NCAA Div 1 All-American Decathlete and Big Ten Champion Ryan Talbot

[Music] hey everyone this is Dr Anthony chafee I'm back with you again with a special interview from uh Ryan Talbot who is a Collegiate All-American uh decathlete from Michigan State University just finished up with Nationals uh Ryan how are you I'm doing good how are you I'm good man yeah so so you just finished up with uh with your National Championship um for for people that haven't haven't followed the NCAA um uh you know trials uh tell us a bit about yourself and um and your your your athletic career today um so yeah I'm I'm at Michigan State right now and I'm a junior and I'm going to be a senior next year I have two more years of eligibility um my PR in the decathlon is 8064 points and that had me sitting around six in the nation before the meet so nice oh it's really good and then um and you also won the Big Ten Championship is that right yeah I did I I got the I won the conference Championship and I broke a School record during that meet as well that's badass man that's really good yeah and um this year was also my first year running the decathlon wow so yeah it was my second decathlon of my life and I got yeah that's that's huge yeah that's great man like so what were you doing before that if not the decathlon well um High School I was just doing pole vault and I would long jump and high jump every once in a while and then I started training for decathlon in college and then I was just redshirted freshman year then we had covid right and then we weren't able to really practice for the rest of my freshman year yeah and then sophomore year I was competing indoor season and and indoors we do the heptathlon which is seven events instead of ten and so I did two heptathlons and by the last heptathlon my body was just destroyed and I went into outdoor season carrying a lot of injuries over and then I got really like I I um I fell during practice over a hurdle and I messed up my ankle but then I kept training on that and I um I overused my other leg and pulled my hamstring and so I wasn't able to compete really outdoor season of my sophomore year okay yeah that's one of the things like um you know I had a I had a coach when I was playing rugby like I you know sprained my ankle pretty badly and and he said that it's almost better just to break a bone than to do a sprain because you're always going to try if it's a broken bone you're just in a cast and you can't do anything about it it's just like you have to rest and then there's no there's no going back there's there's a time limit whether there's a certain time frame with a sprain you you always want to come back you're like oh it's good enough it's good enough and you come back when you're you're not quite ready to come back and then you end up injuring that again or injuring something else in compensation and then you end up like just sort of stacking on these injuries and increasing the timeline on when you actually get back and it's uh it can be very frustrating yeah exactly yeah so um so we we've been talking on uh Instagram and things like that um you know for the last couple of months and um you know you were interested in in a carnivore diet and how this could could help your training performance which I uh you know obviously I'm a big proponent of and think that it's very very helpful in athletic Endeavors what got you interested in a carnivore how have you even come across it because it's really not you know mainstream at the moment and uh and then what made you you want to give it a shot yeah so um I was really struggling with some gut health towards the summer after my sophomore year so right after I injured my hamstring really badly and then I actually re-injured my ankle that I like injured during hurdles and I found out that I had an OCD lesion in my ankle so I was in a boot for a little while and they were giving me like ibuprofen and so I was taking ibuprofen and all of a sudden like I didn't re I didn't relate the two yet but I would like wake up over the summer and I like wouldn't be able to eat breakfast my stomach was just hurting so bad and also like my breakfast was like oatmeal and just like stuff that was just tearing up my intestines and I didn't even realize it yeah and so I was I was trying to recover my body and I had really low energy and I wasn't feeling very good and I was just like what what's going on I went and got my blood tested at the doctors and everything was fine and um so I I just struggled through it and then I was watching a podcast one time and some guy was talking about the carnivore diet it was just like his diet he was eating carnivore that and I was like that sounds super weird I'm gonna look more into it though because I got nothing else to lose I can't really operate as it is right now so I might as well give it a shot yeah and then so when did you actually uh so when was this like in like sort of what month in the year and because it was fairly recently yeah so about I want to say like five months ago okay I'm trying to see I think yeah so around like January February sort of thing yeah yeah I um it was like halfway through my indoor season and I was struggling with hamstering pain and I was like I wasn't able to really train hurdles because it was my lead leg okay and so I was getting a huge stretch in my hamstring and it would just give me so much pain and I couldn't screen on that and it was really frustrating because I was spending like two hours a night just stretching and trying to make my body feel good and then I would like wake up in the morning and do like Physical Therapy drills and exercises to make my hamstring feel good and then I would go to practice and I would go over one hurdle and then it would just hurt like crazy and I couldn't do anything yeah so yeah yeah so something had to change anyway like um what when did when did you end up like just actually going full on with the with the diet so that was four months ago from about today I think so because I started initially I was I had finished my first step to Teflon of the year and I was going to compete in the conference at Teflon and I didn't want to make an extreme diet change right off the bat yeah so I I was misled as well into thinking that I could still eat fruit with meat and so I was trying to do the fruit and meat diet and um I it didn't really feel like much changed when I was eating fruit and meat and um but I got through the rest of my indoor season and then I started my outdoor season and right after the conference meet is when I went to full Carnival carnivore nice and what what sort of changes did you notice them so initially I um I went through like that like keto flu phase you know where your body's like trying to adapt to burning more fat and creating more mitochondria and I had a big salt imbalance and as well so initially it was like I was feeling a little sluggish but then like after a week I started getting like crazy amounts of energy yes and I was like I was going to practice and I was just I just felt so I felt so amazing yeah nice um the hamstring pain that I had constantly had been it like went away it was really it was really cool yeah that's awesome and like and that was with the no carbs whatsoever so that was that was after the the the fruit phase yeah yeah that's good yeah like uh yeah that's the thing like you know obviously you know there are people that like eating fruit and they can go ahead but um I I've certainly noticed in my own performance that just no cars whatsoever like I just performed so much better I have so much more energy and biochemically it makes perfect sense because you know you're eating carbohydrates you're jacking up your insulin your insulin stays up but then your blood sugar goes down because that's what insulin does it dries your blood sugar down and then all of a sudden you're low blood sugar and insulin's staying up for a long time and so now you can't mobilize your fat stores which it which is your body's Natural Energy Supply so why would why would you block that off and so I found that yeah I have bottomless energy I could just go go and and I do now and uh whereas I eat any carbs even milk I I love milk but like even even then it has enough lactose that like I'll feel good for like a little bit and then I'll get like super drowsy and tired and like I do not want to work out I don't want to do anything yeah yeah and uh yeah it was really interesting I um so I went like full carnivore for like a month or a month and a half and then I I wanted to try incorporating like goat's milk yogurt um and I also wanted to like try incorporating a little bit of honey and fruit again just to see what would happen and like immediately the next day I had like my hamstring was messed up yeah and it was it was so annoying that I was like why did I do this I knew this was gonna happen yeah yeah so I I like just I actually fasted after after that and it like cleared out of my system pretty quickly and then my hamstring was back to normal that's curious yeah yeah yeah my my brother had his own thing he was um you know he had some like Whiplash using like a bit of a car accident and uh you know nothing major but he had very bad pains shooting down his like both arms for like a year or more and it was very bad it was you know it was um you know causing problems and his his life you just couldn't function normally and he was in a lot of pain um he ended up getting like a procedure to sort of like burn off some of these these nerve you know and and that helped with one side but then they're like oh yeah you have to wait six months to get the other side down he's like are you out of your damn mind like hurts um he ended up going carnivore like I sort of early on when I was doing this but like didn't tell me about it because he didn't want to like like start it and then like stop and like have me like you know give him [ __ ] about it and um so he just tried it and he he went for a month and you know he lost like 20 pounds felt great and then like the pain was gone so now he had no pain and this was like debilitating for probably a year and a half at that point where he was you know having you know really having problems with it and it was just gone you know no procedure no nothing and so yeah it makes it makes a big difference with like inflammation and the pain that you experience you know you may have like a bit of an injury or something but you you it won't hurt as bad it won't debilitate you as badly if if you're not eating all these things that cause more inflammation you know yeah yeah yeah so I think that's a good good example or just demonstration that those things you're eating like the fruit and the honey and you know even Dairy some for some people will increase inflammation you know and it and it will cause problems um yeah that's funny like yeah like I like how you said you know you got to you know misled into it but it is though you know because like you know if people make good arguments on why you can do it and uh and that then that's fine um you know I just I obviously disagree but not in like a like I hate you sort of way I just like you know I just I'm just looking at things differently and and in my own experience I've certainly noticed the difference and and that's what I think the the evidence shows as well but there are so many people who who listen to that and I think a lot of it is just like oh I get to eat something sweet now I'm gonna get to eat honey and fruit it's enjoyable you know people like it and like no wonder it's a drug people like drugs and like being justified and you know taking a drug even you know something as subtle as sugar you know people are people go for it and you know there's some people that that can deal with that fine and uh and not have a problem and not go out of control but there's a lot of others that that will have problems from it and I think that you know you being like you know top athlete as well like you're going to notice pretty quickly you know how this is how this is affecting your body and so you know other other people might not you know and uh and so for you like doing your training and you're feeling great and all of a sudden like there's an actual you know visual step in you know that's a good that's a good marker that you could uh see that and just go nope no more yeah yeah it's it's almost like they're just looking for an excuse to go back to eating sugar yeah I even felt like Cravings after I reincorporated that just for a little bit I was like really feeling a craving for something and I was like this is not good like yeah yeah well because it is man you know I mean that's the thing like you know sugar is addictive like you know fructose is addictive you don't need it it's not essential and it's not good for you now if you're if your glycogen is depleted is that it's actually a quick way to replenish your your liver's glycogen as well but you know that's in the context of of eating carbohydrates in the first place because if you're not eating carbohydrates at all whatsoever your body will constantly replenish your glycogen in your liver and in your muscles and so you never have to worry about that but if you're eating carbohydrates then yeah you're you're in your blood sugar and your glycogen are just you know swinging up and down and up and down and up and down you you bang in some fructose manuals and it raises up your uh glycogen stores it's very good for that but you don't need it like if you're not eating carbohydrates at all like you're really curtailing yourself and you're really screwing yourself and it's addictive you know so it's like like what are you doing you know people say it's like well you know honey you know comes from bees it's like yeah but it's bee vomit you know and like and it's you know and they're vomiting nectar which is from a plant and so you know you know like cows chew cud and uh so they're just you know chewing you know they they eat grass and then that partially digests that puke it up into their own mouth very graphic sorry and and then they chew on that more you know if you take that out and eat that and be like oh God yeah it's just it's just part of the cow it's an animal product I'm not not quite you know it's not hasn't quite been turned into an animal yet and that's and that's the key difference there so yeah I'm not going to be eating cow vomit and I'm not gonna be eating bee vomit like I just no thank you yeah but um when you were saying like your body will just create the glycogen I thought my like my body when I switched to carnivore got better at creating glycogen through protein and fat synthesis and you have fat stores on your body you have protein stores as muscle on your body you're going to be able to create as much glycogen as you want as you need like for as long as you walk until you run out of muscles but that's not going to happen no no it's not yeah you're right and you're absolutely right and you won't even you won't even tap into your your muscle stores as long as you still have fat like you don't start yeah so you don't you don't start like you know muscle wasting until you you've actually you're actually starving and you and you've run out of fat stores which is very hard to do very very hard to do you know when I was your age and I was doing this initially and I just I didn't know what I what I was doing um and to the extent of what I was doing as just eating a carnivore diet and that was you know our optimal nutrition I just knew plants were trying to kill me and they were poisoned I'm not I'm just I wasn't going to eat them and um you know but I didn't know about you know my Hunger signals I didn't know that those would change I didn't realize you had to get a lot of fat um I still like fat you know but I tended towards you know leaner things just because that was that was what everyone everyone was saying at the time half people still are saying at the time but uh they're wrong and um and you know I I didn't eat sometimes for days at a time and I I was training to and sort of an absurd degree you know I was I was in I was in college and I would I would I had class until three o'clock and then at 3 30 I was in my you know Collegiate rugby uh training and then that would I would train until you know sort of like you know six six thirty and then I go straight to my you know my my men's training and for the for a senior division that we played in the Canadian Premiership and uh USA division one um and and the super league and so we we trained them from seven to like 10 o'clock at night and then I'd go to the gym and so it was like you know it was you know six to eight hours of training every single day and then I'd play like a game for University of Washington a game for Seattle and then I'd get in on like the second side games as well just because I just I just loved playing I just wanted to play play play play play so I would play at least two games a weekend if not three and sometimes I play these games and I just be like that wasn't enough for me like I I that wasn't even a workout like I needed to do more I need to go running and um even at that high of a level there were there were days actually multiple days in a row that I wouldn't even eat because I wouldn't think about it because I was just never hungry in the tradition in the way that I always felt hungry before and I remember I remember once like I was I I had sort of finished up a bit early and so I was like oh okay yeah you know I have time to cook because I would get home so late I would just I just need to go to bed I would just pound down some water and just go to bed I often skip dinner and I wouldn't have time to eat breakfast or lunch during the day and so if I didn't eat at night I didn't eat and and one day I got back sort of with enough time to cook and I was just saying I was like oh yeah I can cook oh that'd be great I'm gonna make all this meat and eggs and things like that and I was just like yeah yeah I know I should definitely eat because like you know I didn't eat yesterday I didn't eat the day before did I eat the day before you know I couldn't remember I was just I was like Jesus I was like four days in a row that like I didn't eat any food and like I was I was pretty trim already like I I didn't have like a lot of extra fast forward I mean this is you know this was a year or two into doing carnivore and and training like that all the time and so I was I was very lean and I could just do that I could just go you know days and days and days at a time without even realizing I needed to eat eventually caught up with me I was not eating enough and eventually I started you know every every training that I would go to I would feel better I'd feel stronger I'd feel fitter every single time and then all of a sudden it hit the point where I was just like every single time I trained it actually took me down a notch I felt like oh I'm actually not as good now I'm a little worse and and that was a bit bit weird I finally figured out like I'm just really not eating enough I actually need to give my body more energy but you know that just just goes to show like how much energy stores we have and you know like um you know running them even like a marathon or even like an ultra marathon like you you will have enough fat stores you know and and as long as you have fat stores in your body's you'll be able being able to you know make ketones and glycogen and and uh and and blood sugar you're not gonna it's not gonna tap into your muscles so you actually won't lose um you won't lose muscle mass you know and um and so which which is great and and you're right like you're you your body makes this stuff yourself you don't need to take any of this stuff in and when you take it in it just derails the whole process so yeah like you you know you you not only get better at making energy when you don't eat carbs like you stop yourself from being able to mobilize energy when you eat carbs so yeah it makes a huge difference in athletic performance people don't just don't realize yeah and in the in the decathlon it's like usually like seven hours or more in a day of competition and it's two days right in a row yeah and so a lot of guys are out there like after a few events they're gonna be like drinking a Gatorade and then like eating some like multixtures like Gatorade Chews or something like that or like a protein bar and they're like constantly just pouring carbs down their mouth and like I was I was the same I I would like bring an applesauce jar with me and just constantly like drink applesauce the whole day yeah and like I like this was the craziest thing I realized with carnivore diet is after the first day of competition so for indoor season for the head tap on you do four events one day and three events the next day so I did four events and I woke up and I was so sore I was so tired and I just felt like so sluggish I was like oh my gosh I got three more events I gotta do like I need to get through this and then I switched to the carnivore diet and did my first decathlon and I did five events one day woke up the next morning and I felt amazing yeah like I felt I felt no different I felt like I was like oh I I don't even know if I did anything hard on day one yeah and then day two we we go again and I feel great the next morning and we actually had an airplane flight that left like super early so I only got three hours of sleep that night and I woke up and I felt like I could have gone again yeah so that was like huge it's just the recovery aspect yeah absolutely and did you notice that in your in just your training leading up to the these events like how were you how was that going yeah no it was it was going really good I was running better just like I think having more mitochondria activated and utilizing more fat I was able to just create more energy for longer I also think that like when you eat meat because I wasn't eating very much red meat I was eating a lot of chicken before yeah and so now I'm eating like only steak ground beef and like eggs and bacon and stuff like that I you're getting so much more iron you're going to build so much more red blood cells you're gonna just improve cardio like crazy yeah yeah absolutely and um did other people on your team and your coaches notice the difference and and talk to you about that I I feel like they've had to yeah I know a lot of my friends um were like coming up to me and being like man like you're getting so trim like what are you doing you know because like I I used to be like I would be pretty big and I was around like 210 like 210 pounds and it was like puffy muscle you know it wasn't really like it wasn't as cut as lean you know and then I go on the carnivore diet and I lost about like 10 pounds of just water weight and like that like carb the excess carb weight that you like hold on to yeah my my strength actually improved and my weight decreased so then that like strength to weight ratio yeah is still beneficial for running and jumping yeah and so like I got faster I was jumping higher I like I weighed less and I felt like I I just felt amazing yeah yeah I mean that's that's a that's a very well-known thing you know you get stronger but you get lighter as well you will get faster like if your leg strength improves you know your deadlift your squad you're you're your sprinting ability will improve and you know so it's this it's this balance between getting stronger but also getting bulkier and and gaining weight because you can kind of offset uh your your performance in in sort of you know speed and and explosiveness there was a guy I can't remember his name he's very he's a very uh you know well-known and well regarded uh trainer he works with like the top you only work with like the top eight uh prospects for the NFL and they're like working for like like eight weeks and he'll just do this whole big program and he I guess these guys like drop their 40 time like significantly there was like this this uh quarterback he dropped from from like a 5040 down to a 4-5 you know it's like a quarterback you know it's just hauling ass and um one of the main things was was getting that strength to weight ratio up and and he did that specifically with a hex bar deadlift and um you know just just lifting up and then dropping you know if you if you you there's a difference between The Eccentric and concentric uh lifting phase is one of them just you know sort of tightens up the muscles and strengthens them up the other sort of as your you know as you're you're sort of decrease or sort of lengthening your muscle but still under tension it can it can sort of tear those muscles out at a microscopic level the actin molecules are sort of bound in and then they sort of are still engaged but then you're sort of ripping them apart that's the thought and and that will create more strength but also hypertrophy and so he was just doing you know the one just you know just the the the contraction phase of the lift and then just dropping and you keep doing that and you'll Prime yourself up so you won't actually wear yourself down so you can actually do this more often and you found that just doing that um would Prime you up as well and Prime up your your actin fiber so that more of them were engaging at the at the same time so you'd be more explosive and he found that these guys if they did a few sets of these sort of like six to eight rep range like four sets of that just lifting up and then dropping that they're in 40 times would improve as well and uh so it's sort of counterintuitive you know because you're like you feel like you're wearing out your legs but in fact you're actually priming them up and getting them getting them ready to go so um yeah that's a that's a very good um point that like you're losing weight but you're also gaining strength you know that's absolutely gonna you know uh turn into explosive uh performance you know um so I was going to say um you just got done with Nationals which again congratulations you know finishing uh you know uh top of the Big Ten sixth in the nation uh going into Nationals and uh you know tell us about about your experience there and how you felt uh um you know in those events yeah Nationals are good everything everything was going good and my body felt strong and I I didn't feel fatigued and everything was going good until pole vault on the second day and I didn't I didn't jump a bar I I scratched three times so that's a little tough but it wasn't like physical like my body was not holding me back which is awesome yeah because I saw I saw on it I just had a quick look through I didn't I didn't um see all the events but like you know some of them like you you were finishing like well up there I think in the 100 you finished uh fifth place is that right so you're like you know top five in the nation and that and like you know so your your numbers were actually very high you were very very um you know competitive um and I think you were saying that like if you had you know made your height on the on the pole vault you would have you finished for you know top 10 top eight sort of thing yeah for sure for sure yeah well I mean dude that's absolutely fantastic and like you're a young guy you've only just sort of got into this you've only just started the decathlon you know I mean that's that's pissed off a lot of people they've been doing this their whole life you know and um it was like a happy I think it was like Happy Gilmore sort of line where he was just like you know he came down you know you know how happy you're more of that movie it's an old old yeah and he was just like um it was like golfing he's like you know beating all the pros and he's like you know the sad part of this is you've been doing this your whole life you know and um you know that's the thing like you you know you are a young guy and you're obviously very talented athlete or you wouldn't have you know gone to the position that you are in the first place and now adding on you know these dietary changes you know which you you've seen make a huge difference in your life and I've certainly noticed that as well uh in my life and my performance I you've got you know I mean you got two years left I mean that's I honestly would would be shocked if fifth like you know uh you weren't on a Wheaties box at the end of all this yeah it was like you're just gonna get you're just gonna get better and better as you go and like you know I I noticed when I was doing this because you know when I was training at that level I I would I would just push myself as hard as I could every single time no matter what I was doing what you know every Sprint even the warm-up lap I was in my head I was like I'm gonna be the first person I'm gonna win every single Sprint every single you know drill everything I'm going to be at the front every single time and at first I could sort of maintain that but I would sort of fall off other people be dogging it for a while and then they really go after it like on the sixth sort of one or whatever maybe I'd lose for the first few weeks but then like because I was pushing myself as hard as I could every time eventually I could I could beat everyone on everything every time and and that was just in my head like this is what I'm gonna do every single time I'm gonna be first I'm gonna win every single time so even only one-up lap and like some of the the guys who were going with they sort of like noticed that that's one of the guys who's like you know one of the faster guys on the team you play sort of like a wide receiver uh you know Wing position he just sort of like was like testing me he just started like you know running and I just like I was just gonna stay six inches in front of him and you go and he's like like going going and I was just I just passed him I was like you are not [ __ ] passing me you know and like it was just a warm-up lap but that that's how how competitive I was I was just like I'm going to be uh you know you know number one every single time and because I did that week after week month after month you know for for you know I mean it only took like a year to get well it only took a few months to really get you know a past sort of my peers but then I just kept pushing myself you know I got to the point where I literally could not get tired and and like I would train all those hours as as hard as I possibly could and I could not get tired and that's when I was playing these games you know very very physical games you know for an hour and a half and I'm I'm making a lot of tackles making a lot of runs a position I played over the side flank or you know was one of the more uh physically demanding positions on the field and you're doing the most running the most contact the most tackled and you know hitting most rocks and and I just I would not I wouldn't even break a sweat and I'd be like after the game and be like I I've got to go run I've got to go do something you know and everyone else is like wiped out and you know I honestly felt that I could like literally Sprint a marathon you know but I was like I didn't because I I was basically doing that on a regular basis because of how much I was running and how much I was doing and I remember like thinking I was just I should really just enter a marathon and just Sprint it you know like but it sounded like probably one of the more boring things you could ever do just like just running for 26 miles and so I never really like looked into it but I was like well if there's if the marathon shows up in Seattle like I'll go do it but then you know I wasn't really looking for it and I I regret it because I remember thinking at the time I was like I should really do this because I will never be in this good of a shape again in my life and I never will be and so I missed my opportunity there but you know you're you're right in that position now and and you have a an advantage too because you know it you know you actually know that you know you you're on this this diet there's a that's a huge leg up like you're already you know nationally competitive without this and now you've got this massive Advantage where all these these guys are taking the same advice you know from well-meaning trainers and coaches but it's wrong you know that they should be eating carbs and just loading up on carbs carbs carbs carbs carbs and they're really hurting their performance and you know you're on the other side of that and you know you keep training you know I don't know what you got what you tend to do on the off season but you know for me there was no off season I was I was playing 15s and then sevens I just I would just go year after year after year after year I basically got two weeks off at the end of 15s before seven started and two weeks off after seven four fifteen started so I was just going the whole time and and as a result you know my my fitness and performance just got ridiculous and um I don't know if that's what you plan to do but either way like you keep pushing yourself and and doing that same thing where you push yourself as hard as you can for everything you know every single drill every single thing you do you just push it you put everything into it you are going to absolutely blow these people out of the water it will get to a point that your peers will not be able to keep up they just they just will not be able to perform with you or even train with you it just will be such a disparity and if you're pushing and keep pushing like it just it just goes man you know and and like you talk about the you talk about the um you know the recovery phase that just gets better like and you can you can keep you can keep going because you know the fitter you get and the more in shape you get like the quicker it is to recover from from these workouts because they're not that big of a workout anymore you know and then you just have to push yourself pushing so like an eight hour training day maybe before it was just like oh wow that was a good workout after a few weeks of that it's just like yeah that's just normal a few weeks out more after that it's just like this isn't enough I need to do more and so you know it's um it's it's absolutely incredible I I don't know I'm just getting like pumped up right now I'm just thinking about you know like how badass this is gonna be for you because like you know you know you're going in you're like yeah this is my diet this is what I'm gonna do and I'm gonna like train like like a beast and just kill it because I cannot wait to see it man yeah and that was that was the thing too is like freshman year I was like just attacking everything you know but then then I would just get injured and then I would just get better attack everything and then get injured again and I was it was so frustrating yeah and then sophomore you're the same thing like I would be lifting heavy in the gym I'd be running workouts hard but then I would just be I kept Contracting all these injuries you know and so like it it started like changed my mindset where I was starting to like kind of like shy away from going too hard and I think that was that's like that's what really like makes some people like lose it you know like and so now that I'm back like feeling amazing on this carnivore diet I'm able to like attack every workout without the fear of getting an injury yeah and it's it's only going to go up from here yeah absolutely um you know you you can still over train um but like you really you really have to try like you know it's like I think the only the only time on a carnivore diet that I actually over trained and started like straining muscles and getting uh tendonitis was when I was um I just put it to the test because I didn't really feel like I needed like a rest day and so I would normally sort of do like workout workout like Monday Tuesday Thursday Friday maybe do like legs or something like an extra leg day on like Wednesday or or on the weekend and um but normally I had like rugby throughout the week so that's how that's how I normally spaced it out but then when I was I was getting back into it after I just started carnivore and I wasn't even in like great shape that was actually I was in horrible shape when I started it but then like I started like just getting back into lifting um after that and um I was just I was just recovering recover and I could just do more and more sets I couldn't wear myself out sort of you know I told the story before but like you know I I I wasn't getting sore and I didn't know why and I just figured I was like it wasn't working out hard enough so I like I just started doing squats and just like it was like okay I'm just gonna keep doing squats until I wear my legs out and I know that I've gotten like a big workout I ended up doing uh 12 sets of heavy heavy legs and then I did an extra 20 sets of squats on top of that and like I could not wear my legs out you know I was taking I was taking rest I was taking a significantly like a few minutes in between set so I was I was getting to you know recovering but I was recovering pretty quickly and and then I was just doing it and as long as I gave myself I'm you know a few minutes to rest I could just keep going I could just keep going and I was doing the same weight and like I remember I did like 15 reps to failure on my first set and I did 13 on my last set you know so it really wasn't like that much of a dip and so and I remember thinking I was just like okay well you know I've been here I was literally there for four hours I'm like okay I need to cut this off you know but I couldn't wear out my legs and so you know I wasn't sore and I felt great I felt like I could keep doing that and and so I was just like all right well let's just start doing that so I started I started capping it at 20 sets and so I started doing like 20 sets of everything and above the major compound list so like you know squats deadlifts bench uh shoulder press um dips those I would all do 20 sets of those and I do you know like sort of the you know three to six sets of whatever else uh but I would always I would do 20 sets of these things and instead of just doing like the same workout Monday and Thursday and sort of getting like a couple days rest I would do the Monday Tuesday and then just start right back on you know on you know Wednesday Thursday so it was every I basically had I was every other day I was doing uh you know the same muscle groups and um and I was doing 20 sets of them you know and um and eventually I did this for a few weeks I think this I don't know like two three weeks of this no days off absolutely no rest days at all seven days a week the whole time and then going alternate days on these lifts and eventually I got the point where I laid down to do bench I'm like yeah feeling great all of a sudden I'm like oh oh what's that and it was just painful and you know I hadn't I hadn't actually you know majorly injured myself but it was just it was just tendonitis and it just hurt it was sore and so I had to like I had to slow down and I had to sort of um uh you know sort of recuperate that but it you know it was it was you know sore for a couple weeks is painful for a couple weeks um so quick probably compared to what you would have been absolutely yeah and it never hurt unless I was like trying to do bench like it just it was just like okay and and so yeah it absolutely recovered far better yeah like normally like tendonitis is an absolute [ __ ] and you know people can struggle with that for for months or even have it turn it into a chronic issue and it just just always you know plagues them for you know a couple years and yeah so so mine it resolved in a couple weeks but um you know then I knew I was like okay all right so there is a limit you know but uh but it's way out there you know and as long as you know I swear I went back to sort of the the four days a week thing uh with the same muscle groups and just giving myself a proper uh time to rest but still doing 20 sets and at that at that pace like I never had a problem um so like yeah so like you know it's so crazy to be doing that much yeah yeah well you know the difference being that like you know I'm not going I'm not you know trying to be a hero and just you like you know one rep max and just you know just break some you know PR on that I I don't really care I have no idea what my one rep you know Max is on any lift because I just don't do that and uh you know it can be it can be quite hard on your joints and you know that's when you're sort of toying with with injury is you just you're just pushing yourself just a little bit past what your body can do and that's when something something snaps and so you know you get into the you know everyone's there everyone sort of argues a different thing but anywhere from the 8 to 12 rep range you know you're probably okay you know you're just going to going to failure I know a lot of people now uh in the bodybuilding industry are actually advocating for the 15 rep uh range to failure and that and that is actually uh giving them better benefits than you know the the lower uh rep higher weight uh days that they did before so yeah I mean you can you can see like Ronnie Coleman was a high weight low rep guy yeah he's destroyed now which is so sad but yeah you can see like other guys who are now doing like the 15 reps are staying healthy into old age yeah exactly and and just yeah just protecting your joints and your joint health is like it's so important you know you got you've got one body you know you trash it you know you know that's it um yeah I remember I was looking up uh some of the old school bodybuilders like uh Serge nubrey and um was it giordia I forget his name okay I can pronounce his name but but these guys were actually carnivores you know they were doing they were just steak and eggs and these guys were jacked and this was this was before sort of the year of massive amounts of of steroids you know I mean maybe they were taking some stuff I don't know but this was this was before like the massive injection of of uh of juice and you know like Newberry was uh he was eating like six pounds of horse meat a day yeah my sister Beast you know like I remember seeing uh you know iron like the Arnold Schwarzenegger in his last run for Mr Olympia or whatever and nuber actually came in and and got second place in that and I remember looking at that I'm like that guy is way more Jack than Arnold like that guy should have won and they don't tell you who that guy is but he was he's a you know very very famous uh uh bodybuilder and in the movie they said oh yeah he was this uh you know actors french actor just came across for this and I was like he became an actor just like Arnold became an actor because he was a famous bodybuilder you know so they just like just downplayed him completely oh yeah he's just some you know just just some actor something like that in fact he was Arnold Schwarzenegger's like body Idol you know he uh he he was his body image Idol he wanted to be like him because like Newbury was like 20 years older than him so when Arnold won that last time I think he was like 26 and new Bray was like in his late 40s and dude was still react Jack absolutely yeah and and and he beat uh Lou Ferrigno Lou Ferrigno came third you know the Hulk and um and like and he beat him I honestly think he he was better than Arnold you know I just think that was clear and he's like 20 years older than him yeah you know and um his his workout routine was like 12 sets of 12. you know with 30 seconds rest you know and so he just yeah he just kill himself and then for upper body and then for lower body he would do only one minute rest and um you know so so maybe he's not working to failure on his first several sets to 12. you know um that's a good way that he can sort of sort of do that but um but eventually he's just he's struggling to sort of get these 12 reps out and by the time he's done 12 of these you know he's he's uh you know really really working especially with with the low uh or the small amount of of rest time that he has and that's something that I've sort of been playing around with now I that's basically the only way I can wear myself out is by just not letting myself rest yeah yeah and I mean it makes sense because like our our Primal ancestor like you don't get time to rest it's whatever happens happens you have to be ready for it yeah yeah and if you don't you're dead you know okay yeah and like yeah you you take down you know line takes down a gazelle or something like that and then a pack of hyenas come in you don't get a chance to catch your breath you know I don't know you yeah yeah that's it and uh no yeah that's that's um yeah that's funny um so what are your plans now like uh for off season what do you intend to do yeah so I actually um I got invited to compete in another decathlon ah this one's it's the it's called the Thorpe cup it's a USA versus Germany nice and so that's happening in July so I'm really excited for that oh bad ass where's that at that's going to be in Texas okay yeah and where's that and like what are the dates and is this going to be televised um I don't know if it's televised but it's July I think eighth to the ninth um in like uh Saint Mark's it's like a private high school or something in Houston okay cool all right yeah nice I'll actually be in in um in Austin that weekend yeah it's like a ketocon thing yeah so it's funny and uh now that's cool and so is that is that that is that the last competition uh for the season then or is there more after that yeah yeah so like my Collegiate season Nationals was the last one and then like this is like kind of like on my own yeah I'm going to compete with USA and then after that we're I'm off for like two months and then start training again for preseason yeah awesome what what do you plan to do for those those two months you get fine to keep training or what are you gonna do yeah no for sure I'm gonna I'm gonna take like maybe a week just to recover and take a break and then get back at it I want to lift a lot this summer yeah nice looking forward to that yeah um so this this the scene with with the US um versus Germany is that is that part of uh the the Olympic program or what is that um I it's through usatf which is USA Track and Field yeah um yeah I'll be representing Team USA but I don't think it's through I don't think it's through like the Olympic Committee or anything like that yeah that's badass though yeah yeah that's awesome um and what how does this work as far as as far as like that goes with like the Olympics and things that is that something that you are thinking about and wanting to go for oh yeah I mean I would love to go and the the thing is you have to hit an Olympic standard Mark to be able to go and that would be 8 350 points okay so I'm really only 300 points away yeah absolutely yeah so I'd have to do that and then at Olympic trials you have to come in top three right and then you'll be on the team so 2024 or 2028 those are the two marks to go for dude I I yeah I I I'm really excited for you because like I think I mean you're just gonna be you're gonna be well in your stride by that time like you know next year you're gonna hit your stride 100 you know because like you'll you'll be doing this you know for for six months to a year in the diet side of things and your body is just going to be tuned in completely and then just like you know just just putting in the hard work and just you know just just working you know hard as as you have been and then realizing that you can actually push it even more and just seeing what your body can do for you I you're just gonna you're just gonna it's gonna be just Rocket Fuel Man yeah because like I'm only four months in like yeah I'm so excited to see where like one year two years I'll be yeah yeah I was um for me you know my I mean I felt amazing just just two weeks into it you know and I could do a lot more um and I felt just great I could do I looked like you know you know fat piece of crap but like I was just running sprinting and you know athletically I was all there but like you know um you know after I think six months that's when like everything everything just sort of stabilized you know my my body fat percentage got you know stable I was sort of you know when I was training and really pushing it was around six percent um it always stays below 10 though like no matter no matter what I'm doing but there'd be slight variations like if I'm working out really really hard and doing a lot of uh you know Sprints and rugby stuff I'll get absolutely you know very very lean um and um you know but but I'll stay you know pretty lean otherwise and you know I have I have these these pictures on um Instagram things like that that people you know um have commented on like you know that you know that I'm probably on steroids or I'm on there I'm doing this at the other and it's like the funny thing is I hadn't even worked out in like two months in those pictures you know and it's like and like people are talking about like how it must be you know like juicing and things like that I'm like I'm maybe I haven't been going to the gym you know like am I just gonna sit in my basement just you know shooting steroids and like not working out like that makes absolutely sense you know just people don't just don't get it like it's all diet you know the diet really does it for you and then and then everything else is a product of your diet you know because your body is going to be working optimally or it's not and uh when it's running optimally like you can just do so much more with it it's it's crazy how like optimized your hormones become when you start eating fat because that was one thing I noticed when I was like on my before I started the carnivore diet and I would be like feeling low energy and then I would eat bacon in the morning and I just feel great for the rest of the day yeah and I was like I was like talking to people and I was like oh like I don't I don't know because like bacon is fat and like I had this old mindset which is completely wrong that oh fat is bad so yeah I had this like bad mindset but I just felt amazing when I ate bacon yeah and then I got on Carnivore and I think that first like week of straight carnivore I was craving so much fat I was like just I would eat ground beef and like have a bowl of Talon next to me and like scoop out and just eat it like my body was just like we need we need more we need more it is just like a reset my fat stores I think yeah yeah well and that's the thing like you know when you're actually giving your body what it needs and it realize like oh my God you can we can have this like let's do more yeah yeah and you see some people that um you have struggled with their weight and have tried all these different sort of women you know different different diets and and restrictions and you know and do things in quite a harmful way that really jacks up their their metabolism and uh and slows it down significantly they end up doing this and their body is the same thing they're like oh thank God you know just get get it more and and so their hunger is just just through the roof and you'll have this you know this this you know little you know uh woman who is uh you know overweight but you know short small and they're like eating like three and a half pounds of meat a day like fatty like rib eye every day and uh and and at a certain point they they're actually gaining weight because their body's just like no we need this like you've you've screwed with us too long like we're not we're not taking a chance anymore and then eventually something just just clicks in their body just be like okay I trust you now and uh and then all of a sudden they're just their their appetite drops and their body just wants like a pound and a half and then all of a sudden there's the wages just drops right off and yeah but there's something about that when you when you've been depriving your body of these essential nutrients for so long it just needs to catch up and it's just like just just get it in there I think that's hilarious that you're just eating spoonfuls of Tallow that's hilarious like we're like um we see obviously we all thought that that fat was bad um growing up we would avenge every now and then I would catch my mom like we would catch my mom just like eating butter and we're just like Mom what are you doing you know she's like oh god oh you know you get all like scared because she's like sneaking it it's like cut off like you know be buttering something you just like cut off a slice and just like eat it my mom and and uh you know but she just never bought it you know she never bought that the fat was bad and you know her her parents you know ate bacon and eggs every single day they lived to their mid 90s and they should have lived longer they actually um you were sort of uh uh you know mistreated in in a certain sense by their by their doctors they I think they messed up and um and uh and then their their parents like you know especially my grandmother's parents you know like they live to be a hundred they they ate bacon every damn day you know they ate eggs every damn day they ate meat every damn night and so you know my mom just just never bought it you know and um and so you know and she ended up being right you know which is great and um but yeah so seeing that and like freaking out and then like when I was when I was sort of really getting into this you know I would I would melt butter into steaks when I first came to Australia because they were just very lean and I just wanted a fat content and then all of a sudden I was just sort of slicing it off and there's some on the knife so I was just like oh well all right I just stripped it off and just sort of ate it I'm like that's amazing it was just like eating ice it was like ice cream you know it was so good and I was just like damn it and I just started like slicing off with like chugs of butter and just like eating them it was so good and um and that was just because my you know my body really really wanted these things that was even after a year of doing this because it's just that's just so essential and so it just you know the more your body wants certain nutrients the better they taste you know simple as that and so when my body you know really wanted this fat it was just like butter was just like the best thing ever haven't tried with Tallow though but uh you know but I I you know I expected just to taste you know pretty damn good as well oh yeah yeah and I I definitely find that like now that I've gotten through that period I find that like I get to a certain point with the fat where I'm like I don't really need to like force this fat down my mouth anymore you know yeah and like I'm just like and I'm just like okay like I kind of want more proteins instead yeah yeah but that's just like yeah well and that's a good thing too is you just you just you now you know how to listen to your body you know you just do it by taste you know the fastest like oh yeah it's not that interesting anymore but you know that that lean meat like that tastes really good or vice versa you know and and just listening to that I think is yeah it's really is really important that was that was one of the biggest things is like being able to let go of those like hunger signals that were fake yeah and like also not not having to worry about food during competition because that would be something like I would like have class and then go right to practice and I'd be like having to pack myself a lunch and I was like super worried like oh I'm like I gotta eat like an hour before practice like because I don't want to have a full stomach while I'm running and now I just like I I enjoy being hungry going into practice because I know that like that's probably gonna jack up my sympathetic system and I'm gonna be even more like competitive I'm gonna be more aggressive and I'm gonna just feel better yeah yeah I always I always I always played hungry and I was trained hungry I always felt better that way and you know sometimes I'd even feel better you know when eating you know standard diet I would feel better than just even skipping dinner the night before you know I just I just feel better and um and I just did that naturally I just I just noticed that and so now people are doing like intermittent fasting and they're in their scheduling their competition is based on their fasting schedule whereas I just I just sort of felt intuitively better uh when I did that so I just did it you know because I didn't know why it was happening I didn't know what was going on I just knew that I felt better and if I would absolutely never eat during the day of of a competition I would always just feel uh much worse if I did that then I noticed it was just like sort of getting late and um you know I was just like oh I don't think I want to eat this this late because I don't want to eat this close to you know my game and because I just feel very different um and um yeah so it made a huge difference um that's another thing too you know a lot of people like you say you know they're Downing these sugar drinks and Power Bars and and Gatorade and then other people ask me because they do uh you know like uh like larger endurance races you know like like Iron Man uh competitions or long cycling things or or even you know marathons and they all say well what can I eat what can I eat what can I have to eat something I have to eat something or I'm not going to have energy for it you know know um and I try to tell me like you have no fat like it'll be fine so um what's sort of the like the the most competition that you've done in training that you've done um without you know constantly trying to refuel yourself yeah I mean for the decathlons usually like I try to eat like four hours before and like all I eat is like just four eggs that's it yeah and it's like I just do it super light just to like kind of like get something in my system and then I like try to make sure it's four hours before so it's completely like digested by then and then I just compete throughout the whole day and I'm usually not that hungry and um I actually with my dad I made these like these like blocks of pemmican oh nice because I was looking for some type of like snack or something I could use and so we've like we found out like oh Pema can you just like dry meat and then like blend it up and mix fat with it I was like yeah that sounds amazing to me yeah yeah so like maybe I'll have like a few of those yeah like after I've been competing for a few hours but usually it's like I I just try and keep my stomach empty yeah and like there's there's literally been days where I like I like don't eat anything and I just compete or I like I like go to practice and I perform at practice completely fine without any food and I actually I get home and I'm like not really hungry yeah yeah because like my body's just it's just ready to keep going yeah yeah and have you done like a whole whole day of competition in the decathlon without eating at all I have not yet yeah I've enjoyed that yet I should I should try that though but maybe maybe just give it a shot you know I I certainly notice a huge difference I even even in in tournaments so you know when we play um you know for those of for people that know what rugby sevens is uh you play in tournaments so it's like seven minute half so it's 14 minute games but it's just a track meet you're just a dead Sprint the whole time because it's a full-size Rugby field but instead of 15 players you only have seven so it's just it's just nothing but space and so on offense and defense you are just at a dead Sprint and uh it's very tiring but you play multiple games as well and so you can play like six games in a day where you're just a dead Sprint the whole time and I never ate during those things so it'd be the whole day and you're playing you know six games and um you know and and you know you know and somebody you go to Championship rounds and you go you know and play in the finals and things like that you know you're you know you're doing an all-day session and you know you you just have nothing here I always felt better when I didn't eat and I was just like I was so averse to it I remember I think like you know once or twice I sort of had something I always regretted it I always regretted it and um so I certainly found that like you know maybe just you know you know see what works for you like uh you know because obviously you don't want to like change things up too much like on on uh you know game day you know you want to sort of do your routine um but you know maybe just see how you're going with with training with practice and just be like okay I'm just not eating today and just see how you feel you know and then um I noticed one time for practice I ate like three or four burger patties like within an hour of practicing and then at practice I was like super lethargic and I was like I just felt so slow and I didn't really feel like as motivated to like go hard you know yeah well that MBS I think Junior you're talking about the you know the sympathetic nervous system you're parasympathetic and sympathetics you think of this as you know find flight and rest and digest um and or as I think of it you know hunt and kill and rest and digest because you don't have to be like you know fighting fighting um because that's the thing you know you're you're when you're hungry when your body needs food or you know it wants food it's not you know starving or anything it you know it's it's going to be giving you more energy to go and get your kill because you need to expend energy to get energy you know you need to you know spend money to make money sort of thing and so you know you're going to have if you're going to hunt something you're going to run something down you're going to have to physically Beat It To Death you know you're gonna have to expend some energy because this thing's gonna be fighting back at you and you know it's not like you know you don't need much you know strength and tactics to you know you know be the lettuce you know this is like you know we're designed as Hunters you know take down pray and so you know that that's what I think of it is it's like your body's just tuned up to give you the energy and the strength that you need to get your kill and once you've gotten your kill and you started eating that your body goes right shut it down let's not waste energy because if you waste energy in the wild you're gonna die at some point you're gonna you're gonna starve you're gonna you're hit a famine something's gonna happen and you've been just wasting this so you know biologically we are so efficient all animals are so efficient and they've just been tuned in because the ones that weren't have died off you know they've gone extinct and once more like perfectly tuned as well tuned as other things have all died off as well and so you know we we are you know very very well tuned by you know biological machines and you know so I I sort of think it that way you know if I'm if I'm gonna eat my body's just gonna like you know shut down and so I certainly noticed that like if I'm hungry during the day at work and I was just like okay yeah I should eat something I ended up like sort of filling up like I just you know I'm very very tired and sort of lethargic the rest of the day because my body's just like yeah shut it down no we did this we've already done it you know you've got your gazelle like chill out and recover and all that yeah yeah you want to like do a siesta and just like chill out and um you know so like so for competition like I don't want any of that you know and so you know I sort of do it like you know if I were to eat during the day like just at work I do the sort of the same thing I'd eat like something smaller you know and just like just so my body's still like okay that was good but we got to do more but I always I always feel better when I just don't don't have anything and especially as far as uh you know athletic performance is concerned um and um yeah so maybe yeah maybe just play with it yeah that's the thing too is like after you actually eat you get into a deeper state of parasympathetic as well yeah and so you like you feel better then and I think that was one thing is like if you're always trying to like eat a little bit of like sugars and carbs during competition you're always going to be bouncing back and forth between parasympathetic sympathetic you're never like one or the other yeah and so you're never performing at your highest level no yeah and you're also just never going to be able to to organize and mobilize your energy stores you have to keep pulling in energy storage which I think is you know is a bit inefficient to say the least um yeah that was the thing that people you ask me like you know what can I have during a competition one of these big things and I I always recommend pemmican you know because like that's that's that's food you know that's what you know the Native Americans ate um and you know going back you know back to the you know the Mammoth Hunters you know they would take down like a mammoth or like a herd of mammoths and and they would you know they would make you know pemmican and dry these dry these things out and um and they would just live on that for like the rest of the year or more you know and and uh and stuff lasts just forever you know I mean there's like stores that like different armies used to use this these as uh iron rations for their uh for their armies and like um like Napoleon did stuff like that that is where like they they took like cows you just boiled them down I think bovral is what what came from that is this this weird stuff just this black tar which is basically just boiled down cows and and only did that um you know sent someone down to Argentina and just they just you know figured out how to feed the Army and they just had all these cows and they just just bowled them down into this slop and they just they just ate this stuff out of cans and uh and it was just you know fueled uh you know the Napoleonic Wars man and dude did well and um you know and um you know so doesn't you know that's what I tell people and their recipes online I'm sure you know you just you just you probably just you know Google this and you know found stuff that's what I did um but that was one of the things like you know uh with like the carnivore bar which is like like the only thing I've ever like accepted as a sponsor um is is that because it's just femican you know it's just it's just dried meat and fat with a bit of salt you know they have ones with honey which I don't eat you know but like um you know it's not for me but you know that's what I sort of recommend to people is just like you know just just pemmican if you have or just get a carnivore if you don't you know have the timer or the the inclination to make it um but yeah it's just the perfect amount it's just the perfect energy it's perfect food they're very appreciating as well like yeah because that's the big thing is like when I'm traveling with the team I don't know sometimes if there's going to be a steakhouse or a place I can go get burgers right and so sometimes that's a big problem but if I have a lot of Pelican in my bag I'm like I don't care where we go these and I'll be I'll be fine yeah well that's it I I calculated it out once I think if I remember correctly it's a few years since I did this um like three quarters of a pound um of pemmican at 50 50 ratio that's that's normally how you make it like with dried out and uh dried up meat Blended up into like powder form um you weigh that out and then you add an equal amount of of melted beef Tallow to that and um at that ratio uh three quarters of a pound is uh 2 000 calories you know yeah which is crazy yeah it is crazy yeah and so it's just like you're eating you know not that much and you're getting you're getting a full day's worth uh you know uh regimen of calories you know and if you're thinking about like you know traveling like you're saying or or backpacking or hiking I think that that's probably you know the best way to do this is you get like you know 10 pounds of pack weight and you've you've fed yourself perfect nutrition for two weeks you know exactly and so like yeah that's fantastic so yeah that's great that you're making that and like and then being able to like you know bring that with you like I really wish I knew how to make that crap you know back when I was doing this because it was it was more difficult you know like sometimes I just wouldn't eat you know like it wasn't it wasn't things that was just me and I'm like no I'm just I'm just not gonna have anything and so you know but that's the funny thing is like when we if we're out and they're like gonna get like Panera or something with just like bread I'm like yeah I'd just rather not eat in the first place like I'll be fine yeah exactly yeah and then it's like that food Freedom as well is is really yeah nice so awesome yeah because you're not just like you know three times a day oh my God I have to eat and like and then and then like you say like you know if you don't want to eat something be like most most of the time people are just like well I really don't want to eat that that's not really what I want to do but I have to eat something or else I'll just I'll just die and so you know everyone's like now you just be like yeah I'm fine you know I don't need to yeah I need to eat that crap yeah that's awesome um cool man well um uh I'm you know uh just sort of respectful of your time I don't wanna I don't want to like take up your whole day but thank you so much for for coming on man it was really good to talk to you and finally meet you and we've been we've been uh you know messaging each other on on Instagram and oh actually that's where I wanted to ask you we talked about um we talked about uh the fact that you know when you're first doing this you started losing a lot of weight we weren't really able to maintain your weight and obviously the first part of that was you know just like the water weight and the excess you know glycogen and carbs um but then we sort of talked about it and you talked about you know recognizing your hunger signals you know eating more than once a day potentially if that's what your body needed and then you know after that you were able to sort of resolve that can you take us through that a bit because that's something that people struggle with you know getting the right amount of food in especially when they're they're working out a lot yeah yeah I think I think it was mostly like I had this like mindset of like okay I should weigh 210 pounds right and I thought like this is my weight this is how I should be win and then I switched to the carnivore and I I lost that water weight I lost those like fake that fake energy you know that you store with the carbs and all that stuff and so I dropped down to like 195 initially and I was like I was a little worried just because that's like a lot of weight initially but like I still had high energy and I was I was eating like two meals a day pretty much and it would be like breakfast and then dinner and I think like the biggest thing was I would eat and then I would like eat like three pounds of meat in one day and then I'd just be like sitting there kind of like oh man that like a steak kind of sounds good right now but I already ate like so much so I should just like hold off until tomorrow or whatever yeah I think like the biggest thing for me was just like if it looks good eat it yeah yeah okay just listen to your body and like excess meat is not gonna hurt you you're not gonna be able to put on the extra weight you know it's just gonna help you if anything yeah it's very hard to overeat uh meat because it just stops tasting good you know and you know I have you know patients that sometimes will come in and you're asking me you know put them on a carnivore diet and uh uh most people have have a very good time with it every now and then you know someone will come in and be like okay how you know how'd it go you know it's been like you know for like two weeks and they're like I hate it I hate this I hate the carnival ride I hate eating meat you know it's just a struggle every time I just have to force feed myself all this stuff and I just asked him I was just like okay is it is it does it always taste bad you know even at the beginning when you first start the meal is it does it taste bad then as well and they like begrudgingly will be like well no again beginning it tastes really good but then you know I get halfway through it and I'm like and it's just like it's just a struggle and I hate it it doesn't taste good I just have to force feed myself it's just like okay well that that's your body telling you that you can stop you know it's like if it tastes good your body wants it if it stops tasting good your body doesn't need it and it's just and it's telling you that you know oh and so you know like you say if it looks good eat it but if it doesn't don't you know you don't have to you don't have to eat you know your body will know this better than you and if you're not eating carbohydrates you know it'll it will be able to you'll be able to listen to your hunger signals yeah yeah and I think I think another thing too is like as an athlete like I was taking like a whole bunch of supplements and a whole bunch of like vitamins and all that stuff and like I I had this mindset of like okay I need to keep taking those to like benefit my performance but like now that I'm on the carnivore diet like meat has so much creatine in it which is so beneficial not only for your performance but also for like mental and like mental Clarity and like all that stuff yeah and then also I I take this thing called beta alanine which is it like helps your body clear out the free radicals and like stop that burning sensation in your legs but you can also get that from carnosine which is in meat yeah yeah and so like there's like meat is literally the best thing for athletes absolutely yeah so do you take any supplements now or is it is it just meat yeah I I still um will take like a multivitamin and I'll take a like I'll take the beta alanine just because I think like having a lot of that in my system feels good okay and then I still take creatine because I'm like the more the better right I'll just get rid of what I don't need yeah well you can also store water weight though and that and that's one of the things is that um it it it you know makes you makes your muscles uh muscle cells uh just retain water and so yeah you can you can add on extra water weight as well so just you know maybe play around with that because like you know it's um you know like you say like you will you will definitely get enough creatine uh from them that you eat and that was the thing I didn't want to like stop in the middle of my season yeah yeah yeah no that makes sense I'll just I'll just continue doing it and that's fine but yeah yeah you just try with your your um you know trainings you know and just see how you feel because you know if you want to load up back on on on uh creatine that's where you go I mean you know it's that's easy to do but um yeah I've certainly noticed that like you know I'd just be leaner have less water weight and and like be faster and more explosive you know and just like you say you know if you're lighter and stronger you're faster and more explosive and so that's that's one of the things so you you you know see see if if it's making a serious detriment to your strength um that that offsets the Waterway loss but I I would imagine I don't think there's going to be any difference I don't think so yeah probably game so much already I yeah I think that was my biggest fear too is because like decathletes have to pretty much do both like the distance and the sprinting yeah and I I had like there's not much research on athletes on a carnivore diet so I knew like okay yeah like we've seen like performance benefits from people who are like doing like distance Runners as like on keto and stuff like that and like they're benefiting from it and I always had like known like oh yeah it's just because they're utilizing their fat stores but like what about sprinters like I don't know if it's gonna like is it gonna Slow Me Down am I gonna be less explosive and like if anything I feel more explosive absolutely yeah because you're getting like creatine and you're still creating glycogen yeah and and then like you said like you're lighter you're stronger you're gonna be faster yeah yeah absolutely yeah so yeah just see how you go like I certainly feel better without any supplements and you know some of my creatine is usually just creatine but you know other things like certainly like pre-workout or even even uh protein those are just a ton of uh if not sugar than artificial sweetener and that's just oh man I used to I used to like force myself to drink a protein shake like every night before bed and I would just go to my feeling so terrible ugh yeah and I was and like looking back at it I'm like why why'd I even do that like yeah that was not beneficial so many so many sweeteners like the they just they just you know screw it yeah I just I'm not a fan like yeah the uh yeah yeah sorry going no you can go ahead no I was gonna talk about different supplements but go ahead and I'll go for it um but I was gonna say the the thing that I recently started doing was like increasing my electrolytes and I found that to be very very beneficial okay because that's like one thing that like on a normal standard American diet everyone's like I'll avoid salt like that's so bad for you like yeah and well like I knew like okay yeah I gotta I'm gonna have more salt and I always enjoy eating salt anyways so I like heavily salt my meats and then I would still I didn't realize it until I added like extra electrolytes like before bed or before competition that like I started feeling like way better okay nice but it's like that's like one thing just salt or were you taking like uh it's like it's like a scoop of like potassium calcium potassium sodium like I can't remember all of them but yeah yeah does that does that have like artificial sweeteners as well yeah no it's just the electrolytes and no sweeteners so it tastes gross okay yeah like that's also the thing too is like I know if I need it because if I'm drinking it I'm like oh this tastes good yeah yeah it's like salt it's like salty but I think it tastes good that means I needed it yeah yeah and I'm like I can't I just can't do it yeah I don't need it anymore yeah yeah well and that's it you know it's just like that that intuitive sort of eating you know is it it you know you you can just listen to your body um that's one thing I used to love taking uh branched chain amino acids that was I found I found that that made a huge difference when I was you know just eating a normal sort of diet and uh and that would just recharge me I'd feel great and then so I was just like all right well you know do I even need this on a carnivore diet because I'm getting you know tons and tons of protein and everything and I would take it and I feel worse I did not feel as good I did not work out as well and you know part of that's going to be with the artificial sweeteners because that's gonna that that can raise your insulin which is going to shut down your energy mobilization and all of a sudden I wasn't able to work out as hard I wasn't able to do as much I was just like well that's weird and and uh so I try to get some branched chain amino acids that didn't have any artificial sweeteners and it was just just the the aminos oh my God it was horrible like I I think I had I think I had at one time and I've never touched them again it was it actually tasted like I was drinking vomit it was so bad it was like that taste if you you know if you throw up you have that that taste in your mouth that was the taste of branching amino acids without sugar or without the artificial sweeteners it was so bad and I was like I can't do that and I remember getting um and then I was just like you know I I tried to work out but I had a horrible workout too he's like my stomach was just so upset and I just felt so gross that I just drank this stuff and uh and I tried to get like like it in Castle forms so I could just like you know take some capsules and then just not ever have to taste that foul stuff and uh you know so I got some of those but then like I didn't like honestly it just didn't didn't add anything to it you know if anything it just sort of was just like this something sitting in my stomach that I didn't want so like yeah I've um I've cut out all all supplements uh for me you know people do talk about how you know they they need the electrolytes early on and especially when they're first sort of starting and um you know but but eventually you know you should be able to just you know just sort of just do your thing and salt to taste um that's why I certainly have found um and then some people you know talk about how you know having having a bit of salt or a bit of extra electrolytes right before a big competition does seem to help them and that's and that's certainly something to think about and to to play with uh with yourself and like you know if you if you find that that that's giving you a benefit then you absolutely go for it you know yeah and um yeah awesome man well thank you so much uh for taking the time out I know you just got back from Nationals and so you know you're um you've been very busy but uh how do how do people find you and uh you know follow your your uh uh performances um probably just Instagram yeah you score Ryan underscore Talbot underscore that's the handle awesome yeah we'll put that up on the on the show notes as well and um yeah and uh yeah good luck with the uh the the competition in July kick some ass there and um yeah yeah and uh and keep in touch man and we'll uh definitely have to do this again and see how you're doing with your with your training and uh and how you feeling yeah thank you so much awesome no problem man it was a pleasure and uh you know thanks for for reaching out and I'm I'm I hope that that uh you know was able to help you uh in some way and uh that was good it's good to watch you uh kick some ass out there yeah thank you awesome buddy well um yeah all right we'll we'll catch you later man all right see ya [Music] thank you