Transcript of Episode 567: Shawn Stevenson: The Science of Sleep, Stress, Weight Loss, and Longevity

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it.

We have the wonderful Shawn Stevenson on and round— how about podcast 1 part B? Does that make sense?

I love it.

We had some technical errors round 1, and we are gonna be doing a whole podcast on health, fitness, sleep, wellness, longevity. I mean, you are, you are a wealth of information. If you, for those of you who don't know, Shawn has one of the top-rated health podcasts called The Model Health Show. And now don't you have a deal with Spotify or someone? Am I supposed to say that or am I allowed?

I mean, you know, we're, we're doing some stuff.

We're doing some stuff. Okay. But Shawn is like amazing in terms of he's so researched and like you have so many data points, it's unbelievable. So this is gonna be a very good podcast. I know. And, and what we do on this podcast, my dear friend, is we do these performance shots by Magic Mind. Have you ever done one of these before?

Not like Magic Mike. It's Magic Mind.

Magic Mind.

Okay.

Yes. Not Magic Mike. I wish. Maybe next time. I don't know. But they, this one's caffeine-free. All right. Don't you want to do a little cheers?

Do a little dabble.

Here we go. Here we go. Cheers, my dear.

Mm.

Do you like it?

It's not bad.

And the ingredient list is very, very, very good. It's all top of the line stuff.

I feel my mind growing and your focus clearing. And also if it was Magic Mike, never mind. Okay, let's move on.

I wish, I wish. Like, yeah, I know what you're gonna say, but unfortunately it's just Magic Mind today. But, um, hopefully you're gonna be super locked in and super focused now with this podcast. Not like you really need it. I mean, how many books do you have now, by the way?

3.

3. Yeah, your 3 books. And the first book is a sleep book, Sleep Smarter.

Yeah, so that was an international bestseller, first sleep wellness book to become an international bestseller.

Really?

It's translated in 26 or 27 different languages or countries, all separate foreign book deals. So that really— it changed everything. And this would— it came out 11, about 11 or 12 years ago.

Wow. So it was before like sleep became the most a trending, talked about wellness hack, basically.

Yeah, it really, and also, you know, it was one of those things where, especially in the book industry.

Yeah.

They're very big on proof of concept.

Yes.

And so publishers weren't trying to really look at a book like that, agents. And so it was something I really had to advocate for. And I'm grateful now. It's just like, again, the conversation is just a big part it's, it's built in to the health conversation now. And so I'm grateful for that. Yeah.

What made you even think back then to write a book on sleep?

I mean, I was working as a nutritionist. I had just graduated and I was still working in the gym as well as a strength conditioning coach. But, you know, we, we were seeing incredible results with people, you know, helping people to, you know, if they're on like lisinopril and like metformin.

Yeah.

High blood pressure, insulin resistance, all this kind of stuff. Just helping to get their body to normalize a lot of these functions just through nutrition. Nutrition and exercise. But there was always this percentage of people who wouldn't get the same results. And that would really bother me. Ironically, sometimes it would keep me up at night. Like, what is wrong? Why can't we get this person, get the weight off or get their blood pressure normalized?

Right.

And so it just kind of hit me like a ton of bricks one day to ask people about their sleep. And I was shocked. I was shocked. I mean, some people, like I was working with this guy from France And he shared with me that he only sleeps about 4 hours a night for— and he said for years. And when he said it, it was just like, I see it. I see it. He— there's part of— he kind of looked like a ghost a little bit, like a little cat. Like his spirit was a little bit like unsettled in his body, you know? And here's the thing. I know that people want change, but they don't want to change that much to get it.

That's right.

And so I started to look into what are some science-backed ways that people can improve their sleep quality without changing a lot? And so I just, I was blown away by all the data that existed that most people had no idea about. And so even one of those studies, it was conducted by researchers at Appalachian State University looking at the timing of day that you do your exercise and the impact that it has on sleep at night. And the researchers found that exercising in the morning, so they had exercise to work out in the morning, This was 7:00 AM, a 1:00 PM group, and a 7:00 PM group. And morning exercisers spent more time in anabolic stages of sleep. So like, you know, delta wave sleep. They had lower blood pressure in the evening and they had more efficient sleep cycles overall. And so not to say that the other times aren't good, like quote, bad to exercise. Exercise is great just about any time. But of course, working out in the evening and then trying to go to bed with your cortisol elevated can be problematic. But it was just pointing to the way that we evolved.

For most people, just our genes are expecting us to be active in the morning.

Yeah.

And what that did was one of the things the researchers found in other studies as well, exercising in the morning helps to kind of set or reset or kind of sync up our cortisol rhythm. Our cortisol is supposed to spike in the morning, right? And then gradually go down through the day. And not to say that cortisol is like an antithesis of melatonin, but if cortisol's elevated, it definitely does kind of have a suppressive effect on melatonin. And so for a lot of people, we would see, you know, if we get a, a Dutch test done or whatever, just to, to be able to like look at their cortisol rhythm through a 24-hour cycle, we would see and call them tired and wired.

Yeah.

And so they would wake up in the morning tired and then they would be wide awake in the evening. Right.

And then, yeah.

And I've, I've been there. I understand. And so, you know, you wake up and you're like, I can't wait to get to bed at night. But then nighttime rolls around. It's because their cortisol was elevated in the evening and too low in the morning. And so exercise is one of those things, which seems kind of obvious to help to get that cortisol rhythm, rhythm reset.

And what happens? Did you see people, what was the data on people who worked out mid-morning or 1 or 1:00 PM?

Yeah.

What did you see? Was it still, it was better but not great basically.

Yeah. I mean, exercise, Again, in the afternoon, beneficial as far as influence on sleep, but not as much as the morning. In the evening, same thing. But there was some issue with, again, cortisol. And so, you know what's so funny is that when I was writing the book, I had this book that my son was, he's 14 now, so he was like, like 2. And in the book it was like a nighttime book, right? A night go to bed ritual book. In the, in the book. So it was like the little characters, the little animals, like they had their evening routine, like, you know, taking a bath and, you know, having their little warm milk or whatever it was. But then part of the book was they exercise right next to their bed to basically tire themselves out.

Yeah. Yeah.

And this was a belief that people had, you know, decades ago, right? That we should tire yourself out when in reality there's a big difference between tiring yourself out and passing out versus actually going through your sleep cycles efficiently. And so, you know, I, again, another great example, I had a person I was working with who did BJJ, the, you know, Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And their class was like at 8:00 PM and they were like, I was struggling to get to bed at night.

Yep.

I'm like, of course you are.

You're wired.

You're leaving there at 9:00 and you're just like, you just got done fighting basically. And they're trying to get to bed at like 10:30. You know, I'm just like, listen, either— and this sometimes just helping— a great coach is somebody who just looks at your life from a different point of view. And you could see like, okay, is there another time you could do your jiu-jitsu training? Or don't be so hard on yourself to try to get to bed at 10:30. Like, it's okay to go to bed 11, 11:30 if your schedule like allows for you to get up at 7 the next day. Like, it's okay. You don't have to. So sometimes it's just like moving stuff around to optimize sleep.

Do you, back then when you wrote that book, I believe melatonin, taking melatonin was a big thing. And since then it's now known that it's a hormone, whatever, and that people shouldn't be taking it and they should be taking now magnesium. Do you remember that back then? Was that—

Of course. Yeah. I cited a, a study in the book, melatonin. Now, just to be clear.

Yeah.

It has its applications that are appropriate.

Can you tell us what it is? 'Cause I mean, I feel like melatonin now has become kind of like the devil. No one's right. Like it's only, you take magnesium glycinate. Mm-hmm. You want to fall asleep and not even the other types of magnesiums. Can you kind of give me some clarification on this? Because I think there is a lot of confusion.

Yeah. For melatonin, first of all, is one of the most powerful hormones that we have.

Okay.

It's not just about sleep. That's really one of the biggest misconceptions, right? It is part of our overall— it is a master clock regulator. So it's a big part of our circadian timing system. All right. And so what the hell is that? When I was in school, you know, again, my expensive university education, hearing about something like a biological clock sounds like soft science. We weren't really— it was like something literally like 2 pages in a textbook. We move on.

Yeah.

But in reality, it is quite possibly the most important thing for us to focus on when trying to optimize what our body is doing. Because these circadian clocks are determining when all of our other hormones and neurotransmitters, proteins are getting made, gene expression. These master clocks are controlling everything about us, right?

Right.

And the question would be, for me, what the hell are they? What are these biological clocks or clock genes?

Right.

So these clock genes are—

I'm just looking at stuff, so don't take it personally. Sure.

These clock genes are existing in our, our biological clocks or circadian clocks exist in almost all of our trillions of cells. There are certain cells that don't have them, but these cells are glorified genes and proteins. These clock, we'll, we'll call them, if you're, if you're hearing the term biological clock or circadian clock, they're genes and proteins that control all of our other genes and proteins. Okay? Top-tier importance. What is influencing these circadian clocks? Light exposure.

Mm-hmm.

Is the number one thing that's determining what these clocks are doing. And we can hypothetically break these clocks by having all of this abnormal exposure to artificial light at the wrong times and lack of exposure to natural lights. We evolved thousands upon thousands upon thousands of years with these inputs telling our bodies when to produce have a bigger boost of testosterone or human growth hormone or estrogen or melatonin. And suddenly all of this stuff is getting complete— is chaos in our bodies, right? And so melatonin is a master regulator of all these processes, most attributed to nighttime stuff, right? Right. Melatonin is a very, very powerful controller or regulator of our immune system function as well. And so this is why we see higher rates. One of the reasons, higher rates of various cancers in shift workers, for example.

Mm.

And so there are multiple studies on this as well.

Yeah.

And so melatonin is not just about sleep, it's about regulating our circadian timing system, which is— it's influencing everything about us. Again, I, I could just list off 20 things.

Yeah.

Immune system function, testosterone, estrogen production, cortisol rhythms, all of it. With that being said, should you just go to CVS and buy some of that shit off the shelf?

Yeah.

You, you gotta be very, very careful about that.

Because why? Why is it dangerous?

So what the data showed and what I shared in the book was the prevailing belief was that taking an exogenous melatonin supplement would suppress your body's own production of melatonin. Yeah. But that turned out to not be true. What the data showed was that You will still continue to produce the same amounts of melatonin, but your sensitivity to it goes down. The receptor sites for melatonin, your natural receptor sites, right? Start to basically downregulate. And so melatonin won't work as, as well in your body.

Right.

You keep producing it just fine, but it doesn't work as well. So there is an issue with that.

That's a big issue.

Of course. For sure. For sure. So now we know what the kind of culprit might be and why people continue to, you know, end up taking more and more and more to get the same effect.

And people are giving it to their children. Yeah. To get them to fall asleep.

People been giving their kids shit for a long time.

I know, I was going to say, this is not new.

You know, whether it's like slipping some alcohol into the bottle or whatever.

Right, right, right. To get them to go to sleep. You're right. So this is not like— it's obviously not as safe. Would you say that parents should maybe not give their children melatonin before they go to sleep?

Ideally, no. That's just not appropriate. But we got to look at the culture. You know, what is the parents' habits around sleep look like? You know, a lot of times our sleep habits have to do with our environment and our culture. And so, which we'll get back, we'll, we could definitely dig in on this, but I want to make this point where I would possibly recommend or say it's okay for melatonin use.

Yeah.

Small amounts like micro amounts, especially shift, uh, like time zone changes can help to kind of get you synced back up, get a little melatonin boost. I find it great for that. If you've had a couple of rough nights of sleep in a row and just like, I just need to kind of reset, maybe that's another case. But again, you, there are so many other things you'd wanna do instead, but that's another place. Or if somebody's using like, again, a micro amount over a longer amount of time, that might be okay. We just don't want to get into higher doses, which is The vast majority, what it's recommended on the bottles or on the, the sprays or the supplements are pretty significant doses really of melatonin that, you know, again, taken over a long period of time could, could cause some issues.

So why can't people— so because now I feel like it's all about taking magnesium at night. Yeah. Is that— so there was a sh— I feel like there has been a shift over the years and this— does magnesium work better and why does it work better for sleep?

Yeah. Magnesium. Again, another thing in my nutritional science class that I took in college, we were like, the teacher, the professor recommended everybody to take a multivitamin. If you work with people, tell them everybody needs to take a multivitamin.

Right.

What we didn't know at the time, and by the way, my first semester, I actually moved into my dorm in, in the summer of 1997.

Okay.

Which is crazy. And so this was a while back for sure. But even today, you still look like a college kid, by the way. Thank you.

Yeah.

Well, even today though, this is rare that you're going to have a professor who tells you that vitamin C on that multivitamin, there are multiple forms of vitamin C. You have one synthetic version of it in that supplement.

Yeah.

Right. There are multiple forms of magnesium. I was not taught that there are multiple forms. It's more, most people know multiple forms of vitamin D, multiple forms of obviously the B vitamins. But just about any vitamin that you can name, minerals, there are multiple forms of that thing. And so when we're getting this kind of isolated supplement, it can be helpful, but some of it might not be what your body's actually looking for.

Mm-hmm.

And so obviously there are all these different types of magnesium. Now, I can't make a recommendation on which one is right, which one's right for you. So of course there's different companies that have like blends of different magnesiums.

Yeah.

You know, but I, in that, I, I think they can be incredibly valuable, by the way, but I lean towards, let's do what we can to get this in, get magnesium in, in ways that we traditionally did through your diet.

Right. So you're not big on, on taking a supplement at all to try to fall asleep?

There are some, but they're gonna be more time-tested, you know, simple stuff. And there's, we can go into stronger stuff. We could do basic like chamomile. Yeah, I have.

Tell me some stuff, 'cause I know people love talking about sleep. And if I—

but magnesium, by the way, I'm not trying to—

no, no, it's— I wanna know.

We've got some data, some really strong data on magnesium, and I'm a big why guy. So magnesium supplementation before bed helps essentially to shift over to that parasympathetic nervous system and supports the production of melatonin. Mm-hmm. So it does have an impact, right? And so, but you gotta— it's context. Like if you're taking this supplement, but then you've got all the lights on and the TV and all this stuff, are you gonna get that same effect? No, you're not. It's like you gotta stack the conditions, right? Right. And so magnesium can be great for some people sometimes. That being said, I would love to see magnesium-rich diet. I would love to see a tryptophan-rich diet. Tryptophan is another really important, good sleep nutrient. Tryptophan is a precursor to make serotonin, which is a precursor to make melatonin. Give your body the raw materials to build this thing, but then get outta the way. The conditions that you need for your body to make melatonin is a consistent schedule, cuz it's always looking to produce stuff at the same time and darkness, right? And so again, if you're not abiding by those things, you could take all the supplements you want, you're not gonna get the effect you're looking for.

Right. And the tryptophan, isn't that in Turkey?

That, yeah, that's, that's a Turkey thing. It is in Turkey, but it doesn't make you sleepy like that.

It doesn't.

It doesn't. We get tired on Thanksgiving cuz we eat a Shitload of food.

Exactly. Yeah.

That's what we call it, the itis. Yeah. You know, you little itis, but it's, it's in, it's in chicken as well. It's in a lot of plant foods too, you know? So yeah, you could find tryptophan in a bunch of different sources, but this is just to lean back to, okay, if we're looking at something supplement-wise, quote supplement-wise for supporting sleep, chamomile, time-tested for relaxation, parasympathetic tone. We've got kava-kava if you want to get a little bit stronger.

Mm.

Kava-kava can really knock some people out as well. It's traditional, been used for thousands of years. But my favorite, affirmed by data, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Research, I believe that's the name of the journal. I know that that's a couple of parts of the name of the journal, but they did a controlled study with reishi mushroom.

Oh, yes.

And reishi was found to improve sleep latency, meaning you fall asleep faster, increase overall sleep time, improve sleep efficiency, and improve energy the next day as well. So reishi is really remarkable, but the sourcing matters too. Are you getting the extraction method?

Right.

Right. Because you might be buying a supplement and it's not even what the researchers used.

What do you recommend then? What's a good—

So there's hot water extracts and then there's alcohol extracts as well. It just depends on the purpose because with the alcohol extraction, the hot water extraction, you're gonna get different things out of the mushroom. Like one method's gonna get more of the kind of hormonal compounds, triterpenes. Another method's gonna get like the antioxidants and stuff like that. If you can get both. And so this is why like a, it's called a dual extraction. And so there are some companies out there that have both extraction methods in one tea or one supplement.

And that reishi can help you stay asleep, fall asleep, and have better quality sleep.

Yeah. And no negative side effects. That was the biggest thing I wanted to point out.

Yeah.

About that study. If you put that up against some of these stronger medications or even some supplements like melatonin, we have these benefits with reishi without negative side effects and it's immunoregulating. And it's like attributed to, you know, supporting longevity. It's been used for thousands of years. It's something I personally use a couple of times a week. I'll have a cup of reishi like 45 minutes before bed. It's kind of like my— Yeah, yeah. But especially like if I'm traveling and if I'm wanting to like get a reset, I'll have some reishi tea before bed and I'll blend it with a little bit of fat as well. Just a little, because again, it kind of helps to bind with certain nutrients with the digestion. So maybe this is like some ghee, you know? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Just a little bit of ghee, maybe a little bit of some stevia or something just to make it a little sweet. But yeah, but I mean, it's, it's earthy. Nobody said Reishi's delicious.

Yeah, I know, but it, you know what I'm saying? So, but it works.

Yeah, it does work. Yeah.

'Cause I feel like it's not so much for people and myself, it's not about falling asleep, it's about staying asleep. Yep. Do you have any recommendations for how people could actually stay asleep? Because that's the biggest problem I feel that's happening, especially in middle, middle age.

Yes. So number one, we have to move away from adding so much morality to you sleep through the night.

Mm-hmm.

Like you're doing everything right.

Right.

We have sufficient documentation of people centuries ago waking up, basically having two sleeps, you know, waking up after a certain amount of hours, maybe, you know, uh, having a little snack, maybe having sex, maybe whatever the case might be, and then they go to sleep again. But this is a time, again, we didn't have artificial lights, so you're not getting on your phone. They're just— it's still dark and it's not safe to be out rummaging around. So you, you get the rest of your sleep that your body might be looking for. So this doesn't have to be this black or white, like the reason that we might wake up, which we wake up, we act, all of us wake up, but we're just unaware of it because we're going through our sleep cycles, right? Going through the different state, quote, stages of sleep, right? And so there are times when we're have, we have very light sleep where we're kind of out, we can wake up, maybe we move around, whatever, and then we just drift back into the, you know, into our sleep. But some people have a more pronounced waking up when moving through those stages.

And today, unfortunately, we start doing shit. Maybe we look, we look at our phone or we look at the clock and we are like, oh shit, I have, oh, I have 2 hours left. Like, oh my God. And we start stressing about it.

Yes.

And that is just, is so unnecessary because you are okay if you just slept for, you know, 5 hours and you still had 2 hours, maybe your body is just ready to get up and that's okay. But a big reason, if this is kind of chronic and you are seeing the negative side effects, this is, it has a lot to do with cortisol spikes. All right. So again, this, the rhythm, you might be getting, you know, some inappropriate release of certain hormones. And it's not all cortisol's not bad, by the way, but maybe it's just like you're getting a certain spike and may, this could be based on when you're eating before bed. Maybe you ate something. Close to your bedtime, or maybe you didn't, maybe you ate too far away from your bedtime and that's not appropriate for you. 'Cause you know, now it's like, don't eat 2 hours before you go to bed or 3 hours or people, you know, 3 hours, right? Is the main thing people talk about. That's great for most people. Actually, for some people, their blood sugar goes too low, right? While they're sleeping. And that can pull, you'll get an adrenaline boost spike and it can wake you up.

And so, Or again, it could be for most people today, what it really boils down to is we're creating disruption with our natural rhythms because of our devices.

Yeah.

You know, and so being on your screen right before bed, you know, watch what a television, your phone, whatever. We know we need a little bit of time to help our downregulate. There are multiple studies on this now. Uh, when I shared this almost 15 years ago, it was kind of like, what? Like, yes. So we know that that's the case. If we do wake up, just don't get on your phone. Like, you could do some breathing exercises, do some breathwork.

That phone though, you're right. It just, then you're right. Then there's no way you're going back to bed. Yeah. But why is it because we're doom scrolling and the light, the blue light and all the things.

Yeah.

Would you say—

It's fortifying. It's fortifying that interruption in the, in your normal rhythm.

Right. Oh yeah.

So if you're getting up and getting on, So now again, you might take a couple of nights off and not get on your phone and like struggle. Your body has to have time to get everything synced up again. Mm-hmm. Because our, our brains are always looking to automate, always. And so this is why it's so important to have, you know, to try to do stuff around the same time to the best of our ability, especially when we're kind of discombobulated. So this is why The morning routines and evening routines, they're uber valuable for people who are out of sorts.

Yeah.

Right. Once you have some pretty good rhythms, it's okay. And this is a problem with the health community now too, is it's like you can't stay up late, you know what I mean? For if there's an event, like, no, I gotta— and I know this 'cause I've been that guy, but like, it's okay if there's like this thing, you got family in town, it's okay.

Oh, I, I think, I think everything we've we've taken things to such an extreme that nobody has fun anymore. Nobody has— no one's living life anymore. It's all about like your— what you're tracking, your wearables, tracking your blood glucose, tracking your sleep, tracking this, doing that, like everything. We're all walking around as robots and then we die, right? Like, you know what I mean? It's just kind of crazy what's happening. Like, I mean, I was going to actually even ask you, like, do you think these wearables are just making us more obsessive, or are they actually helping us at this point, you know?

That's such a great question. Thank you for asking this because again, when it comes down to any of these things, it is so individual. Right. It is so situationally dependent. Part of my work, you know, in the health space, I've been in this field for about 23 years. And when I first started, you know, speaking and, you know, my show, we just celebrated 13+ years and over 1,000 episodes. Even prior to that. Thank you. Prior to that, I was the face of another— I was like the resident nutritionist of another brand and being this kind of prominent person in the space, but like showing up how I am, I'm not wearing a lab coat, you know what I'm saying? I'm just being a cool person, which really helped to connect with a lot of people and made them interested. And also we have— I mean, I can't even tell you how many physicians have been listening to the show for years and influencing their patients. And many of them are actually like very prominent now in the health space. Like they've changed their career. Dr. Darshan Shah, Dr. Amy Shah, I can go on and on and on.

They've been listening to my show for years.

Right.

And so with that being said, and just this kind of opportunity that we had to kind of create this platform and showing up this way, I used published data as a way to kind of, it's like an inception, like to get past the veil of disbelief because this cool handsome guy is like, tell me whatever. So I'd be like, here's this amazing study that was conducted by researchers at, you know, Harvard who I probably know, but you know, and I'll share the data and then we'll just talk common sense. I, I think that is so important. It's so valuable to have objective hardcore data because there's so many different claims, there's so many different You know, pieces of advice. We want to have something that's affirmed by science. The problem is, and so I created that because I had to, I did that intentionally because I had to. Now people in business are doing it, people all over the health space. It's taken off like a, a rocket and a lot of content is created around data. I'm so grateful for that. This is way better than the rigmarole craziness that it once was. But the problem is we swing too far to the other side of the pendulum.

Now it's just like, where's the evidence? Is this evidence-based? Where's the evidence? What happens when we do that is we negate the value and the importance of N of 1, N of 1 experiments. This quote anecdotal data, something might work for you that hasn't— it's not shown in any other study. It's not this, it's not that, but it worked for you and that's okay. That matters. And that's actually how we can get more data on something. We can't just negate. Somebody getting some benefit or somebody being harmed by something, right? N of 1 is so important because, and all this to say, everything is not appropriate for everybody. And some things are madly effective for people. When it comes to the wearables, this conversation, for certain people, it's a game changer. They gamified, gamified it. It's helped them to stick to their goals. They feel good about it. They don't feel a sense of stress around it. For others, they've become more neurotic. It's become a source of stress. They're always trying to optimize and they're losing track of themselves. They're losing track of what we've survived with and evolved with, which is paying attention to oneself, the data in the body that you live in, and paying attention to how you look, how you feel, how you feel, just paying attention to how you actually feel.

And how you perform. Like, how are you actually moving through the world? Like paying attention to these very basic data sets in lieu of, well, I, I'm not gonna perform at my best because my, my, you know, Fitbit or my Whoop is telling me that like I only got a 66% sleep score.

And like, that's what's, well, that's basically what's happening, right? Yeah. So like the thing is, as I'm wearing my Oura Ring, which I only started wearing recently, I found it in my I wore it for a bit, then I put it away like I did with my Whoop and everything else. And I'm like, oh, it's here. I'm going to start wearing it again. And I'm like, I thought I slept well. And then it says to me, nope, you didn't sleep well at all. You had 66 and blah, blah, blah. The thing is, like, I think it just gives people— I think it gives me personally a little bit more anxiety because now I'm like, oh my God, maybe I didn't sleep well. And I like— it gives you all this more neurosis that was like completely unnecessary. Like what I remember before fitness and wellness became like a massive, you know, business, so to speak. I was like, I was like working out before, like 25 years ago doing the same, like I do the same boring shit every single day. And like, I'm not following the trends and I'm just fine. And I don't think that, and maybe you can, you can tell me with all your data points, are we healthier now when we're now following every data point and doing every single thing, red light, this and that, hyperbaric chamber and that.

Like, are we healthier or are we just more neurotic and stressed out?

This is such a great question. You didn't know, you didn't even know that. I didn't even know you was gonna ask about this, but right now I'm working with somebody who's published a lot of studies.

Yes.

And very prominent researcher, uh, research scientist, and working on putting together like a pilot study. Yeah. On this subject because the data doesn't exist yet.

Yeah.

And so this is something that I've been actually actively, because I see it. Again, a great example, my wife, she loves, she loves tracking her data. She loves it. And she, but she's also very, she has a very lighthearted personality to where it's not, she's not going, right? So it's okay either way, but she likes to know it inspires her. Right. And just so people are aware. I'm the guy they've sent the Whoop, the Oura. They send me this stuff in beta. They've reaching out for me to be an early investor. Like, I know all these guys, but I couldn't wholeheartedly get involved because again, I know that there is this other side of the equation. All that to say, I don't want to rain on anybody's parade at all. If it is working for you and you feel good about it, that's what matters most. And on the other side, you've gotta be honest, like, if it's, if it's not good for your mental health, because again, there's nothing worse for your sleep than creating anxiety about your sleep.

Well, 100%. The other thing I noticed, and I, I just, this is just my obser— like pattern recognition or observation, is that the OGs, like people like me or you who've been doing this stuff, you know, for our whole life basically, like, cuz we like, it's, embodied in us or in our DNA. We're not so much about all of that. Like, every major athlete, by the way, I've spoken to, like, the top and the best in the world, like, I ask them questions, they're like, I don't know, I don't track it, or I don't know, I'm not doing that, or like, I don't know, I'm just— I, I eat okay. Like, they're not like as meticulous and, and crazy. What I think has happened is it's because it's new and trending and it's become such a multi- billion-dollar industry, and people who are newer to the game, they're using these, these little trinkets, so to speak, to kind of keep them in the game or to keep them or to get them in the game. And it kind of maintains the game for them for accountability. But when I think it's people who have like, it's so embodied in them, it's not as useful or important, you know, like there are people I'm watching, they have their glucose monitor, They're taking their blood with the other thing that they have.

They have the aura, they have the, what do you call it, the whoops. They have like, they look like Mr. T. They're walking around looking like Mr. T. And I guess for them it makes sense, right? But, you know, I don't think it necessarily makes you any healthier or I think it's just more of, it brings on more psychological, like psychological neuroses personally.

Newsflash, Mr. T did not stand for tech.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, but again, You know, some of my friends and colleagues, like, really, they're— they were, you know, we're balanced.

Yeah.

You know, like, I've been brought into, like, you know, the big biohacking conference to, you know, do a keynote just because I'm bringing more grounded, more grounded energy and science. Like, I don't give a shit if you were doing the, you know, like, red lighting your nutsack.

Yeah.

If you're not even going for a 10-minute walk each day.

Well, that's just like, right? Like, because you're majoring in the minors at that point. Exactly. You know, you're majoring.

Looking for these hacks. What are the things your genes expect you to do?

Exactly.

And once you do some of those things, it is— we need to guide ourselves back to ourselves. We're so externally focused today.

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The data is clear and experientially it is beyond clear. If we want to be honest about this.

Yep, go ahead.

The number one most influential factor on your longevity, on your health, is your relationships. And this— it's not even close. And of course, I'm a science guy. I love nutrition. I love exercise. I wrote the book on sleep wellness. All those things are massive, but nobody affects my sleep habits more than my wife and my kids. No one affects my exercise habits more than my wife and my kids. No one affects what I eat more than my wife and my kids. And one of my most valuable conversations, and it was really affirmation because in a recent project that I did, and it actually, my, in my latest book in the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook, I shared one of the largest studies ever conducted on longevity. And this was done by researchers at Brigham Young University and University of North Carolina. And this, this was a meta-analysis of 148 studies, over 300,000 people looking at what are the things that determine how long they were going to live. They looked at smoking, they looked at exercise habits, they, they looked at, you know, beating obesity. The number one thing that determined how long people were going to live was the quality of their relationships.

People who had strong social bonds had a 50% increase in longevity versus people who did not. Okay. Said another way, people who have healthy relationships have a 50% reduction in early death from all causes. All causes. All right. Leading that into my conversation and being able to, again, support, uplift the work of, and to really dissect the data with Dr. Robert Waldinger. He is the director of the longest-running longitudinal study on human longevity ever conducted out of Harvard, out of Harvard. And it's, it's been going on for over 80 years. He's the fourth director. And the reason that we resonate with each other so much is that I tend to be— I'm not going to say side-eye, but I tend to be skeptical about stuff.

Yeah.

You know, and but that also made me a good researcher. Right? Yeah. So he came into it with skepticism when he was offered the position. He didn't believe, just like, your relationships impact how long you're gonna live more than anything else. So he actually took it upon himself to really go through and fact-check the data, decades' worth of data. He went to other universities, he went to other research labs, like, can you confirm this? And he was shocked. It was just like, yeah, it was very, very clear. The number one thing that determines how long you're going to live is the quality of your relationships. And so with this being said, now we get into the conversations and I can ask the guy who has the most data, why?

Why?

Like, it doesn't make sense. From the data, what he shared was the number one in kind of factor that they're able to kind of pinpoint is the impact that our relationships have on stress.

Mm-hmm.

And you're just like, well, again, now we have all this data affirming how stress is really fucking us up. And a recent analysis was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, and they affirmed that upwards of 80% of all physician visits today in the United States have a major stress-related component, up to 80%. But our physicians are not talking about stress, our messages that we're getting are not talking about stress. Like, what the hell even is it?

Yeah.

And so we can maybe drive into that conversation in a moment, but for this particular researcher, Dr. Robert Waldinger, he shared with me that yes, stress is making us wildly unhealthy. Healthy social bonds are a very powerful way the most powerful way to help us to metabolize stress, to process stress. And I asked why, like, what is it? He's just like— because I would think like, oh, it's talking things out, right? It's cathartic, but it's not even that. He shared that it's this overarching feeling or this sense of knowing that somebody cares about you, that somebody has your back, that somebody is there for you at the end of the day, even if you had the most stressful day. Just that sense of knowing in this very uncertain universe, it's arguably the greatest gift. And so keeping that in mind, I asked, what are the ingredients of a quote, healthy relationship or these strong social bonds? I was like, so does this mean like you— we'll just use romantic relationships. Does this mean like you guys don't fight a lot? He was like, and I'm just kind of imitating him, he's like, no. The people who we studied, and we have them on film, we go and track these people down every year and take their blood work, and we have interviews on camera.

People with the healthiest long-term relationships fought like cats and dogs. And, you know, again, I'm just like, "Really?" And he was like, "But they have a bedrock of affection. They might, like, nitpick with each other and mess with each other, but they touch a lot." they look at each other, they see each other, they honor each other. And even though they might have conflicts, they know that they are their person.

Yeah.

You know, they're there for them. They have their back. They might have their annoyances and their grievances and their bickering, but those are not the things that create a healthy relationship. And so I've been investigating for the last few years, like, what are those ingredients that do create a healthy relationship?. And that's really where my, my, where my mission is at, where my work is at. Because by the way, I haven't shared this before, so I haven't shared this before in a, in an interview.

Yeah.

When I talked about our relationships impacting, 'cause I just worked out with my wife today. Right. And it is one of the most powerful leverage points that we can use for, because if we struggle to be consistent working out, This incredible study was published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness, and it tracked the exercise habits of people who worked out with their spouse compared to people who worked out without their spouse, spouse over the course of a 1-year study tracking these people. People who worked out without their spouse dropped out of their exer— exercise plan 43% of the time. People who worked out with their spouse only dropped out 6% of the time. Working out with their significant other led to them staying consistent with their exercise. It was 6 times more effective. All right. So again, it's this huge leverage point. And some people are just like, well, I don't have a significant other. They're not into it, whatever.

Right, right, right.

It's not just the significant other though. And so this is what I haven't shared as well. So this was published in Health Behavior Research, looking at group exercise training. To boost exercise compliance and consistency. They found that people who were signed up and engaged in group exercise were up to 97% more compliant and consistent in exercise over the course of an 11-week study. And that's like otherworldly, 97%. Wow. Showing up and compliant. And many people have experienced this, you know, the CrossFit movement, for example, or, you know, just their group exercise that they just have to go. Whether it's the people there, the teacher, the energy in the room, just not being alone and doing stuff together with a group. That's how we evolve.

Yes.

And so it's an epigenetic influence to utilize. So again, it's these relationships. And I could do this for sleep. I could do this for, for exercise. Again, I could do this for our nutrition. Of course, that's really where my— where the Eat Smarter Family Cookbook was, was really devoted to was the impact that our relationships have on our nutrition, and it's crazy.

100%. Well, that's why also lifestyle is so important. I feel like that's why when you're looking for someone, a spouse, someone, it's good to— all these things that make the most, make the most, the biggest dent is finding someone who you're like-minded, who wants to do these things with you for all these reasons that we just talked about. Right. That will be your biggest lever point, I think, in staying healthy, happy, and also like living the longest. What do you think about— and then actually, let me ask you this question, 'cause you've been doing this for so long. What would you say when, like, is the most popular question or that people ask you about the most? Would it be sleep? Would it be fat loss? Hmm. Would it be— what would it be the most popular area?

Yes, it's fat loss.

Fat loss, right? Yeah. Still, was that always the way? I think that has always stayed the same, right?

That's the concern for most people if they're being honest.

Honest, right? Because people work out, you can say you're doing it for your health and longevity, which I think is true to some point, you know, some degree. But the biggest, right, like the biggest driving force is vanity, wouldn't you say?

Yeah. I mean, Again, it's not a bad thing. It's the framing of it.

I know. I mean, I thought, and like, and all these ripple effects happen from it.

Nobody's waking up like, I want to look terrible today.

No, of course.

You know what I mean? And so that, I find that to be an inroads.

100%. It's a gateway drug.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's a gateway drug.

And so, you know, it's a superficial thing, but also our phys— our outer appearance, so much of our, our outer world is created by our, by our inner world, right? And so, but there are people who are superficially attractive or look fit who are wildly unhealthy.

Very much so.

Right? And I definitely fell into that camp when I was like in college, for sure. I looked very fit, but I was not healthy. And also, again, that's, that's a great inroads, but the things that we're talking about are actually the way to get there. Like sleep, for example. I mean, again, this was this was one of the biggest leverages that I used to get the message across. Part of the reason a sleep wellness book hadn't done well previously was that it was lacking sexiness to be, to be a thousand. Like I made it sexy specifically by connecting it to fat loss.

Yeah.

And so smart. So scientists at the University of Chicago put people into, uh, it was a ward study. So they're actually like in ward conditions, controlled conditions. Where they're not leaving to go to McDonald's or they're actually in this kind of clinical setting, mm-hmm, living there and looking at the impact that their sleep habits had on fat loss. And so, and this is a crossover study, so not only is this like a controlled trial, they're having test subjects that go through both conditions. One condition being the sleep condition where they're getting adequate sleep in this Case they got to sleep for 8.5 hours, and then there's a sleep deprivation, deprivation condition, right? Where they sleep deprived them. Now they're only getting 5.5 hours of sleep at night. After compiling all the, and by the way, same exact diet, they're eating the same amount of calories, same macronutrients, all that stuff. The only difference is one phase of the study, they sleep deprived them. In this study, after compiling all of the data, when people were well rested, getting adequate sleep. They lost 55% more body fat.

Wow.

Okay. And I, again, I wanna stress this, body fat, not weight. 55, because the weight actually, they lost pretty similar amount of weight. Yeah.

Yeah.

In the different conditions because they were on a calorie-restricted diet. You can lose weight. Yes. Where's that weight coming from? And so when they were sleep deprived, their body shifted. There was like a metabolic shift to using more of their muscle mass, burning it off in this weight loss process.

Wow. So their body composition changed.

Yes. Yes. That's how powerful our sleep is because that sleep deprivation, I, I, this can be a signal for many things.

Yeah.

One of the things it's signaling is a, is a threat. It is a threat. Yeah. It's a threat to our survival. My human is sleep depriving themselves because there must be danger around.

That's true.

And we want to keep this fat. We can live off this fat. This muscle mass is burning off too many calories. We need to slow our metabolism down because there's obviously a threat around. We're not sleeping enough and we can slow burn this body fat and we're going to work to keep that on. Right.

That's crazy. That's a big amount. That is not— that's no joke. Well, I know also you're your appetite. For me, if I'm not sleeping, I will eat double the calories because I'm just so much hungrier, or my inhibitions go down. Both, probably, right?

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

You just said a word though, I was gonna ask you about sleep quality versus sleep quantity.

Yes. Yeah.

What do you say?

That was a big part of the sleep wellness conversation that I was very passionate about ushering in and changing. Because even today, like, I just had a conversation with somebody a couple days ago and they're like, so do you, do you get like, you get 8 hours of sleep though, right? 7 to 8, right? I'm just like, let's pump your brakes.

Yes.

It's okay. It's like, It's not about that. Like, the quality of the sleep that you're getting— you can be in bed or even passed out for 8 hours, but wake up feeling like shit and like have low energy. It's the quality of those sleep minutes. And I liken it to calories. Yeah, right. The calories— all calories are not the same. The quality of those calories do make a difference.

That's such a good point. That's a great analogy because, well, I've got a couple of questions on that. First of all, just to, just to finish the sleep part, because I just want to finish it. Is there an amount that people should— amount of REM sleep people get? Deep sleep? Like, is there like, if you're sleeping a 6-hour window, should they be getting an hour? Like, what's normal? What's a normal amount of REM sleep to have?

After doing this work this long?

Yeah. There is no such thing.

Yeah, there's— it depends. It depends on you. It depends on your needs.

Okay, fair enough.

Like, if you are training for a final exam.

Yeah.

Versus training for a marathon versus just stress with kids versus like the amount of time that you're going to— your body knows what to do and it's going to be different. It can be different from night to night. Of course, they're going to be patterns, right? But there isn't any black or white. You should be getting 20% this, 40% that. It's just— it's not like that.

Okay. So then if that's the case, if it's more like quality of sleep, you were saying something about— it was—

the main thing is efficiency.

Efficiency. What I was gonna say is we're— you gave the analogy of like calories in, calories out. Yes. So there's— that's still a huge argument though, right? There's ha— like literally half the people say calories in, like versus calories out. And there's another group that says, no, it's the quality of the calories. You're obviously saying it's about cal— it's not about the calories in, calories out. Like if I were to have 500 calories of like a Mars bar, I'm just making it, and french fries, it's not the same as having like a chicken breast and I don't know, name it.

I could share, I could share 10 different things.

I want you to, 'cause I think this is, this is, people still talk about this.

Yes. I mean, here's the thing, it's usually coming from people who are, who found success with managing their calories.

Right.

It's usually coming from people who are inexperienced. It's usually coming from people who haven't helped a lot of other people with their system. Okay. And also it is a valuable metric.

Okay.

Let me be clear. Managing calories, you absolutely do. Even in the sleep study, people lost a similar amount of weight by cutting calories. But what did it do to your metabolism?

No, cutting— you mean cutting sleep.

By cutting sleep.

Yeah.

Yes. By cutting sleep. What is it doing to your metabolism? What is it doing to the way that your hormones and your neurotransmitters and your organ function, your mitochondria? It's changing you as an indiv— it's actually changing how your body operates.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Right. And so it is a valuable metric. And somebody like myself, I'm always asking why. And also, where did it come from?

Yeah.

So the whole concept of the calorie was actually something that was first manifested in the field of physics. It had nothing to do with nutritional science. And what happened over time was it kind of parlayed its way in. And to find out how much energy was in a food, they used a bomb calorimeter. Basically, we'll just say we take a banana and we incinerate it. We incin— no, actually, let's do this. Let's take, um, Let's take some almonds, like maybe use 3 ounces of almonds, completely incinerate it and see how much energy, how much it's heating up the water basically. All right. So they use it, the bomb calorimeter, to see how much energy can heat up water. And so that tells you how much energy is in there. Okay. So this was 300 calories worth of energy. Number one, your body is not a bomb calorimeter. You, you are not actually absorbing all of that calorie, caloric energy that was dispersed. You are also, there's some indigestible aspects of those almonds. And so there's a study that I cited in my book, Eat Smarter, years ago that was, I'm just paraphrasing, problem with the Atwater system.

All right? And the Atwater system is the calorie system that's on all your food today, which they're not using bomb calorimeter anymore. They're just using math.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. And, you know, just designating a certain amount of calories for the grams of protein, a certain amount of calories for the grams of fat, a certain amount of calories for the grams of carbohydrates. But with this, they found that when people consumed, we'll say again, 300 calories of almonds, their net gain or net res— what they're receiving from those almonds was maybe 158 calories. There was a substantial amount of those calories.

Oh.

That the body did not metabolize or utilize. And that's not what is edu— that we don't receive that education. All right. So already the calorie conversation is a little sketchy right there, trying to measure and manage what's on our wrappers versus our goals. So that's just one. This is minor stuff though. This is minor. Let's get to the more major stuff here. So what I've designated, like I said, I could do 10 of these, are epicaloric controllers. They're determining how your body interacts with the calories that you consume. A huge epicaloric controller that we have now designated today and, and have a lot of data on is our microbiome makeup, our gut makeup, our microbiome. This kind of cascade of all these different microbes has a huge impact on what your body's doing with the calories you consume. We can literally have a difference of sometimes hundreds of calories, two people eating the same thing.

Right.

And we see this in twin studies. This is why we know so much data on the microbiome as far as like obesity, where they can live in the same conditions, eat effectively the same diet, and then, but one of the twins is obese versus the other, or overweight versus the other. And it's attributed to these categories of bacteria. You know, firmicutes, um, being one of this kind of broad class, like how, what's the ratio? So that's another thing. Another factor that we're now dealing with today is this term, this blanket statement given to this, these molecules called obesogens. Obesogens create obesity in the body. Obesogen, independent of calorie intake, it changes the way your body manages the energy that you're taking in. All right. So these obesogens, and we are exposed to billions of them, billions of them on a regular basis. Again, our air, water, food supply, right? It's altering the way that people's bodies are interacting with calories. So it's an epicaloric controller. The quality of food, and this is where we're gonna get to like more hardcore science piece. So in Eat Smarter, I shared this study that went bonkers. And this was published in the journal, uh, Food and Nutrition Research.

And this was the quality of food itself. So they had people to consume, uh, a meal of ultra-processed foods versus a meal of whole foods to see the impact that it had on their calorie expenditure. So the, the two meals, same amount of calories, again, same calories, similar macronutrients. One is ultra-processed cheese product. So like Kraft Singles and white bread. The other is a whole, quote, whole food sandwich, multigrain bread, cheddar cheese. Okay. And the qu— also by a little sidebar, how do they, how are they tracking how many calories they're burning?

Mm-hmm.

Because what they, researchers did was they were monitoring how many calories they burn post ingestion of the sandwich.

Right.

Okay. We breathe out most of the calories. When we're losing calories, we breathe them out.

Really?

That's how our body gets rid of, cuz we, we think like sweating, you know, like getting, but most of it is through our breath, through breathing. Yeah. So, but anyways, well, let's put a pin in that. So here's what happened after analyzing the data. When people ate the ultra-processed version of the sandwich, there was a dramatic decrease in the amount of calories that their body was burning after eating that sandwich.

Really?

So we're talking like 40 upwards of even 60% suppression of calorie burn after eating that sandwich. Okay. And so what the researchers can kind of designate was something we'll affectionately call a metabolic or a hormonal clog. Like something happened to gum up the system and to suppress the efficiency of getting rid of those calories they consumed. Now here's the rub. This is a temporary thing. Over the course of the day, your body will probably sort it out how many calories you burn. But if you do that every day, meal after meal, what's going to happen? Your metabolism is going to be totally different. And I know this. This is what—

That's right.

This is how I ate, you know, my university drive-through diet. And my metabolism was very, very different. And it's not about having an efficient metabolism per se. You know, like burning stuff off quickly because survival as well. But it's having— it's not creating like artificial blockages to where your body's like, what the fuck is this fake cheese stuff? Like, let me just tuck this over here. Maybe my liver can kind of deal with it. But like, we got this adipose tissue, we got space on the, you know, on the neck. We can go add some there on that, on your ass or whatever the case might be.

Right.

Like So many compounds are sketchy. Let's just, you know, we'll figure this out later.

So this sounds, that's interesting. So it sounds to me it really depends on your genetics based on like how your body metabolizes some of this stuff.

So there's nutrigenomics and nutrigenetics. Yes. That it's, but it's, that's only a part of the, the, it, it matters.

Okay.

But it's only a part of, and I don't wanna designate a certain amount, but it is a smaller percentage than a lot of these other epigenetic controllers. So epigenetic means above genetic control.

Okay. Okay.

Right.

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

So epi-caloric is above calorie control. It's controlling what the calories are doing. Okay. This is where we have to focus because again, calories matter. We can use this as a metric to get an estimate, right? But these things matter more because they're determining what your body is actually doing with the calories you're consuming.

Do you think we're also over-protein? Like, are we just eating way too much protein now because it's become a trend? Oh, I feel like everyone— if everyone's talking about protein, protein, protein, it's impossible to consume the amount of protein that people are— like, when I say people, I don't know, it's like a very like general term.

Yeah, for sure. But to keep lean, especially if you're eating real food—

if you're eating real food, that's what I mean. Like, I mean, and if you're not— if you're someone who's busy, yeah, right? Like, are you someone who believes that— like, how else could we keep lean muscle mass on. Yeah. I mean, I think I told you a lot, like when I saw you last time, I take aminos. I take like, I drink these aminos with leucine. Do you like aminos? Have you take aminos or no?

I mean, there's room for, for these things, sure.

But what would you suggest? Like what, what it, how do we like, I mean, food first, food first, always.

Yeah.

But what I'm saying is to keep muscle on, which is of course the longevity organ. We all talk about that.

We can, for sure.

But what are some ways besides the things we ever— like lifting heavy weights, all the things.

Yeah.

Like how do we maintain lean muscle mass as we get older?

Yeah. And just with the protein conversation, I'm grateful that we're having the conversation. So, and I wrote Eat Smarter. I wrote the book, it came out at the last week of 2020, but I wrote most of it into 2019.

Okay.

And there was a special section dedicated protein. Okay.

So help me, why?

Because when I was in college, it was low fat.

Of course.

The conversation was so focused on fat and fat was villainized.

Do, do you remember like SnackWell's?

Of course. Yeah. Like I did all that shit. Yeah. The, the smart ones, Lean Cuisine.

Lean Cuisine.

Right.

Yes.

Then it shifted to carbs. Now carbs are the villain. Low carb, you know, again, low fat has a place. Low carb. Has a place, but it becomes this like thing where I talked about it earlier with the, the book situation and like these publishers looking for— they want proof of concept.

Proof of concept.

So they love that shit. When I went in for Eat Smarter for that book deal, you know, I was getting all these different offers. One of the— I remember very clearly, like, they're like, so what kind of book is this? Is it going to be like a keto book? Because again, like, these things are trending, right?

100%.

So but what was missing?

Yeah. Go ahead.

No, you go ahead.

No, I was going to say, like, now everyone's writing a GLP-1 book. There's like 11 books out right now.

Yeah, it's trending and it's— these are the things that sell.

But sorry, what were you going to say?

With that being said, it was— protein was just kind of left out of the conversation.

Yeah. You know?

And so what I wanted to do is elevate that so that we have intelligent focus on all of them.

Yeah.

But also to not hyperfocus on all of them because we don't eat protein, carbs, and fat. We eat fucking food. We eat food. It's us, like, obsessing and trying to break down and— Good point. And isolate and, like, you know, separate. That being said, protein matters a lot. And this is the reason why.

Okay.

It's not what— it's just about the muscle piece. That, of course, that matters a lot.

It's satiating.

When we're looking at each other, we're mostly seeing the proteins that we've eaten. Oh, okay.

That's what you mean. Okay.

So tissue. So when our genes are sending, you know, like the DNA to RNA to protein.

Yes.

Okay. When we're printing out copies of stuff, building blocks.

Yep.

Those are proteins. It matters a lot. Also minerals. I'm seeing your minerals, all that kind of stuff. But protein, building blocks, seriously. Number 2, your hormones. They're protein. Okay? We need protein to make that.

Mm-hmm.

To make them. Enzymes. Enzymes are required for basically everything to happen in our body to do it. They're proteins. They're amino acids. Amino acid base.

That's why, that's why I have these aminos. And you keep on looking at me like I'm crazy, but you don't like them. I can tell.

I mean, it's, again, it's just, it's a, it's a small percentage versus the big movers of like real— Of course.

Real food. It's always about real food.

I'm a fan of certain, like, you know, the protein supplements, you know, amino acids could be in the mix, but a lot of people are—

How many shakes can you have in a day? How many steaks can you have in a day? Like when you're old like me or whatever, I mean, I feel like there's like anxiety over how much protein you're eating.

Yeah. Yeah. And you are— now our ability to, to actually utilize protein does go down as we get older, but it doesn't have to go down substantially. There's certain things that we could do to still metabolize. That's where the data's really at. Is for the utilization of protein, especially in, in the older populations. It is important to focus more on it. But here's the thing.

Oh, we the older population.

So not quite. Not quite. But what tends to happen, the protein, like we're eating too much protein. That was this. It's a narrative based on our consumption of all these ultra-processed foods. It is easier to eat more protein if I'm eating that shit.

Yeah, right.

But it's also way easier to eat sugar. It's way easier to eat carbohydrates.

Yeah.

Maybe those things in the pro— maybe those things are problematic too. But again, we're isolating things.

Yes.

What you found, what most people find is that when you're eating real food, it's difficult to eat a lot of protein. It's like you're just too satisfied. And so we can lean into that because what your body is signaling is that this is something that's satiating. You are getting a lot of value. You're gonna find that your mood is better. You're gonna find that your, You know, your hunger cues, hunger cravings, hunger and cravings, which are kind of slightly different. Those things are now more regulated.

Yeah.

You're making better food choices. You're sleeping better. All these other positive things happen. This doesn't mean that we gotta try to force ourselves to eat more protein, but some of us have tricked ourselves into not eating enough protein because of some other things. Maybe this is, we get a big satiating effect when we have coffee in the morning. With our fat in it, our butter or our cream or our protein, whatever we're putting in the coffee. And then we don't eat for 4 hours.

Right.

Because of that. Right.

Yeah.

Or maybe we're so dedicated to our intermittent fast and we're missing out on getting in the protein. And your body is always looking for being able to automate.

Automate, you said. Right.

And so you've trained yourself to not eat a lot. And maybe again, so why this matters also is that protein really is the most prominent as a signal for safety, for success. Like, your body's like, because it's used for so many things to regenerate you and to keep you healthy. Okay. So when you're getting in ample amounts of protein, this can be very effective with helping to metabolize stress. The whole Conrad Cortisol face and like the cortisol belly. Like it can really help your body to get safety signals.

Oh, okay.

That it's okay to let this weight go, right? And again, not to negate calories, but it's shifting your meta— your metabolic blueprint so that it's more efficient in getting rid of body fat.

Right.

And we know that that protein helps our bodies to preferentially protect our muscle.

Do you think cardio maintain, like, keeps body fat on our bodies, or is it helping with losing body fat? The reason why I'm asking is there's, again, I'm just asking these questions that I know that a little, there's all these like contradictions, right? No cardio, only do that. Have you heard of that 12? I think I asked you last time, 12, the incline 12 and the speed at 3, um, for 30 minutes. Have you heard of this workout? Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's like very popular and everyone's doing it. They're saying that's like the greatest workout. And sliced bread. I think it's fine, but it's not going to change your body composition, right?

It's always something.

It's always something, right? Like also HIIT training, also whatever it is. Yeah. We're not talking about movement for, you know, your steps. Obviously, that's very important. You know, I'm all about finding an edge, the Small daily habits that give you more energy, focus, and resilience. But that's why I am hooked on Mana Vitality. Most people are mineral deficient, and that means low energy, brain fog, slow recovery, and dull skin. But Mana flips the switch by giving your body a complete spectrum of minerals it actually knows how to use. We're talking shilajit from the Himalayas, ormus from the Dead Sea, and marine plasma from the ocean, plus amino acids and 88 other trace minerals. The benefits are real. We're talking steady all-day energy, sharper focus, faster recovery, a stronger immunity, plus glowing skin. But the biggest win? It fuels your cells for real longevity. Think of it as like a cellular switch-on formula, not as a stimulant. But the raw power your body needs to create energy and repair itself. Try it now and I bet you'll be hooked too. Go to mannavitality.com and use code Jennifer20 for a discount. That's mannavitality.com, M-A-N-N-A vitality.com, and use code Jennifer20.

Let's talk about body composition. How do we actually— what are the ways we can change our body composition besides lifting weights? Is there anything else we can do? Hmm.

Well, sleep.

Well, sleep.

I forgot.

Obviously sleep, but sleep, lifting weights.

As far as like the cardio being effective for fat loss and like for anything, like losing muscle.

Do you think cardio is, um, a good strategy for fat loss.

This goes back to N-of-1.

Yes.

Okay. It depends on who you are. Yes. It's context-driven, right? For some people.

I love you always say that.

Because it's the truth. I know.

Like nothing's— there's not like one thing that's like one thing that suits everybody.

Yes.

Right? Yeah.

There are certain things that have a— they're much more universal, like walking.

Yeah. Walking.

Because we're bipedal, it's just something our genes expect us to do.

Exactly.

And also we know that our metabolism works differently when we are walking versus when we're running. You know, it will preferentially go and grab stored fat for fuel a little bit easier versus going through this kind of glycolytic path.

No, talk about that. You saying, are you saying that when people walk versus run, you'll burn more fat in the, in the walking?

This is validated cuz I didn't believe it. I don't, I still don't believe it even though I see it.

It doesn't make sense to me either.

One of the things that I was taught was that your body will, number one, it's like a LIFO/FIFO, like in accounting class, you know, last in, first out, first in, first out. So your body's going to use the last in, first out. So last in is the food you just ate. It's going to burn through that glycogen cash on hand first for energy processes. Then it'll go and break down glycogen, stored glycogen if need be, after it burns through the cash. Muscle, liver glycogen. That's like writing a check, right? It takes a little bit more time and then it will go to the fat certificates of deposit, right? Then and only then it will start to— now remember this, 'cause I, when I was doing like my certification, there was like this chart of like getting to the fat burning zone.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And so, you know, you gotta go through these processes to try to get here and so you can start burning fat. In reality, your body is so much smarter than all this bullshit. Yeah, it, it's gonna use energy based on the demands and based on efficiency. What we forget in our mission to, you know, lose body fat and to get this body that we want to have, your body's number one driving force is survival. It wants to survive and it wants to be capable. And so over time we've evolved because of that walking experience of humans, of walking around, you know, laboring and doing stuff, walking from location to location. Fat is a very efficient, slow-burning fuel. Right. And you're not under threat if you're walking. Okay. This is very important. If you're running a long time based on your biology.

Yes.

This could be— this motherfucker will not stop running. Something must be chasing them.

Yeah.

Or they can't catch their food. We got to keep going. Okay.

Yeah.

Not to say that's not valuable to do from time to time, or if that just, if it works for you, but for most people it's efficient when we're walking because it's more parasympathetic. It's not like running is very, very sympathetic.

Mm-hmm.

Fight or flight. It is what it is. And we can go and cleave off, like there's like an amplification cascade where we'll start like burning off a lot of fatty acid, not burning off. Releasing stored fatty acids.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's a difference between releasing and burning. It has to get to the mitochondria to be used for fuel. That's a whole other story. Most efficient way to do that is walking, actually.

So zone 2, you're saying?

Fuck the zones.

Yeah. Okay. Thank God.

Respectfully.

No, please. I can't stand these zones. Zone 2, via—

It's the Twilight Zone.

Yeah. Okay.

But just, you know what it's like to just go for a relaxing walk or maybe a little bit more brisk walk, you know, like, you know, just be— it's okay.

Just be cool.

Just go walk.

I know. Just walk. And try.

And actually, this is a great opportunity to relax, to get into that parasympathetic, right? We've turned it into now again, like, we've got the, you know, the street warriors with the, you know, with the weighted vest.

Of course, everybody's wearing the weighted vest now.

I helped to popularize this. My guy Michael Easter, like, yeah.

You're the second person that mentioned him today.

Yeah.

Like, why did you just mention him just now? Because he— did he talk about this?

He's— I mean, he's arguably the top person as far as like a voice, a research— because he mentioned it in one of his previous books. He's a New York Times bestselling author. I think it was the Scarcity—

Scarcity—

the Scarcity something. But yeah, but he's— but when he was on my show, it took off like wildfire. Really? It took off like wildfire. Like social media also—

the Weight Avest part?

Yeah. Yeah.

What did he say about the Weight Avest part?

It just— we do burn more calories. It is more— inefficient.

You're adding more resistance. Yeah.

But here's something really cool.

Yeah.

So I went to and worked with a leading researcher at UCLA who's a gastroenterologist.

Uh-huh.

Actually. And he's been studying gravitational metabolism and how gravity is affecting what our, what our, what our metabolic health is doing. Not just our metabolic health, but also like our, our gut health.

Okay.

And so What was so cool, and there, there's this really fascinating study that found that people, when you lose weight, like your gravitostat, you have just like the circadian clocks, just like you have a thermostat in your body trying to regulate your temperature. We have a gravitostat that is your body's kind of buoyancy or resistance to the forces of gravity. All right. And so when you lose weight and it's already, your gravitostat has been attuned to a certain amount of mass that you're carrying on this planet. What happens is your body is— this is part of the reason why it is difficult to change that set point and to lose weight and to keep it off, because your body is looking for— it's not just a superficial thing, but it's looking for stability and safety in this world, in this, the physics of this reality. And so what the researchers found was that people who wore a weighted vest, pound for pound matching the amount of calories that they lost, kept the weight off much longer.

Really?

Yes. They kept the— and some of them, I mean, study, you know, for towards the end of the study, over a year later, maybe the people who didn't do the weighted vest protocol, they might have— most often they regain all the weight that they lost. Really? And a little bit more. Just again, traditional stuff, traditional means. But maybe these people regain like 20% of the weight that they lost. Over the course of a year study, for example. So it's just like, it was basically telling their gravitostat, telling their metabolism, telling their, you know, their brain, their biology that I still have this, this, this weight on me, this force on me, and it's okay. Basically, I don't have to gain all these extra pounds because I'm still carrying this weight around in a sense. And I, and I know that I'm making this very rudimentary.

No, but actually, let me, let me look up the study right now. You know what? What's so interesting about that is, well, you're not wearing the weighted vest for more than an hour a day, right? So how does that work?

They're wearing it all day. They're wearing it basically their waking hours.

Oh, really?

Yes. Yeah.

So, yeah.

So I failed to mention that part. Yeah.

So that makes sense. So that's why their gravity— that's why their overall gravitudial, whatever the word is, gravitostatic, right? Gravitostatic. Is, is the— they think it's, it's tricking the baseline to think it's much heavier than it is. My question is, I wear this weighted vest around all day, but it's only £6. Does that count? It's not really that heavy.

Yeah, of course. Of course that counts.

Yeah, but it's really small.

So what?

It's better than zero, I feel. It's very comfortable. I like it.

It's just, again, I— we even got into this. So, by the way, let me go ahead and share this study really quickly.

Okay, go ahead.

I like these studies. I love these studies. There's multiple studies, but just here's one. This one was published in the International Journal of Obesity.

Okay.

Analyzed how gravitational loading during conventional calorie-restricted weight loss influences subsequent weight regain. 18 test subjects, 6 months. This is a, uh, crossover study as well. So 6 months calorie-restricted diet standard, and 6 months placed in another arm of the study with the weighted vest. Worn throughout. And so they were wear— instructing to wear the weighted vest for about 10 hours a day, just living life, doing their typical routine. And again, it was increased by a pound. So they might've started off with a 1-pound vest, but maybe they had eventually lost £5, so they're wearing a 5-pound vest. Okay. So I'm just consolidating all the data here. The weighted vest group resting metabolic rate only went down by about 16 calories a day because the, the metabolic rate will compensate as well. Right? So that's another reason we regain the weight is that you lose this weight, but your metabolism is going to slow down because for survival, people, when they didn't use the weighted vest, their metabolic rate went down by nearly 250 calories a day that they were burning less. Okay. Without the weighted vest.

Without the weighted vest.

Wearing the weighted vest, their metabolic rate only went down by 16 calories a day on average.

That's it?

That's it. So this is why—

16 calories?

This is why they were able to have a greater effect and more—

jeez—

stability and consistency with keeping the weight off long-term. So yeah, fascinating stuff.

That's super fascinating.

Dr. Brendan Spiegel is the guy who, you know, I connected with at UCLA. Super smart guy.

Yep. So I love that. So, 'cause I always think that everyone has a baseline, you know, like these are all just my, like, Jennisms. Like no matter what I read or whatever, but like I always thought like, you know what, like there's only so much you can like— if I feel like my body is very comfortable at a certain weight.

Yeah.

And I can only tweak it that much here or there, but I'll always come back to baseline if I don't do the things I do. Do you know what I mean?

Of course.

Of course. And so, so I just— is so there is accuracy around that. So then what do you think of all the peptide situations? Do you believe in peptides? Are you taking peptides? And you don't know. Okay. What? That's good to know. That's good. You're saying you don't know?

I mean, I, I know some, but, but I'm glad that you said that. What I tend to do is I'm not the guy rushing out and saying this and that about, you know, different things. Like, there's good for you.

That's good.

There's so much, there's, there's, it's a, it's a bit of a, do you take any?

How about that?

No, I have not.

Yeah. What is your, I wanna know, I'm not against it, though.

Let me be clear.

No, I'm not saying you are.

There's some— there's some weird shit going on there. There's a lot of inaccuracy. There is some effectiveness as well with certain peptides, but it's just— it's a mess right now. It's a mess. And again, we're still doing that same habit of looking for that hack.

Okay, so that's like GLP-1. Do you believe in them?

Believe in is a strong word.

Do you? Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to change my word, though. Do you believe in them? Do you believe in the—

They are effective. Yes, they are effective for weight loss. They're not effective for sustainable weight loss if you're not continuing to take them.

No, I know. I've seen people gain back their weight in a month.

Yeah. And of course there are— I've got some colleagues who are testing to like do microdoses as they go on and to see if it has— but still the jury is out on that. And also just the accessibility for people to be that stringent is very, is very difficult and complex when again, people are just looking to get the weight off.

Yeah.

You know, and or get their blood sugar normalized and, you know, their insulin resistance in check, whatever the case might be. So the unfortunate thing I think with the GLP-1s is we are ignoring a part of biology, which is with that satiety, what normally would signal satiety is bioavailable abundance or resources, or what it would normally be signaling is that we are, that we have enough. Okay. Just to put it in a kind of like a blunt statement, we, we have our needs are met. And I'm speaking about this from a biological, not like psychological, but like we have the protein that we need to sustain our livelihood. We have the minerals that we need. We have the you know, the vitamins that we need. We have everything that we need to, to keep you alive and healthy. I'm saying all that to say that what happens, what traditionally what our hunger would be driven by is a drive to get these resources in. And so we're hacking the system and we're muting a key part of our body's intelligence.

Gotcha.

One of the largest reasons for overeating chronic nutrient deficiency leads to chronic overeating. Okay? So our bodies are look— hunger is largely driven by this desire to get things in us. And I'm saying this, this is what— it's not just, yeah, hypothetical. This is what the data shows. So we will proactively seek out certain nutrients. There is an intelligence that our body has, but it's been all fucked up. And so a good example is there's studies that were— multiple studies done on this, but they did some studies on sheep. All right. Because they can kind of force-feed them certain things. And so, but let, let's not even get into the force-fed sheep. That's kind of creepy. Bottom line is this.

No, I wanna hear.

If your body is deficient in—

No, finish the force-fed sheep. I like the stories like this. Tell me about the sheep and then you can go home.

Well, I don't, I don't wanna talk about that one. I don't wanna—

You're not gonna go to the sheep? Okay.

Yeah.

Tell it. So basically, have you seen Sheep Detectives?

Like, it's fucked up.

I've never seen it. Have you?

Great movie. Shout out to Hugh Jackman. The person who shared this study with me is Mark Schatzker, and he's got a great book called The Dorito Effect. Okay, so people should check that out. But I want to keep this in a human context.

Okay.

So if we are deficient in, say, calcium, right? So we need calcium not just for our strong, quote, strong bones.

Yeah, yeah.

But for our blood to clot. Properly. It's an electrolyte, so it's like important in like signal transduction. It's fucking important. Historically, if we were deficient in calcium, our body, we would develop a craving for something that has calcium in it.

Right.

Okay. Another great example is vitamin C, right? Deficiency. It's very abundant in so many foods, but the limeys, right? The skin scurvy. This drive to like gorge on citrus because your body has this craving for this certain thing to get that nutrient to run processes.

So I guess I would— my next, my next and my final question, supplements, supplementation. But I think you just answered it a little bit. What do you believe? What do you believe in supplementation? Do you, would you think that there are any essentials that you should be taking every day? Or what is your, what do you take every day?

If you're deficient, yes.

Right. I knew you were going to say that.

But if you're, if you're good and you're eating a well-rounded diet where you don't need to, there are certain— I'm very big where I'm at today. I used to a lot, a lot of stuff, different times. I've done all the things.

I know.

I mean, you can't even imagine what my cabinets have looked like.

I'm sure. What do they look like today?

Today, what I will occasionally take is an omega-3 supplement.

Okay. Occasionally only?

Yeah. I mean, because I'm eating a lot of foods that are rich in omega-3s.

Okay.

And also the quality, the sourcing of those omega-3s matter a lot.

Matters a lot. Yeah.

You know, you ideally want to have something that has astaxanthin in it.

Yeah, I take that as a supplement even.

Yeah. So is that bad? No, no, no, not at all. It's protective of those omega-3s.

Okay.

Magnesium occasionally. Occasionally vitamin C. You do take vitamin C? Food-based. Though, food-based. So like a concentrate of a vitamin C dense food like camu camu berry, amla berry, those kind of things.

Okay.

Because synthetic vitamin C, that's what most vitamin C supplements are, that's derived from genetically modified corn syrup, corn starch. And we've got multiple studies showing that higher incidence of kidney stones, less change. And one of these studies was actually done in the Journal of Cardiology. Looked at camu camu berry, C-A-M-U-C-A-M-U, vitamin C versus synthetic vitamin C supplement or capsule or the little emergency type packets, the shit that you'll see anywhere, and had smokers who, that is a strong oxidant, oxidative behavior to take both either, either of these. And so what they found was that there was no beneficial effect on oxidation or antioxidant effect taking the synthetic version. The test subjects taking the camu camu berry had a notable decrease in C-reactive protein, which is an inflammatory marker, right? So we know the vitamin C helps, but the source matters.

The source matters.

So I'll occasionally take vitamin C, omega-3s, and yeah, I mean, those are the two main things that I'll occasionally take. But then there's some other stuff in the mix sometimes, like a turmeric supplement here or there, or, you know, maybe an organ complex, which is different.

That's interesting though.

Because I, I eat real food and I eat a lot of good food.

You didn't say one that everybody takes is vitamin D.

You see me, you see my complexion.

I do.

You know what I'm saying? Like I'm, I'm outside, I'm getting ample amounts of sun. Not against it.

Right. I think everyone just jumps on bandwagons.

Yeah.

And they don't even know, like I, I was on that bandwagon and then I, I, then I checked my, you know, my levels in my blood and I was like 3 times, 3 times higher than I should have been. Dang.

So that's hard to do.

Yeah, exactly. Cause they're like, oh, everyone needs to take vitamin D. So I'm like, I'll take vitamin D. And then I'm like, oh, Whoops, I almost poisoned myself with vitamin D. So, yeah, you know, but—

and just because, by the way, I was kind of being, you know, funny about that, but like, just because your complexion doesn't mean that you're getting enough vitamin D.

No, no, no. I know you're being—

I mean, many people who have a darker complexion, African-American, are deficient in vitamin D. Yeah, it's like sunscreen basically. And so, but I do spend ample amounts of time in the sun at the right times, getting the UVB. And you know, there's some vitamin D in certain foods, you know, but it's not, again, this could be like some sardines or like some mushrooms. It's not the same, by the way.

But sardines is like a big one though right now. Everyone loves sardines. It's a very—

you're gonna find some derivatives, like again, there's D1, there's D2, but a vitamin D2 supplement is one of the most studied supplements. It's, I, I'm not, I'm, I definitely have had my fair share of vitamin D2.

What about creatine?

I'm sorry, vitamin D3. Yeah, vitamin D3.

I was going to say, you meant vitamin D3 with K2? Is that what you meant?

Yes. And K2 to help it absorb. How did you know? Yeah, that's exactly right.

Yeah. This is what I do too. I'm just asking you the questions.

Well, how did you know I combined them together?

Because that's what most people do.

Made a weird baby with it.

Because that's what everybody does. Because it doesn't absorb without the K2.

And with the D and the K, if you like spell that out, sound that out, what does that sound like?

If you say the D and the K together? Do you want me to say it right now? Say it. No, don't make me do that. Okay, so Sean, we're gonna wrap it up. Thanks for being on the podcast.

Of course. Yeah, this is awesome.

This was amazing. I appreciate you. And what else? That's it. Well, go, for those of you who don't know Sean, listen to his podcast. He's very, very knowledgeable as you can see. And, um, we'll do this again. Round 3, round 2 and a half. How about that?

I love that.

All right, thanks, Sean. Talk to you soon. Oh, for those of you who have not subscribed, please subscribe. Also, always leave me comments. Tell me what you like, don't like, so then I can always make the show better. Thank you and goodbye.