trying to become really fit and become really healthy and heal myself with food and taking, you know, starting to take protein powder and thinking about amino acids again, all these types of things. Not because like my parents told me to or because I want to be good at sports or something, but because I really want to like live. I want to, I want to have this like awesome body that's this awesome vessel and I want to help my mind. So I'm doing therapy, all this. And I think it just kickstarted this kind of personal development project that just kept going. And it didn't take me directly back into starting a supplement company. Right. But it took me into, you know, without recounting my whole story, like I lived overseas for many years and explored a lot of different types of careers. But during that whole time, it was always this search of like trying to find mental health, emotional health, physical health.
I ended up back in Boulder, Colorado. Well, so I was based in Austin, but I ended up back in Boulder, Colorado. I built and ran this behavioral health care company that was focused actually on really helping youth like me. Like that kid that we just talked about, 16, very much helping kids like that for many years. And then it kind of reached its end. And I think I— yeah, it's hard not to talk about it like fate almost, or the same way I described before. Like, yeah, I have a willpower to like do, you know, to like lean into hard things.
Yes.
And to have courage. And I think I only realized after starting Kion, like, well, I started like a supplement company where amino acids, which is like my mom's favorite supplement when I was a little kid would be the focus. And I didn't do it like, I want to make my mom proud, but it's pretty weird like that. I, I just circled back to this space. I mean, consciously I cared about protein, I cared about amino acids, I cared about fundamental nutrition. Like, what are, what are the, what are the nutritional supplements that we actually really, truly need and can benefit from to live much better? Not just like some new hip product someone wants to make, but like the stuff I want to take every single day. I want my family to take. Like, that's where it's— that's where, like, that's why I was committed to it. But on some level, I'm like, it is weird. It's almost like I built the company like my 3-year-old mom.
Exactly.
Would have been proud of.
Yes. Like, very subliminally. The fact that your mom even knew about amino acids back then, it says a lot. Because this is what I found interesting when I, like, deep dived into all of this about amino acids and my own journey, which we'll get to in a second. Or more than a second, is it's such a basic, fundamental, foundational thing, the amino acids, yet so overlooked. You hear so much about protein, you hear so much about creatine, you hear so much about collagen. Nobody ever talks about amino acids, which, by the way, the benefits and what you can get from it, they actually supersede everything else. So let's start with this whole thing, right? First, tell us what are amino acids? Because I am sure most people listening are like, they've heard the word, like, in the kind of like in the vortex of life, but they still don't know what it is. And why is it important?
So I'm going to answer why it's important first as like the headline to make sure we all stay interested. Because we might go through some science here. And you check me if we're getting like too boring or going through like—
You'll see me falling asleep, actually. How about that? You'll see me snoring on the sofa.
No, I promise. I promise it won't be that boring. So I'm going to say this and then we're going to come back to this. Essential amino acids are the active part of protein that basically create most or all of the benefits.
Okay.
And they're this essential nutrient that if you don't get them, you're going to suffer with issues related to your skin, hair, nails, muscle, organ function, etc. On and on. So it's okay. It's this key thing that's, that's basically driving the health of all of these different types of organs and bodily functions. So now, what is it?
Why is it? Why is it?
So I think this is a time actually kind of helpful to take a step back and link up to things that people maybe think they understand.
Okay.
But let's see if they like— well, let's see if you do, right?
Okay. Yeah.
So there's three, these three main macronutrients: protein, carbohydrates, and fat. If you think about— I like to use the metaphor of your body basically being like a house, right? So like to run this house that we're in, you need energy. You need energy to run these lights, to run the dishwasher, washer, etc., to do everything in the house, the toaster, all these things. So that is, that is really what carbohydrates are at their most fundamental level in the body. Like, it is an energy source that you bring into your body and you actually convert it into this thing, ATP, and like you beat your heart, you move, like that's what it is. It's an energy source. And fat is similar to that. Fat is like maybe an alternative energy source. Think about like natural gas that you like run into your house to to run the stove or something like that, right? It's another energy source. It also can be used in this part of like building cells, but those two, like, their primary role is truly energy.
Okay.
That is not why you eat protein. Less than 10% of the protein that you eat is used as energy.
So why do people eat protein?
So why do people eat protein? It is because we are made of proteins, and the proteins that we're made up of get old and break down and have to be replaced. So if we go back to the metaphor of like your body's like a house. So this house that we're in, which by the way, it's a beautiful home. At some point though, like the hardwood floors might start to wear out. Oh, right.
I see what you're saying.
The carpet needs to be replaced. You don't have any carpet, but you know, like the, the sheetrock got a dent in it. You know, the kid ran into it or threw a ball at it.
Right.
Like over time, things break down and they start to fall apart. That's just what happens. And particularly you might think of like appliances, right? Like a toaster is going to break down before you know, a really nice, you know, like stone countertop or something.
Right. And that's a great analogy. You're right. So just over time, things just end up breaking down.
Yeah.
Or getting worn out.
So here's a perfect example.
Yeah.
The proteins associated with your— so, okay, so let's go down to like what your body— like what is protein in your body? Over half of the solid mass in your body. So you take out the water and the things that are like hard, solid mass. Over half of that is made up of proteins. That's a large portion of your bones. That's all your muscles. That's your vital organs. That's your skin, your hair, your nails, but also things that are solid you might not think about, like hormones. Hormones are made up of proteins. Your neurotransmitters in your brain, the chemicals through which you experience emotions, those are made up of really the derivatives of protein. So all these things are all these things that are made up of proteins, and they degrade at different ratio, different time periods. So your liver has a lot of proteins that it utilizes and it makes. Yeah, 30% of them have to be remade every day. So we're talking like, that's like paper towels in your house, right? We're talking like super quick turnover. Yeah, your muscle, it's somewhere between 1 to 2% of your muscle every day has to be broken down and remade with new proteins.
That's a pretty big difference. You get it?
Yeah, it makes sense. But is that why, like, people in middle age start— like, all you hear about now is, I need to eat more protein, I need to eat more protein, protein, protein. It's become like the, like, swan song. Like, everyone just keeps— and it's impossible to consume that much. People feel like it's impossible to consume that much protein. So does that mean that when you hit a certain age, that's when things really start to break down? Like, you know, it's like the— like the— at the 40 mark or the 35 mark, like, When is that mark when really protein starts to break down and we have to really supplement?
It starts at 30.
Okay.
And it progressively gets worse every decade after that.
So 30 even?
Yeah, it starts at 30, but you won't start— it's, I mean, it's like lots of things in aging. It starts at 30, you don't really notice it, but at 40, 50, 60, it gets worse and worse and worse. And I'll foreshadow this, but we should come back to it because like the aging impact is really its own really interesting part about why you would think very differently about protein. Protein needs are not the same at all stages of life.
I know, this is what I want to talk about.
They're very different, yeah. And so—
And I also want to know how people would know. You said they won't know at 30, so what would be symptoms at 40 or 50 that you know that you're protein deficient besides less muscle mass?
It's harder to maintain muscle, your skin quality, your hair quality, anything that's made up of these proteins.
Also depression maybe, even, like your mood?
Mood could be an issue. But I think in lots of cases, people are experiencing with like, kind of pure vanity metrics.
Yeah.
What you can just think of, like, the proteins associated with your skin, your hair, your nails, your muscle— those are like luxury proteins.
Yeah.
Your body is going to make sure you have heart tissue.
Yeah.
And, and necessary liver proteins before it makes sure that your skin looks good.
Right.
And so that's why your body starts— as your body's ability to digest protein, and more importantly, it's, it's prioritization and sensitivity to amino acids, which again, we're kind of diving deeper. We'll come— I think we'll kind of keep hitting this so people get it. It decreases over time, so the body's less responsive to the protein that you eat, and that's why you need a much higher concentration of, of particularly leucine-enriched essential amino acids. A certain amount of essential amino acids, you want a lot more leucine in them to overcome that. Any type of stress— aging is one type of stress, but so is weight loss. If you are like restricting calories, your body, again, it's not prioritizing keeping your skin, your hair, your nails, your muscle, all that looking good. It's going to use the protein in a really different way. Or if you're injured or recovering from an illness, or you're training really hard for exercise, any of these things where there's a lot of stress, your body needs a different amount of those essential amino acids, and it needs them in a much higher concentration to get the benefits. So But going, going back to this, like this protein analogy, right?
Where it's like your body's made up of these, of these proteins and they're breaking down. So here, here's what happens. And now it ties back in this amino acid thing we were just talking about. So right now, like literally, if I look at my skin, it's made up of millions of proteins that you can't see them, right? They're microscopic, but some of them right now are breaking down. And the reason why they're breaking down is because they're just old. Like they're not as functional as they used to be. And when that one little protein breaks apart, now I'm gonna give you another metaphor with the house. Think about bricks. Like lots of houses are made of bricks. So think about these proteins are like bricks. And so in my skin, I just see like a wall of skin, but that wall of skin is made up of a bunch of little bricks of protein. All right?
Yeah.
Inside of those bricks, just like a brick in your house, like a brick in your house is not made up of one brick. It's made up of like thousands of little grains of sand.
Right. So these—
this little protein is made up of lots of little amino acids. It's like the little grains of sand that make up the brick. And those amino acids, some of them are still good and some of them are no longer good. So when this little protein in my arm breaks apart, I literally pee out some of the amino acids, the ones that aren't good anymore. Yeah, they get converted into urea. You lose them. And some of the amino acids that are in that little brick can actually get reused to make a new piece of skin tissue, a new little protein. And now the question is, okay, well, if I just peed out some of the grains, like I lost half my brick, you know, I lost half the brick that made up the skin, how do I rebuild it? That's why you eat protein. When you eat protein, chicken, beef, quinoa, whatever it is, you digest the food, you digest the proteins, the amino acids in it get released into your blood, and they go throughout your entire body, and they help to rebuild your skin, rebuild your muscle, rebuild liver proteins, make new hormones. Turn into your neurotransmitters.
And the thing is, there are different qualities of protein, right, based on how dense they are in these essential amino acids.
Okay.
How bioavailable they are, the proportion of them. And so it really, really matters that the quality of the essential amino acids you're getting in your diet will directly impact all of these things.
Okay. So what are the best quality amino acids, proteins that we should be focusing on?
So what I'll do is I'll give you like a spectrum of like what the impact is.
Okay.
So on the— I would say on the— first of all, I want to say if you're not under stress and you are young, like let's say you're 20 years old.
Okay.
And you're not training that hard and you're not overweight, you generally eat pretty well. Everything I'm about to say is less important.
Yeah.
I'm being real. Like the amount of protein you need to eat, the quality of the protein is less important. All of these things become more important if We're overweight and we're trying to, we're trying to lose fat, or we're particularly over 40, or we're really trying to train hard and like put on muscle. You know, it's like it's under stress where everything about to say matters a lot more.
Right.
And aging and aging, I would say over 40. And honestly, aging is the greatest stress-induced physiology. Like if you're talking about a state of being that this matters the most for, it is aging and thus it's all of us over 40.
Yeah.
And it only gets more intense as you get older. So on the very, very far end—
by the way, when you're 20, you could do anything. Yeah. I mean, you can eat anything. That's what I'm saying. It doesn't matter.
And I think that's the— there are always these arguments like plant protein versus animal protein or this protein powder, amino acids, and people like go and use studies and talk about things and like, yeah, it all gets blended together. And it's like, for some groups, this is less important. For others, it's more important.
Yeah. I think this is extremely important for people who are over 40, for sure.
Extremely important.
This is why— that's why you're here. Extremely important for people over 40.
And I would just say, like, I mean, like, and you are active.
Yeah.
I mean, quick side note, like, my son is a very competitive basketball player. He's, you know, almost 13, but he trains a lot. For him, it actually does matter. He's under a lot of stress.
Yeah.
So, like, for him, I do think about protein nutrition and amino acids because he's not— he's exercising like 3 hours a day.
Exactly. I was going to say, also for people who are active, who are very active, who are, who are trying to, like, operate in terms of in their brain at a high level.
You want to be like really optimized.
Yeah, you want to be optimized. You can't eat like a little as you get older. It's impossible. That's why this, that's why this is so important because I don't think anyone knows. You don't know what you don't know, right?
Yeah.
So go on.
Okay. So on the very far end of the spectrum in terms of protein quality, you have plant proteins, right? And that's not to like offend anyone or to get into argument, but it's like, it simply is the case that plant proteins outside of a very few like tofu and like soy, soy proteins are very high quality. They're like the closest to like animal proteins. And they get a lot of bad rep because of phytoestrogens, but like it's honestly pretty bunk. You look at like even male bodybuilders who consume a lot of like soy and like they have higher testosterone levels than the ones who don't. Like, really? Yeah, the soy thing's like, that's a whole other argument too. But like, if I was, if you're plant-based, I would encourage you to eat soy.
Interesting.
Yeah. Okay. I mean, you got to look out for other things like GMO and I just find you're eating a lot of extra calories when you're eating plant protein. Yeah, so here's what I was going to say. On the very far end, you have plant proteins, and this is basically any kind of protein that comes from a plant. And the reason why it's the lowest quality protein is because our body's ability to digest that protein and break it down, right, via like proteolytic enzymes— like, and this is not about like, oh, I, you know, do I— how much do I chew, or what do I need to eat? Like, it's literally like we have certain chemicals in our body that help us break down proteins. Totally. And they're less compatible with the plant-based proteins. And so when we try to get the amino acids out of them, we can't get as many. On top of that, they're covered in carbohydrates typically.
Exactly.
So they're very caloric. So you have to eat a lot of it. You have to eat 5, 10 times the amount of it as you would if you ate a super-densed animal protein to get the same amount of protein.
Yes. Like I was telling you yesterday when we were taught— when we were together, you know, you said this. Yeah. That if you eat kidney beans, for example, for protein, you'd have to have like 750 calories versus like a 250-calorie piece of steak to get the same quality or caliber of protein, or like amount of protein, amount of protein.
Well, impact. I would just say like the impact of the protein, because rather than just talking about grams of protein, it's like how much of it can I actually digest? And, and also like, and bloating. And okay, so anyway, so that's kind of on the very, very far end, right? Then, and there's a few— spirulina actually is a remarkably good plant protein, but how much spirulina are you going to eat?
I was going to say spirulina is a really good— but also it's like a lot of these plant proteins are not satiating. No, that's the other issue. Yeah. So you're going to have to eat—
you're going to have to eat again a lot of calories of like carbs, etc., you know. So, so that's kind of on the far end. Then you start getting into just honestly, whole food animal proteins are all—
what about dairy? Like yogurt?
Dairy is excellent. So I was going to say, if you, if you choose to be vegetarian, like, I mean, yogurt is incredible. Dairy is like one of the highest quality proteins. So are eggs.
So that's the most bioavailable protein there is.
Awesome protein.
Yeah.
But also beef, chicken, pork, fish. Like, these are all great, excellent protein sources.
Yeah.
But here's what, like, I think becomes more interesting and people don't realize, and this is where we really get into, like, essential amino acids. So in a protein, all of these proteins I just talked about, they're made up of these 20 amino acids. Imagine like 20 little different types of grains of sand that can make up the brick. 9 of them are essential, which by definition means you have to eat them. Like if something's essential in nutrition, it just means your body can't make it, right? Non-essential, literally your body can take those essential nutrients, it can take leucine, isoleucine, and turn it into another amino acid like glycine. Like it actually has the ability to synthesize new amino acids, your body does, but you have to eat the essential ones. On top of that, okay, the essential amino acids are the active component, and I will describe what that means now. When I eat some beef and I'm going to give you a specific amount because there's really interesting studies on this. I eat 30 grams of beef protein and I digest that. There's a certain amount of essential amino acids in that. And this is what a lot— kind of shocking though, but it's like only about, you know, a quarter of beef is actually protein because it's full of water.
Like when you weigh it, of course, of the weight, right? It's full of water. It's— there's other micronutrients in it. There's fats, there's other things. About a quarter of that. And then of that, less than half of that is essential amino acids. So you get this big piece of meat, and actually 12% is the essential amino acids. It's a quite small amount. And what your body is doing is when it digests that meat, there's 30 grams of beef protein, it really is just reading for the essential amino acids. And that peak of those essential amino acids when they hit the blood, that is what tells your body, hey, Gin, it's actually okay for you to break down these old skin tissues, these old liver proteins, and rebuild and make new ones. And the more amount of essential amino acids that hit the blood at once is what corresponds to your body saying, let's— it's called turnover, like whole body protein turnover and muscle protein turnover. Like, let's break down the old proteins and make new ones. So here's what's shocking. 30 grams of beef protein. Generates more whole body protein synthesis, this whole protein turnover in your body, than if you ate twice the amount of that, 70 grams of beef protein, but you ate that beef protein as part of a mixed meal.
When you eat the beef with broccoli, with potatoes, which— and I just want to be really clear, I'm not in any way like endorsing some kind of orthorexic like eating behavior. I eat like, you know, we had dinner, like I eat a nice whole mixed meal. And that's part of like, I think, being a healthy person is like eating whole meals and getting lots of micronutrients. But when you talk about protein synthesis, right, and why this would start to matter as we get older and how to optimize our diet—
we're not saying eating protein by itself, yes, is way more effective than eating—
mixing protein with other foods for the purpose of stimulating this protein synthesis, of telling the body to break— to make new proteins.
That is so interesting. So let's say, for example, I have a piece salmon with green beans, would it be less— it's less effective than me just eating a piece of salmon on its own?
For the purpose— for the purpose of protein turnover, yes. But that's not how I would suggest that you try to construct your diet. I wouldn't be like, all right, now I'm gonna start, and I'm gonna start eating my salmon on its own, and then I'm gonna wait an hour, and then I'm gonna eat my—
well, because there's fiber— there's a whole thing about that too. People eat food separately because of all the other— there are theories and benefits, they say.
Yes. And this is not a theory, this I know this is very well-documented protein and amino acid nutrition science by the leaders of the whole field of academia over the last 20 years. There's like multiple studies, multiple people. Again, and for anyone who's really interested in this stuff, go check out the International Society of Sports Nutrition. They have a great paper on specifically on essential amino acids that is an overview of this, but they'll link out to tons of other pieces. So, so that like that, that alone should kind of blow your mind. But here's a crazier thing. Whey protein powder stimulates 3 times— it's actually— here's where I really want to break it down. What is important is the amount of the essential amino acids that are in your blood.
Okay.
Okay. And when you consume whey protein powder, yeah, because it's even more bioavailable, it has less of the other, you know, even fibrous material attached to it and minerals, and like it's a more concentrated form of the protein, right? Increases those EAA levels 3 times as much as beef protein does. Like a whole steak, you take 20 grams of steak or 20 grams of beef protein from steak or 20 grams of whey protein, you'll get 3 times the impact from the whey protein.
From whey protein.
Why? And again, it's not— it is simply because it is more bioavailable and the, the, these amino acids hit the blood more quickly. So a kind of quick hack, and we're going to get to essential amino acids in a second now, But me, rather than saying like, yeah, you need to always separate all your meals, I'd be like, no, like have an awesome dinner with your family where you eat fiber, which is also good for you and all the micronutrients and like all these other things and have a piece of salmon and have some rice or whatever else you like for like a healthy carb. And when you think about how am I going to snack in the middle of the day, maybe it's not just like one more meal or what, or even, you know, like beef jerky or something. It's like the protein shake might actually be a much better bang for your buck. It's going to have less calories. And it's going to have a way greater impact on this protein synthesis, like why you're even trying to consume the protein. Like there are ways to kind of— and that's how I think supplements can really be used rather than replacing, right, your core meals and real nutrition.
When like supplements—
that's when supplements start to make sense. But here's now the mind-blowing impact of what you— when you think about essential amino acids. So, so now there's this whole other— this other category of product called essential amino acids. And even when you get whey protein powder, which I love, like my company makes whey, we make, in my opinion, like the best whey protein. Um, but like, um, whey protein is awesome. But even when you get whey protein, a whey protein, grass-fed whey protein isolate, highest quality, most premium, cleanest thing, of that protein, less than 45% is essential amino acids. Most of it is the non-essential, which are not bad. They're good. They have good things that they do. but they don't increase the protein synthesis at all. Zero. And there are very clear studies that show this. Increasing the amount of nonessential, no increase. So when you take an essential amino acid supplement and it's all the essential, it's only the essential amino acids, you're only getting the active component. When you give that to young adults, and we'll get into like aging adults, the impact versus whey protein is 3x. So like you want to take 5 grams of essential amino acids, it's going to have 3 times the impact as 5 grams of whey protein.
Or more equivalently, it's more like 5 grams of essential amino acids is going to be the same as like, you know, 15 grams of whey protein for a young adult. And the reason for that is somewhat obvious. One is it's entirely— it's only the essential amino acids.
Yeah.
Whereas half of the whey protein is these other things. But on top of that, it's immediately digested. It goes into the bloodstream immediately. So even better than, say, just trying to have a whey protein shake in the middle of the day, just take some essential amino acids and you're getting a way bigger impact than a whey protein shake. But even a huger— huge is not a real word.
I like that word.
A huger, a much larger impact than trying to eat, you know, a can of tuna or chicken breast or one more meal. Like, it's a way more efficient and effective way to get that boost. And I think as we see, as we talk about getting older, like, you need every edge you can get.
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So if you care about your age, and I know you do, this is worth your attention. Go to www.fatty15.com/habits and use code Habits at checkout to get an additional 15% off their 90-day starter kit. That's fatty15.com/habits, code Habits, and you can find the link in the show notes. Now let's get back to the episode. So you're telling me, just so I'm break— I want to kind of just like summarize that. Or maybe— so having a scoop or two of whey protein is actually more effective than actually for your protein synthesis than having a steak?
Yes.
Okay. And then how about in terms— is whey protein more effective than having salmon?
Yes.
Okay. So overall, like the overarching thing that you said is whey protein is the best form of protein that you can get over— overall.
Okay, so I want to be clear, I'm talking less about the idea of like whey protein because I'll just say—
no, but you're talking—
I'm going to say when you have yogurt and there's that clear liquid on the top, that's whey protein. So make sure you don't throw that away. Stir that in.
Really?
Yeah, so stir that in.
Yeah, I always, I always like throw it away.
Really?
Yeah.
I mean, there's other liquids in it too, but I would definitely keep that.
Well, that's good to know.
So like whey—
give me more tips like that.
Yeah, so So whey protein is, is a protein source that naturally is a part of dairy. Okay.
I understand that.
So I'm gonna, what I'm saying is isolated protein powder.
Yeah.
Particularly whey protein powder. It's the one that has the most amount of studies behind it and studies that compare it in this way that we're talking about. Taking a whey protein powder as a supplement on its own is definitely going to outperform any type of whole food animal protein of 3, you know, piece of salmon, 3 times.
Yeah. Everything.
A piece of chicken, a piece of beef, et cetera. By many times.
Does that mean that we, we would build muscle easier or better with that whey protein than we would with the salmon, steak, or whatever, whatever?
In the context of supplementation, I would say yes. I think the only reason why I want to like, like kind of, you know, hedge that is I'm not encouraging people to stop eating real food.
No, of course, because you—
there are other good things in the salmon. There are fats in the salmon, and eating—
we're talking—
and eating a mixed meal and having carbs are really good for you and like recovering from training, etc. But when we're talking very, very clear.
This is just for one very specific point.
But for building lean muscle, for building lean muscle, if you're trying to hit much higher daily protein targets, like whey protein, to do that, a whey protein powder is going to be way more effective than just trying to eat more whole food protein.
Okay, so here's the thing. Now, what if we just take our aminos and not do the other things? Like, let's say we—
if you replaced it, if instead of whey protein, if instead of whey, you only did the amino acids, Yes. Better. So this is better than the whey protein. The better solution for supplementing, you know, already like, you know, a high protein diet and trying to live the super vibrant life and have really good muscle and be lean and have good hair and skin and all that. Amino acids are the supplement that are going to outperform whey protein and basically outperform and also get and will allow you to get your—
the amount of protein you actually need. For all the other kind of benefits your body needs.
Yeah, because when your body's eating protein, it's trying to get these essential amino acids. That's what it wants. And you're giving it that in this more highly concentrated form.
So you're saying, okay, there's 20 amino acids. Like, your supplement gives you 9 essential. What happens to the other ones?
What happens to them when?
Like, for example, I've been taking your— I've been mixing your aminos with water, the mango one I like. Side issue, and it has 9 amino acids, right? Essential 9. So the other 11, we don't, so that's not obviously in the thing. Our bodies are producing it itself. It's not as essential because what happens to them? Like why does the supplement not have 20? Why does it only have 9?
Okay, so in—
Like L-glutamine's a perfect example.
Yeah, so here, which is a good amino acid and has other specific functions that it does. So it's not like you don't need these things, but here— Where do we get them?
Maybe here's a, well, you would get it.
Here's why you should eat meat every day.
Okay.
You do need some of that every day.
Okay.
You do need it. So if I was just giving you basic guidance, what I would say is like, don't go below 0.6 grams of protein per pound of body weight of real food every day.
Okay.
That's what I would, I would just, I would like make that a fundamental base. I think that's, that's pretty clear. And that is because there's a certain amount of protein you need to just function.
Like for your immune health, for your brain health.
Well, here's the deal. If you eat less protein than that, as a young, healthy adult— I'm sorry, so I'm saying 20-year-old again, not performing, etc.— you literally, all of your luxury proteins, your muscle, your skin, your hair, all these, they're going to start to— they're going to start to degrade. And why is that? It's because of this. Like, literally, if I go a few hours— is technically all it takes— but let's just say I go a day without consuming any protein, and now I literally have these liver— these, these parts of my liver that need new liver proteins to be replaced. They're breaking down, they have to be rebuilt, and it's pulling everything, all the amino acids out of my blood that it can to help rebuild them, and it can't find them, right? Where does it get them from? I'm not, I'm not eating new protein. What does it do, right? It literally breaks down my muscle tissue. Your muscle tissue is your reservoir of amino acids for the rest of your body, and that is why it— like, when people diet, oftentimes they start to lose lots of muscle It's why when we get older, we start to lose lots of muscle.
It's because our ability to utilize proteins in our diet to get these amino acids to, like, rebuild our heart tissue, to support our liver. So, so the main idea is, like, there's a certain amount of amino acids you just need to, like, even just have basic functioning.
Yeah.
And there's a certain amount of nonessential amino acids that you wouldn't want to, like, force your body to have to synthesize them all. Like, and by eating them in food, you get them. But what I would say is, like, the cow, right? The cow's meat, like its proteins, are made in an ideal way for that cow to just be a cow, for it to, like, function and live.
Like, yes, of course.
Like the structure of its tissue. It wasn't made— it's not like made so that it's perfect. It's the perfect protein for us. So when we eat a cow and we eat some of that beef, what happens is some of the amino acids we like really want and really use, all of the essential amino acids, And we can use some of the nonessential, but a lot of the nonessential we don't actually need.
Well, that's what I say.
And so they get converted into sugars, they get converted into urea, et cetera. They get converted into other things and we don't actually use them all. So it doesn't— we use them for energy, but we don't use them actually in a, in a substantive way to actually help rebuild our proteins. And so maybe the simplest way of describing it is it's good to eat whole food protein because it's got micronutrients, minerals, et cetera, and it has some of these nonessential, but we need a lot less of them than we need of the essential.
So I got a bunch of questions just about this because number one, I went to get my blood work done and I was told to take L-glutamine, which is an amino acid, right? Do I need to take— if I just took your amino acid, which are the 9 essentials, can I not take the L-glutamine or does that have a separate function and benefit?
That has a separate function. And what that is likely pointing to, like, I don't know your specific health situation, But there's a unique— you have a unique health condition that is necessitating you to consume more L-glutamine. That is not like— it's not just like every woman your age is in that situation. So you're talking about a very unique situation. So and those cases do exist for people like where they need more L-glutamine, they need more iron. This person needs to consume more vitamin D.
This person, I'm just depleted in everything, which I find, you know, which is true, which is, by the way, what I was saying before we started is that I think it's so crucial for people to not just— this is what I learned that, and when I, I, I got, I just got my blood work done. And I think what people get stuck in this loop is when they get their blood work and they start taking all the supplements, they end up just taking the same supplements for like years on end without, you know, really kind of checking if they even need those, if they're deficient in it, what their body actually needs now. Because what I need now at my, my age was very different than what I need 3 years ago or, or even 10 years ago, right? So now these amino acids are essential for my overall well-being. And what I was going to say to you, and so now I feel like that's become part of my daily morning routine. I never took amino acids before. I didn't know about them, but what I was going to— I didn't know about the importance of how you need to incorporate them.
But what I was going to say is if you're someone who's even on a GLP-1 or even a runner where it breaks down your lean muscle mass, if you just incorporated this amino acid supplement, would it enhance and benefit you like exponentially?
Exponentially. So let's just talk the GLP-1 user. I'm gonna make it even broader.
Okay.
If you were cutting calories, yeah, and it can be drug-induced or it can be MyFitnessPal and main diet coach, whatever is getting you to eat less food, right? If you're eating less food, you are going to lose weight. So there's, there are these kind of basic rules of thermodynamics and the way that the body works that it's I burn a certain amount of calories per day, and if I consume less than I burn, then what happens is two things happen. One is my fat stores, I start to use them. And it's actually like people, like, are always frustrated with our body fat, like, in contemporary society because we have too much of it. But it's actually a very cool mechanism that it's like if you have a bunch of food at one time, you can eat it and you'll actually store the excess food on your body so that then when you're hungry later on, you can live off of it. It's like imagine living in the woods and it's like you kill this animal and you eat it all and you can like actually store it rather than just trying to like, you know, keep it in a cooler.
Most people don't want to be storing it, but I understand what you're saying.
But I'm saying that's where it came from. And so that's what happens. Like now you suddenly eat less and what happens is you burn off that fat, that excess store. But what also happens is that you burn muscle. You burn a lot of muscle when you lose weight. And so what a lot of people—
What's the percentage, do you think? Do you know? Like 30%? Yeah.
So it depends. Here's what I'd say though, like, and this math is not perfect math, but I'll give you a few pretty clear validated figures. In general, there's this idea that about a 3,500-calorie deficit— if I eat 3,500 calories less than I need, I'll burn about a pound of fat, right? And it's about 750 calories for a pound of muscle. So considerably less of a caloric deficit will burn— will eat away at your muscle. Now, it's not a perfect mix of these, but it's like, well, then how does your body choose which it's burning and why? And, you know, like, what happens? But typically what happens if you do a very aggressive calorie restriction, and that could be, you know, like I'm trying to lose— I'm saying aggressive, like 2 pounds a week, which I think lots of people think is like not crazy, but that's actually on the upper limit of like what's sustainable over time.
Right.
And if you're on a GLP-1 or something and you're losing 4 or 5 pounds a week, the likelihood is that out of the first 10 pounds that you lose, about 4 pounds will be muscle and 6 pounds will be fat. So 40%. Over a long term, over the course of like 9 months, it ends up being about 25 to 30% is muscle loss. So that's a lot of muscle. And what I would tell you is no one is like— I promise you, you're not wanting to lose muscle. No one's wanting to lose muscle. It's, it's hard to build back. Muscle is very metabolically intensive. When you have more muscle, you burn more calories at rest. When you're working out, it helps you stay strong, helps you look lean and toned, etc. So it's like you don't want to lose muscle. And the difference between losing 10 pounds of fat only or losing 6 pounds of fat and 4 pounds of muscle is very different. It's different for your metabolism. You're gonna look totally different. So the ideal situation would be whether you're dieting or you're taking a GLP-1, how can you lose 10 pounds of fat and lose no muscle?
How can you lose 20 pounds of fat and lose no muscle? Or maybe 19 pounds of fat and 1 pound of muscle. And there is a way to do it. And so a series of really awesome recent studies actually sponsored by the Department of Defense. And it was through the University of Arkansas Medical Branch that they did all this research basically. And they were trying to study it with, um, with people in the military who are undergoing like calorie deprivation, carrying large packs, et cetera. What happens when we cut calories and how much more of essential amino acids do we need to give these people to ensure that they stay in a net protein balance, meaning they don't lose muscle? They don't start breaking down their muscle to serve their liver and to serve their heart. And what they found was that a 30% caloric deficit— so let's just say for simple terms, a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet is like your— this is what you eat every day, you'll stay the same weight. If you cut 600 calories, which is about 30%, which over the course of a week is a little over a pound of, you know, weight loss, so it's not something super aggressive.
You need a 300% increase, a threefold increase in essential amino acids in each serving to not have muscle loss. That's a lot more. That's like a ton more. That's a lot more.
So I think the GLP-1 is super important because people are looking, they're looking not necessarily better. They're smaller versions of what they were potentially, but a lot of the people I see have lost a lot of their muscle mass. And once they get off of that drug, everybody I know who's gotten off of it has gained their weight back very fast, within like a month, like 40 pounds in a month. And it's because they lost all of their muscle, which we just talked about, is how you end up having a higher metabolism to burn calories, right?
And it's going to be that much harder to ever lose the weight again.
Exactly.
It's the same problem that always existed with yo-yo dieting. You starve yourself and then you go back to the behaviors and you start— like, you have to find a sustainable way long term, right? In order to— and I'm not against GLP-1s. I'm saying if that's your long-term— no, but what I'm saying is it's like a hack, but you have to be thinking about muscle during it. And it is possible. And so what I would say is if you are doing some type of, you know, restrictive dieting or GLP-1 medication, I would be looking at taking essential amino acids. And we should get more into this— leucine-enriched essential amino acids. It matters. It's not just like any amino acids that you can find out there on Amazon. Or something, or whatever brand, or even if a famous person is promoting it, it's very— the science is very specific. A leucine-enriched essential amino acid supplement, right? I'd be taking 2 servings of that or 3 servings of that a couple of times per day.
Really?
So it's quite a bit. But again, that's if you're doing this kind of aggressive— like you're taking a drug, right?
You're definitely not eating enough protein.
Yeah. Or you're doing this like very aggressive calorie counting. Like, really, you, you have, you have such a good chance of having like zero, like little to zero muscle loss if you do that while also doing this type of aggressive dieting.
This is a massive hack if you're taking a GLP-1, in my opinion.
The only way I thought you would frame it is like, rather than it almost being like a hack or a shortcut, it's actually like a really thoughtful way to actually be healthy. Like, if you, if you really— you're not just chasing the short-term high of like, I lost a bunch of weight, like Like, who do you really want to be? No, I think you really want to be this like vital, strong, fit, beautiful, handsome person, you know, whatever your thing is, live a long time. It's like you can't— you gotta think about your muscle.
Well, I also, I think that's true. The reason why I'm calling it a hack is, number one, people understand the fact that like, well, that— well, I would hope that most of these people are lost their appetite, so it's really hard to get that much protein intake, right? So they're struggling on I think also you need to do strength training, all these things. But if they are at least taking— this is an easy way to kind of— an easy integration into their daily routine that can really help save their muscle. Why wouldn't everybody do it? That's the first part.
Totally.
Okay. Like, it's a no-brainer. Like, to me, I'm all about no-brainers. Like, make my life as easy and simple as possible to get the maximum, like, you know, effects. To me, that's what it would be. Another one is, like I was saying, running, or like high— like running, because I'm a big— I love— like, to me, there's no better, like, cardio than running to clear my mind, to enhance my mood.
I love running.
I love running. And yet I know, as I'm an old woman now, my joints are falling apart, you know, like it breaks down a lot of lean muscle mass, all the things. But I can't stop it because of the mental health benefits, right? So I want to— but I'm like, oh shit, what am I gonna do? Because I love it, but yet like I don't want my muscle to break down. So if I started to— if I take these amino acids, that would also help me preserve my muscle incredibly.
And that's one that I think really cool tool for something like Kion Aminos is that you take it before you run and you don't— it's not like you ate a bunch of food, it's not like you're heavy. Because I would say you also could try to eat some like chicken 45 minutes before you run. It's like, that's pretty hard. But maybe you can take a serving or a couple servings before go run, and you're not only helping preserve— this is actually really important— you're not only helping preserve that lean muscle during that period, but you're also actually helping replace the older proteins that are in your muscle. You're literally going to enhance your muscle tissue by doing that.
See, that to me, again, is a major, uh, improve— hack, I would call it a hack, or like strategy.
I didn't mean to challenge you by judging hack. I was just like trying to get you to—
No, by the way, I usually don't like that word. I hate that word. But to me, I would say strategy.
Strategy tool, like, obvious thing to do, like, like, to me, foundational, like, this makes too much sense.
Well, because like I'm so concerned with being older, like over 40, loving to run. It's not as easy when I was 20, right? Like I didn't have to care. Even 30. Now I'm like, oh shit, like I am not, I'm not building muscle as fast, right? So, or as I'm very concerned with like breaking down what I do have to preserve, right? So I'm looking for any easy tool or strategy to maintain everything I have as long as I have it, right? So my question to you then is, how does aminos— how are they different than creatine? Because everyone talks about creatine. Oh my God, creatine, creatine, protein, creatine. It's all you hear, right? Like, maybe my algorithm is different than yours, but every second reel, every second post is, you know, the creatine, and I'm taking this, and I'm adding protein, and da da da. Like, what is the difference between creatine and aminos? If I, if I take aminos, do I need creatine? Like, can you talk about that stuff?
So, a couple quick soundbites. Creatine's awesome. I think it's worth taking. If I could convert you to take it too, I would.
Okay.
I would say that the essential amino acids are more important.
Okay.
And here's why. And it actually ties into something that you said, but I'm also going to get to what creatine is and how it works and why it's cool. Okay, good. So you were saying like, hey, strength training is also important. I 100% agree. Like, actually doing strength training is something that you cannot get from nutrition alone. Like, we're having all this whole conversation about should I take the whey protein or the amino acids with food? It's like, it really does matter. And choosing those essential amino acids as a supplement is going to outperform everything else. But they ultimately will not replace training your muscles. Like, actually putting your muscles under duress and picking up heavy things and moving them. Like, you're just— there's a lot of other really important things that happen in doing that.
Okay.
Is incredible about essential amino acids is that they work even when you're not— they, they help exercise. Like I said, you take them before you run, you take them before you exercise, and they are going to have an amazingly synergistic effect with the, with the exercise. The blood flow from the exercise pushes them into the muscles, and you get way more benefit, benefit from the exercise than if you had not taken them. But you take them on their own and they have amazing benefit. That is not really true about creatine. And an amazing study that exemplifies this is quite old. It's actually from— it was— there were a series of studies that NASA sponsored, but the really big one is in 2005. And basically they were trying to figure out how to help astronauts not lose muscle mass in space because there isn't resistance training, right? It's very difficult. There's no weight, there's no gravity, right? And so, you know, they sponsored a lot of different studies, but one was essential amino acids. So they actually, this is with young adults where they put them at bedrest for 28 days. So imagine, imagine agreeing to that study.
I'm going to like be in a bed and go to the bathroom in this bed and like Be it all day long, 28 days.
Wow.
They got to eat normal meals, 3 meals a day, but on top of that, they had to take essential amino acids, 10 grams twice a day. And then they were trying to see, like, what would happen after 28 days of bed rest. There was no net muscle loss. Complete lack of movement. These people did nothing. They're in bed for 28 days, no training of the muscles, nothing. And yet they lost no muscle mass. They did lose some muscle function. They, like, when they went back to train, they couldn't lift quite as much weight, but they literally lost no muscle mass. And so why and how is that? That is the, you know, kind of quintessential explanation of how when you consume a high dose of these essential amino acids and they hit the blood, they literally help rebuild and maintain your existing muscle mass. So it's a, it's a, it's a very unique thing that happens. Now, like, you cannot get that from creatine. Why? Well, what is creatine? Creatine in its simplest terms is an energy source. It's, you know, it's, it's not as simple as this, but it's like, it's closer, like the way I was talking about carbohydrates and fat.
But it's like this super— it's like nitro. Like, have you ever played video games as a kid? It's like a nitro boost.
Yeah. Like, I played Donkey Kong.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but if you think about like a nitro, like, it's like, it's like this boost. And what it is basically is that when you eat creatine, which comes from red meat, some fish, right, or you supplement it gets stored in your muscle tissue.
Okay, I know.
As this thing called phosphocreatine. And then what happens is when you're doing different types of exercise, you know, you're familiar with aerobic and anaerobic. Yeah, exercise. That's different times you get from running. And basically it's about how your body converts sugars and carbohydrates to create this thing called ATP. Well, when you're lifting weights or you're doing something really intense, you're doing pull-ups or you're doing bench press or you're squatting, your body is not thinking about aerobic and anaerobic energy systems. There's this energy system called the phosphocreatine energy system. And basically what it does is it takes the phosphocreatine that is stored in your muscle and it converts— it uses it to very quickly convert ATP more quickly. So when you have more phosphocreatine in your muscle, you're able to oftentimes do 2 more pull-ups, 2 more reps of that, whatever weight you're at before. Yeah, you're basically able to lift more and do more intense exercise. So creatine's real benefit is for strength training. It is going to make it to where you can do strength training better because you have more energy stored in your muscle to lift more weights and to do more, you know, intense exercise.
That is its primary, most studied benefit. Now, there's a whole set of like cognitive benefits.
We can get into cognitive benefits and the brain health. And people are now are like upping it from 5 milligrams to 10 milligrams because of the brain.
Yeah. So let's get into that. I mean, that's, that's also good. Yeah. And there is some good science for that, although I would just caution and say a lot of it is overstated and over-marketed.
Really?
And there are really good things. And I am one person who takes 10 grams a day for very specific reasons. But so just one last thing. So comparison between the aminos and the creatine. The aminos are going to protect and build your muscle even if you don't exercise and makes tons of sense to just take generally for that reason. And they are ultimately going to— they're going to correct and overcome the anabolic resistance that comes from aging. When you get older and you can't utilize this protein that you used to use as well, and you need more essential amino acids, you particularly need a higher dose of leucine with them, which again, I think when we get to like formulas, I'll explain why this matters. Creatine will never do that. More chicken will never do that. The only thing that will do that is a leucine-enriched essential amino acid. It is the only thing that is going to help your body gen to maintain and build that muscle.
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Yeah. So, so branched-chain amino acids are basically a stepping stone in the research around amino acids.
Got it. Okay.
That at one point in time we thought if you consume them, it's basically just the three— it's, it's three very important essential amino acids.
Oh, okay.
You need all nine. It's only three of them. And in the progress of research, at one point in time, 20 years ago, we thought— actually, 25 years ago, at least now— we thought, the research community, that maybe you could just take them. In the same way I'm saying, you know, these essential amino acids are way better than whey protein, at one point in time we thought maybe those branched-chain, those BCAAs, were. And what's been uncovered is they're not. They're insufficient. If you take them on their own, there's zero anabolic impact. There's even potentially catabolic impact. But a lot of people have built businesses around them.
100%.
So there's a ton of money in it. And so, and people still understand it. And so people are still making products and selling it.
That's really, that's really good info because that's the, like, you know, when people were like, are gym rats or people who are really into like health and fitness, they're like, they take their BCAAs, they take their L-carnitine, they take all these things that like maybe most people don't maybe know about.
Yeah.
So you're saying those BCAAs are just 3 aminos.
What you—
like, what we're talking about are 9 aminos.
Yes.
Which is—
it's inclusive of those 3.
Of course.
But it'd be like if you're trying to run a football team and you only have—
forgot the quarterback.
No, you had like the— you like, oh, we're gonna— with this whole team, all we need is the quarterback, the running back, and the wide receiver. And it's like, well, like, where's your offensive line that's like protecting all these guys?
Right, right, right.
You're gonna get crushed. And so that's what happened, is you get crushed.
Okay, that's interesting. I like to— thank you for telling me that because I didn't know that. And Actually, people were asking me when I was talking about me starting to take aminos now in my water and like how I met you and I really liked all this stuff. They're like, I take BCAAs. I'm like, okay, let me find out about it. You know what I mean? Okay, so my next big question to you is for every decade, I know that I think this— you're saying every decade the amount of protein we need are different. What happens? Can you kind of talk and tell us about what we need in our 30s, 40s, 50s, and so forth.
Yes. So when you eat protein and you're younger, your body is more optimized to get the essential amino acids out of it. Yes. Right.
We know that when we're 20s— I don't care about the 20s to be honest.
Yeah.
And no offense to the people who are 20 listening.
And it actually goes back to this— it's a quick connection to this BCAA conversation. The quarterback is this one amino acid called leucine. And I would say it's like the quarterback. And then we used to think—
yeah, you bring it up a lot.
Yeah. What if you just take leucine?
Protein, right?
And it's like, it doesn't work. You can't run a whole football team with just your quarterback. Like, it doesn't work. But as we get older, what happens is two things. One, how our ability to digest the protein degrades. So when you're 50, you don't digest the protein as well as you did when you were 20. But, but more importantly, even when you digest that protein, yeah, and you, you eat the chicken and it gets broken down, the amino acids go into your blood your body doesn't read the signal as strong. It's like it knows that there's the essential amino acids there. It sees that there's some leucine, but it's just kind of like timid. It's like it doesn't really— Yeah. And exactly why that is, there's not a very clear explanation. It's more like a behavior in the body that we have observed, and that's very clear. And so what we realized then is like, well, then your body needs a higher dose. Of protein at once, or a higher dose of essential amino acids, and ultimately a higher dose of this leucine all at once in order to get a better response. And what we found over many studies is that if you just increase that leucine, you'll, you'll actually overcome all of the resistance.
So I'm going to give you an example, and I'm going to go back, I'm going to tell you the 20, 30, 40, 50 thing. So as I said earlier, when you take essential amino acids, yeah, it's about 3 times the impact as whey protein.
Protein, right?
Right. Gram for gram.
Yeah.
When you're 60, okay, if you add more leucine to that formula of those essential amino acids, it's 6 times the impact as the whey protein. Wow. And so like, why is that? Did like the amino acids get more powerful? You know what happened? No. Our body's ability to utilize the amino acids in the whey protein goes down. And we get worse and worse at utilizing it. We're just simply not as sensitive to it. But that extra signal, like basically spiking it with more of that leucine, our body's like, oh, I see it. It basically can read the signal and it can understand it. So as you get older, this importance around eating— either eating more protein or the importance of getting higher amounts of leucine in an essential amino acid supplement or as part of your protein powder, whatever it is, it is going to over— it's going to overcome that. And so really, the guide is this: it's like, it's less like exactly how much protein you need to eat, which I can give you a guide for, but what I would say is essential— a leucine-enriched essential amino acid, just like basically like Kion Aminos is 40% leucine, that's the threshold you need to hit.
Okay.
When you are in your 20s, it's going to be about 3 times as impactful as whey protein. By the time you're 40, it's about 4 times. By the time you're 50, it's about 5 times. And we've seen very clearly in studies that in your 60s, 3 grams of leucine-enriched essential amino acids has the same impact as 20 grams of whey protein— over 6 times the impact.
Wow.
So it's like this tiny, like, 1 scoop, you know, is equal to 30 grams of whey protein. And we already saw before too, it's worth even more than, like, steak, you know. It's going to the equivalent to 60 or more grams of like, of like a steak protein.
So why are people not talking about aminos and they're always talking about creatine? Everything, it's like in middle age I'm talking.
I think that there's just always different— I mean, this is like, maybe I'm being too cynical here, but it's like, yeah, no, no, it's marketing trends. Why is creatine suddenly being talked about? Like, creatine is around forever. Creatine's been around forever. But this is interesting also situation because you could say the same thing about creatine 5 years ago when the ISSN, International Society of Sports Nutrition, did their report on creatine. I think they had like 120 studies cited. When they did it on essential amino acids, they had 137. Really? So we're talking like, we're talking the scope of something that's been studied a lot, you know, not like on par with something like creatine. But 5 years ago, no one was selling creatine to middle-aged women. Like, no one even talked about it. It was just as beneficial to them. It made just as much sense. Simply they're marketing and business trends that come and go and develop. And sometimes they're great. Like I would say creatine is a great supplement that makes a lot of sense for middle-aged people to start taking, and particularly women who were never marketed it before. So if they work out, if they work out.
So if a, if a woman is listening to this, but you should work out.
I know. Listen, I know you should, but like preaching to the converted.
Okay, I understand that. Trust me.
Yeah.
But if someone is not working out, out, right?
Is it worth taking creatine?
Like, if they're just doing hikes and walks, they're not lifting heavy weight, they're taking— they're doing hikes and walks and an occasional Pilates class, do they need to take creatine?
First of all, you don't need to take anything, right?
Life—
there's all kinds of ways of doing life. But what I would say is you're going to get a lot less benefit from it. The primary benefits that I think you're going to get in terms of body composition and being stronger over the— over, like, the course of your life is going to be from taking creatine and doing strength training, right? Those two together are where you get the, the bulk of the benefits and where there's been the most amount of research, right? Quick caveat, there is research for cognitive benefits. What I would say though is taking creatine is not just gonna like make you smarter. Basically, in the same way that your muscle stores these phosphocreatine stores to like create energy quickly, your brain does the same thing. If you give yourself enough creatine And that's why you have to take these much larger doses because your muscle absorbs most of it. There's enough extra left over to put into your brain. Then under duress, so you're really sleep deprived, for example, or you're under some kind of like crazy stress. It's really— we don't have a study for stress. We have a study. We have studies specifically for sleep deprivation.
Then your ability to focus and for memory, there are some slight improvements. There are improvements to focus and memory. And that's why I take it and I experience it. It's kind of like my insurance for whether I slept good or not that night. And originally I was just taking 10 grams like on days when I didn't sleep well, and I built it into a habit where it's like I take it every day because it's like a slight cognitive edge, particularly under stress.
Okay.
When you look at older adults, it's much higher doses. We're looking at 25 grams a day. So 5 scoops, like that's a lot more than a typical person takes. It has this impact in, in older adults and the elderly to improve things like memory and focus. It doesn't improve overall executive functioning. And there are not studies that it prevents or corrects dementia. That is not something that is real. What the studies that have been around there, like even in like a dementia-based population, is they just showed that there were increased creatine stores in the brain, which we would think and know already. If you take a bunch of creatine, you're going to store more in the brain. So I think that I just share that because I think these, these, these studies, these claims get stretched and pushed and like I'm, you know, I'm— my company makes creatine. I love creatine. I take it every day.
Right.
You got to be like, real with people about what it actually does and doesn't do, and not like mislead people.
Well, listen, recently my mother, like last year, got diagnosed with Alzheimer's, which has been really horrible.
I'm really sorry, Jen.
Thank you. And, uh, I was all about this creatine, like, oh, she takes 40 grams, but 50 grams, you know, would that really help? And honestly, I've spoken to so many different doctors who are like the best in the world in brain health and Alzheimer's, and they're That's a myth that creatine is actually helpful for things like that. Like when you're younger, it can help you with brain fog and cognitive, you know, all the cognitive things. But once you hit, like if you have that gene or if you're already like on that path, creatine is not gonna, it's not coming to save you. It's not saving you.
And the only slight modification I'd make to that, it's like I try to enter everything with like humility. And I would just say like, It hasn't been proven yet.
Yeah.
Like, people act like that is a thing, right? And there is no data that shows that. And so, and we're giving people that hope. It's just people wanting to, like, have a smart take on something.
I know.
And make a bolder claim.
Dangerous.
I know, because you've got these— and here's an interesting context, and this has got to be for a whole other conversation.
Okay.
But is if there is something that does help prevent that, okay, the number one thing I would look at is omega-3s.
Yes, we talked about this.
Well, this is going to be a whole other podcast, but with omega-3s, they do have long-term epidemiological data that shows that greater intake of omega-3s, right, and thus greater amounts of your red blood cells being made of them, is directly correlated to— I, I can't remember, it's a fi— it's some— I can't remember if it's a 15 or 20% reduction in like the risk of dementia. So that's like, that's pretty significant. So I would say is if if your mom has been diagnosed and you want to avoid it, like, I would start taking a higher dose of a high-quality omega-3 every day. Like, that is a real thing. Creatine has not been shown to do that.
Well, exactly. I was going to say, I got my blood work back, and I did talk about that, and then that's what really was the outcome. Like, omega-3 may help move the needle, but creatine, that's just very much like It's kind of like a wives' tale, like a myth at this point. There's no real data that, I don't even know how it happened or where it happened.
Well, there are, there's at least one study where they measured.
Cognitive benefits.
Yeah, memory. There are definitely studies giving it to older people to improve things like focus and short-term memory.
And memory, yeah.
But not dementia memory, we're talking about totally different type of memory function.
That was my point, but then.
But then there's another study where they gave it to people with dementia and they measured if they had like increased phosphocreatine in the brain, which they— it'd be like measuring like, hey, if I give you, if I give you this creatine, is there more in your brain?
Yeah.
And they show that like, yes, there is. And it was in a population that had dementia. And so then people stretch that to say like, oh, it's got all these other benefits that this other study showed. It's just people, honestly, it's people who I think don't know how to read studies and or are more focused on doing marketing and trying to get attention and having a hot take. Than like actually—
if it behooves them in a way to talk about it.
Yeah.
Okay. So answer me, riddle me this. If it was one, okay. And this is not— and this is— you sell both creatine and aminos. So people, he's not biased here. If you could only take one, if you're a 50-year-old—
aminos.
I love it. If you're a 40-year-old—
aminos.
Okay. If you're a 60-year-old—
Aminos.
So aminos over creatine every single time.
Absolutely. Like, for my parents today, for my mid-40s wife, for me, for— like, if you just look at the, the research around it and around the benefits you're going to get from it, like, that's the one that I would choose. That said, the first thing I do every single morning is I take aminos and creatine together. So it's— they don't—
you're not choosing.
I'm not choosing. But if you are someone who doesn't want to take I'm trying to get someone to start a new habit because this is the big thing. We actually started this towards the beginning of this conversation. You're saying someone starts taking a supplement and they just keep taking it.
Exactly my point.
Which honestly, adherence is the biggest part of health. We can debate all day what the best exercise is or what the best blah blah is, but it's like, what are you willing to do every day? And what I would say is like, if you're— if I'm just trying to help someone just do one more thing every day, like there's one nutritional change I would make, one supplement to take, I would absolutely always tell them, take the aminos. In all of these cases we gave, then I would say, do the creatine. Then once they started taking the aminos every day and they started getting those benefits and they're like, hey, is there like anything else I should take? Immediately I'd be like, creatine or omega. Like, those are the, those are the ones where I'm like, hey, these are things that—
Aminos is your number one?
That's my number one.
Okay. By the way, if you take aminos when you're fasting, does it satiate you or can you—
Yes.
So is there like some type of study or any type of like data on if you are a person who fasts and you also take aminos, does it satiate you? Does it help you keep your lean muscle? I'm not a fasting person, but I know a lot of people do these fasts.
Yeah. So, so here's the, I think, like really interesting data on this.
Okay.
When you go through any extended period of time, and again, if you're 20 years old, this doesn't matter. If you're over 40, this matters a lot more. So like, listen up, like fasting is different for us as we get older. When you go a few hours without consuming protein and you stress the body even greater through something like exercise, right? You are provoking the body to want to break down muscle tissue to supply the rest of the body with amino acids. Like, you are, you're, you're provoking the body to do that. And so if you don't want to do that and you want to maintain your lean muscle, then it is crucial that you think about timing. And you try to consume amino acids either via a piece of salmon, protein shake, or essential amino acids every few hours throughout the day, regardless of whether you're like doing some kind of extended fast or not. And if you're doing extended fasting, then you definitely— like, you're, you're in— you're having even more stress-induced physiological state.
Does it break your fast though?
No, it doesn't break your fast, right?
Because at the—
with the blood sugar and all the things, yeah, it's not spiking your blood sugar. I mean, all this thing about breaking your fast, it's like, how do you even define it? But like, there's no digestive there's like zero digestive stress. It's not having some kind of spike on your blood sugar.
Okay.
And more importantly, and this is getting into like a bit more of like the cell impacts, but there have been studies that have shown that taking essential amino— again, leucine-enriched essential amino acids— stimulates more mitochondrial biogenesis than fasting alone. So if you actually take it, you are encouraging your body to develop new mitochondria. Yeah, now this is not like a human out— this is not like a human study. These are like in vitro type studies, but all of these—
that's interesting—
all of these types of cell-based studies are, you know, cell-based studies.
How about for— and just overall, if you— does it— because it helps you feel satiated, and if you eat it— if you— sorry, if you drink it or take the supplements, would you— would it help satiate you to a place where you're not as hungry to eat junk food because of that? Like, I eat a lot of protein, right, because I don't want to eat like like it satiates me. It's the only thing that satiates me and keeps my blood sugar stable, right? Would I have that same benefit or same—
Yes. Yeah, I think the simple answer is that basically the, the essential amino acids are hitting those same types of cues.
Yeah.
That help satiate like that need to try to basically get your protein requirements met. Yeah. On top of that, and this goes a little bit more into like how mood gets regulated, etc.
Yes.
So when you take an amino acid supplement, and this would matter again around formula, But when it has these higher amounts of phenylalanine in it, we're getting a little nerdy here relative to like very low tryptophan. It actually improves and increases the amount of dopamine levels in your brain that also have this more like alert, focused, attentive level to it. So when you think about like not being hungry, part of it is like, you know, blood sugar, part of it's feeling kind of cranky. So part of it's having your actual like neurotransmitter balance being slightly off and feeling kind of sleepy. Like there's, there's a lot of things that are going on, and there's like hunger hormones that are getting triggered. And so amino acids are playing on multiple levels all at once. It's not like just one thing's happening.
I just find it so interesting how it's completely so under the radar.
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where, again, I think you could say the exact same thing for creatine 5 years ago to gen pop. 5 years ago, any 20-year-old gym bro— yeah, knows what creatine is. Everybody, but like my if— I mean, like, she maybe heard, like, her high school boyfriend took it, but she didn't know what it was. And now every single one of her friends, you know, and now they're all interested. Now she's like, you've been making creatine all these years? I was like, yeah, I've been making creatine.
That's hilarious. Isn't that funny? But I know a lot of women, um, who also don't want to take creatine because there's such a stigma against— like, people think it's a gym bro, you know, meathead type of supplement because they remember when they were in high school that their boyfriends were taking it and they were getting really buff.
And yeah, and there's like fear of like bloating, bloating, water retention. And, but you do have one, and there's probably even fear of like maybe building too much muscle. Like there's all kinds of ideas.
Or like bulking up.
Yeah.
Bulking up.
Yeah. Which I would just say that's another interesting point about creatine research is that what has been shown is that creatine absolutely increases like strength gains in women, but almost little to no hypertrophy, meaning the muscle mass doesn't actually get bigger.
Really?
Yeah. Isn't that interesting?
That is.
Yeah. It's like, which is kind of normal in general between men and women. Now all people are are different, and you have dudes who can't put on muscle, you have women who can put on muscle really easily. But typically men build more mass more quickly, so it's, it's not— it's pretty in alignment with like general biology of men and women.
Would you say that, that amino acids have— would have the same— like, can it bloat you like creatine, or there's no— there is no side effect?
There's no— I mean, and again, I, I would caution people about like the ideas of bloating on creatine, and potentially you should maybe take less But there is an aspect of creatine is drawing more water with it into the muscle.
Got it.
And thus you're having more intracellular water in the muscle and your muscle is actually filling up more with water. So your muscles are getting a little bit bigger, a little bit puffier.
Right, right.
Whereas like with aminos, there is none of that. There is no— you're not drawing any more water into the muscle. You're literally just replacing the older muscle fibers with newer, better ones. And, and if you're doing it with exercising especially too, like you're pushing the amino acids into the muscle.
I know you said earlier about taking your aminos first thing or before you work out, right? Does it really matter if you take them at night or if you take them in the afternoon?
It's one of those tough things where it's like, from like a brand perspective, if I was trying to like sell the product, it's like, when? Anytime. It's just take them every day.
Take them every day. Make it a habit.
Make it a habit. Like whatever gets you to make a habit, you know? It's like for me in my little customized life, it's like I like taking it first thing in the morning because I'm not really hungry first thing in the morning, but I want the benefits of that. Of what protein gives me first thing in the morning. It sets up my day well. So I'm getting this totally hyper-concentrated form of that immediately, and then I can wait a couple hours until I eat.
So it kind of sustains that— it sustains that, like, that satiate— like that.
Oh yeah, I feel great.
Yeah.
And it gives me— and so I'm not intentionally trying to— I'm not like trying to be a fasting person, but I guess I naturally do, right? Like, I don't eat first thing in the morning, but we all fast to some degree. You don't eat eat all the time, right?
Yeah, we were joking yesterday, right?
I know, I don't know about that.
I like to eat all the time too.
Yeah, so I mean, it does, it helps satiate me. And, uh, like, for me, that's a really good habit. So I always know I'm going to take it first thing in the morning, and then after that it becomes, you know, I've talked another time with you where it's like sometimes I know I want to eat, I need to eat, but I only have so much time. I'm gonna try to eat some veg, I'm gonna try some fiber, vegetables and fruits, and I want to get some protein in. but I don't want to eat 5 eggs.
Yes.
So it's like I eat a couple eggs and I take some aminos with it. And so it can also be taken with food to basically enhance the total amino acid intake of that food, to enhance the protein quality of that food.
That's what I do actually in the morning now. I've been, I've been eating my eggs because it's part of my habit. Like I habit stack it, right? So I have my eggs and my fruit and then like maybe like 40 minutes later I have my little mixture of my aminos and then I work out.
That's great.
Yeah, that's what I do.
That's great. And again, what's most important is if you do it every day.
That's how you're going to get there with anything. Anything has to be consistent. If you do anything once in a while, it does nothing. People always, you know, people ask all the time, well, what's the most, most effective exercise? The one that you actually do. That's it. That's the bottom line, right? Like, I can tell you to do this, that, the other thing, but if you hate it and you don't do it, it doesn't matter. So you have to be consistent with everything that you want any kind of results with. Is there anything else about aminos that I'm forgetting to ask you that is really relevant and important that people can really benefit from?
I think just like in this kind of conversation, we've like circled around it and talked about a lot. But I would just say if this is actually something that someone wants to look into, like, you know, what's like the right product to get, right? We come on here, we talk about this educationally, right? But like, what's the, the version I should get? I would just offer a guide to like how to find the right amino acid supplement.
Go ahead.
And the first thing I would start with is this doesn't necessarily have to be true for every single product out there, but for amino acids, proprietary blends are bad. What that means is if you look at the back of an amino acid label and it says 5 grams essential amino acids, and then it just lists the amino acids but doesn't tell you how much of each one, do not buy that product.
Really?
And the reason for that is because the proportions of amino acids really matter. And we'll get into that in a second. Right. Like, like I'll tell you what the right proportions are. Matter, but they really matter. Like, all these things we've been talking about today, these are based off of a very open public debate and set of different research groups doing studies, critiquing the other person's study, trying another study. Like, it's pretty clear what the formulas should be, and there's, there's no good reason to like hide it. And you, and the proportions of them really matter, and I can get into that in a second about why. But the other point I would say is when it's hidden like that, it's just for business reasons. I'll just tell you that, like, it's— I have some proprietary blend and I can tell you whatever my blah, blah, blah marketing story is about it. But it also enables me to have much looser quality specs. I don't have to meet label claim on exactly how much amino acid is in there. I can change the amount of each amino acid with each batch if I want to, because I don't— I'm not held to any specific thing.
All I have to do is make sure there's 5 grams in there. I can use with— I can use cheaper sources. I can use different amounts of, like, the potency. It is, it's a, it's a hack if you're trying to like have much more flexibility around your quality standards.
So when you see proprietary blend on amino acids, yeah, I wouldn't—
you would run, run. You definitely want it to tell you the exact amount of each one. So that's number one. Number two is you need all nine to be listed.
Yeah, right.
So it's like if not some just three or and some just do eight and they say like that histamine is conditional, histidine is conditional, and it's like it's not. Like, it's, again, there's lots of, if there's any one that's the least important for, particularly for muscle protein synthesis, it's tryptophan. And you're going to see it should be the lowest and at the bottom. And that's, it's because it's the least important, but definitely not like leaving out histidine or any amino acid.
Well, I think it's really important that you said that. And I'll tell you why. I've talked about this many times on the show is that because it's the wild, wild west in the supplement space, you have to be extremely discerning of where you get your supplements from. So the fact that I know you, I know how you source, I know your manufacturing, I know, I know you as a human being. You're only doing the highest level of everything possible. The quality, the way you do everything, super important. Not just with your aminos, but with the creatine and with omegas. Like, we had a whole conversation last night over the omegas. I think, to me, knowing where you're getting your stuff in general is extremely important. And so like Kion, I know, is, is at that high standard, but people should be like, do their research. And that was a great point that you said about looking in the back for the aminos, because people just take things at face value and they think, oh, this, this company's selling aminos, this one's exactly the same as that one. Not true.
It's not true. And often sometimes even like maybe someone you respect or I respect and like that has a platform, it's on board and promotes a brand.
Sometimes that's the problem.
You gotta, you gotta look at the label yourself. Like you gotta do some of your own research on it and look at it.
Yeah, out there. And that's what I'm saying, like, I did my own research, and that's the thing, like, people can trust me, but not— they can trust me to an extent. They should also, like, look on their own, right? Yeah, that's a very important part of it. Also, I didn't ask you, I've been remiss to ask you, and I was curious, um, it's probably a whole other podcast too, collagen, because collagen is also one of these very spoken about supplements. Everyone's taking collagen. There's a lot of miscommunication, like, mis— representation of how, how good or bad collagen is? Like, some say it's garbage as a supplement, some say it's not garbage. What's your take?
So I'm going to answer the collagen question, but I want to, I want to finish it by doing a segue from the formula thing. And one last point, because I mentioned leucine so many times—
oh my God, did you ever—
but here's the last thing. When you look at the label, and I'll just, I'll give you a shortcut on this, like, you don't— no one needs to buy— you don't have to buy Kion or whatever, but it really is—
but they should—
but it's the formula that's Kion. And basically it's based off And by the way, you guys should buy Kion.
I'm not just saying that. The reason why he's on here is not because— is because he is the leader in this area. I'm not putting on some like mediocre person. He's doing it right, and that to me is why you're here. So anyway, continue on.
So it's like the proportions of the amino acids, they're based on human skeletal muscle within very specific increases to certain amino acids. You get leucine to 40%, you increase the isoleucine and the valine, and you increase to match, to match the original proportions. And I'm getting nerdy here.
You're losing losing people.
I know, but I'm just telling you, if you do the— or trust me, or whatever, but I'm trying to give you the research. And increase the lysine, because the lysine is slower to get into the muscle tissue. And that's how we end up with that formula. And then you don't need any other stuff in it. If it's flavored, it should be flavored with clean stuff. You don't need other fancy mumbo jumbo, whatever their new— whatever the thing is, whatever they're trying to sell that week. You need the 9 essential amino acids. Okay, that's what it is in those proportions. Okay, so now collagen. So with collagen, it's an interesting idea And I think the hypothesis is like what made sense to pursue, which is, hey, like our skin has a lot of collagen in it and it's made up of collagen, a certain type of protein, and so is like joint tissue, etc. What if we ate a bunch of another animal's collagen? Like we literally ground up the collagen from an animal. Would that then help our body develop more?
Do you sell collagen?
I don't sell collagen.
Okay, there you go. That's all I need to know. Yeah, that's all I need to know. Thank you. So thank you. So it's an interesting idea.
And it hasn't been proven out very well.
Thank you. It has not been proven out.
It has been proven out. Well, there are, there are studies by the collagen industry specifically that show improvements. But what I would say is that if— yeah, like it's just very light.
Just tell us, right?
Okay.
So I want to—
I like—
I want to clip this one because I think it's important.
Yeah.
What are the main benefits of taking amino? Go.
Lean muscle. Overall improved metabolism, better skin, hair, nails, and mood.
So 6.
I mean, that's what comes to mind. Recovery, energy during exercise, incredible recovery from exercise, energy.
I'm gonna tell you one more.
Yeah, what's another?
Body composition.
Yeah, body— I mean, and that was my attitude around like lean muscle and metabolism, is basically it's going to help you to maintain lean muscle and burn more calories. And so Less fat, more muscle.
People like that. People like less fat, more muscle, don't they?
I mean, typically, most of us are trying to get—
I think so. All right, Angelo, thank you for being on the show. I think we would like— this is probably like a very long podcast. Yeah, it's about an hour and a half more.
Oh my gosh.
I know.
Well, thanks.
Actually, almost more.
Sorry for droning on to everyone else.
I know. Well, you didn't drone that much. I stopped you at the last drone. I know. But, um, okay, guys, so Keon, I know you're not really much on Instagram, which I don't do. I love personal branding. You're not interested in that. I don't care. This is what I like about this guy. He's not interested in promoting himself. He is here because he really truly believes in what he does and his company and what he— and the production and the benefits. And I really admire that because everyone here is always promoting themselves, like blah, blah, blah. You don't give a rat's ass. You want people to know about the benefits of aminos. You built a whole company around it. And so anyway, I'm happy I've sat down with you. I've learned a lot. I hope you guys at home or wherever you are have learned why aminos are so invaluable for your life. And if they want to know more about Kion or aminos or whatever else you have going on in the Kion world, where can they find you?
This place called the internet.
Oh, the internet, huh? No. Okay.
I don't mean to sound like a smartass, but for real, I mean, like, We're on Instagram @Keon. We obviously have a website. It's getkeon.com. G-E-T-K-E-O-N.com. And I think there's a special link for your audience.
Yes, there is a special link if you guys want to try it.
Getkeon.com/stopbeat.
I don't even know it.
We'll figure it out.
But I will tell you something. Once you start it, you're going to be hooked because it is a no-brainer. I know we called it a hack, but it's a strategy, a tool. I don't care. Use whatever euphemism you want. It's really, really good.
It works.
It works. Works exactly. So thank you. Bye, Jen.
Protein is everywhere. But the part of protein that actually does the work for muscle, recovery, metabolism, and staying lean is something most people rarely talk about: essential amino acids.
We dive deeper into this in the Habits & Hustle podcast with Angelo Keely. We also chat about why amino acids outperform protein powder for muscle synthesis, why muscle loss quietly begins after 30, and how essential amino acids help preserve muscle during fat loss, fasting, and intense training.
Angelo Keely is the co-founder and CEO of Kion, an active lifestyle supplement and functional food company. He has spent more than 20 years involved in nutrition, functional fitness, yoga, and meditation.
→ Visit getkion.com/habits for 20% off.
What’s Discussed
(01:33) Angelo’s early life in the natural health world
(16:01) Amino acids explained and why they power protein benefits
(20:23) Muscle loss starting after 30 and what drives it
(32:34) How protein timing affects muscle protein synthesis
(36:03) Amino acids vs whey protein for muscle growth
(47:10) The hidden muscle loss risk of GLP-1 weight loss
(57:21) Amino acids vs creatine for muscle health
(01:06:10) Why leucine becomes critical as we age
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Find more from Jen:
Website: https://jennifercohen.com
Instagram: @therealjencohen
Books: https://jennifercohen.com/books
Speaking: https://jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagement
Find more from Angelo Keely:
Website: https://getkion.com
Instagram: @kion
→ Visit getkion.com/habits for 20% off.