You Don't Need Carbs to Build Muscle! With Pro Bodybuilder Robert Sykes, the Keto Savage!

welcome to the plant free MD podcast with Dr Anthony chafee where we discuss diet and nutrition and how this affects health and chronic disease and show you how you can use this to optimize your health and happiness both mentally and physically hey guys just want to take a second to thank our sponsor at carnivore bar I don't promote many products because honestly all you need to be healthy is to just eat meat for those times that you're out hiking road tripping or stuck at work and you want nutritious snack that is just meat fat and salt if you want it the carnivore bar is a great option so I like this product not because it's just pure meat but also because I want the carnivore Market to thrive as well and the more we support meat only products the more meat only products that will be available in the mainstream so if this sounds like something you'd like to get behind check it out using my discount code Anthony to get 10 off which also applies to subscriptions giving you 25 off total all right thanks guys hey everyone uh it's uh Dr Anthony chafee I'm here today with a very special guest uh Robert Sykes who is host of the keto Savage podcast Robert how are you hey man I'm new I'm doing good how you doing good good very good um so I I met uh uh Rob over at uh kiloconus here which was great he had me on his uh podcast and then uh yeah lucky enough to be able to go down to Texas and hang out with himself and everyone else and um uh how was your ketocon experience how did you like go in there have you been to a few of those I'm sure yeah yeah so I went to the very first one I've been pretty much every year they've had them you know thereafter and I've always loved ketocon like for me it's just like a big reunion like a family reunion man you get everybody together everybody's eating barbecue in Texas so it's hard to beat for sure yeah that's pretty awesome and um one thing I did see you had your your company uh making those keto bricks as well how long have you been doing that those look those looked uh pretty Savage themselves would be massive things yeah yeah so we we started making those uh for our own personal consumption my girlfriend a Time wife now Crystal we started making those in 2017 uh for my own competition prep and it wound up becoming a product that the people wanted there's a demand for so we started making a company out of it and you know just took it from there to where it is now uh but yeah we've been making those since 2017 I believe we launched a company in 2018. okay cool awesome and uh yeah well and that and that's uh that's the you know sort of the good thing about these businesses you you find that you you know that's something that you wish you had and then you start making it other people go like yeah I kind of want that too so that's good yeah you guys had that um before there was products man back in 2017 there wasn't any keto products certainly not any form of performance standpoint so we just tried to scratch our own itch basically yeah and so and that's and that's the interesting thing in particular because you know you've been a professional uh bodybuilder as well on a keto diet um and so how long have you been doing that uh so I'm in bodybuilding since I was a junior in high school I guess I started dance probably about 2008 and then I started competing my first show was in 2012 uh and I started doing ketogenic dieting in 2015. uh so I've been doing you know keto about half the time I've been bodybuilding now and I earned my Pro card status while doing a ketogenic prep and I do strict keto so I haven't deviated from that since I started it back in 2015 so it's been a game changer for me very cool and for for those who aren't familiar with you and everything you've done why don't you take us through uh you know just a bit of your of your background uh as well and um and how you came how you even figured out how to do keto in the first place and and what uh you know what benefits you saw I mean obviously it must have done something for you you know when you know that that made you compete you know the latter half you know the latter part of your uh you know career has been keto and that's when you got your pro card as well so it sounds like it it probably would have given you a pretty good um advantage yeah for sure man so I started I said back in 2008 I guess and I was super small man I was like 115 pounds soaking wet I was like the small guy in school and I just wanted to to build my body build my physique gain more confidence uh and I looked to my uncle who competed in a bunch of sports and he lifted and and kind of took me under his wings so to speak show me how to do a bicep curl and the rest was history man I just started I just got bit by the bug of lifting started watching a bunch of YouTube videos looked at all the you know I'd be at the grocery store looking at the muscle and fitness magazines the flex magazines uh trying to emulate everything those guys were doing and my first year of working out was uh at my dad's shop so we didn't have the money for gym equipment or anything I couldn't drive to the gym so I was making you know my first uh bench was an ice chest with the towel over top of it uh my first set of you know dumbbells were some tractor equipment we had laying around the house so we just kind of like super rudimentary beginning from a bodybuilding standpoint but I I just fell in love with it man I got addicted it was awesome to see my money progressed through the changes that I was you know seeing and then I did my show in 2012 as a sophomore in college and I did like the whole bulking up you know to do a crazy bulk phase I went from 1 15 to 2 30 and I was I was fat man but I was delusional because I thought I was just jacked and yolk and it was a small muscle but reality was it was all fat um so I imagine I was gonna compete at like 200 pounds flat um and I only gave myself 12 weeks to diet down and I lost like 80 pounds in 12 weeks um but it wasn't good it wasn't healthy it wasn't sustainable lost a bunch of muscle in that process as well I won the show but after that first show was over I really kind of went down the negative Network spiral with eating disorders binging purging and that lasted for two or three years and that's kind of when I started looking for something better that I couldn't do sustainably and I stumbled upon carbohydrate back loading which is basically basically keto during the day and then High glycemia connects carbs at night and you know to spike insulin and have that anabolic effect but I noticed I felt better without the carbs so I just wound up doing car back loading without carbs and lo and behold that was pretty much Keto um and then I listened to a podcast with Tim Ferriss and uh Dom diagostino that was probably my first introduction to what you know keto was as a diet and I just never looked back from there man so doing that as a bodybuilder I was able to get leaner than I'd ever gotten I was able to retain a healthy relationship with food and have the binging and purging anymore and even if the bodybuilding hadn't worked out Simply Having that relationship back was worthwhile for me but lo and behold the bodybuilding did work out and I was able to just bring a better conditioning to the stage so I've been a big advocate for ketogenic bodybuilding ever since pretty cool all right and um how how have your colleagues and your um you know other people in competitions how do they respond to that are there other people that are doing things on a ketogenic diet or still people still um pretty much fixed on you know you have to have carbs to build muscle so when I did my my 2017 prep that was the first prep I had done you know with with a ketogenic approach and I'd competed in 2015 uh I did I did two shows 2015 with carbs and I met a lot of these competitors then this was in Washington state and so we were all I mean natural bodybuilding the federations are usually pretty good I mean everybody like everybody's competitive but there's a lot of camaraderie backstage everybody wants everybody to bring their best package so that it's an honest competition and uh I told all these guys you know I was doing keto at the time and then I was going to be competing against them in 2017. and they were they were all giving me a bunch of flack you know like it was like there's no way you can lean down without carbs there's no way you can build muscle without carbs uh so there just wasn't a lot of faith in my Approach um and I kind of like to have this shock and awe Factor when I compete so I didn't really post a bunch of pictures on Instagram like I was just keeping everything under ramps and just letting the physique speak for itself on show day and you know when show they came around like I just I just wiped the floor with it man like a pro card I I brought a leaner physique than I'd ever seen and then be able to achieve personally and they were all believers with the ketogenic approach thereafter they still do the carbohydrate approach because that's what they're familiar with but um I've since brought on a bunch of clients trained them with the ketogenic approach and they've been able to emulate the same results so I definitely think it's an effective protocol for many people out there oh that's good is that starting to to pick up and and people uh you know is it more than just just your clients and and the people that you're training it's weird man like natural binding our bodybuilding in general it's kind of like a like a cult sport almost like people it's just it's just a unique sport like I love it and I speak very highly of it but there's a lot of dogmatism in the sport of bodybuilding there's a lot of ignorance towards certain things there's also a lot of Genius towards certain things I mean a lot of these bodybuilders are kind of like their own guinea pig in a lot of ways um and people just can't they're they're hesitant to let go of what they've done in the past I guess and the the reigning philosophy in nutrition within the sport of bodybuilding has always been high carbs high protein very low fat uh so people have been very slow to let go of that philosophy many people are under the assumption that you know during those last few weeks when they remove carbs to lean down into a depletion phase that they are doing a ketogenic diet but they're not really doing a ketogenic diet because in that context they're still doing incredibly high protein and low fats just low carbs as well um so there's just a lot of misunderstanding in that space about what the ketogenic diet truly is um but what I've found from a from a natural bodybuilding standpoint is that by keeping dietary fat relatively High throughout the entirety of the prep my hormone levels stay much more stable my testosterone doesn't dip near as much in the context of natural bodybuilding and that's obviously very protective for preserving the muscle tissue and just overall performance uh so I think you know four natural athletes that aren't taking you know performance tensing drugs having higher fat approach is just a really you know Common Sense way to to keep those levels in a more healthy range yeah and so when you say sort of a high higher fat sort of range what's your ratio of like protein to fat that you normally do when you're and does that change at different points in your competition or or I mean start your prep my mind changes quite a bit so like I'll start like my protocol quote unquote is all all kind of modulates the different ratio distributions of these macros throughout the entirety of the prep so I'll start myself and my clients at a really high fat ratio of about 80 of total calories coming from fat and then over the course of the next few months I'll titrate fat down and protein up to find their unique protein threshold and then from there I'll start dropping both fat and protein until I find their you know bottom caloric floor and then I'll start incorporating ketogenic caloric refeeds to kind of help make that last week or two more sustainable and then also Peak for the show day itself and kind of do a few trial Peak weeks but from a ratio standpoint I said I started about eight percent of calories coming from fat and then most people typically find their protein threshold when about 60 percent of their calories coming from fat or 70 depending on the individual but I'm never really dipping below about 60 of total calories coming from dietary fat so there's there's a point there in which protein grams exceed fat grams and some clients but never to the point where the mass the vast majority of calories are coming from protein as opposed to the fat yeah and you're saying a caloric floor you take us through that so that you know from listening to that it sounds like you're sort of getting them down as well as you can while they're still able to you know maintain their performance and um and and you know cut burn fat and everything like that but you're trying to minimize calories at the same time is that right yeah yeah exactly so like for for me for instance my caloric maintenance is about 3000 calories so I'm in a building phase right now I'm trying to find my accurate maintenance intake so at my current expenditure that's about 3 000 calories I consume 3 000 calories and I'm going to maintain my composition pretty effortlessly um when I'm batting now for a show I'll oftentimes go as low as about fifteen hundred sixteen hundred on the low end my female clients I don't really ever take them below 1300 many coaches out there they'll diet for a much shorter period of time but then they'll die much more aggressively to the point of taking their clients below a thousand calories which I am firmly against because I don't think that's optimal from a hormonal standpoint and also from a psychological standpoint like if you're leading less than a thousand counties for a length of time you're just you're you're going to feel angry all the time it's just not fun it's not enjoyable so I try and basically keep calories as high as possible while still eliciting you know a favorable response I.E fat loss yeah and that's the thing too you know something we know um you know it's just about chemistry but also like you know fat loss you know bariatric medicine and even bariatric surgeons there there's there's a there's a threshold at which you go below that and you'll paradoxically stop losing weight and your body will actually start clinging to to Fat because it thinks you're fat you're in you're in a famine and you're starving and then you are you're our story and so your body actually just drops your metabolism and so you know it's um you know stands for reason that you get below a certain level and it's actually going to be counterproductive you're going to feel like crap you're going to screw your hormones but also your body's metabolism is going to shut down as well and um seems to be that that's what you're finding as well do you think what about the guys that are dropping below a thousand like what are their sort of results what's happening to these people well I mean your metabolism is incredibly adaptable so it is going to depress as you drop calories even if it's you know a modern drop in calories your metabolism is going to depress slightly there too same is true in Reverse like you start increasing calories your metabolism up regulates but you know the the main objective of a cut is twofold like you want to maximize fat loss while simultaneously preserving all muscle tissue possible so if you're dropping below a thousand calories for any length of time your hormones take a dip your metabolism takes a dip and your energy levels take a dip and if your energy and hormones are to the point where you're not able to effectively train with much intensity then your body's gonna become much more catabolic in itself and if you're becoming catapult towards your lean tissue that's obviously not going to be favorable from a metabolic standpoint either because the less muscle tissue you have the less metabolism you're going to have or higher you know regulated metabolism you're going to have and then also you know as a bodybuilder like you want to preserve that lean tissue to Showcase that on stage so if you're eating far under a thousand calories your ability to preserve that lean tissue and train hard and intense too preserve that lean tissue is going to be significantly you know inhibited yeah and that also makes sense too you know when you're dropping your your metabolism your energy levels you know I mean like you're you're an athlete you're trying you're trying to like you know build you know a like you know a massive you know physique like how the hell can you do that if you're uh you know just actually feeling like garbage you know yeah yeah I'm a big I mean one of the main things I speak out against is all these crash diets man like they're so they're so popular right now too especially like within the like fasting there's a lot of efficacy too fasting but I feel like people have taken it and run with it to the extent of just not eating enough in general um I mean like like protein spraying modified fast has become really popular for instance and people are just chronically under consuming calories and whether you're a bodybuilder or not that's not going to be optimal for preserving lean tissue it's not gonna be optimal for preserving you know proper hormonal Health metabolic function like it's just not good to be consuming like I've got a three-month-old infant right now he's eating more than 700 calories a day so for full-grown adults eating less than that is probably an issue yeah yeah absolutely um and as far as protein Spirit modified fasting I I get asked that you know quite a bit you know what what do I think about that um can you take us through what that is and give us your thoughts on that yeah so I think in in a perfect world there's probably some some benefit to a protein spraying modified fast in the sense of and I might I might be speaking enactment because this is not something that I'd personally prescribe do or have really looked into but from what I've gathered uh many people that do prescribe protein spraying modified fast recommend uh majority of the days of the week consisting of Maintenance intake or their balance maintenance and take and then a few days like two or three days a week consisting of incredibly low calories around the five to seven hundred calorie range depending on the individual with much more protein and hardly any carbohydrates or dietary fat the whole concept being to elicit an overall caloric deficit while still providing some protein to hedge against you know catabolism the problem is humans like I mean we're not a rap model like we're not a rodent species that is able to be put in a cage to our own confines and and given what we you know the variables that we've been given we humans are a Fickle species man like people they see a drop in the scale oil for a few days with that you know protein sparing day with a very low calories very low intake and they become addicted to that trivial drop in scale weight so rather than associating that with just you know part of the overall trend line they just keep you know fixating on that and then oftentimes what happens what I've seen happen is people start doing more approaching sparing them out to find fast days a week than maintenance intake days or Surplus days so what happens is they just chronically under eat throughout the course of a week and that's what winds up yielding the unfavorable response you know over a longer period of time okay um and then then something you mentioned as well um that then you you sort of drop people's you know calories and and their intake and things like that um but but then you have sort of like like refeeds you what's the what's the idea behind refeeds and what's the benefit of that as opposed to just sort of eating a bit more uh in general yeah so when I'm using refeeds um I'm doing it for a couple different reasons uh generally speaking I'll take like if I'm doing a prep or if I'm taking a client through a prep I'll have them in a prep for four to six months for instance uh over that time period calories are slowly dropping uh the macro distribution is changing like we have that period where proteins increasing then that period where the protein is decreasing those things are always changing but towards the end of that four to six months span like the last you know four to six weeks for instance uh if they are competing then we're going to do some trial Peak weeks uh if they're not competing they just simply want to lose the the body fat then having some you know at that point those four to six weeks out they're at their lowest caloric intake so having a day or sometimes two days a week in which they're having a surge in calories usually I'll start with about a 30 increase in calories over Baseline coming from both protein and dietary fat that gives them a slight hormonal benefits a slight metabolic benefit but more than anything a psychological benefit like if you've been in a deficit for that length of time having a day or two a week where you can look forward to eating something a little bit out of the norm something a little but more than the norm just makes the entire process and the lower calories more sustainable in and of itself and then for those that are competing if we're trying to do a trial peak week to basically simulate what they would be you know doing during the actual peak week of the show then we'll manipulate electrolytes during that refeed meal and the whole point is to basically take any of the subcutaneous fluid you know in between their their skin and their muscle and draw that into the muscle tissues their muscle tissue becomes more volumized their skin appears thinner they have more vascularity and they just have a better look on show day and that typically you have about a 24 to 36 hour window in which those changes can still be represented so we'll do those trial Peak weeks and trial refeeds to kind of simulate that for the actual peak week to kind of see what electrolyte intake the body responds best to what macro distribution everybody responds best to so that we can really bring their best package on show day okay interesting and then um do you find that uh people are are eating like a lot more on the reefies is that does that sort of off balance the sort of the deficit they're in in other days or do you sort of have a refeed but at the same time you still are going to control that as far as how much they're taking in I'm definitely still controlling like I'm calculating the refeed like I've got those macros figured out I've got you know their specific protein grams fat grams all that stuff is still calculated and then depending on whether or not they still need to lean out more um I may have their overall intake for the week still decreasing or maybe increasing like if they've not if they've come into condition uh in advance like a few weeks before the show then I may actually start increasing total calories throughout the course of the week to kind of fill that even more for the show whereas the face to have some body fat to lose I'll keep overall calories for the week decreasing but when I introduce those refeeds their daily intake throughout the rest of the day throughout the rest of the week rather is still decreasing those refeeds just kind of offset that deficit by pretty good pretty good margin and obviously just just um you know to make it make it clear to everyone obviously you know these these sorts of things you know um obviously not not ideal for just normal day-to-day stuff this is this is for a specific event you're training for a specific thing you know you're trying to get your body into looking for a very specific look very uh low body fat percentage that is going to most likely be lower than what your body naturally wants or some people are just naturally super lean and they're like naturally like you know two percent body fat or something crazy like that the vast majority of us are you know for men are probably around you know the 10 Mark you know of where our bodies like like pounds out even on a carnivore diet or something like that that's usually where people sort of settle around is around 10 10 to 12 even and um but if you want to get a lot lower than what your sort of physiological Norm is you know obviously there's some ways you're going to have to to to manipulate things and um or you know and work your ass off as well um but obviously this isn't the um uh we're not talking about like new ideal things for like when people are just at home you know obviously and yeah 100 man like a lot of people come to me that hey do I need to track everything to this degree of accuracy do I need to have everything dialed in like you're talking about and I always tell people if they have a specific goal and they want to see what everybody is capable of and by all means give it your all and go that that's that degree but like you know in eating intuitively I feel like eating intuitively and maintaining a healthy composition should be all of our you know primary objectives but you don't see a whole lot of like three percent you know body fat cavemen walking around naturally in nature you know that's something that is not intuition like you have to go to the nth degree extreme to get there so like that's what this is all about for sure yeah and I think you know when I'm like training hard like when I be you know training with rugby and things like that I I've never just calipers which is you know pretty inaccurate I mean it's not it's not as good as like you know getting a dexa scan or something like that but um yeah I would get I would get quite lean as well but like that that was because I was generally not able I I would I would lose an intense amount of weight sometimes during the rugby season I go anywhere from like 260 pounds so I'm not gonna drop down like 210 like 200 and I wasn't I wasn't trying to you know like I was I just was not able to keep up the amount of with the amount of food that I needed especially when I when I first went carnivore in my early 20s I just I just didn't realize just how hungry I was because like my you know your hunger signals changed so much differently so much I mean you know just just by dropping carbohydrates you know so so people on keto will uh you know recognize this as well that your hunger signals are just so different I had no idea about that so I just never felt hungry and so I I was really under eating and I got way too skinny and um and so you can get you can get lean like I wasn't even trying to but I you know I did but even even now when I'm conscious about it if I'm working out very very hard and playing uh you know and I haven't played a season of rugby in a few years uh just because of work but um you know I would get down to around six percent that was with the calipers so who God knows how accurate that is and um and and that was that was without sort of you know restricting anything you know so I would I probably wouldn't be able to get leaner that unless I unless I change something about that as well and went into a competition but that was sort of that range six to ten seemed to be sort of where my body was comfortable being um just naturally um with a lot of work you know yeah 100 man I feel like like when you get beneath five percent body fat as a male like that's not optimal for proper hormonal Health metabolic functioning that's not the ideal picture of Health I mean bodybuilders are oftentimes you know throwing the magazine covers and pegged as like the healthiest people but reality they're oftentimes not especially in that instance you know when they they've leaned down for that show date you know I think being within that you know six to 12 range is much much more healthy much more sustainable I mean when you're getting 75 body fat like you have to push past natural hunger cues you've got to forego eating when your body is telling you hey it's time to eat like you just have to do that to get to that level but then you don't try to sustain that year round like like no knowledgeable body but would want to maintain that year round because honestly your performance is hindered at that level of body fat like you can't possibly put on as much lean tissue as you optimally could if you were eating it more of a surplus and if you eating it more of a surplus you're not going to be sub five percent body fat yeah absolutely and then uh and you mention hormones as well which I think is really important obviously you need you need fat and specifically cholesterol you need um for hormone production because you know most of these things are made out of uh cholesterol you know your testosterone estrogens progestogens and you know all of your your mineral corticoids glucocorticoids everything that comes out of your adrenals like cortisol and other things it's all these all come from from cholesterol and if you don't have enough of that you know your body is going to be a bit deficient and that's something that um I guess you know would be a concern you know and especially in you know natural I guess I guess maybe they've got a bit of a cover in the in the sort of the uh you know the the the you know the dirty competitions where they they're supplementing their own hormones but uh yeah you know and and you see like you know hormonal dysfunction dysregulation and problems from that I mean I'm sure there's probably issues with you know just just feeling like crap and getting depressed and things like that from getting your hormones out of balance you notice things like that with uh people in compensation for sure man I've competed in both test tested and untested shows and I tend to resonate more with the natural shows than because I am natural so I feel like the playing feels a little bit more evened out but I feel like there's also just more camaraderie backstage amongst the competitors generally speaking in the natural shows but yeah it's interesting talking to these these natural competitors because you know I've competed with people that have gone as far as cutting out you know fish oil pills to remove all dietary fat from their from their diets to try and get leaner but then they'll be the first to tell you that hey like they've lost all libido their hormones are in the tank I mean like it's just not good like they're walking around like zombies you know this is where that stigma of walk around like a zombie the last month the prep comes from you know you have just no hormonal function no cholesterol no testosterone like it's it's in a tank um and I feel like you know my testosterone definitely does take a hit too when I'm when I'm in a deficit and competing but I feel like compared to what it was prior to uh the ketogenic diet when I was minimizing my fat intake you know those those drops are significantly less dramatic than they used to be which I think is a pretty good indicator of this being a healthier sustainable approach for me um but yeah if you look if you turn the page agent look at the non-tested shows for the people that are you know using performance sensing Drugs That's not really my wheelhouse that's not really something I know a ton about but I'm definitely know competitors who they'll oftentimes not cycle off of the drugs because they become so transfixed on how they feel how they look when they're cycled on so they wind up just never cycling off and their body becomes dependent upon these Exotics hormones to the point of either natural production totally complete shuts down so they pretty much have to be on a steady dose of it for the entirety of their life which is not whatever what I would want to do is someone that's trying to optimize my physique my health you know in the most natural form possible yeah and and that's and that's something uh that we actually do see in clinic you know I mean I um obviously you know my my day job is in in surgery but you know I I you know uh one day a week I'm in I'm in the clinic in functional medicine clinic and um I try to address things you know you know holistically with with the you know diet and nutrition and lifestyle changes and you can actually do just a lot of heavy lifting with that um but you know you know they there is um uh you know hormonal uh aspect to this you know people are going through like menopause or or you know you know um uh things like that you're doing like HRT and things like that but you know but but bringing people to physiological levels and we do see that there are some people who have uh you know sort of abused performance enhancing drugs their bodies just don't don't make uh you know testosterone like they do before and so you know you have you have these these guys who are sort of you know young fit looking sort of men in their 30s they feel like crap you know they have low energy they're depressed they have no libido and you know they really should be in the prime of their life but they're they just feel horrible and and you check their their testosterone and um and other things and they're just there's in their in their shoes you know there's absolutely just just dropped like way too low and um obviously you have to be careful because you're going to when you're taking exogenous hormones you're gonna you're gonna be suppressing that as well and so somebody's taking something and then gets this test and then comes to us be like oh look it's really low it's like well of course it is you know because you're you know you you've you've stomped your bodies down and then you're sort of you know you sort of hit that window basically like stop taking stuff just for the time for the test so it doesn't doesn't show up um so you have to be careful with that but would you see people when they're when you know who are being honest who are who have been taking these these um these sorts of hormones for a number of years and and inappropriately you know you're getting massive super physiological levels and it that it will suppress you know uh your your hormone production you have this whole neuroendocrine um uh uh you know axis that uh you know if you're taking in a ton of outside hormones it will just shut down the entire process and sometimes they can recover but if you if you do it really inappropriately for a long time uh you may not you may not recover fully and um and then you may be like you say depending on this your whole life which is you know it doesn't doesn't sound like a fun fun way to be yeah totally man it's kind of like the like the HRT clinics like vent genre that industry is kind of like the wild west right now in a lot of regards I mean they're popping up everywhere here in the states um and I feel there's I mean the the research coming out now you know for women going through menopause four men of that age like maybe there is some efficacy in having you know a dose that brings you to a quote-unquote natural physiological level you know that that has I'm sure some protective you know mechanisms there but you know what is the cost from that long term like I don't know the answer to these questions but I can certainly attest the fact that the people that are taking this you know on super physiological dosages and then just crashing afterwards like that's certainly not healthy or optimal long term yeah no it's um it does seem that uh as long as long as you're staying within those ranges um that uh are sort of you know optimal for you and and um but that that are that are more in keeping with someone who would like basically be in their 20s you know with your hormone sort of level be in their 20s seems to be pretty safe if there was a thought that you know HRT and women would increase breast cancer that's not necessarily been supported and so that that people are sort of like well maybe maybe it doesn't do that maybe other factors as well um but um yeah it's certainly something you have to be very careful with and anytime you're you're prescribing hormones is uh you're you're you're you're walking a fine line because you have to be able you have to be able to really justify this in people but one thing I have noticed the reason that I even started working in this place was not to to get into the hormones so well you know you know to get in the hormone side of things but because you know I've you know I I spoke I spoke with the um the functional medicines or endocrinologist doctor that um that was at this clinic and about carnivore diet and these sorts of things and he got interested in that he checked my labs my labs were very very good and he said that you know given my age you know I'm not I'm not 25 anymore but he said if he took 100 000 people off the street that were my age you know my all my Bloods and my hormone panels and all my you know um uh you know different minerals and vitamins everything like that would it be number one without a shadow of a doubt you know and so uh he was just like okay there's definitely something to this and so he brought me in to to really just talk people through the carnivore diet and approach because he would he's already Incorporated you know diet and nutrition and how to how to optimize his patient's house for for 40 years now it's it's very novel even today in medicine it certainly was you know just unheard of 40 years ago and so you know he's had very good good results with this and being able to get people on a carnivore diet you know we are seeing people you know rationalize their hormones without any any exogenous hormones and a lot of people will then feel so much better that they don't they don't actually feel like they need to take anything and they want to come off of it and so we actually you know are able to get people to come off of the testosterone they're taking or the you know the estrogen progesterone um I've seen regularly you know men middle-aged older men or actually really older older men who are like 50s and 60s increase their testosterone by going on a carnivore diet by like 30 40 easily you know one guy doubled it and so it had his like levels of testosterone were like like above like what you'd see like a normal range and so like it looked like this guy was taking somebody he wasn't on anything and he and he felt just like amazing he's just like I just feel like a duck a teenager again like all I want to do is just go around and work out this is awesome you know like and he said libido is back you know like he's they used some some charged words there about you know he's like all I wanted to do is just going like you know ask my wife and all this I was like Jesus you know like I just want to work out and do all this and I'm like awesome you're having you're having a good uh response to this yeah yeah I think it was too cool man I mean if people like if you were to equate calories for instance just try and control for as many variables as possible if you take somebody off the street and it's eating you know 2500 calories of just processed food seed oils a bunch of Highly you know carbohydrate diets and sugars minimal quality fats minimal protein you put them on a diet that's higher in quality fats higher in quality protein animal carbohydrate I mean it's the reason that everything's going to benefit so like you're taking away the negatives and adding more the positive so I mean that makes total sense to me yeah absolutely yeah it was it's fun it's fun to see too like because you know people will they just they just feel so much better and um and then you know actually seeing those those lab numbers come up too you know it's it's a very good uh you know proof of concept that that yeah the sort of the you know the the the the mechanistic sort of arguments like well this should follow that these sorts of things happen but of course you know if it doesn't you know happen then you know it's wrong it doesn't matter it doesn't matter how great your theory is you know if it doesn't just hold up to reality so it is nice to sort of see that in practice this actually really helps people have you been seeing that uh pretty much the same case with females in the clinic that are going to carnivore like their hormones are all improving as well have you seen many you know have the opposite effect on females no no no it it yeah absolutely helps women as well and uh yeah I mean you think about it sort of again in that sort of theoretical theoretical realm like you know if we're you know we're all humans we're all the same species we we should have all this we should all have the same diet you know like a female line he's the same as male lion female cow you know a cow and a bull they eat the same things as well and so that stands the reason that that they would you you would opt if you're eating optimally you will optimize your hormones for men and women and that is absolutely what we see um you know women actually have come out of menopause you know so you have people that you know have been in menopause and hasn't had their haven't had their cycle in a number of years all of a sudden they start having their cycle again which actually doesn't make them necessarily very happy they're like I thought I was over this crap you know and uh but then they you know but then you know it's a marker of true Health you know because like you know if you're if you're at a you know reproductive health is you know as Dr Kels would say I mean that that's a very fundamental marker of your health and if you're not able to be fertile you know that that's you know that that means there's something significantly off in your health and obviously there's this natural way at a certain point of Aging but at the same time it's um it is a good indicator that that you're in good health and you know even even women that like in their 20s some of these some of these people are going through you know early menopause like in their 20s and 30s and things like that and it makes them feel absolutely wretched and then you know going on this would would uh reverse that absolutely absolutely see people have a benefit of that and you know Dr Kilts obviously does a lot of you know he's a you know Reproductive Medicine that's what he does and he's you know sees a lot of people able to conceive without medications um you know once once they go on like a carnivore diet and uh so yeah it absolutely uh will optimize uh hormones for women as well yeah Dr kills is awesome I had him on my podcast he just had Crystal my wife on on his podcast oh that's it's crazy man like like um you know this is an anecdote like like she's been keto for you know six plus years we just had our baby we would keto the whole way through a pregnancy uh baby's healthy he's like in the upper percentile he just had his first doctor visit today he's in the upper present time all the demographics you know fully breast fan like all these these fear-mongering Concepts that people say you got to have carbs you got to have X Y or Z for an optimal pregnancy Optimum baby Health it's just not been the case for us at all yeah yeah and and that's the thing you know these are all you know the theories that people put out there but it's just like what are they based on you know and um you look at things just from from a uh you know a perspective just on you know from a naturalist perspective you know like there are plenty of places all around the world that uh don't have access to cardio the Inuit and things like that other people like in Siberia they just don't have they don't have all these things so if you if you have to have these things you know as a human then obviously you know these guys wouldn't be able to exist and yet they're there and they're alive so you know that's obviously not the case you know so um you know and that's the thing too is just you know if you can have a theory and that's great and you can sort of rationalize it and talk about like all the evidence look at all these things this is why I come to this conclusion and that's fine but if that doesn't actually stack up with reality and then you put it to the test and you see that and it doesn't line up well then you you know you've got something wrong and that's that's all there is to it and so you have to sort of you have to look at that from that that rational point of view that just said that this Common Sense point of view is that that if you're not seeing this this uh actually work in in reality you know then then you've got something wrong yeah yeah I totally agree man I feel like you know like I've been I'm a big believer in the carnivore not keto diet I mean this is what I live and breathe so uh you get my full votal conference for sure and so and so are you um have you done like full carnivore have you are you still uh keto or what what's what's your your diet regime out well I mean in and out of the competition yeah so I pretty much eat the same thing whether I'm competing or not like I'm in a building phase I'm pretty much see the same thing I mean the cutting phase is more of it um so I don't claim to be carnivore because uh it's funny man there's all these different versions of Keto all these different versions of carnivore now like when I started doing keto there was just keto now there's like high fat keto high protein keto there's like uh you know lying that carnivore there's carnivore plus fruit and honey there's all these versions of things now uh so I'm kind of a purist in that sense so I don't claim to be carnivore simply because you know I eat some things that are not hardcore strict carnivore um but realistically my diet pretty much consists of like meat and keto bricks all occasionally have uh some Veggie I'll occasionally have a salad but I mean once in a blue moon man like like I'm pretty much eating red meat and keto bricks I have one keto brick a day and the rest of my calories one from from red meat I mean like beef ribs ground beef eggs uh you know things like that so pretty much carnivore for the most part yeah that's um it's funny you mentioned that you know all the different kinds of like carnivore and ketones I remember we used to just be keto you know and it's just like oh like the different pronouns and things like that now it's just like what what happened to this where was I you know like um yeah yeah yes it's like why you know I identify as a lion Carnival lion diet carnivore and this that the other and like yeah but I'm the same thing I'm just I just I see cardboard you know it's just like so what does that mean it just means I eat meat like I don't I don't know I have to make this complicated no but you you eat you know two-legged animals four-legged you ruined assistant yeah whatever it moves and had a face like I'll eat it you know and uh and uh and had and had Parents you know I guess that's another distinction you know yeah 100 I mean like that's like again it's more vast majority of my calories come from it that's the most nutrient dense foods like when I'm when I'm in a prep and when calories are you know waning I want to make sure that everything that I am consuming is going to provide and yield the most nutrient and it's you know nutrition that I can uh so I'm doing you know Wild game meat I'm an avid Hunter so my last prep every single meal that I had you know I had some wild game meat that I'd killed the year prior in there uh you know some organ meat but I don't go off the rails with that there's a whole other tangent right there like you get the pro organ meat carnivores and the non-organ meat carnivores I'll have it in if it's convenient to have it in if it's not that's fine too um and then I'll have you know the keto bricks in it because it's easier to get the dietary fat in with that um it's a really great I mean the main ingredient is keto brick is the cacao butter so the best source of steric acid followed by you know beef so it being the second best source of steric acid so I get that for the fan and then I'm pretty much good to go from a nutrition standpoint oh very good yeah yeah yeah you're right and like the um yeah the organ the organ carnivores and then the you know the not not so much organ carnivores the different ones and I do sort of notice that the Oregon carnivores are the ones that turned into the fruit and honey carnivores for some reason that seems that seems to be a pattern you know I don't get a manic I don't I don't know why there's so much um territorialism or dogmatism or whatever is in the space but it's it's across the border across all nutrition but what's frustrating is that you know there's all these different versions of Keto and carnivore at the end of the day all of Keto and carnivores more or less the same underlying Concepts like you know single ingredient natural wholesome quality animal-based foods like it's all that pretty much uh yet rather than us all banding together we're kind of like hitting ourselves against one another whereas in reality we should all band together and like you know maybe take a stand or educate you know some of the people that are in totally different groups suggesting that animal basis is not a good thing you know maybe we should take a stand against them instead of against each other yeah I think that's a very good point and and that's something I don't know if you've come across uh Dr pran uganathan he's uh he's like a sydney-based uh gastroenterologist hepatologist but you know you know very switched on guy and you know he noticed it like just in his patients you know that he could he could actually affect you know a lot of change and a lot of benefit from getting people getting them to start eating you know more meat diet and he's pretty close to carnivore he's like the majority of what he eats and there's another one a hyper carnivore you know somebody's like 70 of their calories uh from from meat but maybe maybe getting some other things in there too uh and so he would be like I I'd say I'm a high end of that spectrum of a hyper carnivore so he's getting the vast majority of his nutritionist comes from meat uh but he'll eat some other stuff as well and um but uh you know his his whole whole thing was just that look look you know animal-based nutrition is very important this is vital we need to have this and it's you know it's it's it's you we can't vilify this stuff so he's actually taking that exact attack is that you know is just is just really pushing back on the whole meatus Poise meat is bad meat is killing the environment things like that it's like hey this is this is actually hurting people by you guys putting out that sort of you know those hit pieces on meat yeah I totally agreement I mean there's so many studies like like I'm not uh you know a scientist I'm not a doctor but I'll can I'll you know go through some of these studies and there's just there's so much Nuance in these studies and and so many people out there just reading the headlines and looking to see what the headlines are showing there's a lot of fear-mongering these news clips and the studies I mean you find one said it says one thing you found it says something completely opposite to it um and I feel like a lot of the studies that are painting meat in a negative light are not really controlling from the variable because those people that are consuming meat are also consuming everything else with the meat so it's not really a true attest to you know what is the meat actually the contributing factor or not um so at the end of the day like I just really you know put a lot of emphasis and lean into how I personally feel and you know what I've been able to see from a pattern recognition standpoint with my clients and with other people that I've drawn to the podcast but they've noticed and you know when I include more vegetation I don't ever experience any performance benefit or gain from it I'll include you know some Brussels sprout sauteing bacon grease on occasion because I just simply want that change in flavor and texture not because I feel like any inherent benefit from a performance standpoint or digestion or that then if anything I feel less benefit from a digestion standpoint so I've never I've never turned to vegetables to increase my productivity uh you know as a bodybuilder or functioning member of society so I think as long as you're you know leaning to into the animal based sources you're probably doing the best bang for your buck for sure yeah yeah well and that's and that's interesting too um yeah I definitely I've always felt better without the vegetables as well and you know I talk to people um at first especially early on when I was when I was first really getting excited about all this I would talk to other doctors and they would be interested in as well and then and then someone would say like well you know but you know I like salad so you know it's fine it's not that big a deal and I realized that people were thinking that I was saying that like a whole hey by the way you don't have to eat you know salads you know hey you can get away with it you know you can get everything you need from me and they're like yeah but I I don't mind salad so I'll just eat it's not that big a deal and then it was just like you know trying to impress on people upon people that no no it's not that you don't have to eat vegetables anymore I said actually you don't want to eat vegetables they can actually you know cause harm and um and so and you know like you say you go by by you know your personal experiences with things and you have vegetables and you're like yeah actually that doesn't doesn't actually help you know and I certain certainly noticed that with myself that excluding these things gave me a serious benefit uh both in my my health and my performance and my physique you know I dropped salads and I got lean and uh and muscular you know it was like it was is completely opposite of what everyone always tells you um but I think that's very very important is that you know you don't know what the hell to believe because there's so much out there and I feel pretty confident in in that I've looked through a lot of this data and I've spoken to and debated a lot of these guys and gone through their websites and gone through their list of resources saying well this these are the things that back this up and I've you know gone through that and um and and seen you know the you know their merits and their demerits and um and so I I feel pretty confident in that but you know not everyone has that time you know and not everybody has anyone and the thing is just like I I was at a very particular place as well I had a lot of background in this as well that I'd already sort of known about so I had I had a big base to build on but at the same time like I was taking time off from from my residency program to help my folks and so I had a I had a lot of free time and so I was able to spend six hours a day eight hours a day just going through the literature for months I did this you know I would not have that time now you know and so but you know it just it was just lucky that when I when I sort of had that aha moment that like holy crap you know people were actually carnivores and plants are trying to kill you these damn things are out there you know like you know poisoning us uh I actually had the time to go through all that obviously not not everybody does that so so what the hell do you do who do you listen to well you have to listen to people that make compelling arguments and and back that up with compelling evidence but you can have it you can design a study to basically conclude anything you want um and so that's not necessarily that helpful um so everyone's going to have studies on their side and then so it comes down to it it's like okay I do this and how do I feel now you're coming from a from a standard American diet I either direction you go you know like clean vegan clean Carnival or clean keto you're gonna have improvements and you're going to feel better but then what comes down is like okay then try it again and try it again and try it again okay oh I went vegan for a while now I went and then I went keto or maybe keto vegan I guarantee you're going to feel better on keto V and with a ton of supplements because you're just like just not going to get like vitamins and protein things like that and um and then you what I think is is the biggest Testament is the clean vegans who did everything right and then came to carnivore to basically save their life because they were so unwell and um you know when vegan for a number of years and then we're just getting sicker and sicker and unhealthier and maybe they go back to eating meat I think there was some statistics like over 80 of vegans and vegetarians end up going back and eating meat and at least to some degree but then there's other ones that just go pure carnivore and they're like I had no idea you know and um you know a lot of these people that I've spoken to they're just they're so so uh you know amazed at the difference when they started eating meat and they're like like within a day or two they're like all of a sudden it was just like there's this life getting coming back into my body you know yeah and I think like I brought several vegans on to my podcast because I want to have an open mind I want to understand what they're thinking what they're doing what they're seeing success with and you know most of them most of the vegans that I've run on the podcast are X feet it's like they're now keto according for but I've also brought on some that are you know hardcore still vegan and I feel like a lot of a lot of that stems from their you know seemingly more obligation to do what they think is best for the environment which I totally respect their desire to do its best for the environment but we're going about it in two different ways and I feel like anytime you become part of a group and this is the case the same in the context of the carnivore Community the same in the context of the keto Community like when you become part of a group and you identify them within a certain sect you know it becomes easier to uh you know double down on that philosophy towards nutrition and I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing it's a bad thing if you allow it to become an echo chamber and close your your thought process but I feel like it's very positive thing if it keeps you sustainable gives you some accountability factors and I feel like a lot of the vegans that have stayed vegan as long as they have is because they they doubled down on that belief system that they're doing something better for the environment unfortunately a lot of that information is misleading because like you look at the the studies out there about you know you know the animal populations the the gas emissions like all that stuff there's just a lot of there's a lot of nuance to all of that um and a lot of people are not getting the full story uh and you know me as an avid Hunter like I'm I'm full well-knowingly killing animals to feed and provide for myself and my family but I'm you know being very tactful and being very strategic and how I go about that and doing so in a Humane ethical Manner and I feel like when you have that dialogue with somebody you know that that it's just two different ways to go about trying to achieve a similar outcome yeah and that's um and that's the thing too you know it's like you know all these different aspects they're all very nuanced and you can have studies that that point in in various different directions as well and those are that's hard to do hard to look at and to to break down the information as well and yeah and and you yeah right you know vegans um people go vegan and people go Carnival people go whatever you know there can be a lot of different reasons for that it's not necessarily just nutritional and so you know and and so you have to respect that I mean these people have have you know just like you and I they've they've put a lot of thought into this and they've decided that they're going to make this big overhaul in their life as compared to the rest of the population to to do something different because they find that it's it's important for some reason and so you know I don't I don't I don't ever you know go on like vegan bashing or anything like that I mean there's some people that just you know say stupid things and are insulting I'm happy to happy to you know go go at those those people but uh you know just normal people just trying to just trying to do what's best uh for for their life and and you know you know doing something nice to me is like I'm gonna do this and I know it's not as good for me and I know it's not as nutritious but it's important and it helps the rest of the world I think that's actually quite a noble sentimenty of so that's the sort of sense of self-sacrifice but you know I just you know I think that that they're not being that they're not being told all the all the all the things that um uh are out there like you know that how livestock and things like that is actually really really important for for the environment and and the different aspects of um of that argument as well so yeah you you approach that sort of argument sort of three-fold you start with nutrition and then when you sort of get that side they go okay well what about the ethical side of things you talk about ethics and then they go okay what about environmental and you have to cover all those things because there's a there's a wide range of reasons uh to do to do these sorts of things and uh and so I find that that's um yeah important to to discuss and address honestly yeah totally agreement I feel fortunate that I can feel good about my impact on the environment while also eating a big fat interesting rib eye steak you know like it kind of goes into my philosophy yeah no it does yeah yeah me too you know and uh I had a Peter bellerstep um yeah have you have you spoken to him yeah I believe I've had him on the podcast super bright guy super bright I mean it's so super uh smart guy and really interesting and the guy uh and that's the thing too is that like you know we don't we don't have really high quality studies in human nutrition because you just you just can't develop the the studies properly you can't actually you know this just take people and and and and clone them in a lab and just have them in separate facilities with identical uh circumstances and change one variable and then live out their entire entire course of their life um on that that sort of one variable difference and then see the difference um it's not ethical it's not practical but you can do that with uh you know animal based nutrition you know non-human animal based nutrition and you know they have shorter lifespans and um and you you're able to conduct those studies and you have you know group of cattle here and a group of cattle here and you sort of split them off you just do uh you know slightly different things you will be able to see that and you can run that experiment and so I actually have a really really really uh robust uh science in animal nutrition he's got a degree in that and so he goes through very very very detail uh explanations on exactly what what's going on in these uh animals and then you feed them different things these different things happen and and you can extrapolate from that uh you know quite a lot of things you know for for humans so yeah I always love talking to that guy yeah I mean he's he's super brown I've seen him speak a few times I think I've had on the podcast it's been a while though I didn't get him back on the show um but yeah anybody that that just like dime is super deep into this Ultra Niche topic like that just becomes a wealth of knowledge you know they didn't get my respect he's one of the few one of the many that does just that yeah yeah no I I think I've came across him I don't know how many years ago when I was when I was doing all this big big dig into into everything originally but yeah very interesting guy and so people haven't haven't uh seen him you should go and look at his his stuff as well on on both of our podcasts and then and then his his own talks that he does uh elsewhere so and he's got his own podcast as well and uh that people should check out too and he talks about all these sorts of things and he brings on you know you know very very uh knowledgeable experts as well to to talk about all that stuff so there's tons of information there and uh and that's that's sort of how you have to do this you have to you have to sort of dig in you know unless you sort of find someone to follow me like okay well this guy's gotta got it down pretty much and so I like his results so I'll just try to follow you know the Robert Sykes approach because like you know he's getting good results so like it can't be too far off you know that that's you know that's fair enough you know not everyone has has time to you know get into it like you and I do but uh you know if you just found one person religiously that probably short-siding your your potential for you know with the knowledge as well yeah well you look I mean everyone's going to get things wrong you know I mean I don't I don't try to claim that I've gotten everything right about everything you know I do my best but you know like it's um it's you know it's not possible it's not possible that you're gonna you're gonna know everything about everything it's just not you know the most knowledgeable person that has ever lived has never known even one percent of the totality of human knowledge it's not possible there's just way too much and so you know you just have to you have to have a bit of humility uh when you approach these sorts of things and and not try to pretend like you know everything because no one's going to know everything you know there are huge tracks that I have no idea about so you know but I I'm constantly trying to learn yeah 100 man it's it's been super encouraging and exciting though to see all these people within the keto carnivore space come to lights that are seeing tremendous success with it and doing so because when I had you on my podcast you've been doing this for when you say like 10 plus years I think so I've been hardcore carnivore for yeah uh just over a decade but I I started this 22 years ago and then so I was there for like five years doing it but I didn't realize exactly how significant it was what I was doing I just I just learned in botany and cancer biology and and in college that like you know plants use defense chemicals to be toxic and to to stop animals from eating them so I was just like right I'm not eating plants and uh and so I just did did that but then I slipped off of it and uh you know because I didn't just get the whole picture yet and that's the thing if you don't if you don't have the whole picture you can sort of slip off which I think that you know uh different sorts of people that sort of slip off from from carnivore maybe have done that as well and they're not really getting the Core Concepts I didn't get the core concept at that point and so I slipped off of that but I was still 90 of what I ate was me anyway you know and um and then sort of like you know five six years ago like I sort of realized like that was it that's what I was doing I was I was eating as a carnivore humans are carnivores okay everything's making sense now and I started looking at it from that that perspective so yeah so over over a decade was sort of broken up yeah but like you as an example myself many many others endurance athletes you know uh you know high performance athletes from a bodybuilding weight training standpoint like a lot of these people are coming to light that are doing a carnivore or ketogenic diet and they're seeing too many Success With It whereas you know you rewind 10 years ago and there wasn't a whole lot of people in the Limelight that were doing this so I feel like people that are on from the outside looking in right now they're able to pinpoint specific individuals that are seeing success for the Long Haul with this that have been doing it consistently for for years now and I think that's where it's going to get exciting for my research standpoint seeing these people these case studies that have been doing it for years and years and years consistently without deviation over longer period of time that that's going to be where things really get ironed down the details yeah definitely and and especially now that things are getting a bit more interesting yeah interest like you know that Harvard study that uh you know that came out and um and there was another one that showed uh that was actually a very comprehensive study I think it came out of uh Adelaide uh University Adelaide here in Australia looking looking at 175 different countries and controlling for a lot of different confounding factors you know socioeconomic factors as well as others they found that in all 175 countries that the more meat that was consumed the the longer uh the life expectancy and the better health and and less like diseases and things like that and then they found that across the board in all 175 countries that they looked at and so um things like that I think are starting to open up people's minds a bit and especially like researchers saying okay well maybe maybe there is something here and then you'll go against a lot of that industry research and then say okay well maybe maybe we'll do our own experience maybe we'll check this out ourselves and so I think that that's really opening the door you know to more uh robust studies as well which which would be great yeah 100 man as far as studies go where do you typically go to find the studies that you're diving into like because they're like um are you going like PubMed like where for the general you know person listening like where's a good place to turn for these studies specifically around nutrition well I mean pubmed's great you know you have to have a subscription for it so I mean I have access to that obviously through through the hospital but um you can buy one it's it's not cheap but uh but you can also go just like Google Scholar and you can often find uh free studies as well so you go to Google Scholar and you sort of you know search around in there you can you can generally find at least find the abstract it's not good to just read the abstract you need to read the study you need to know how to read a study to see if this is uh you know if this is anything that that's worthwhile you know because there are a lot of studies that are not worthwhile especially in like medicine and nutrition they're just just you know they're just crap honestly and uh just junk junk science um so I mean I I had obviously I had a background in this so I I had a leg up because of that you know I took botany I took cancer biology I learned about all these sorts of things um you know plant toxins and and things like that and then when I was in medical school you know I came across the work of Dr Robert lustig at UCSF uh with with fructose and how that was you know very very damaging to her body and this is this is hard biochemistry and we have like this is we've shown biochemically from the University of California San Francisco about chemistry Department you know this is you know fructose gets broken down into certain chemicals we have these these like these these biochemical Pathways in textbooks but we just have that for fructose now and and so we know it gets broken down into the same byproducts as alcohol so we get the same problem problems from those byproducts you know you don't get the same products before they're broken down into that but all the problems you get after the breakdown of alcohol you get with fructose as well and so this has been shown that that's hard science you know that's not even like oh we have a study with this many people and that many there's our confidence interval and all that sort of nonsense and um and to reach statistical significance so this is just hard biochemistry which is which is a hard science you know and um and so we have that for that and then uh you know coming across a lot of research because you know when you're you know when you're sort of in these circles and things like that and it was like I had a I had a you know guy worked with he was head of head of an apartment where I was sort of my second year of medical uh of being a doctor and and he loved Twitter I hated Twitter I wasn't going to go near that that thing but he liked it because you know he followed like the New England Journal of Medicine and you know the general American Medical Association and uh and and the bmj and all these sorts of Publications and and they just published out hey this this got published today this got published today he's like oh it's awesome and he and he and that's how he stayed current and actually worked really well and you have a lot of different you know doctors and researchers that really stay on top of of the research and then you follow those guys and they say hey here's here's a big paper that just came out this is a big deal you guys should check this out and so they're able to stay on top of that so I started doing that as well and I started seeing um you know other things coming out with the whole cholesterol from around 2015 the table really started turning with our understanding of cholesterol so I started seeing those um really you know sort of turn everything on his head and then when I when I sort of did a deep dive I started just asking questions he was like okay so if humans are carnivores and this is this is beneficial and depriving herself of meat is going to cause problems you know we should see some differences in the literature um and so you know I remember I remember thinking realizing at one point like you know wait a minute like when did autism start rearing its head and started getting you know a lot more prevalent um you know does this coincide with the uptake in diseases and obesity and heart disease and Cancers and things like that that we said was and those all came up at the same time the the rates of increase happen at the same time and I noticed it and I found that that autism rates of autism increased at the exact same time as well and so I was like okay so if this is a product of what we're eating or at least partially you know we should be able to sort of test this um and I and I you know about the fructose thing so I thought okay you know is sugar a problem okay so so how can we ask that and so so I thought okay maybe baby formula because baby formula is going to have added fructose and they're going to change the composition of this and so okay do we have studies are there studies looking at formula fed babies and breastfed babies and their rates of autism it turns out there were and I found that you know the formula fed babies well it wasn't quite that bottle fed babies had higher rates of autism than breastfed babies um but you know bottle fat babies can be you know breast breast milk that you've that you've prepared and stored but it but it's also going to be formula you're not going to get formula from breastfed babies right because that's just not it has to come in a bottle so that that's including you know babies and so if they looked at just formula fed babies that might be an even higher level but yeah they found that yes there was there was more uh autism in kids that were were bottle fed and I found okay what about you know if if this is you know like you're you know you you want to have meat maybe not getting enough meat maybe getting some of these these toxins will maybe predispose you to getting um you know autism in the genetically susceptible we should see a higher level of of autism in vegans and vegetarians and so I was like I started looking around the data in fact that's exactly what we see you know vegans vegetarians have much higher rates of kids with autism and in fact there was a study out of uh University of Texas uh a m that showed actually causation it wasn't just a correlation they found a causative uh role between carnitine and autism carnitine is very important it's vital to make uh to develop neurons properly and that's what autism is it's a misdevelopment of specific neurons in the brain and so the brain doesn't work as it would have otherwise and so they found that that people had a lack of carnitine they would develop uh you know autism and you you you normally make uh you know carnitines it you know when you when you talk to sort of vegans like hey you're not getting Carnage you're not getting this all you don't need to get carnitine you make carnitine not everyone does and not everyone makes it uh to the degree that they need it and you know even you and I you know if we make a ton of carnitine we still benefit from having more carnitine you know that's yeah and um I mean from our from our diet but not super physiological levels that would actually benefit our resistance training and logical funds so having that you know supplementally makes sense uh but yeah I can't imagine a vegan getting enough ample carnitine no well no they wouldn't and you know that maybe maybe you can make enough to not die or not develop autism but that doesn't necessarily mean it's it's optimal you know and I mean it's super important for you know uh for athleticism and muscle growth and things like that I mean it's just very simply it increases the number of testosterone receptors that your body has so the testosterone that you have you know being X will be more efficacious if you are eating more carnitine because you have more receptors for that to work on you know so it's just right there it makes it makes a big difference you know and um yeah I think there's this big push in in the the fitness industry to see what people can get away with as opposed to what they can optimize for and it's honestly unfortunate like people look to anybody with six pack abs and see what they're doing because they want to emulate that but they'll oftentimes be the ones promoting you know being able to eat Pop-Tarts and have six-pack cats being able to eat donuts and have sex there's this massive push to see what you can get away with and still you know look quote unquote desirable but I've tried to shift that conversation around around you know what can you optimize for and I feel like if you look at life through that lens your nutritional decisions to that lens it's probably not going to consists of a plate of processed food cereals and donuts you know yeah and you know I mean and that's the thing too you know when I was eating just a normal normal diet now I didn't eat like a lot of sugar or processed crap you know I you know I did cook and I still ate mostly meat but you know in the off season like I'd put on fat and my muscle you know my muscle definition would go away and I my muscles with atrophy and my fat tissue would would expand and but then when I was in season because I just you know worked as hard as I did you know I would get you know in very good shape and I would you know be very lean and very muscular and and of course you know we you know people have been doing this all over the world uh and getting you know jacked uh you know eating carbs and eating you know you can do it you know but it's going to catch up with you you know you're not going to outrun a bad diet forever and um you know and uh you know and I knew a lot of people that would go like boot camp classes and do a lot of hard work and they were very fat they did not look like they worked out but I knew for a fact these guys worked out hard four days a week and that's because they just ate high octane crap and drank a butt load of alcohol and uh you know and that's what this guy said he's just like I have to work out hard because I just eat like and like you know he's like he was like a diplomat or something like that I worked for you know some sort of you know in the embassy anyway the U.S embassy um uh has some some sort of capacity so he would do all these trout you know trips around the world and he would have all these big dinners with all these dignitaries and things like that and there's just it's just you know just eating a bunch of crap you know drinking a bunch of wine and like that's just that's just what his his life was and so he just worked out all the time just so he could just maintain that and not really just go off the deep end but he the dude was not did not look like he was in good shape like at all but he worked his ass off but he looked like crap and and uh you know so it's just you know you can't you can't do that um and and still be jacked I'm like I'm sorry like you you can still ruin a lot of hard work you know with with what you eat yeah and I feel like you know for me like I'm super excited to see what I look like when I'm 73 years old man like I feel like if I'm playing my cards right now I'll be 31 in October but I'm eating right I'm training right like I'm doing all these things trying to optimize my health from a longevity standpoint and I feel like that's really where the Smoke's gonna settle and dust is going to clear with these different you know dietary philosophies because like if if you know people like with the prominence of Keto and Carnival right now people keep doing this for the next 20 30 40 50 years and you're able to you know maintain that and make it sustainable for you and we're able to look at those as case studies you know 50 years from now like that's going to be a pretty good indicator of hey what's the efficacy of this for the Long Haul and those are the studies that are not yet in existence but if we're looking at people you know fast forward 20 30 40 50 years from now like that that's what I'm excited about I'm excited to be stepping on stage at 73 and still looking freaking jacked you know yeah yeah absolutely yeah that'd be that'd be pretty badass um so um yeah I'm just sort of looking at times probably just uh a bit of time but I um really wanted to ask you what what your um sort of exercise regime is and you know advice for people who really want to build muscle and and really maximize muscle growth is there a specific regime that you hold to or is it just you know work really hard and and you know get to fatigue things like that or is there is there a particular pattern of uh of exercise that you do to optimize that I'm pretty basic with my training man like I honestly do like I try and Target each muscle group you know twice a week optimally when I'm really getting things dialed in on like an eight day split so every muscle group gets trained and targeted twice during that eight day revolving cycle one of which being heavy focused one of which being more of a hypertrophy blood blood flow Focus implementing Progressive overload you know training hard training intensely trying to increase my volume over time but I'm pretty pretty basic with my training like I I don't try and you know overthink training a lot of people I feel like get so consumed with the training philosophies that they just don't train hard and I feel like simply training hard intense is going to be the best um you know stimulus to elicit the growth that you're looking for um so yeah I'll pretty much do that you know keep things very very basic same as true as my cardio like I don't really do a ton of cardio I'll keep cardio very minimal throughout the building phase and then when competition prep time rolls around I'll just gradually titrate that up as my calories decreasing so there's kind of an inverse relationship between calories and Cardio as calories are dropping cardio is slowly increasing so that I'm able to continue to see progress as opposed to plant Towing at any point throughout the prep okay great and then um and then you're and just tell us a bit about your your keto Savage podcast when did you start doing that what was it what was the purpose of getting that going and where do you see it going in the future yeah so that's where the podcast back and so I launched keto Savage as a brand in a business uh in 2016 I think July 1st 2016 didn't have a clue what I was doing I just knew that I was passionate about keto because it worked for me um and I didn't know anything about brand building business I read a Gary vaynerchuk book and he's like man get on Instagram get on YouTube make podcasts so I'm like all right I'll do all this so that's exactly what I did um and I was pretty pretty sporadic with the podcast Publications and then 2018 I believe I started publishing them consistently twice a week Monday and Friday and I've just consistently been publishing them ever since and we're about to hit episode 500 I think next week uh and the podcast is keeps growing like crazy man that's that's definitely my biggest platform across all the different mediums and I just love it like it's awesome to bring people like yourself on the podcast pick your brain meet people learn from different people learn from different backgrounds and just you know emerge myself in in different people's lives and their expertise so I love the podcast that's awesome man yeah well that's good shoot congratulations man 500 episodes that's that's huge yeah yeah it's crazy because like you know you're podcasting too and you you look in the statistics of podcasting and the same thing with like diet and nutrition and training like consistency is the name of the game with everything and like if you look at the podcast statistics like over half of all the podcasts and iTunes have less than two episodes you know like people just don't stick with it they'll start they'll stop it you know the same thing with their diet philosophies and their their training protocols like the magic quote-unquote magic happens when you just adhere to something day in day out every single day every single year of your life and that's exactly what I plan to do with the podcast yeah I couldn't agree more as that very well said um all right man uh well it's an absolute pleasure it's great to have you on I really appreciate you taking the time uh can you tell us uh you know where people can find you and support you and find the podcast and then everything else that you're doing yeah well first of all man appreciate you let me on um thoroughly enjoyed chatting with you at ketocon talking with you on my show talking with you here on your show uh so again thanks for the opportunity I'm ketosavage.com keto Savage on social keto Savage podcast uh the company is keto brick for our meal replacement bar and that's where you pretty much find me awesome we'll put that in the in the show notes and uh everyone can uh can go and follow you and and see your work and I encourage them all to do that great uh Rob really absolute pleasure thank you so much for going on we'll definitely have to do it again thank you sir take care thanks bye YouTube [Music]