Full Transcript for Quadrobics Comeback, Dietary Revelations, and the Carbohydrate Redemption

form of expressive bodyweight exercise designed to promote physical activity by incorporating movement on both the hands and feet simultaneously to 2015. 00:03:27.823 --> 00:03:29.207 People have been doing this forever. 00:03:29.207 --> 00:03:32.139 There actually has been a little bit of science looking into these type of movements and the relatively recent studies. 00:03:32.139 --> 00:03:38.701 2022 randomized controlled trial that was in the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 00:03:38.701 --> 00:03:42.490 They were investigating novel quadrupedal movement. 00:03:42.490 --> 00:03:55.479 In their study, novel quadrupedal movement in their study noted improve active joint ranges of motion and said that it was a viable alternative form of training to whole body stabilization and flexibility. 00:03:56.181 --> 00:04:08.240 Another study, also in 2022, was measuring the caloric expenditure of quadrupedal movement, was measuring the caloric expenditure of quadrupedal movement. 00:04:08.240 --> 00:04:17.170 In this study they characterized it as animal flow, but they compared it against a treadmill walking and were evaluating caloric expenditure. 00:04:17.170 --> 00:04:24.000 Treadmill walking was actually beating out the animal flow in terms of caloric expenditure. 00:04:24.000 --> 00:04:29.084 So, like I always tell you here, don't sleep on the power of walking. 00:04:29.084 --> 00:04:39.732 But no, it obviously still had good benefits in terms of caloric expenditure, but that might not be the best reason to include this in your program. 00:04:39.732 --> 00:04:48.704 And then we had a 2015 clinical trial comparing treadmill walking versus calisthenics like squats and lunges. 00:04:48.704 --> 00:05:08.348 So, but uh, not surprising that calisthenics would be a little bit more intense than than walking. 00:05:08.348 --> 00:05:10.882 I think for most people squats, pushups, lunges, stuff like that. 00:05:10.882 --> 00:05:12.906 Um, obviously would be. 00:05:12.906 --> 00:05:13.387 Um. 00:05:13.387 --> 00:05:19.327 So, that being said, that that's kind of the the scientific literature that we have on the topic. 00:05:19.327 --> 00:05:24.408 Um, simple fact that it doesn't burn as many calories as walking. 00:05:24.629 --> 00:05:34.632 Necessarily, I wouldn't really worry too much about the main reason to do this I think it's back to the first one is that really can improve your active range of motion. 00:05:34.632 --> 00:05:43.553 So, yeah, just to sort of even give you a verdict, quadrobics does actually have real value. 00:05:43.553 --> 00:05:49.033 There's nothing I love doing more than shooting down a new trend. 00:05:49.033 --> 00:05:55.887 So it's a little bit cringy the term and it's always annoying when people claim to invent things people have been doing for a long time. 00:05:55.887 --> 00:05:59.810 Um, it's probably a pretty decent idea actually. 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:05.732 Um, you know little little cliche that we use often, but motion is lotion. 00:06:05.732 --> 00:06:08.182 That's at least how I think of the crawling patterns. 00:06:08.182 --> 00:06:14.634 I like to use them in warmups, cool downs or recovery days. 00:06:14.634 --> 00:06:19.649 Those are great times, for, again, I've more used crawling. 00:06:19.649 --> 00:06:23.742 I got into this through Animal Flow, tim Anderson's original strength. 00:06:23.742 --> 00:06:28.182 But motion is lotion, movement is movement. 00:06:28.182 --> 00:06:30.127 You can't really go wrong. 00:06:30.127 --> 00:06:45.048 I would worry less about doing programs and progressing in the same way that you would in the weight room, which, well, and actually I had that actually listed even in my um. 00:06:45.048 --> 00:06:51.952 So, yeah, even though verdict good, I like it in warmups, cool downs, recovery days, as mentioned um, there are some drawbacks. 00:06:52.720 --> 00:06:56.872 Namely, it would be that it's not actually suitable for all body types. 00:06:56.872 --> 00:07:06.771 Um, like almost all fitness products, they're they're marketed with a specific body type that this workout alone would not produce. 00:07:06.771 --> 00:07:20.031 So when I see the quadrobics and the animal flow mobility things advertised online, I tend to see lean and muscular yoga bodies, if you will, to use a term. 00:07:20.031 --> 00:07:23.204 I think that's going to at least evoke the image that we're going for. 00:07:23.204 --> 00:07:40.208 Typically, those are the people marketing and promoting these products, and so if you're doing one of these things, thinking it's going to give you a body like that person, that's about as likely as if you were to pick up basketball and then suddenly get as tall as LeBron James. 00:07:40.208 --> 00:07:50.769 I will say that there's a lot of self-selection going on whenever you look at any sport and the type of athletic bodies that are successful in that sport. 00:07:50.769 --> 00:07:54.105 The sport doesn't produce that body, it selects for that body. 00:07:54.105 --> 00:08:02.627 So, again, I do see some lean, aspirational physiques marketing these products. 00:08:04.372 --> 00:08:09.485 I'm totally fine to co-sign it for a lot of reasons, but physique wouldn't be one of them. 00:08:09.485 --> 00:08:19.605 You know again, you know I like the warmups, cool downs, recovery days, morning routine is a great time to do it that this is, you know, one of the reliable places. 00:08:19.605 --> 00:08:21.370 I do it while I'm waiting for my coffee to brew. 00:08:21.370 --> 00:08:33.030 But yeah, then probably actually, if we're talking me, all of those, all of the above, I do it in the warms, I do it in my cool downs, I do it when I'm waiting for my coffee and I do it on recovery days. 00:08:33.030 --> 00:08:36.940 I also have my clients do them throughout their sessions. 00:08:37.341 --> 00:08:59.534 So some of my favorite movements and so obviously I see people invent new terms all the time these are probably not going

to be stable, but one of the just essential ones you got to have in your mobility work or your quadrobics Sorry, I still call it mobility and crawling, but yeah. 00:08:59.534 --> 00:09:03.018 So six point rock, that's just getting down into a quadruped position. 00:09:03.018 --> 00:09:11.595 When you're in that position, though, if you're wondering where the six, we got hands, knees, and then we're also considering the points of your toes touching the ground. 00:09:11.595 --> 00:09:12.538 So that's what makes up our six points. 00:09:12.538 --> 00:09:21.400 Six point rock, get into quadruped position and then just essentially move up and down if you were standing. 00:09:21.400 --> 00:09:28.269 Your spine is actually moving parallel to the ground as such, but this is what is so valuable about this particular pattern is that's what we're doing. 00:09:28.269 --> 00:09:37.365 We are squatting, at least doing the same movements for your ankles, knees and hips, while keeping your spine roughly aligned with the floor. 00:09:37.365 --> 00:09:49.268 It's a good sort of thing that you can guide to keep your spine in proper alignment and this is a great way to warm up very friendly thing for a lot of your joints but also can cue a nice squat pattern. 00:09:49.268 --> 00:09:55.207 You can build off of that six point rock and then actually throw that right into movement that I like to call the rocking pushup. 00:09:57.072 --> 00:10:05.547 If you do know your yoga, what you're going to essentially do with this is transition from a child's pose into, you know, instead of going into up dog. 00:10:05.547 --> 00:10:09.149 On the other end, let's just take what they used to call the girl pushup, where you'll just hit one from your knees. 00:10:09.149 --> 00:10:11.303 Slide back into child's pose. 00:10:11.303 --> 00:10:13.090 The point of this is not muscular development. 00:10:13.090 --> 00:10:17.086 The point of this is, again, motion is lotion. 00:10:17.086 --> 00:10:20.033 Get your shoulders mobilized, get your hips mobilized. 00:10:20.033 --> 00:10:25.828 The science on mobilizations, I'm going to admit, is a little bit shaky. 00:10:26.289 --> 00:10:35.010 Um, this is one of those that, in a way, though, I there's even a trainer that I like who's very evidence and science based, but he happens to be a little bit younger than myself. 00:10:35.010 --> 00:10:45.000 He works with clients that are mostly athletes and also younger, doesn't really believe in the stuff I'm telling you right now the uh corrective exercise and mobility. 00:10:45.000 --> 00:10:50.884 I've spent a lot of time working with people who are not athletes over the age of 40, and that's where this comes from. 00:10:50.884 --> 00:10:56.428 We might not have studies on that population, but I've seen it, so I'm going to keep recommending these types of things. 00:10:56.428 --> 00:11:01.652 So, yeah, rocking push-up, I really like You're going to go from child's pose into a little push-up from your

knees. 00:11:01.652 --> 00:11:11.057 Again, the goal here is actually reflexive strength moving through your range of motion where we're not really going to be feeling the burn in our chest. 00:11:11.057 --> 00:11:14.783 That's not the point of these push-ups. 00:11:14.803 --> 00:11:18.631 And then probably the single most valuable is probably going to be the bear crawl. 00:11:18.631 --> 00:11:28.388 To be honest, this is probably the most valuable pattern that you can do working on the ground. 00:11:28.388 --> 00:11:36.272 It's obviously going to be consistent with anything they're doing in quadrobics, just their definition of having your hands and feet moving simultaneously. 00:11:36.272 --> 00:11:51.232 That's exactly what the bear crawl is, one of the things that really hammered home the importance of crawling was, again, having a kid and watching a child develop every single requisite movement that a human being can do through crawling and moving around on the floor. 00:11:51.232 --> 00:11:59.745 They actually transitioned from these little blobs that just lay around all day to little humans that can do everything big humans do. 00:11:59.745 --> 00:12:13.532 So the proof of concept concept, anyway, what was definitely hammered home watching a toddler develop through nothing but crawling Um, you know some of the other aspects, though, that are going on with crawling patterns. 00:12:13.552 --> 00:12:38.145 That, again, that this is going to have value outside of physique development or muscle gaining, um, getting down and using all of your limbs is going to actually help with neural connections and pathways, um, that are established in the brain that are going to help you become more efficient at moving and also get communication between the left and right hemispheres going on Anytime your right arm touches your left leg or vice versa. 00:12:38.145 --> 00:12:41.581 That's going to be an awesome feature that you're going to be able to get from that. 00:12:41.581 --> 00:12:47.650 So, the better the brain that communicate and process information, the better the body moves. 00:12:47.650 --> 00:12:55.392 This is one of the easiest ways that you can just improve your balance, proprioception and movement. 00:12:55.392 --> 00:12:59.422 Crawling is also, you know it's uniting your sensory system. 00:12:59.422 --> 00:13:17.552 So it's going to help you integrate the vestibular system responsible for balance you can think of all the fluids that are rolling around in your inner ear, um proprosceptive system, your sense of space and your visual system, um and even actually help improve hand-eye coordination. 00:13:18.033 --> 00:13:28.410 Um, I know I've just rattled off a bunch of benefits, but possibly one of the biggest ones of crawling is going to be that it's going to build your foundation of reflexive strength. 00:13:28.410 --> 00:13:30.562 Talked about that briefly on the rocking pushup. 00:13:30.562 --> 00:13:44.892 But to define that a little better, reflexive strength is going to be your body's ability to anticipate movement before it happens, or reflexively reacting to a movement after it happens. 00:13:44.892 --> 00:13:49.464 So this is again less thinking about like your muscles. 00:13:49.464 --> 00:13:51.897 We're thinking more about tendons, ligaments, joints. 00:13:51.897 --> 00:13:57.649 These are going to be the constituent things that you're going to need to have good reflexive strength. 00:13:57.649 --> 00:14:05.734 Crawling is going to be and was the pattern that you use to develop all that stuff originally. 00:14:05.734 --> 00:14:12.452 So it works for children and it also works for adults just as well. 00:14:12.452 --> 00:14:19.480 So, yeah, crawling similarly you know back to the child is also the foundation of your gait pattern. 00:14:19.480 --> 00:14:33.279 So you're doing the contralateral movement when we are using opposite limbs, coordinating that movement and basically your gait pattern is going to be built upon crawling first. 00:14:33.279 --> 00:14:38.393 Again, that is why we see in human beings, crawling before walking. 00:14:40.100 --> 00:14:45.972 Crawling can be a great reset for the central nervous system lower stress levels. 00:14:45.972 --> 00:14:51.988 This is why I do think that this is a good thing to do Recovery days and after workouts. 00:14:51.988 --> 00:15:06.528 When I'm doing it after a workout, that's how I'm doing it is to try to get myself out of that fight or flight, sympathetic, and I'm trying to calm things down, get into that parasympathetic and start to get the recovery going. 00:15:06.528 --> 00:15:09.749 Today actually is my recovery day, it just so happens. 00:15:09.749 --> 00:15:17.072 So that was kind of the series of movements that I did just before going for a real easy bike ride. 00:15:17.072 --> 00:15:21.892 But I went out, looked like rocking, push-up, hanging from a pull-up bar. 00:15:21.892 --> 00:15:26.121 I did a little bit of crawling and then, like I said, easy ride. 00:15:26.121 --> 00:15:36.910 That was what my recovery day looked like earlier and, admittedly, I actually want to point you guys to somebody who I think has the best information on this. 00:15:38.758 --> 00:15:45.004 Tim Anderson mentioned him up top, but original strength he's probably the person that I learned the most from on this particular topic. 00:15:45.004 --> 00:15:49.634 That's the stuff that I am using in my sessions and on myself. 00:15:49.634 --> 00:15:59.525 So if you're interested in any quadrobics, I would recommend checking out some of Tim Anderson's stuff, and I honestly think this is the type of thing. 00:15:59.525 --> 00:16:02.841 If you're looking for a class to get into, that's great, go do it. 00:16:02.841 --> 00:16:10.315 There's nothing wrong with fellowship and fun, but this is honestly the type of thing that you can probably learn and implement on your own. 00:16:10.315 --> 00:16:17.359 I don't think that's a big stretch on this

one, because there's really no wrong movements. 00:16:17.359 --> 00:16:18.881 Just get into practice doing it. 00:16:18.881 --> 00:16:24.610 Just before I learned Tim Anderson, I had actually gotten exposed to some animal flow. 00:16:24.610 --> 00:16:26.451 That was a popular class that was going around. 00:16:27.092 --> 00:16:34.871 Um, you know, I have to admit, particularly having a kid, I see a lot of these movements a lot more regularly now. 00:16:34.871 --> 00:16:39.207 Um, one other way you can get the same benefit is, quite frankly, just playing. 00:16:39.207 --> 00:16:50.053 Um, this is kind of what I'm doing at the park with my daughter often hanging monkey bars, climbing, jumping, crawling, rolling, jumping around like a monkey Shockingly good workout. 00:16:50.053 --> 00:16:56.299 If you do it at the park, you're going to remember all the park implements being a lot easier last time you did it. 00:16:56.299 --> 00:17:04.270 But no, it's also restorative, can fill the gaps in whatever program or goal you're working on. 00:17:04.270 --> 00:17:08.056 And, yeah, even if you don't have a kid. 00:17:08.056 --> 00:17:13.392 You should make some time to just go and move around like you did when you were one. 00:17:13.392 --> 00:17:15.265 I think there's a lot of benefits to doing that. 00:17:15.747 --> 00:17:25.230 And yeah, with that one in the bag, though, I want to actually take on one of the thorniest topics that we could even touch on today. 00:17:25.230 --> 00:17:33.144 I don't even know why I feel qualified to answer this, but we're going to attempt to answer what is the right approach to eating meat. 00:17:33.144 --> 00:17:36.932 So, obviously, we've got vegans, we got carnivores. 00:17:36.932 --> 00:17:48.644 I think it's fair to assume that most of us are somewhere in between, but obviously, with so many people putting out information, it can make it difficult for people to determine what is the right. 00:17:48.644 --> 00:17:55.005 Call on me, so I will obviously answer this definitively for every single person on earth right now. 00:17:55.005 --> 00:18:01.144 No, I actually want to say at the top of this that I am not going to be able to answer this for everybody. 00:18:02.027 --> 00:18:11.615 I can explain my priors, my experience and the way I think about it, um, and that, I think, can at least contribute to how, how others might be thinking about making the choice for themselves. 00:18:11.615 --> 00:18:13.741 Um, but yeah, in that spirit. 00:18:13.741 --> 00:18:22.772 First, my priors I grew up eating a lot of meat when we lived in Montana, we would buy our meat by the cow, keep it in a large freezer. 00:18:22.772 --> 00:18:27.324 So eating meat is deeply ingrained culturally in me. 00:18:27.324 --> 00:18:38.730 Put it another way if I were cooking something and you ate meat, that's what you would want me to cook, though I ate a lot of meat growing up, you know. 00:18:38.730 --> 00:18:41.234 Admittedly, it was all technically grass-fed organic. 00:18:41.234 --> 00:18:54.492 We didn't have that moniker to delineate it back then, but we would literally get it from a rancher and take it to a butcher and so, yeah, I actually never got in the habit of eating low-quality beef. 00:18:54.492 --> 00:18:57.166 Didn't really have the option when I was growing up. 00:18:57.166 --> 00:19:02.304 Fortunately for me and yeah. 00:19:02.304 --> 00:19:08.502 So I admit even now that when I got into my adult life and now I had to buy all my own groceries. 00:19:08.502 --> 00:19:22.025 Quality always has been important to me and, given the choice if I had to, I would actually eat less higher quality meat if I was on a limited budget than buying more cheap meat. 00:19:23.828 --> 00:19:29.582 I have experimented at times with going completely plant-based. 00:19:29.582 --> 00:19:33.127 I've done it for different reasons at different times. 00:19:33.127 --> 00:19:39.359 One time I was doing it to watch Game Changers wanted to unlock some performance. 00:19:39.359 --> 00:19:40.482 That didn't work out for me. 00:19:40.482 --> 00:19:54.608 So I'm not very convinced of that whole line of thinking I'm more convinced for my own health and for the health of the environment, and though I still eat meat. 00:19:54.608 --> 00:20:00.375 Those are the arguments that for me are the most salient. 00:20:00.375 --> 00:20:06.612 But yeah, when you actually this is kind of worth my experience with going plant based. 00:20:06.612 --> 00:20:12.292 We did, I went and I got to see the game changers and I was hopped up on going plant based. 00:20:12.292 --> 00:20:16.549 At that point I was doing it for performance gains. 00:20:16.549 --> 00:20:20.400 I've already been a conscious consumer as it pertained to the environment. 00:20:20.400 --> 00:20:34.240 So I know I'm not perfect, um, but uh no, the you know certainly was just seeming as an added bonus that that going plant-based would reduce my uh, uh, the earth's reliance on producing things for me to consume. 00:20:34.240 --> 00:20:35.561 So that was just an added Bennett. 00:20:35.561 --> 00:20:36.502 But I'm not, I'm not gonna lie. 00:20:36.502 --> 00:20:42.951 I was doing it to try to increase my performance and honestly, that's not how it worked out for me. 00:20:42.951 --> 00:20:45.954 It was not a game-changing protocol. 00:20:50.440 --> 00:20:52.769 I actually relied more on my protein powders than when meat was in my diet. 00:20:52.769 --> 00:20:54.115 Protein powder is technically a processed food. 00:20:54.115 --> 00:20:56.832 I don't want to like fearmonger around that. 00:20:56.832 --> 00:21:08.894 It's still a high-quality food, but I still do just generally believe that if I could be getting that protein from a whole food source instead of a processed food, that that would be net positive for me long run. 00:21:08.894 --> 00:21:24.973 And then last issue that I had maintaining it for the long haul was that meat is actually just very satisfying and

it's easier psychologically for me to be on fewer calories while there is meat in my diet, particularly meats that have fat. 00:21:24.973 --> 00:21:34.067 So, yeah, the fact that a lot of the proteins that I was getting while plant based didn't have the same amount of fats that I was typically getting. 00:21:34.067 --> 00:21:38.260 I just found it psychologically harder to stick to caloric total. 00:21:38.260 --> 00:21:48.277 So that's obviously not my goal at all times, but that's just my honest feedback on when Simon goes plant-based, simon tends to eat a little bit more. 00:21:48.678 --> 00:21:54.253 Performance-wise, I didn't notice any huge edge actually meat eating or plant-based. 00:21:54.253 --> 00:21:59.519 It's not like my workout numbers actually change, as we've talked about here. 00:21:59.519 --> 00:22:00.682 I think it's way more important. 00:22:00.682 --> 00:22:12.823 What your total calories, what your carbs, what your protein, what those look like, are a lot more important than the other aspects, even though the other aspects may get more attention. 00:22:12.823 --> 00:22:25.173 If you're controlling for those variables in your diet, I don't think you're going to notice much of a difference when you switch back and forth between plant-based or meat eating. 00:22:25.173 --> 00:22:39.905 Just being honest Now, just in my experience as a trainer, I've seen a number of meat eaters who needed to eat less meat or higher quality meat. 00:22:40.806 --> 00:23:03.557 Also, on the other end, I've also seen people who were plant-based, who actually needed to reincorporate some meat, and the latter it was almost always like anemia or some nutrient imbalance that could just be most efficaciously solved through just incorporating a little bit of meat. 00:23:03.557 --> 00:23:13.200 Sometimes it wasn't like they were trying to, you know, throw out the baby with the bathwater. 00:23:13.200 --> 00:23:14.906 So now, all that just brings me to. 00:23:14.906 --> 00:23:16.839 You know what's the right way? 00:23:16.839 --> 00:23:22.545 Well, there isn't one, and it depends Just to reach for a philosophical angle. 00:23:24.028 --> 00:23:29.559 Peter Singer, I think, is probably the most well-known philosopher who is arguing against meat consumption. 00:23:29.559 --> 00:23:38.690 His book Animal Liberation argues that the ability to suffer is the vital characteristic that gives any being the right for equal consideration. 00:23:38.690 --> 00:23:48.086 So thus, um, well, animals are capable of suffering and thus should be considered in our decision-making. 00:23:48.086 --> 00:23:49.788 Eating them is unethical. 00:23:49.788 --> 00:23:59.282 Um, michael Pollan not really a philosopher, but um, he's got a booknivore's Dilemma that, I think, at least, contributes to the conversation. 00:23:59.282 --> 00:24:06.248 Pollan suggests that humans are naturally omnivorous and that eating meat is part of the natural cycle of life and death. 00:24:06.248 --> 00:24:14.541 That being said, he does advocate for reform in the way meat is produced and consumed, emphasizing sustainability and ethical treatment of animals. 00:24:16.047 --> 00:24:21.084 Probably included him, because I like that view a lot, one of my favorite philosophers. 00:24:21.084 --> 00:24:24.192 But actually he's pretty funny on the topic of nutrition. 00:24:24.192 --> 00:24:32.295 But Friedrich Nietzsche in Eke Homo famously had a section all about nutrition, he said. 00:24:32.295 --> 00:24:43.992 I'm much more interested in another question, a question upon which the salvation of humanity depends to a far greater degree than it does upon any piece of theological curiosity. 00:24:43.992 --> 00:24:46.729 I refer to nutrition. 00:24:46.729 --> 00:24:55.440 But anyway, I find Nietzsche's attempts at nutrition funny, because he kind of just tried the fad diets of his day. 00:24:55.440 --> 00:25:01.532 There was one moment where he was either vegan or vegetarian, and then Wagner got them all into meat. 00:25:01.532 --> 00:25:19.115 So even though I am a fan of Nietzsche's work, when it came to nutrition Nietzsche was the perfect example of the confused postmodern eater that I've at least tried to help out in some ways. 00:25:19.115 --> 00:25:30.085 But yeah, so I don't know, maybe if I'd been around in the 1890s I could have helped him arrive at a diet more consistent with his own individual values. 00:25:30.085 --> 00:25:33.192 But sorry, man, you missed me by a while. 00:25:36.401 --> 00:25:43.166 You know, and admittedly one of my priors in this discussion too is that I I've actually trained and worked with people? 00:25:43.166 --> 00:26:00.869 Um with different beliefs and preferences, and I've always gone into that Um just believing that the methods that we use should already be consistent with people's values, that I shouldn't need to change their values um to be consistent with the methods that I'm using. 00:26:00.869 --> 00:26:13.078 So, in I actually don't think that I've ever advocated somebody who ate um meat to not eat meat, or vice versa. 00:26:13.078 --> 00:26:19.435 I usually work um back from their existing beliefs towards their goals. 00:26:19.435 --> 00:26:24.789 There's a few cases I already mentioned, and those were typically not coming from me. 00:26:24.789 --> 00:26:31.769 Those are typically coming from their medical, their doctors, whoever they speak to on that. 00:26:31.769 --> 00:26:35.303 That's not a lane that I try to run for them. 00:26:35.303 --> 00:26:44.342 So, yeah, any of those cases that I mentioned, those changes were actually being made in conjunction with others, not at my sole discretion. 00:26:45.785 --> 00:26:52.412 I do think, though, that, first off, that this entire discussion, everybody in it it's a valid and valuable discussion that people are having. 00:26:52.412 --> 00:26:54.701 I just don't think there's a silver bullet. 00:26:54.701 --> 00:26:58.988 I don't think there's a one size fits

all or a cookie cutter answer here. 00:26:58.988 --> 00:27:20.140 If I'm speaking broadly, to this abstraction, that is, 300 million Americans on average, I would say you guys could probably eat less meat most of you, but it's not as strong as a statement as it may first sound when you consider that that cohort I mentioned just broadly eats too much of everything. 00:27:20.140 --> 00:27:23.691 So I would also tell them to drink fewer soft drinks. 00:27:23.691 --> 00:27:32.601 And you know it's not as tough a statement as it sounds up top, but no, I'm pretty comfortable with that. 00:27:32.601 --> 00:27:41.924 I think for most people, less and better would be the best strategy with meat, since presumably most people are already eating meat. 00:27:41.924 --> 00:27:48.468 If you're not currently eating meat and you're not anemic or something, don't worry, I'm not talking about you. 00:27:48.669 --> 00:28:06.997 For most people, I think, less and meaningful is that there really is a difference between processed and unprocessed foods, and in meats it's no different. 00:28:06.997 --> 00:28:09.518 Processed meats are not healthy. 00:28:09.518 --> 00:28:26.990 The animals that they come from are usually raised in industrial farms, and most of the practices as it pertains to sustainability and environment, with processed meats in general on average worse than your unprocessed, these tend to be the biggest polluters. 00:28:26.990 --> 00:28:38.590 There's obviously still going to be a significant carbon footprint associated with any meat consumption relative to plant sources, so let's not lie or misrepresent that. 00:28:38.590 --> 00:28:46.029 But there are certainly better choices within the subset of meat. 00:28:46.029 --> 00:28:52.648 They are not all created equal, even the difference, frankly, between red meat and poultry. 00:28:52.648 --> 00:28:55.085 If you're concerned with carbon footprint carries a significant difference. 00:28:55.085 --> 00:28:57.696 So there's a lot of ways, if you're concerned with carbon footprint carries a significant difference. 00:28:57.696 --> 00:29:02.800 So there's a lot of ways, if you're concerned about the environment, that you can go about decreasing your carbon footprint. 00:29:03.261 --> 00:29:06.008 Admittedly, I'm actually not the expert on that. 00:29:06.008 --> 00:29:11.688 I've obviously, like many people, made attempts to reduce my own consumption of energy. 00:29:11.688 --> 00:29:13.251 I just don't like waste. 00:29:13.251 --> 00:29:14.142 Quick one on food. 00:29:14.142 --> 00:29:15.786 I actually just hate food waste. 00:29:15.786 --> 00:29:18.221 My opah was in a concentration camp in World War II. 00:29:18.221 --> 00:29:28.022 His daily rations were corn cobs someone else had already eaten from, so anyway, I wasn't great about it when I was a kid, but we had a rule that if you put it on your plate you had to eat it. 00:29:28.022 --> 00:29:32.752 I spent many nights at the table after everybody else had

already left. 00:29:32.752 --> 00:29:40.500 So even though I wasn't good at this as a kid, I grew into really hating waste as an adult in general. 00:29:40.500 --> 00:29:43.607 So I just don't think there's a good argument for wasting food. 00:29:43.607 --> 00:30:02.627 That being said, I'm not an expert on that, so I do kind of want to keep my comments more focused on the health and performance component of this and to that end I would say that actually the scientific evidence does overwhelmingly suggest that humans are opportunistic omnivores. 00:30:02.627 --> 00:30:11.303 If you're trying to find proof for your favorite diet, you'll probably find it, because humans have eaten just about every diet you can think of. 00:30:11.303 --> 00:30:36.611 Downstream from availability of food sources, at some point in history, humans have actually had the least amount of time with abundant food, and I think that's the issue that really comes up in our food discussions more so than anything else, and at least for those presumably listening to a podcast I'm sure there's other people out there, but in our world, abundance is the bigger issue. 00:30:36.611 --> 00:30:40.041 But anyway, guys, I actually want to now dive into. 00:30:40.041 --> 00:30:42.086 This is so. 00:30:42.106 --> 00:30:54.566 I came across this anecdote from Business Insider this week, but it's also an irrelevant example that came up for one of my clients, and I might just file this one under In Defense of Carbs, part 2007. 00:30:54.566 --> 00:30:55.929 How many of these have I done now? 00:30:55.929 --> 00:31:02.528 Business Insider article bodybuilder ditched low carb and started eating potatoes six times a day. 00:31:02.528 --> 00:31:04.271 He got in the best shape of his life. 00:31:04.271 --> 00:31:19.795 So the story was about a guy, mark Taylor, competitive bodybuilder, who had eaten a strict low carb diet for decades but consistently missed the top prize in his native Scotland until he made one change eating carbs. 00:31:21.321 --> 00:31:29.288 So before I get into Taylor's story, this is an anecdote that's also relevant for a client of mine who is in his early 30s, soon to be father. 00:31:29.288 --> 00:31:36.268 His training has focused from that kind of beach body shredding focus to some different goals. 00:31:36.268 --> 00:31:57.913 He's also been eating more and just kind of commenting on his physique today that he actually feels that he has been getting more muscle he knows he's getting stronger because we're seeing that in our sessions and he was just saying that he actually hasn't gotten as big in fat as he expected with all these crazy carbs he's been eating. 00:31:57.913 --> 00:32:03.673 And so I reminded him, or I pointed him to this article and I'm going to remind you guys of this today as well. 00:32:03.673 --> 00:32:12.571 But this happens a lot actually, particularly if you've ever been this type of person that has pursued physique goals for a really long time. 00:32:12.571 --> 00:32:18.212 There's going to be a lot of people out there that if you're a fitness hobbyist, if you're an enthusiast, you've been chasing fat loss a long time. 00:32:18.212 --> 00:32:24.631 It's going to sound like the craziest thing in the world, but adding some carbs back might actually help your physique. 00:32:24.631 --> 00:32:41.432 So anyway, taylor's story and the other reason why I find it relevant is he makes this change at 42, when a lot of people have already said that your metabolism has shifted and father time is just thoroughly whooping your ass by now, and you, just, you just can't add muscle or do these things. 00:32:41.432 --> 00:32:53.031 Um, so, at 42, he makes one change Uh, he was a bodybuilder, uh, so, so we don't have to worry about his work ethic, his programming, his discipline presumably those were all the same. 00:32:53.031 --> 00:32:56.707 Uh, the change was adding the carbs. 00:32:56.987 --> 00:33:05.932 Um, many, particularly in the fitness enthusiast camp, still believe that carbs are the enemy of leanness and make people fat. 00:33:05.932 --> 00:33:13.374 I'm going to say it again Carbs are not inherently fattening. 00:33:13.374 --> 00:33:17.650 They play a key role in muscle building and recovery. 00:33:17.650 --> 00:33:32.746 Most people, particularly my fitness enthusiasts, already know the role of protein in muscle building, but it literally requires carbohydrates to take that protein that you're supplementing, or rather to get the amino acids break that down and then reconstitute it into muscle fiber. 00:33:32.746 --> 00:33:43.987 That process literally requires carbohydrates, and actually on a ratio of four to one, meaning four grams of carbohydrates every one gram of protein. 00:33:43.987 --> 00:33:47.232 If you care about muscle growing. 00:33:47.232 --> 00:33:50.527 Um, that's the goals for some people when they're lifting weights. 00:33:50.646 --> 00:33:58.051 So if you want to see muscle gain, you might need to fuel carbs a little more than you've been told by the fitness space. 00:33:58.051 --> 00:34:03.250 I'm sorry, I'm a part of it but, yes, me and my brethren have not done a good job. 00:34:03.250 --> 00:34:05.901 All carbs are not created equal. 00:34:05.901 --> 00:34:13.594 This is not a green light to go eat junk food, but Taylor used potatoes. 00:34:13.594 --> 00:34:19.215 In general, you want to focus on carbs that are going to release energy slowly. 00:34:19.215 --> 00:34:21.668 You might call these low glycemic carbs. 00:34:21.668 --> 00:34:26.021 You do have one little cheat or way out of that that we talked about last week. 00:34:26.021 --> 00:34:34.527 If you want to sneak some higher glycemic carbs in there, do that right after your workout when your insulin sensitivity is a little bit better. 00:34:34.527 --> 00:34:48.271 But no, the reason I keep spending so much time on this release I feel I do is that the anti-carb movement has had over a decade head start on me here

and Taylor had an experience that was very, very similar to mine. 00:34:48.351 --> 00:34:50.286 He got interested in bodybuilding relatively young. 00:34:50.286 --> 00:34:52.958 He started actually younger than me, 19. 00:34:52.958 --> 00:35:06.271 I was still playing sports then, but he would do oats with breakfast rice a little bit later on and that was about it, which to me sounds like the standard basic bodybuilding diet chicken, broccoli, brown rice, maybe have some oats in there. 00:35:06.271 --> 00:35:10.184 That's kind of what everybody gets brought up on and it works. 00:35:10.184 --> 00:35:15.713 It'll get you to a certain place, but you're going to have limits. 00:35:15.713 --> 00:35:20.197 Yeah, taylor finally brought a nutritionist in 2014. 00:35:20.197 --> 00:35:23.378 She threw his diet out, added carbs to every single meal. 00:35:23.378 --> 00:35:30.083 Then his physique took off and he actually won his first bodybuilding show over the age of 40. 00:35:30.742 --> 00:35:34.485 Prior to adding carbs, he was looking at like a 2000 calorie per day diet. 00:35:34.485 --> 00:35:44.492 I've done those where you got 2000 calories per day and then, like you know, I actually walk around close to 200 pounds, so that needs to be like 200 grams of protein, not a lot of calories for much else left. 00:35:44.492 --> 00:35:50.159 Super fun, love those days when he started adding carbs in. 00:35:50.159 --> 00:35:54.358 It actually went up to 4,000 and then eventually got as high as 6,000 a day. 00:35:54.358 --> 00:35:56.764 Those numbers sound crazy to people. 00:35:56.764 --> 00:36:01.889 I actually been out to dinner with some friends recently, and there again, there's some friends recently. 00:36:01.889 --> 00:36:05.804 And there, there again, there's always this perception of me the trainer eats super clean and all of that. 00:36:05.804 --> 00:36:10.724 Sometimes it can blow people away to see the volume of food that I eat. 00:36:10.724 --> 00:36:13.277 And there again, the good choices. 00:36:13.277 --> 00:36:30.070 I'm not lying to you guys when I come up here, but sometimes the amount can blow people away, and so I was just explaining that over dinner last week that you know, believe it or not, I actually around 4,000 calories a day, and a lot of that again has to do with a lot of the principles that we talk about here. 00:36:30.070 --> 00:36:34.791 I wouldn't recommend just start there, but if you follow those rules that we talked about, carry the big rocks. 00:36:34.791 --> 00:36:49.088 It really is not uncommon that you might have a maintenance calories that could be about that high while you're training, of course, and I've just found it a lot easier to maintain my physique eating 4000 calories than 2000. 00:36:49.088 --> 00:36:54.244 Call me crazy, way, way easier for me psychologically. 00:36:54.244 --> 00:37:00.967 Takes a little work to set it up and get there, but, yeah, one. 00:37:01.128 --> 00:37:02.692 This story was obviously very, very similar to mine. 00:37:02.692 --> 00:37:06.360 This was one that was touching, you know, a client and friend of mine. 00:37:06.360 --> 00:37:15.300 Um, in years of striving to find the one and true perfect diet, it also led me down this exact same hole. 00:37:15.300 --> 00:37:20.538 I used to be, you know, deathly afraid of carbs for the exact same reasons. 00:37:20.538 --> 00:37:21.722 Um, I, I, I. 00:37:21.722 --> 00:37:33.494 I almost feel like like my imposter syndrome as a trainer comes from the fact of how many carbs I eat and just the fact that the public perception of of what I do and what I actually do is just so far off. 00:37:33.494 --> 00:37:37.581 It almost makes me feel like a fraud, um, but yeah, anyway. 00:37:37.581 --> 00:37:52.302 Uh, I don't recommend that you again start with 4,000 calories, but if you've been in that kind of stuck in fat loss for a long time, you really can build your metabolism into a very different place where it can handle a lot more calories. 00:37:52.302 --> 00:38:06.844 Experiment just by adding some carbs in, and particularly if you ever get to a phase where you're focused on either adding some muscle or a performance goal in your program, just see what happens. 00:38:06.844 --> 00:38:08.420 Let it go for 30 days. 00:38:08.420 --> 00:38:21.275 Don't be so strict on yourself with the carbs, and if everything turns around and your physique blows up, then write me a mean comment, but I really think it's going to be all right, so you know. 00:38:21.295 --> 00:38:44.268 What's funny, though, about Mark Taylor with his potatoes is I have to admit that for me, this was actually one of the craziest extreme diets that I've ever done, and I don't know if many people know this one exists, but the potato diet is actually a thing, so when I came across it, it was marketed as like a detox or a reset. 00:38:44.268 --> 00:38:46.961 Admittedly, I didn't really believe in those things at that point. 00:38:46.961 --> 00:38:50.237 I just found it interesting, and immediately. 00:38:50.237 --> 00:39:00.648 At this point, I still just liked experimenting and trying things out just to see how my body would respond, basically treating myself as a test subject, if you will. 00:39:00.648 --> 00:39:03.054 Um, but yeah, so. 00:39:03.054 --> 00:39:11.806 So if you're listening to all those benefits, uh, of adding some carbs and thinking, you know, like the typical American thing, well, I'm just going to take that to its extreme and eat nothing but carbs. 00:39:11.806 --> 00:39:17.655 Well, like we always say, there's nothing new except all that's been forgotten, that's already been done. 00:39:17.916 --> 00:39:20.342 Uh, the potato diet goes back actually to. 00:39:20.342 --> 00:39:32.541 It's got its roots, ironically, in the Irish potato famine, which I say ironically because you wouldn't think that people would base like a fad diet on that. 00:39:32.541 --> 00:39:39.260 Yes, some individuals did subsist on little

besides potatoes, but obviously very different circumstances. 00:39:39.260 --> 00:39:42.907 It's hard to imagine somebody choosing that as a diet. 00:39:42.907 --> 00:39:47.041 The variation that I did was a week-long thing. 00:39:47.041 --> 00:39:51.469 Again, it was basically sold as like a detox diet. 00:39:51.469 --> 00:40:00.483 My physique, you know, didn't blow up, so it helped me kind of unlearn the low-car carb dogma that I had. 00:40:01.625 --> 00:40:26.199 But again, as it pertains to all of the claims that were made about the benefits of the potato diet, none of those manifested at all, and whether it's the potato diet or the grapefruit diet or one of these diets that are excluding an entire macronutrient or an entire type of food. 00:40:26.199 --> 00:40:33.039 To me, all of these extreme approaches should just inherently raise red flags. 00:40:33.039 --> 00:40:39.117 One of the biggest issues with any one of these approaches is they are pointlessly exclusive. 00:40:39.117 --> 00:40:52.588 There is no single food that provides all of the nutrients one needs, and I see this exact same style of thinking manifesting in a lot of different diets. 00:40:52.588 --> 00:41:07.648 People that are very into keto will point to the fact that we can produce ketones as the fact that you don't need carbohydrates ever, and that's technically true, but that doesn't mean that you are thriving or living the best possible existence. 00:41:07.648 --> 00:41:15.001 It's technically true that you could subsist off potatoes for some time. 00:41:15.001 --> 00:41:16.625 It's technically true that you can do a lot of different things. 00:41:16.625 --> 00:41:24.606 Whether it's a good idea or it's improving other markers of your health is incredibly questionable. 00:41:24.606 --> 00:41:35.603 So yeah, in general, anything I would consider extreme is excluding either an entire macronutrient or restricting yourself to one food or type of food. 00:41:35.603 --> 00:41:46.326 I can almost guarantee no matter what variation of this you're thinking about, if you actually do it for a long time, it's almost certainly going to create nutrient deficiencies. 00:41:46.326 --> 00:41:55.224 You may get some short-term success in air quotes, because it's going to be a success that's defined after some nebulous thing. 00:41:55.224 --> 00:42:17.757 But I'm pretty sure that this is actually going to be a time period where you're going to actually start forming a lot of long-term issues that you won't actually even blame this amendment on, because you're going to think of this time as a successful one, not one when problems were starting to compound Again. 00:42:17.757 --> 00:42:19.382 I did this one for a week. 00:42:19.382 --> 00:42:22.059 Wouldn't recommend it. 00:42:22.436 --> 00:42:25.663 I think the biggest benefit I got was what I was just talking about. 00:42:25.663 --> 00:42:31.666 Through trial and error, with a lot of fitness things, I've actually come to believe in a lot

less of them. 00:42:31.666 --> 00:42:35.795 There really was a time when I had a big zest for experimentation. 00:42:35.795 --> 00:42:40.527 If there was a new product, I almost felt like it was my duty to test it out, and I did. 00:42:40.527 --> 00:42:46.702 I kind of used myself as a test subject, you know. 00:42:46.702 --> 00:42:55.739 Admittedly, it's that time period that's kind of got me to where I'm at today, where I seriously doubt most of the amendments. 00:42:55.739 --> 00:43:05.391 If more of them had worked, I think I would be more excited and more prone to experimentation today. 00:43:06.177 --> 00:43:12.625 I still remain open to the idea that we might discover, um, some new game breaking things. 00:43:12.625 --> 00:43:17.123 Um, but sadly, most of the game breakers and there really are game breakers, but they're. 00:43:17.123 --> 00:43:21.943 They're called drugs and so you can either choose to do that or not. 00:43:21.943 --> 00:43:36.083 But yeah, most of the stuff that we know is game breaking is banned by most competitive agencies and yeah, your choice to do that is a little different algorithm, if you will. 00:43:36.083 --> 00:43:39.315 But anyway, guys, that's all I got for you this week. 00:43:40.739 --> 00:43:46.427 So just to quickly summarize quadrobics, if you guys see those articles popping in your feed, I actually like this. 00:43:46.427 --> 00:43:54.347 I don't like the term, I don't like them reinventing something, but the series of movements that people are focusing on, I say looks good. 00:43:54.347 --> 00:43:58.847 I also think that this is probably one of the easiest things for you to do on your own. 00:43:58.847 --> 00:44:05.922 Check out Tim Anderson Original Strength or just go to a park and run around like you used to when you were a kid. 00:44:05.922 --> 00:44:10.219 I think you can figure this one out the right way to eat meat. 00:44:11.001 --> 00:44:12.965 I hesitate to try to answer this. 00:44:12.965 --> 00:44:19.568 For everybody Vast majority of people the best answer is obviously going to be less and better. 00:44:19.568 --> 00:44:27.088 Obviously going to be less and better. 00:44:27.088 --> 00:44:27.672 Not a one size fits all. 00:44:27.672 --> 00:44:32.923 There are no magic bullets, but that's going to be the approach, that for the most people that are somewhere between carnivore and vegan. 00:44:32.923 --> 00:44:34.588 That's what's going to work for you Carbohydrates. 00:44:34.588 --> 00:44:40.643 I keep saying this and I'm going to keep saying it until the paradigm shifts. 00:44:40.643 --> 00:44:43.949 Carbs can actually improve a physique. 00:44:43.949 --> 00:44:49.322 So, again, if the paradigm flips, we'll change this all around. 00:44:49.702 --> 00:44:53.635 But yeah, for now I think we still need to defend carbohydrates. 00:44:53.635 --> 00:44:56.400 Let people know that they're not the end-all be-all. 00:44:56.400 --> 00:45:00.135 You didn't cheat, you're not dirty or befouled. 00:45:00.135 --> 00:45:07.262 And then, yeah, just because I know I'm out here spouting all my opinions, I did want to share my experience with potato diet. 00:45:07.262 --> 00:45:20.795 I fall for extreme things all the time Less frequency these days, I admit, but again, it's only because so many of my experiments didn't work out well when I did it, didn't work out well when I did it. 00:45:20.795 --> 00:45:26.463 Anyway, guys, I always appreciate you guys stopping in, checking in on what I'm working on here. 00:45:26.463 --> 00:45:28.264 Thank you for the time, the attention. 00:45:28.264 --> 00:45:30.327 Make sure to share these, get it out there. 00:45:30.327 --> 00:45:33.570 And, yeah, keep lifting, keep learning. 00:45:33.570 --> 00:45:37.481 I'll do the same.