On this episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, the boys talk about nootropics and how they can improve your life. They also talk about the upcoming Ice House Chronicles show this weekend in Toronto and what you can do to get tickets to it. Also, they talk about a new band called Clown Elvis and why you should listen to them if you're not a fan of The Dead Kennedys. Joe also talks about his new band, Clown Elvis, and why he thinks they should get their own album out in the future. And of course there's a lot more! Joe and the boys are in Toronto this weekend, and you can catch them at the Icehouse Chronicles this weekend! If you don't want to miss it, head over to the website and sign up for tickets to this weekend's show! You'll get a discount code "ROGAN" and get 10% off your first order of $100 or more. The rest of the week we have a bunch of shows this week, so make sure to stay up to date with the latest in music, drugs, and other things going on in the world of Death Squad. We'll see you next Friday! Joe & the boys go to the Death Squad Podcast Network! The Joe Rogans Podcast! Subscribe to Death Squad Radio, the official Death Squad podcast! and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts and other podcasting platforms! . Subscribe, rate, review, and subscribe to our new podcast, and leave a review! We're going to be giving out some merch and t-shirts and hoodies in the next episode! Thank you so much love you get a chance to win some more merch and gifts from Death Squad! XOXO, we'll be giving you all the best merch and merch, too! on the road this week! -Joe Rogans, too much love, Joe, too good of course! Cheers, Joe Rogan. -Bryan & the ROGAN! -Jon and the crew -Jon & the gang and a whole lot of love, Jon & the crew at Onnit Jon and the gang at the Dead Squad Podcast, and much more! - Ben & the Crew - Ben and the Crew at the Bad Ass Crew & the Bad Boy Podcast, And much more!! - Ben & The Crew
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00:04:26.000Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day.
00:04:29.000Well, when I did a podcast with Rob Wolf, who was the paleo diet guy, one of the first things that happened was that I got an immediate influx of vegans who had to set Rob Wolf straight because Rob Wolf said some crazy shit.
00:04:51.000Like, I told him I drank a kale shake every morning and it makes me feel great, gives me a lot of energy.
00:04:55.000He's like, no, you gotta eat bacon and eggs.
00:05:21.000You were like around 40 and you were out of shape.
00:05:26.000I had been an athlete in college, I was a swimmer in college, but it kind of got away from me after that.
00:05:32.000When college is over, that was kind of the end of that athletic chapter.
00:05:37.000Life goes on and I went to law school and then it's just about the job and getting married and having kids and climbing the corporate ladder and all that kind of stuff.
00:05:46.000In the wake of that, I lost sight of Being fit and being healthy and was pretty much a couch potato.
00:05:54.000Depressed, lethargic, a little bit lost in life.
00:06:01.000I had a little bit of a health scare that kind of triggered me to do something about it.
00:06:07.000And so what action did you take specifically?
00:06:11.000Well, I mean, I wish I could, you know, say I ran off to the library and got a bunch of books and, you know, read all the paleo books and read all the vegan books and did a double blind study with people with double blindfolds on and, you know, figured out the right way to do it.
00:06:24.000And, you know, that's not what happened.
00:06:25.000I mean, I fumbled around for a while trying to figure out what would work for me.
00:06:30.000But the first thing I did, My wife is like she's big into yoga and healing and meditation and she's like you know she's constantly reading like crazy spiritual texts and you know she's pretty well schooled in alternative thinking and lifestyle and all that kind of stuff and you know if you were to open the refrigerator is pretty clear like kind of food she was eating and what I was eating which was essentially crap so but she would do like a juice cleanse pretty much every year you know and That
00:07:00.000was fine for her, but that was definitely not something that I was ever interested in doing.
00:07:05.000But, you know, I was kind of desperate, and I thought, you know, maybe I'll try that.
00:07:10.000And so I just sort of reached out to her, and I said, yeah, I think I want to do that.
00:07:32.000It was like I kind of weaned myself off food for a couple days and just did juice for a couple days and then kind of leaned back into food.
00:07:39.000But It was a pretty eye-opening experience.
00:07:42.000The first couple days, it was like I was in rehab, man.
00:07:46.000Just buckled over on the couch, detoxing, just feeling like shit.
00:08:22.000I did for a long time, but it catches up to you.
00:08:24.000But those habits, you form those habits that carry with you and they're hard to break.
00:08:30.000Yeah, we really are a creature of habit.
00:08:32.000It's a strange thing that even bad habits like gambling, like people that become gambling addicts, it really is some sort of like a Like a hijacking of your reward systems.
00:12:17.000Listen, if you're sourcing that much beef, you know, you're a huge company like that, you're going to have a problem like that from time to time.
00:12:24.000Yeah, there's a lot of cows involved in that, huh?
00:12:26.000What are the numbers in something like that?
00:15:29.000How are we going to regulate these cows?
00:15:31.000You're either going to shoot them or you're going to castrate a bunch of them You're going to have to shoot some of them, because otherwise you're going to have cows wandering through the streets everywhere.
00:15:39.000You've got to deal with the fact that you've created a species, essentially we've bred cows to this domestic form from wild cows.
00:15:51.000And, you know, we've done it for so long that they're pretty much helpless without us.
00:16:26.000Yes, but the vegan solution of not eating the meat at least removes karma from your position.
00:16:32.000It removes you from interacting with the terrified animals last moments and for you to be, I don't want to say profiting, benefiting from that.
00:16:54.000And I think that, you know, when you talk about vegan and the word vegan and what that means, I mean, that means different things to different people.
00:18:24.000And when you say vegan, it immediately, you know, people snap into a preconceived idea of what that is and what that means, and they have a visual image of a person in their mind.
00:18:33.000You know, it's a guy with dreadlocks kicking a hacky sack up in Humboldt.
00:18:37.000Always blowing a guy while they're eating a salad.
00:18:40.000Yeah, I mean, whatever it is, somebody has that image already.
00:18:43.000So that word And people have different reasons for getting into it.
00:18:49.000The people who are into it for the compassion and saving the animals, that's a very different crowd and attitude from the people that get into it for health reasons or because they don't want to have a heart attack or whatever.
00:19:03.000I guess are technically vegans, but they're also, you know, very different.
00:19:08.000And just because you choose to not eat meat or whatever, does that mean that you're automatically a Democrat?
00:19:13.000Or, you know, what is your political point of view?
00:19:15.000And all these things get woven together and it makes it challenging, you know, to even talk about it with an open mind, I think.
00:19:23.000Yeah, it is a quite interesting situation.
00:19:26.000And there is the very real issue of the fact that we are at the top of the food chain.
00:19:31.000And when you're at the top of the food chain, it bears some responsibility.
00:19:35.000And you can, you know, we're the only animals that can really decide and choose how to alter other animals' lives, like, on purpose and figure out how to do it.
00:19:44.000And when you look at how we choose to do it, if you look at, like, food, ink, and you see factory farming and stuff like that, it really is a damning statement about, like, where we're at.
00:20:10.000Like the best case scenario you would think they have it set up so these animals live like they're on an open prairie and they all just live a natural life and then you cull them from the herd.
00:20:24.000So they live a natural life, no different than any other cow, in a large environment where they get to roam around and eat grass instead of being force-fed corn.
00:20:33.000I mean, that's like the best case scenario if you're going to eat cows.
00:20:36.000But the way we do it, it's pretty damning that human beings in the idea of maximizing profit Have decided to run these ridiculous places where you're packing pigs right next to each other in these little boxes.
00:20:50.000And you see the chickens all stuffed in together with each other and pecking at each other.
00:23:47.000And they saw me drive up to that and I had a meeting and they told me to please remove that from their steering wheel because they respect cows.
00:24:23.000We're so fascinated when it comes to that.
00:24:25.000Human beings are really, really bizarre animals.
00:24:28.000So your story was that you were an athlete and then you got unhealthy and then you had a little bit of a health scare.
00:24:36.000So that's when you decided to go vegan?
00:24:38.000Yeah, so I did that juice cleanse and by the fifth day of that I just felt unbelievable.
00:24:45.000My energy level was through the roof and all I'd been doing was drinking fruit and vegetable juice and drinking this beetroot broth and some teas and stuff like that.
00:24:56.000It was amazing because I had abused my body for so long with terrible food and terrible lifestyle.
00:25:04.000I'm also a recovering alcoholic, so I used to drink a shitload.
00:25:23.000The body is incredibly resilient when you treat it right.
00:25:28.000When I was done with that, I thought, well, what am I going to do?
00:25:31.000I want to keep feeling this good, but I don't know what to do next.
00:25:37.000Again, I wish I had gone out and read a bunch of books or something.
00:25:41.000But I just thought, maybe I'll try a vegetarian diet.
00:25:45.000Like, I didn't do any education or research, but it just seemed like, well, that sounds, you know, healthy or healthier than what I'm doing.
00:25:51.000But kind of coming from an addiction perspective and a recovery perspective, like I went to rehab 14 years ago, and so a lot of like the way, like I sort of rewired my brain and the way I think is kind of in the context of addiction and recovery.
00:26:06.000It just seemed like something I could wrap my brain around because You're either eating meat or you're not.
00:26:28.000Maybe I would for a week or two, but I would definitely fall back into my regular old behavior pattern.
00:26:36.000So I started doing that, but it wasn't long before, you know, I'm looking for the loopholes or whatever, because you can eat like shit on a vegetarian diet.
00:26:44.000You can eat like shit on a vegan diet.
00:26:45.000So, you know, I could, I could eat Pizza Hut cheese pizza and get nachos and, you know, eat McDonald's French fries and I'm a vegetarian, right?
00:26:53.000So certainly, you know, that wasn't working, but I did that for like six months and of course, you know, didn't lose any weight.
00:26:59.000I was about 50 pounds heavier than I am now.
00:27:02.000I was kind of back on the couch and lethargic.
00:27:05.000I was ready to just bag it, but I thought I wonder what would happen if I just went that extra step and got rid of the dairy and cut out the processed foods.
00:27:13.000I didn't really think it would make a difference.
00:27:16.000I almost did it to prove that it wouldn't or to prove to my wife that it wouldn't work so I could keep doing what I was doing and be guilt free about it.
00:27:26.000So I tried that, and within a week, I was back to that energy level that I felt when I did the cleanse.
00:28:08.000So your attitude is essentially the same attitude that you have about recovery.
00:28:15.000Yeah, because, well, that's the thing, like, I know, you know, like, Tim Ferriss is big on the cheat day with his slow carb and all of that, and it seems to work for a lot of people, and it makes sense.
00:28:24.000For me, like, for me, it's about, it goes back to, like, the addiction model, because I do crave this stuff, man, and I know if I had a cheeseburger, like, once a week, I'd start eating cheeseburgers all the time.
00:28:36.000Because you break the cycle and now I don't think about it that much.
00:28:40.000Every once in a while I'll smell it and it smells good to me.
00:28:42.000But I don't go around craving it all the time.
00:28:45.000But if I was to have it every once in a while, then you're still fertilizing that little seed.
00:28:51.000I respect that Anthony Bourdain loves pork so much.
00:28:55.000He loves pork so much that they gave him the option of quit eating pork or take medicine to lower your blood pressure and your cholesterol, rather.
00:30:05.000Like, you know, they're studying all sorts of stuff.
00:30:07.000And you know, maybe there's an elective here or there, like one required course that they have to take, but they're not really that schooled.
00:30:14.000And in our system, we're, we're sort of grown and raised to believe that, you know, doctor knows best.
00:30:19.000And you go to the doctor and the doctor knows everything.
00:30:21.000And it's kind of alarming and eye opening to realize that that's not necessarily the case, at least with respect to nutrition.
00:30:28.000There should most certainly be a doctor of nutrition that you go to.
00:30:33.000A doctor who is a full-fledged doctor at the top of all the information that's available today.
00:31:24.000But in massively increasing the amount of plant nutrients I get into my body, and especially it seems like starting my day with them, I usually don't eat right when I wake up.
00:31:38.000I like to exercise sometimes or just get up and do some stuff, and then I'll eat.
00:31:42.000And my first meal is always really light.
00:31:45.000It's always either some sort of a hemp protein shake or it's this kale shake thing that I have.
00:31:52.000But the difference is the kale shake gives me this fucking steady energy.
00:31:58.000I can feel my body responding to the nutrients.
00:35:43.000You don't go into the same way, that's for sure.
00:35:44.000And people who have gone to altitudes, like who had to change altitudes rapidly, like move up to Boulder, like real quick, that normally would have issues with that, they've found that if they take cordyceps mushrooms, it can settle them in.
00:37:39.000So it was really just about, you know, connecting with that part of myself that I kind of lost touch with, but nothing crazy.
00:37:48.000You know, I would go to the pool and swim a couple times a week and, you know, do a light jog here and there.
00:37:53.000My wife bought me a bike for my birthday.
00:37:54.000I'd never really ridden a bike before.
00:37:57.000And this was when I turned 40. But then I had like an experience after I'd been doing this for maybe four months or something like that, a really moderate exercise.
00:38:06.000I went out for a morning run Out at, you know, where Mulholland Drive, the dirt road part of it, that dumps out at the bottom of Topanga on the valley side?
00:38:18.000So there's a trail that you can literally go like all the way to Brentwood, right?
00:38:23.000And I just went out there one morning on a weekday for a morning run and just, you know, you have those days, and I'm sure you have it in jujitsu, where you just feel unstoppable, like you just keep going forever.
00:38:33.000I just started running and I just felt I just kept going and going.
00:38:59.000It's not like I had a background in running or had any proficiency in it, really.
00:39:03.000And it wasn't like I was going fast that day either, but it was just the idea that I could keep going and I thought, Something's going on here.
00:39:09.000I don't know whether it's the nutrition change or I've just unlocked some dormant gene inside me, but this felt good.
00:39:16.000Then I was like, I'd like to challenge myself.
00:39:19.000Then I started looking for something to do.
00:39:22.000When you're 40, it's like, what's the bucket list item or what's the midlife crisis thing you want to do?
00:39:27.000I started thinking about doing an Ironman because that's a pretty typical goal for a 40-year-old guy who wants to conquer a mountain or whatever.
00:39:38.000And started training a little bit more and more.
00:39:40.000And I didn't know anything about triathlon.
00:39:42.000I didn't know anything about Ironman or anything like that.
00:39:45.000But I figured it seems like there's those Ironman races that are like every weekend somewhere.
00:40:23.000Like maybe a month after that experience getting a juice and you know how they have those like competitor magazines that you see in like running shoe stores or whatever like running shoe reviews or whatever just laying around and I picked it up and started looking at it and there was an article about this dude Named David Goggins who's this badass Navy SEAL guy like guy had been like a football player and a power lifter like big strapping guy I think he was up he had weighed like 275 pounds at one point and had seen
00:40:53.000some shit you know as a Navy SEAL and had lost a lot of friends in in action and he decided that he was gonna go he was gonna find the 10 most difficult endurance races in the world and do them all to like raise money for It wasn't the Wounded Warriors Foundation, but it was something like that, so that he could raise money for the families of these friends of his that had fallen.
00:41:15.000And he had just done this race called Badwater, which is a 135-mile run through Death Valley that goes up Mount Whitney at the end.
00:41:25.000And it's crazy hot, like 110, 120 degrees out in the desert.
00:41:30.000And he had just done really well in that, and he had never really done much endurance sports before that.
00:41:36.000He literally had fallen into it and had just put in an incredible performance.
00:41:41.000And then a month later, he did this race called Ultraman.
00:41:45.000Which is this insane double Ironman distance race in Hawaii, where over the course of three days, you circumnavigate the entire Big Island of Hawaii, which is like a big island.
00:41:56.000It's like the size of Connecticut, right?
00:41:58.000So I was reading about this and it just seemed like such a cool event.
00:42:03.000Not only was it longer than Ironman, which I didn't think was possible, It was broken up into stages.
00:42:11.000So the first day is a 6.2 mile ocean swim, followed by a 90 mile bike.
00:42:18.000And the last 20 miles of that bike, you go up to Volcano National Park.
00:42:55.000It was almost like this family affair where you have to bring your own crew and they take care of you and feed you out of a van while you're doing this race.
00:43:03.000The crews help each other out and the competitors help each other out.
00:43:07.000It's a race, but It seemed almost like this crazy spiritual odyssey, you know, like this experiment in expansion, you know, much more than a race.
00:43:16.000And I was like, that was what I was looking for.
00:43:18.000You know, it wasn't like I was looking for a race to go see how fast I could go or how many guys I could beat.
00:43:25.000Like, it resonated with me because it seemed more like An opportunity to learn more about myself in a way that was unique.
00:43:46.000You know when you come across something and something just clicks inside you and you know...
00:43:52.000Like, that's the direction you're supposed to go in or you're on the right path or, you know, maybe you've had that in stand-up or at some point in your life where you just feel like you're directed in a certain way, you know, where everything just kind of seems in alignment.
00:44:05.000It was like, I just knew I was going to do that race.
00:44:07.000Like, I just, I didn't know how and I hadn't done anything of note, you know, to merit getting into it or anything like that.
00:44:13.000But I was like, I'm going to find a way to do that.
00:44:17.000And I couldn't stop thinking about it.
00:44:18.000And I ended up calling up the, uh, Race director.
00:44:23.000And it was some months before you could even send in your application.
00:44:27.000Because I was like, I couldn't stop thinking about it.
00:44:29.000And I needed to like, just if she was going to tell me like, there's no way I was getting in, then I could at least like put that to bed.
00:44:35.000So I just called her up and said, you know, I read about this race, and I can't stop thinking about it, and I'd really like to do it, but, you know, maybe I'm crazy, because, you know, I don't know why I'm even calling you, because I haven't really done very much.
00:44:47.000You know, and she said, well, what have you done?
00:44:51.000You know, I'm barely, you know, I'm just getting back into being fit again.
00:44:55.000And she had every reason to just say, well, you know, why don't you call me in a couple years, and, you know, we'll see what you've done then, and maybe I'll let you into this race.
00:45:02.000She was like, well, listen, it means a lot that you called early, and why don't you just touch base with me in a couple months, and we'll evaluate your training, and we'll go from there.
00:45:12.000So she kind of left a crack in the door open.
00:45:15.000So it was enough to give me a little bit of hope, like the pilot light was lit a little bit.
00:45:20.000And I was like, I'm going to get into that race.
00:45:22.000I'm going to find a way to get into that race.
00:45:24.000And I hired a coach, and I started training as if I was already in.
00:45:27.000This was back in early 2008. And I mean, it's a long story, but ultimately she ended up relenting and letting me in and I ended up doing that race in 2008. And I hadn't done an Ironman before that.
00:45:39.000I tried to do a half Ironman the year before and I didn't even finish.
00:45:43.000So, you know, I wasn't going in with some crazy like endurance pedigree.
00:45:48.000So it was a cool experience, though, and I ended up doing pretty well in that race.
00:46:08.000My dad came out to help me crew and a couple buddies from out here.
00:46:11.000And none of us knew anything about anything.
00:46:14.000And I just wanted to finish, you know, and I just wanted to, like, not die.
00:46:17.000So I approached it, like, very conservatively.
00:46:20.000But I ended up exceeding my expectations.
00:46:22.000So I thought, you know, I wonder what would happen if I spent a year, like, preparing to go back and actually race it, you know, rather than just trying to finish and kind of being timid about it.
00:46:33.000So for 2009, I trained my ass off and I went back and, uh, And I ended up getting out.
00:46:41.000I got out of the swim with a 10-minute lead on the next guy.
00:46:44.000And I held that lead for the rest of that day through that 90-mile bike.
00:46:48.000So I finished the first day with a 10-minute lead on the field.
00:47:21.000And that van is filled with, like, all your shit, man.
00:47:24.000So you gotta have all your food that you're gonna eat, like, while you're racing, and then afterwards, and then, you know, ice for ice baths afterwards, and they're filling your bottles and feeding them, you know, feeding you.
00:47:35.000They kind of leapfrog you and park, and then you do bottle handoffs, so you always have nutrition on the bike.
00:47:41.000And they make sure you don't take any wrong turns.
00:48:58.000I like to stay away from Like a lot of endurance athletes run or whatever, you know, usually kind of Gatorade-y kind of stuff, like the Cytomax and that kind of stuff, the real high sugar stuff.
00:49:09.000But when you're going all day, like you're going to be out on a race course for eight or nine hours and then you got to do it the next day, your system can't handle that.
00:51:14.000I mean, it seems like there's differing schools of thought on that.
00:51:18.000I mean, I think that, you know, you have the really hardcore raw foodists who just eat everything raw, and certainly I think it's great to eat lots of raw foods, you know what I mean?
00:51:26.000Like the raw foods you put in your Vitamix or whatever, and I eat a lot of raw foods, but I still eat cooked foods, you know?
00:52:10.000I've gone periods without it, and then I've used it as well.
00:52:14.000I think that when you're using it compulsively and addictively, it's not a good thing.
00:52:20.000It fries your adrenals and makes you tired, ultimately.
00:52:23.000I think a cup of coffee in the morning is not the worst thing, particularly for an athlete.
00:52:28.000I mean, it's definitely a performance enhancer.
00:52:30.000Like if I'm going out for a long bike ride, you know, a nice little strong cup of coffee before my ride, definitely, I can definitely feel the difference.
00:52:38.000But I think it, you know, you can't be just hammering coffee all day long.
00:52:43.000I like a nice cup of coffee before a podcast and a nice cup of coffee before jujitsu.
00:52:47.000I like to get a little, but it's really a crutch.
00:53:53.000But I found that a really strenuous exercise, like if I have anything wrong with me, if I have jet lag, if I'm just a little out of it from landing somewhere and I can't shake the cobwebs loose, just really intense, strenuous exercise just seems to reset the whole thing.
00:54:13.000I really feel bad for people who don't exercise, who try to travel a lot, because I hear people tell me that they're fucked up for like two weeks.
00:54:58.000But if you can overcome that, it gives you that feeling like, you know, like lately I've got a lot of shit done that I wanted to get done, and I got this great, like, feeling because of that, you know?
00:55:42.000And also I think that there's this weird equation with exercise because it's so easy to say you don't have time or you're busy or whatever and you know I go through that a lot and and and it's easy to justify not doing it but ultimately when I just quiet that thought and and do it anyway I end up getting more done and everything that I needed to get done ends up getting done and if I don't do it I end up wasting time and I'm less productive and I'm not thinking clearly and yeah there's a lot of like down wasted time I think everybody has a different sort of biology.
00:56:13.000And I know for sure people have different needs.
00:56:18.000So I don't say that everybody needs it.
00:56:30.000I don't like getting annoyed at things too easily.
00:56:32.000I don't like this weird testosterone buildup that happens after a few days of not exploding on something.
00:56:38.000It's like my body's become most certainly addicted to that release.
00:56:42.000And it knows that it can navigate social waters better when it's just totally drained of all the monkey DNA. If I don't get that out at the gym, I don't feel like I'm as nice a person.
00:57:24.000There, that cuts out a lot of the fucking bullshit and procrastination with the 20 minute ride to the gym and then I'll only have 40 minutes to work out because, my God, if I just took a nap right now, maybe I would perform better tonight and maybe I could just do some working out at home tonight.
00:57:40.000Having it in my house, for me, is huge.
00:57:41.000The ability to just go outside and Even when I was broke, I always had a heavy bag.
00:57:46.000Just tied something to the rafters in the garage.
00:57:49.000Having something like that is, to me, having just a place where you can at least release in some way.
01:01:59.000I'm going to make some powder for you.
01:02:02.000And he's always trying to help me with my training and racing nutrition by giving me some of this crazy stuff.
01:02:08.000And so his whole thing is he's super knowledgeable about probiotics and microbes because he studied microbes and the GI tract microbial activity forever and ever and knows more about it than anyone I've ever met.
01:02:24.000And it's fascinating, man, because, and I talk a little bit about this in my book, too, that we think we're made up of trillions of cells, right?
01:02:33.000And we think we're these sentient beings and we have control over What we think and our decisions and all of that.
01:02:39.000But at the same time, we have to realize that we have like 10 times the number of our cells in microbes in our gut alone.
01:02:48.000Like our microbial ecology in our GI tract has like, you know, 10 times the number of microorganisms compared to all of our cells in our entire body.
01:02:59.000And there's been these studies that have come out And they're starting to come out where they're studying the extent to which your microbial ecology in your gut can trigger your nervous system and actually impulse you in a decision-making way.
01:03:15.000And they've discovered links between what kind of microbial ecology you have in your gut and the foods that you crave.
01:03:27.000Probiotics are all about improving the health of your flora in your gut, right?
01:03:32.000And if you have healthy flora, it craves and feeds on healthy foods, right?
01:03:37.000But if you go to Jack in the Box every day, or you eat Lean Pockets every night, then you're going to have a different kind of microbial ecology.
01:03:47.000The microbes that are in that food start to propagate in your gut, And that takes over and that becomes the ecology.
01:03:52.000And they're realizing that that ecology then sends signals to your brain that makes you crave more of those foods.
01:03:58.000So it's that craving cycle that I was talking about earlier.
01:04:51.000And then he just starts eating this McDonald's and he replaces that microbial ecology in his gut with the kind that...
01:04:57.000It feeds on McDonald's and suddenly he's craving it all the time.
01:05:00.000Could you imagine if they found out that McDonald's actually had implanted microbial biology that they created in a lab that specifically makes you want their shitty cheeseburgers?
01:05:12.000You just fucking crave that cheeseburger.
01:07:35.000It's a very Like, the idea is low-carb, right?
01:07:40.000Like, it's low-carb, kind of high-protein.
01:07:42.000And I think that, you know, that works really well for losing weight and maybe works for some people in terms of energy levels.
01:07:49.000But my perspective on the whole thing is I'm coming from looking at the healthcare crisis in America, where, like, people are just keeling over with heart attacks constantly.
01:08:00.000You know, I mean, heart disease is rampant, you know, and People are getting diabetes like crazy, and even children are getting diabetes.
01:08:07.000I mean, when we were kids, diabetes wasn't really a thing, right?
01:08:12.000Like, obesity, and the obesity figures are insane.
01:08:15.000Like, 40% of Americans are going to be obese by 2014, and childhood obesity rates are crazy, and school lunches are terrible.
01:08:22.000And when I look at it like that, like, I think that...
01:08:28.000I can't get around the fact that when I read the studies on plant-based nutrition, when you read the China study or you read Dr. Esselstyn's book, Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease, there's a pretty clear correlation between getting rid of the meat and dairy and eating a whole food plant-based diet and your ability to repair your body from these conditions that are plaguing us unnecessarily.
01:09:02.000Okay, so for maybe your listeners who don't know, he is a he's a badass.
01:09:07.000First of all, the guy was like he's Yale educated and he's an Olympic gold medalist in rowing in like 1968. And I think he was a I think he's a I think he was a Vietnam I think he's a Vietnam veteran also.
01:09:20.000But then he became a surgeon, and he was a head surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, which is, if you have heart disease or you have heart problems, that's where you want to go.
01:09:36.000And back in the 70s, he started to realize that when he treated his patients with a plant-based whole food diet, that they were able to reverse their heart disease without surgery.
01:09:54.000So you'd see these before and after angiograms and you could clearly see, you know, the clogged arteries becoming clear again and it working.
01:10:03.000And that was not a popular thing like in the 1970s and the 1980s.
01:10:08.000To a large degree, it's still not popular, but it didn't make him a popular surgeon there.
01:10:14.000Well, because they make money off surgery.
01:10:17.000You're saying putting that information out that you can heal yourself through vegetables was not popular because they literally wanted people to be sicker?
01:11:33.000You go in with high cholesterol or whatever, your doctor is most likely going to prescribe you statins.
01:11:38.000He may say, you know, change your diet or do this, and then you'll come back and it doesn't change.
01:11:43.000And then he'll say, well, it's genetic and you need to take this medicine.
01:11:47.000In fact, I believe that actually you can lower your cholesterol if you change your diet properly.
01:11:53.000But the point, getting back to Dr. Esselstyn, is that he was sort of blazing this trail a long time ago back when not too many people were listening.
01:12:01.000And it's taken him many, many years to kind of get traction with this.
01:12:05.000And it's taken the China study and his book and the documentary Forks Over Knives to get people sort of paying attention and listening now.
01:12:12.000And now there's kind of like An awareness that didn't exist before.
01:12:17.000And the scientific studies are pretty compelling, that when you remove the animal proteins, you remove the processed foods, and you remove the dairy, that you can really heal yourself.
01:12:28.000Well, if you cut, I mean, what has been proven that that is the order that works.
01:12:34.000Has it been proven that if you cut out the dairy, cut out the processed food, cut out the meat, specifically live off of vegetables, vegetable nutrition, that that is the only way to go?
01:12:46.000Or have they done vegetable nutrition and grass-fed meat and natural meat?
01:12:50.000Yeah, there's plenty of studies out there.
01:13:27.000I wish Dr. Esselstyn was here to answer that.
01:13:30.000We're starting to get a little too technical.
01:13:32.000I don't want to speak out of school or say the wrong thing.
01:13:35.000So what they found, though, essentially, was that a lot of ailments are started, and the activator for starting these ailments and diseases is animals.
01:13:44.000So you eat animals, you're going to get certain diseases that you would avoid if you just ate vegetables.
01:13:49.000And the China study originated around studying cultures where there really wasn't any animal products or animal proteins in their diet and looking at the extent of cardiovascular disease.
01:14:02.000So there's a certain area in China where it had a huge population, like 260,000 people or something like that.
01:14:12.000The incidence of heart disease was almost zero.
01:14:48.000All the various, like even broccoli has protein in it, but it doesn't have like a complete protein like say meat does.
01:14:54.000But there's quinoa and hemp is a very complete protein.
01:14:58.000But how do you make sure that you get the right amount?
01:15:01.000Well, I think there's a lot of misconceptions about that, and there's been a lot of sort of debunking of the complete versus incomplete protein argument that gets pretty technical.
01:15:11.000But I think that if you're eating a well-rounded, balanced, plant-based diet with lots of different...
01:15:19.000Essentially, if you're eating grains, legumes, fruits and vegetables in all the different colors, and you're rotating them through or whatever, then you're not going to have a problem.
01:15:29.000It's almost like Nature has rigged it.
01:15:31.000You're not going to have a protein deficiency.
01:15:33.000And, you know, just speaking from my own experience with this, when I first started on the vegan diet, you know, I was nervous about that.
01:15:41.000I was scared about it, especially as I was starting to train more and more.
01:15:44.000And my cabinet was like full of all kinds of crazy supplements, just tons.
01:15:49.000And I was like, just mounds and mounds of plant-based proteins in my shakes.
01:15:54.000Because I was nervous that I was going to injure myself or I was going to get sick or something like that.
01:16:00.000And over the last couple of years, I've slowly started weaning myself off of a lot of that stuff where I use very little now and I haven't noticed a difference in my ability to, one, recover in between workouts or Build lean muscle mass.
01:16:17.000And my endurance is continuing to improve.
01:16:44.000I only do it when I'm training really hard or I feel like I don't have any lentils in the house or something like that.
01:16:50.000I'm always trying to source my proteins from whole foods.
01:16:53.000So the misconception is that you've got to eat tons and tons of protein and you can only get real good protein, quality protein from animal products.
01:17:25.000He said that he was a vegan before that, but he had to stop being a vegan.
01:17:29.000I'm pretty sure, I don't want to paraphrase this guy's story, but...
01:17:34.000I'm pretty sure that is how we said it.
01:17:36.000Is there any possible benefit in your eyes to eating animal protein for as far as performance, physical performance as far as, I mean even though it may be the catalyst to triggering certain ailments in certain individuals and that can be documented, is it also possible that there's a benefit to it too?
01:18:04.000Yeah, I mean, you know, what I do is so long, it's a very specific kind of sport that's very different from jujitsu or sprint running or anything like that.
01:18:12.000But there are plenty of, you know, athletes out there in various disciplines that seem to be doing well.
01:18:17.000But, you know, has there been a double-blind, you know, sort of case study on the difference?
01:18:24.000And I think that, you know, for me, it goes back to The reason that I started doing this to begin with, which was, you know, really long-term wellness and not having a heart attack.
01:18:36.000Like, heart disease runs in my family.
01:18:38.000My grandfather, who was a champion swimmer, died of a heart attack in his early 50s.
01:18:42.000And, you know, I have to constantly remind myself that that was what motivated me to do this to begin with.
01:18:49.000At the same time, if I felt like I was missing something, like if I started to feel like I wasn't recovering or I wasn't improving or I wasn't able to get stronger or I wasn't feeling good, I would certainly entertain the possibility of eating meat if I thought my health was suffering, but I just haven't had that experience yet.
01:19:08.000So, you know, I just try to stick to...
01:19:12.000I don't want to speak for anyone else.
01:19:15.000How do you feel about that idea that everybody's got a different sort of nutritional requirement and that some people really shouldn't eat red meat and some people really should be vegetarians?
01:19:27.000It's based on your blood or where your family's origins are geographically and that's the kind of genes that you're carrying around?
01:20:07.000Um, they, um, I thought the whole deal was, is it cancer that they, that you almost never see in your population and they were attributing that to, uh, the, uh, nutrition that they got from fish oil.
01:20:21.000Do you, uh, do you substitute with any animal, um, like fish oil or anything like that?
01:20:26.000No, I mean, you know, I think getting your omega-3s is really important.
01:20:31.000You know, fish oil is really popular with a lot of people, but you can essentially do the same thing with flax seeds, ground flax seeds.
01:20:39.000I wouldn't use flax oil, but like ground flax seeds are something I put in the Vitamix all the time.
01:20:44.000Why wouldn't you choose the actual oil?
01:20:47.000The oil has been linked to, there's some evidence to suggest that it's linked to incidents of prostate cancer, but for some reason the seeds aren't.
01:20:56.000The seeds have like the case, you know, like they have that casing on them or whatever, so you have to grind them up because otherwise they'll just pass right through you.
01:21:04.000So you grind them up like in a Vitamix?
01:21:07.000Yeah, yeah, or you can buy them ground or you can put them in like a coffee grinder or like a Cuisinart or something like that.
01:21:17.000All that stuff has the same benefits as fish oil?
01:21:19.000Well, flax seeds are the closest, from my understanding.
01:21:24.000Does it have the same benefits as far as joint inflammation relief?
01:21:29.000Because fish oil is incredible for that.
01:21:32.000Yeah, I think it's important when it comes to joint relief and looking at inflammation, is looking at the acidic or the alkaline nature of the foods that you're eating.
01:21:42.000And animal products, dairy and meat, tend to be very acid-forming.
01:21:46.000Like, your body has a certain pH, right?
01:21:48.000It's trying to maintain that sort of pH right in the middle.
01:21:53.000But, you know, the foods we eat and the toxins we breathe in the air and stress of our lives or whatever, We can all try to push that one way or the other, and then our body has to kind of go into hyperdrive to bring it back to its normalized state.
01:22:06.000So the truth is that most people that are eating a standard American diet and living the North American way of life are eating a predominantly acidic, acid-forming diet.
01:22:17.000And they're in a state of what's called chronic acidosis.
01:22:20.000And that's a state in which, you know, you're constantly bombarding your body with a very acid-based diet, and your body has to kind of go into hyperdrive to bring it back.
01:22:30.000And that's an environment where you become very rife for getting injured, for getting sick, and it's also, you know, an environment that makes you more prone to those congenital diseases.
01:22:41.000So when you're eating a more plant-based diet, those tend to be, I mean, not every plant food or whatever, It tends to be, in the balance, more alkaline forming.
01:22:51.000And when you're in a more alkaline state, you're not getting sick, you're recovering more quickly, because inflammation is sort of the root cause for a zillion diseases, and it's like the enemy of the athlete, right?
01:23:04.000You're always trying to, like, If you can reduce your inflammation, your muscles are going to repair themselves more quickly.
01:23:08.000You're going to be able to bounce back quicker.
01:23:10.000You're going to be able to train harder.
01:23:11.000It doesn't necessarily make you a better athlete in a short period of time, but protracted over the course of a season, you're going to have a much more efficient and effective training period, and that's going to result in performance gains in the long run.
01:23:26.000So you're essentially saying that all the benefits of taking fish oil, you could get those same benefits with just changing your diet to a vegetarian diet, that you don't need fish oil.
01:23:37.000Well, with respect to fish oil, I mean, the purpose of fish oil is to get those omega-3s, those essential fatty acids, right, that are important.
01:23:45.000I mean, you know, there's a lot of talk about EFAs and the omega-6 and the omega-3, and we get plenty of omega-6 in all the foods we eat or whatever, but the problem comes when The ratio of 6 to 3 is kind of off.
01:23:58.000And most people don't get enough omega-3 in their diets.
01:24:01.000And fish oil is great for kind of rectifying that.
01:24:04.000But my point is only that it's not the only way of dealing with that.
01:24:09.000What are the other vegetarian options besides hemp oil, flaxseed?
01:24:14.000Yeah, hemp oil and walnuts, I believe.
01:24:17.000There's some nuts that are pretty high in that.
01:25:02.000How much oil would you need to lube up your fucking joints?
01:25:04.000But that's how I almost thought it in my head, because there was such a correlation between...
01:25:09.000Taking these pills and joint pain relief.
01:25:12.000I've read a lot of great things about fish oil and studies on fish oil and there's absolutely some nutritional benefit to taking it.
01:25:22.000I don't know why you wouldn't take it unless it was because of the fact that you wanted to not have anything animal in your body, like to just subscribe to.
01:25:30.000Well, I think that you have to be careful with the toxins that are in marine life, too.
01:25:44.000The very high-end companies, they test all their stuff.
01:25:48.000But I just don't see why there would be...
01:25:51.000Unless you were into it strictly from the point of view of staying vegan or introducing no animal into your body at all...
01:25:59.000It doesn't seem like there's anything that you lose from taking fish oil.
01:26:04.000It's interesting because any time you say, this food is good, then you can immediately go on the internet and find some reason why it's not.
01:26:38.000Two to five minutes at max and you can look at, you can enter in any food or any disease or whatever and most likely he has a short video on it and it's all based on peer-reviewed scientific studies or whatever.
01:26:49.000But I always go to that when I have a question about this food or that.
01:26:54.000I went to nutrition for the first time when I was like 17, when I was losing weight for martial arts competitions and I was fucking my body up and I was trying to figure out how to monitor my nutrition, how to lean myself out in the healthiest way possible to drop the most weight before I had to dehydrate myself.
01:27:12.000But that was Nancy Clark, who's pretty famous for working with athletes.
01:27:54.000I'm just going to have beet juice and carrot juice and celery juice.
01:27:57.000I've done that a few times and you get this weird kind of energy that you get from that intense plant nutrition that you don't get from anything else.
01:28:08.000It's not the same feeling that you get when you have the satisfaction of a fat ribeye and it's just perfectly cooked and you slice into that medium rare.
01:28:36.000And you don't get that from anything processed.
01:28:39.000And there's a lot of people out there that are miserable, that are depressed, I have friends that have shit-fucking diets and their way of dealing with it is to take antidepressants.
01:28:51.000You've got no exercise, terrible sleep, shit diet, you feel terrible, take a pill, you feel better?
01:28:57.000You've got to clean up all that other stuff, man, and then see how you feel.
01:29:00.000If you have all these goddamn issues as far as your diet, as far as your sleep, as far as stress levels, Clean up that shit first before you go take a goddamn pill.
01:29:12.000I mean, we're a nation of crazy people who are addicted to all these weird, new, not-natural, non-native chemicals that we're introducing into our body and that we become addicted to.
01:29:24.000If we could just look, if you could have an overlay of the United States and who's on the influence of any sort of a pharmaceutical drug right now.
01:30:22.000And for the most part, they're, people are, you know, there's, what do you think the level of happiness is now compared to what it was like, you know, 100 years ago?
01:31:42.000Because when you're unhappy, you know, you need something to solve that wound and then you do that long enough and then you're stuck and you can't make a change or it becomes too difficult.
01:31:52.000And, you know, I think it was Henry David Thoreau that said, you know, the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.
01:32:43.000You know, I went from being a martial arts instructor to being a stand-up comedian and got my car repossessed, went broke, lost all my credit card.
01:32:49.000I mean, I just was a loser for, like, years.
01:32:52.000But you were willing to double down to do that, you know?
01:32:54.000I just didn't want to get brain damage.
01:32:57.000I saw Future in Kickboxing and I was like, you know what?
01:33:00.000This stuff is not good for your fucking head.
01:33:03.000And I was meeting guys at the gym that I knew were punchy.
01:33:07.000I did too many hard sparring sessions.
01:33:12.000I never got knocked out in sparring, but I definitely got my bell rung before.
01:35:32.000But if you're a person who is trying to change careers, and you have a family, and you have a mortgage, and you have a car that you lease, and you've got to pay for your kids' after-school activities, that is unbelievably hard.
01:36:10.000Just a solo entertainment law practice.
01:36:13.000And made a lot less money but was able to control my time.
01:36:17.000And that was just a little bit before I changed the diet and started getting back into fitness.
01:36:22.000But because I had control over my Because I didn't have a boss anymore, I could set up my work schedule the way that I want, like Tim Ferriss style, then it allowed me to be able to train at odd hours that wouldn't necessarily flow with somebody who had, you know, a 9 to 5 job.
01:36:40.000But I was able to structure my life so that I could make that possible.
01:36:43.000And again, it was just feeling like, you know, when you feel like you're guided to move in a certain direction, a certain path, you know?
01:36:51.000When your car was repossessed and you were starting to do stand-up and move into that world, I'm sure you felt like this is what you wanted to be doing, this is what you're supposed to be doing, even if there was no real-world material affirmation of that initially.
01:37:13.000It's certainly not like I knew this was my path.
01:37:16.000Like, I had an idea that this was something that I could do, but I was terrified because I sucked at it, too.
01:37:22.000There was no evidence that I could ever be really good at it.
01:37:24.000You know, when I quit teaching martial arts, I mean, I was teaching at Boston University.
01:37:29.000I had my own school, and I was making a living teaching Taekwondo, and then, you know, I would deliver newspapers sometimes in the morning.
01:37:37.000I would occasionally take, like, newspaper routes.
01:37:42.000To switch from that, to give up training and teaching entirely altogether, to do something that I wasn't very good at, it was fucking terrible.
01:38:45.000I mean, I've heard people say that they were good right from the very beginning, but they're either full of shit or they were stealing jokes.
01:38:50.000It just doesn't make sense that you were good right from the beginning.
01:38:53.000Unless you had some experience in something else before.
01:38:56.000One group of people that were actually pretty decent, like not bad for beginners, was Alcoholics Anonymous people.
01:39:03.000Because this is driving people on iTunes fucking crazy.
01:39:50.000We were in the middle of talking about changing your life and changing your diet, changing your path into something that you love.
01:39:59.000That's something that we stress on this show as much as possible because it's something that someone doesn't tell you when you're growing up in the most formative period of your life.
01:40:09.000They don't say, you're different than me.
01:40:12.000You have to find what you're drawn to, find what you love, and then go chase that.
01:40:16.000I love when I see young people that latch on to something that they love doing when they're young, whether it's playing the guitar or whatever it is, that they're just passionate about, and then they just become very self-directed about it.
01:40:55.000And it almost like it doesn't even matter what it is.
01:40:59.000You know, everybody has something inside them that they probably, you know, Love doing or could be passionate about or could be good at or whatever.
01:41:07.000Do you think there's some people that are ditch diggers?
01:41:11.000Listen, I think that, look, not everyone can be an NBA basketball player or whatever.
01:41:17.000So not everyone is innately gifted, but I think everybody inside of themselves has something that makes them happy.
01:41:23.000And I think that if you pursue what makes you happy without getting so caught up in how am I going to make money doing this or there's no career in it or whatever, And living a little bit more faith-based with what you're doing and focusing more on the passion that we'd probably be better off.
01:41:40.000And I think people would be happier if that was a priority.
01:41:43.000There would also be a lot more people trying to borrow money.
01:41:47.000There would be a lot more people trying to borrow money.
01:42:11.000I tweeted this yesterday that this company came up with this new light bulb that you can control your iPhone app.
01:42:19.000You put all these light bulbs in your house and you can do all this crazy stuff with them, like change all their colors, change the colors, have them turn on, have them on timers that go off and on.
01:44:37.000Well, they're probably mowing their lawn as they're doing it.
01:44:39.000A lot of people do it while they're working, which is cool as fuck, because then they get to be a part of a conversation instead of just be sitting there screwing widgets together.
01:44:51.000I stack it with podcasts because if I'm going out to ride my bike for a long day, an eight-hour training ride or something like that, I can't listen to music the whole time.
01:46:47.000He's coming from a very different place and his priorities and perspectives and all of that are so, just in the way he speaks, are so different from what we're used to.
01:47:03.000You know, he is interested in things and is talking about things that no one in the traditional political stratosphere want to get anywhere near.
01:47:19.000You know, I think it's very important that the only way this future is going to be any brighter is if it's very important that we enlighten young people coming up to alternative passive thinking by you telling your story that you had gone down the exact correct path, you know, in some sort of a predetermined pattern to success which would equal success.
01:48:03.000That message, when that message is in some kid's earbud when he's on a train, you know, headed to his job or headed to school or whatever, that message can resonate and change thousands of people's lives.
01:48:15.000I have had more fucking people come up to me in the past two years and say, your podcast changed my life, than...
01:48:24.000Than any one thing that people have said to me other than fear is not a factor.
01:48:28.000They probably said that more than anything else.
01:48:31.000But that fucking theme keeps happening.
01:48:34.000And a lot of it is nutrition and a lot of it is exercise.
01:48:47.000There's a lot of other people like us out there.
01:48:49.000And we could all get pigeonholed into some ridiculous patterns that were created without individual personalities and unique traits and artistic intentions and qualities in mind.
01:49:07.000And we're disconnected from our own heartbeat.
01:49:12.000Most people are like, well, I don't even know what I like.
01:49:16.000We're disassociated from a higher version of ourself.
01:49:20.000A more authentic version that wants to come out is locked down so deep That it's almost like the key is, you know, unfindable.
01:49:29.000Well, we've become a victim of our own culture, of our own creation.
01:49:34.000The culture of our own creation is a culture of predetermined patterns and obligations and things that you just must do, that a lot of them suck.
01:50:15.000If I could have done one thing when I was young, it was just to live as lean as possible and keep all those doors and options open so you don't get stuck in some place you don't want to be and make it more difficult for yourself to get out.
01:50:27.000Yeah, I got out, but I could have easily just not gotten out.
01:50:31.000I know a lot of people that are postmen somewhere that really want to be a rock star.
01:50:35.000There's a lot of weirdness in this world.
01:50:38.000Most depressing things to be around is someone who never went for it.
01:50:43.000The people that you know that never went for it, that had an idea in their head, whatever it is, be an author, whatever it is, whatever it is, they just never change.
01:50:52.000I want to be a fucking professional fisherman.
01:50:54.000I want to fucking do what those crab guys do on that crazy show.
01:50:59.000Those guys go fishing for crab just to fucking know I'm alive.
01:51:02.000If you have that thought in your head and you don't do it, you're living like a bitch, man.
01:51:06.000You don't want to have those regrets, man.
01:51:09.000It's the saddest thing in the world, isn't it?
01:51:11.000The feeling that you get when you're around someone who just stayed on the couch, just never pursued anything, artistic, anything, physical, anything, anything.
01:51:25.000One of the big things of happiness is seeing improvement.
01:51:29.000Either seeing improvement in stuff that I'm working on, like comedy stuff, or seeing improvement in my jujitsu, or seeing improvement in playing pool, anything to me.
01:51:42.000If I don't see improvement in things, then I get really bummed out.
01:54:12.000When a lot of people had given up the ghost on the pager.
01:54:15.000It's weird how these things just haven't been around that long, and yet you can't even imagine not having them anymore.
01:54:20.000Do you remember the transitionary period where a lot of folks in the urban community had those little pagers that would send messages, and you could send a little message to somebody?
01:55:11.000Right after they accused me of being racist, I went to Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, and there's a dude standing right in front of the place, talking on his phone like this.
01:57:47.000Yeah, we're afraid to be in a fucking town without a cell phone on.
01:57:50.000I mean, I feel bizarre if I'm in a town, like say, and it's like a place where you can walk around, and I leave my phone in my hotel room, and then I'll go downstairs and I'll just walk to a restaurant and sit down.
01:58:18.000Well, some people have it hooked up to their phone where they get a text message every time someone tweets any sort of a mention of their name.
01:58:30.000I tweeted on Instagram the other day a picture of Dom Herrera in his sexy pool moves when he was shooting pool and it showed up on his phone.
02:00:51.000His name is Mike Callahan or whatever the fuck his real name is.
02:00:54.000When, I think, the more we have that, the more we have, like, a sort of a transparency about, like, who, like, I think people are less likely to just lash out and have it become super negative.
02:02:03.000It is just food, but people need to be on a fucking team, okay?
02:02:08.000Now they're in the death squad army, and if they feel like they're being attacked by vegetarians, they'll fucking throw out all their vegetables.
02:02:17.000I don't know why we all can't just get along, to quote Rodney King, before he drowned on PCP in a swimming pool.
02:02:26.000It seems to me that the real problem is annoying people.
02:03:37.000The more tolerant and accepting you are of people and the more you're just cool with people, The more positive interactions you'll have, the better your feeling in life will be.
02:03:54.000And the negative shit that a lot of people project at people for no reason, what it really is, is your own shortcomings magnified through your personality traits.
02:04:04.000It has nothing to do with the person that's being projected upon.
02:06:32.000You know, sort of like living off the land.
02:06:34.000And he would do a lot of things that were really similar to what people had to do in the 1800s.
02:06:41.000Like he would kill a water buffalo with a musket and shit like that.
02:06:44.000And in his new show, it's all about what you call fair chase hunting.
02:06:49.000And one of the things that I've been really paying attention to a lot lately...
02:06:56.000is the idea of a hunter-gatherer lifestyle being actually Like a physically benefiting experience for people and that there are certain amounts of, there's a certain system, a reward system that's in our bodies that is satisfied with growing your own food.
02:07:20.000There's a certain reward system that's satisfied with the hunting and fishing and that our bodies are essentially the same as the bodies of people that lived 20,000 years ago.
02:07:30.000There's very little genetic change and that we still have these reward systems, these primal feelings of satisfaction that are built into our very being as a human being in order to motivate us to do the correct things to survive and to carry on.
02:07:46.000And me, personally, as a person who's a meat eater, I've never killed an animal ever.
02:07:51.000You know, except accidentally, like, car accidents and shit.
02:07:54.000You know, I've never, like, went hunting.
02:08:31.000You don't put out, like, bait and leave food in a very certain spot over and over again so that you know the animals will be there.
02:08:38.000In Texas, they actually have feeders where they have these giant drums that dispense food on a timer.
02:08:44.000So in the morning, the deer just start walking in because they know they're going to get fed because most of the time you're not hunting there because they have...
02:08:50.000Giant, what they call high-fence ranches, and these high-fence ranches, it's essentially like they've converted, they've done like a mixture of farming and hunting.
02:09:01.000Because it's like, it's really like farming.
02:09:25.000I'm not criticizing it, but that's not what Steve Rinella does.
02:09:28.000What Steve Rinella does, he believes that the real...
02:09:32.000Satisfaction comes from stalking the game, finding the right place to be, whether you're upwind or downwind, and getting away from the area where the animal can detect you, and stalking and hunting an animal the way people did thousands and thousands of years ago.
02:10:13.000Anyway, this guy went down to the Copper Canyon in Mexico, which is this really remote area I think it's in the northern part of Mexico, but below the Arizona border somewhere.
02:10:54.000And in the course of the book, he gets to sort of commune with these people and it goes into kind of like ultra running and the barefoot running movement and the history of how the running, you know, how Nike Sort of created this business around running shoes.
02:11:09.000It's fascinating, but one of the things he talks about is this theory that man evolved as a persistent hunter and that we evolved to be endurance runners because we would go to We could chase down these animals that are faster than us, that have much more fast twitch muscle.
02:11:50.000So the idea that we were sort of bred to be endurance athletes or runners as a result of this That's fascinating.
02:12:00.000So did they use weapons when they first did it or did they just like strangle them and hit them with a rock once they got tired?
02:12:07.000Yeah, I think it was sort of like these animals would be so exhausted that there wasn't much need to do anything severe.
02:12:15.000Like they'd keel over, they'd hit them with a rock.
02:12:16.000Wouldn't it be fascinating if we really knew for sure?
02:12:19.000It's like really funny when you have like things like that like how did we develop this ability to do this?
02:12:24.000When did they figure out about persistence hunting and running?
02:12:26.000It would be really amazing if we could know for sure.
02:12:29.000It's so funny about how much of like the past of human beings is like This weird just ideas where you're trying to like piece it together and like formulate like a vision of how things went down.
02:12:42.000It's really hard to just extrapolate that across you know and apply it to a certain nutritional way of living like you know with paleo it's sort of all right well paleolithic but you know how many how many thousands of years ago are we talking about or millions of years ago four million forty million forty thousand Right, what is it where your body accepts it?
02:13:02.000And what part of the world and, you know, certain peoples evolved to, you know, had an approach to food because of what was available to them in a different way than somewhere else.
02:13:11.000And piecing that puzzle together is, you know, I mean, it's tricky.
02:13:15.000And they've just started finding some really interesting things that show that you might be dealing with far, far older societies than we think in the first place.
02:13:25.000Like, they're always pushing the dates back of, like, when people figured certain things out.
02:13:29.000Like, there's some cave art now that they've discovered now that they're looking at, like, 40,000-plus years ago.
02:13:35.000And, like, okay, this is, like, this throws things way back.
02:13:40.000It's really a fascinating thing, trying to piece together what human beings, how we become what we are right now, and what led us to this point, this apex of 2012, the whole process of hunter and gathering.
02:13:55.000I mean, that's what a lot of people say, the thing went wrong when we developed agriculture.
02:15:26.000Is there a way to inspire in the classroom a different way of looking at things so that people don't grow up to be the same fucked up pattern monkeys over and over and over again?
02:15:40.000Well, it's weird, because in some ways I feel like it's changing and it's getting better, and then in other ways I feel like it's moving backwards.
02:15:47.000I mean, when you have the internet and you have all this unbelievable, you know, amount of information available to you where you can find out anything in an instant and you can get to the bottom of, you know, what's happening in subject X, that's like a good thing, right?
02:16:02.000Like, it pulls the covers on a lot of people and a lot of organizations and what have you.
02:16:06.000And yet, at the same time, you have traditional media that's becoming even more and more entrenched.
02:16:12.000You know, it's sort of like, remember when we were kids?
02:16:14.000It was like the local news and that was how you got your news, you know?
02:16:17.000And you're going to believe what they tell you.
02:16:19.000And now, with the internet, you watch the news and you're like, well, I don't know if that's the whole story.
02:16:26.000And it's easy to go online and extrapolate upon that and find out more and figure out why they're not telling you this part of the story or that.
02:16:52.000And I think, believe it or not, without sounding grandiose, conversations like this are a part of the decision-making process.
02:17:00.000It's a part of how society looks at it, about how we approach it, because there's a lot of people that are like you that realize that this is not natural.
02:17:09.000This whole thing is bizarre, and it can go wrong.
02:17:15.000This fear-based culture that you brought up, the idea of the lack of civil liberties, the lack of privacy that we really have in this country now, the laws that are being passed over and over again that allow people to Look into your stuff because you might be a terrorist.
02:17:30.000How did we not learn from the McCarthy era?
02:17:33.000How did we not learn that the way is not to crack down?
02:17:57.000You used to be, if you were to talk about this kind of stuff or propose any of these ideas, you were just a crazy conspiracy theorist.
02:18:03.000But now, there's too many crazy things going on to not, you know, realize that there's a lot of truth to all this stuff.
02:18:12.000I mean, everything from, like, the label on the front of a food product that you buy that's telling you this and that, you turn around and look at the nutrition facts panel and you realize it's nonsense.
02:18:23.000Or how about genetically modified foods?
02:20:35.000They communicated with each other, and they found out who was who, and then the local bees separated.
02:20:40.000And they let the bees that were this guy's honeybees, the trained bees, they're never trained, the contained bees, I guess you would say, let them go about their business.
02:20:49.000But it's like there was some communication going on.
02:20:51.000And this guy said they had to work this out.
02:25:15.000Well, you know, the thing about raw milk is, it's like the thing, you're not supposed to be able to take milk, and it sits on the couch, or it sits rather in the refrigerator for a fucking week and a half, and it's still good.
02:26:16.000Grass-fed is a big issue now with a lot of people.
02:26:20.000Specifically, before we end this, I wanted to find out, what is wrong with what the paleo guys are saying, in your opinion, and what's faulty about their thinking?
02:27:04.000Yeah, I mean, we were hunter and gatherer, so there's a gathering part to that that gets overlooked in favor of the hunting part, because that's a little sexier, I guess.
02:27:16.000But the idea of eating, you know, such a low, like the no grain thing, the no fruit thing, all of that to, you know, focus on the meat, the saturated fat, the high protein, the low carbohydrate is sort of,
02:27:31.000in a certain respect, is kind of an extrapolation of the Atkins diet, you know, which is where this whole idea of, you know, this way of eating, which helps you lose weight relatively quickly, but also Can cause you problems with ketosis and eating too much protein, which can be damaging.
02:27:51.000As an athlete, I don't know how you're supposed to function without eating more carbohydrates.
02:27:58.000I couldn't do it without eating plenty of grains and fruit.
02:28:02.000And that's just speaking from my own experience.
02:28:04.000But my biggest thing is, again, going back to what we talked about earlier, which is This incredible incidence of Western disease that we have to deal with here.
02:28:19.000And when people are dropping dead of heart attacks left and right, and it's a gigantic problem.
02:28:25.000Diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer's, all these kinds of things.
02:28:29.000And there are studies that link animal products to the incidence of these disease.
02:28:35.000To me, it makes more sense to eat plant-based.
02:28:39.000And the studies show that when you eat a plant-based diet, you can actually prevent yourself from contracting these essentially food-borne illnesses.
02:28:47.000So it's not that I have some huge beef with paleo, per se.
02:28:57.000And again, I think there's a lot of cool stuff about paleo.
02:29:00.000Like, I love the evolutionary fitness aspect of it.
02:29:03.000You know, the sort of return to Moving your body and the kettle balls and the focus on core strength and how that birthed CrossFit and all of that.
02:29:13.000I think that a plant-based diet and a paleo diet have a lot more in common than they do differences when compared to a standard American diet, for sure.
02:29:27.000Well, a standard American diet isn't even really a diet.
02:29:31.000I know, but the problem is that If you ask people, 90% of people, if you ask them, will tell you they eat healthy, when in fact it's probably like 1% of people that actually eat healthy, or everybody wouldn't be keeling over with heart disease.
02:29:44.000And I think that heart disease starts when you're a teenager.
02:29:48.000You start clogging those arteries at a very young age, and you hear these stories of like, oh, I had no symptoms, and then I keeled over from a heart attack.
02:29:55.000You've been working on that disease for 20 years.
02:30:14.000And the paleo guys seem to point to the fact that there's an actual benefit to eating meat and that a vegetarian diet or a vegan diet does not have All the nutritional benefits of meat-eating, protein-eating diets.
02:30:27.000I don't know why they say that, because I don't believe that to be true.
02:30:30.000I mean, if they're saying that you can't thrive on a vegan diet, I mean, it's an ill-founded statement.
02:30:38.000I mean, I think even Rob himself said, you know, lots of guys do well on a vegan diet, and he said he tried a vegan diet, and ultimately he lost a ton of weight.
02:30:47.000I think he said he lost a whole bunch of weight or whatever.
02:30:49.000And I can't remember why he said he decided to not do it anymore, whether he wasn't feeling good or whatever, but I'd be interested in knowing what it was that he was eating.
02:30:57.000Because I think most people that say, yeah, I tried a vegan diet, it didn't work for me, or I felt lousy.
02:31:02.000Well, I don't know what that means, you know?
02:31:03.000I mean, you can be a junk food vegan and eat terribly and be nutrient deprived for sure, you know?
02:31:09.000So it's not about eating tofurkey and fake chicken fingers, it's about the whole foods, you know, the whole food plant-based diet.
02:31:18.000And that means You know, similar to paleo, getting rid of the oils, you know, or, you know, reducing the oils.
02:31:27.000Well, not the saturated fats, but the other fats.
02:31:29.000I mean, most of the plant-based oils don't have saturated.
02:31:33.000I mean, coconut oil does, or a couple that do.
02:31:59.000But I thought that oils are essential for brain function and for...
02:32:04.000These are the people that are, this is like the Dr. Esselstyn, the T. Colin Campbell, like the hardcores or whatever, and they're speaking to people that have suffered heart attacks or, you know, are in seriously poor health and are in a position where they really need to reverse a condition that they're in.
02:32:31.000But I feel like I need that in order to get the calories that I need to train the way that I want to train.
02:32:38.000Yeah, because there's a lot of people that believe that fats and oils are critical to brain function.
02:32:45.000Not only that, they're a very efficient source of energy, especially in endurance sports, because every gram of fat has much more, whatever it is, kilojoules of energy than a gram of sugar or gram of carbohydrate.
02:33:05.000In endurance sports, you're always looking at what zone of exertion you're training in.
02:33:11.000And that can be calculated by heart rate, like wearing a heart rate monitor or on a bike by a power meter that measures the amount of watts, like the force that you're exerting on the pedal.
02:33:22.000And you can be very specific about what your exertion level is and how that correlates to which energy mechanism you're using.
02:33:31.000And so when you're an endurance athlete, you want to really emphasize the fat burning zone, which is like the lower intensity, the aerobic zone of energy, which is kind of like Just below that level where you feel like you're getting a little too winded.
02:33:46.000And it's a certain level of exertion in which you're metabolizing fat for energy as opposed to glycogen.
02:33:51.000And if you're metabolizing fat for energy, you can essentially go all day.
02:33:55.000The more you train that mechanism, it gets more and more efficient.
02:33:59.000But if your exertion ramps up and you're burning glycogen all of a sudden for energy, You're only going to be able to go about 90 minutes before you run out of fuel.
02:34:14.000So you can train your body to burn off fat instead of training your body to burn off carbohydrates?
02:34:21.000You're training your body to utilize fat for energy.
02:34:25.000So it's not like you're, you know, there's a difference between dietary fat, subcutaneous fat, but we all have, no matter how lean you are and how matter, you know, I've gotten very, very lean, you still have a lot of, you know, fat in your system that's available as an energy resource.
02:34:40.000And how do you train your body to do that?
02:34:42.000By being very specific about the training zones and the exertion levels that you're doing, whether it's running, swimming, or biking.
02:34:52.000So, for example, cycling is like a perfect machine for the human because you can rig it all up to a computer and you can be very, very specific about what your output is.
02:35:05.000The bikes these days have a computer on them, right?
02:35:08.000So you have your power meter, which registers the force you're exerting on the pedals in watts.
02:35:12.000And then you can extrapolate that out after a ride, what your average watts are for that ride.
02:35:17.000And then you balance that against what your heart rate was at that particular watts, what the grade, you know, how much elevation gain you had, what the exterior temperature is.
02:35:26.000And you can create these insane graphs and look at it and, like, make judgment calls about where your fitness is, where your weaknesses are, and adjust your training program accordingly.
02:35:34.000And so when you're training for Endurance or ultra-endurance, again, it goes back to really emphasizing that fat burning zone, that aerobic zone.
02:35:43.000Because the more efficient you can be at that, you can improve your speed without doing that much speed work.
02:35:52.000I'm not saying this very articulately.
02:35:58.000When I first started doing this endurance stuff and wanted to stay in my zone two, which is the aerobic zone, I would have to keep my heart rate when I was running below about 145. Initially, When I first started running, if I ran faster than like a 9 or a 9.30 pace, my heart rate would go over 145. And when it went over 145, I knew I was no longer in the fat burning zone and I was getting into the glycogen burning zone.
02:36:27.000But by staying in that specific heart rate region over time, my pace increased without my heart rate going up, which is telling me that I'm becoming a more efficient athlete.
02:36:40.000At a certain level of exertion, my body is becoming faster and more efficient.
02:36:45.000So by training less hard, less physical exertion, you actually improve your boundaries?
02:37:20.000And so, for example, when I first started doing this training and I'd go out for these crazy long training sessions, I'd come back, I was starving, I'd be eating, you know, I just couldn't eat enough food.
02:37:30.000Now, the toll that it, the tax on my body for doing a similar workout, like four or five years later, Is de minimis compared to what it was before.
02:37:40.000So actually my appetite has gone down, even though the training has been the same, if not more difficult.
02:37:58.000See, I always buy them, and I just fucking leave them sit there, and I just work out.
02:38:03.000I just work out hard, and then I'm done.
02:38:05.000Well, you know, coming from swimming and what it was like in the 80s, you know, it was always, you know, go hard or go home and no pain, no gain.
02:38:13.000It's like if I had an hour to work out and I was going to go for a run, just run as hard as I can, you know, as fast as I can in that given hour and that's the best workout that I'm going to get.
02:38:22.000And actually, you know, the truth couldn't be more different.
02:38:26.000So if you want to get better, and that's the problem with a lot of sort of amateur athletes that want to do marathons or 10Ks or even like shorter distance triathlons, by training that way of just kind of using the time allotted and going as hard as you can in that allotted period of time, you're going to reach a certain level of fitness and aptitude in what you're trying to do, but you're very quickly going to hit a glass ceiling and you're going to plateau and you're not going to be able to break through.
02:38:51.000The way to break through is to step it back and really, again, go back to building that foundation from the ground up and focusing on if you slow down and really focus on improving your aerobic efficiency, and it's time consuming.
02:39:09.000Then you are building a platform upon which that speed work which you will do later is going to catapult you into a new realm of proficiency.
02:40:03.000And having the discipline to say, every workout has a purpose.
02:40:06.000And the purpose of this workout is I'm going to run for an hour and a half.
02:40:09.000And my goal is to never let my heart rate exceed that zone 2 threshold.
02:40:15.000That means I'm going to finish the run and maybe I'm not even going to feel that tired.
02:40:19.000I was like, I don't feel like I got anything out of that.
02:40:21.000And believing in that program and sticking to it over time to build that house.
02:40:26.000Do you think that that's a good way that someone should approach martial arts as well?
02:40:31.000And that strength and conditioning for martial arts, like say kettlebells or something like that, they should also do the same sort of a thing?
02:40:37.000Well, it's a little bit different because endurance sports are so much about efficiency of movement, you know, and over a prolonged period of time, whereas something like jujitsu or what have you is about explosive speed.
02:40:51.000But at the same time, you're going to be in the ring for a prolonged period of time.
02:40:55.000If you have the sort of lung capacity and stamina to endure longer than your competitor, so that you're fresher in that last round than he is, then you're going to have an advantage.
02:41:06.000So I think that what that would mean, and certainly I'm no expert in martial arts or what have you, so I don't want to get schooled for saying the wrong thing, but it would seem to me that in the off-season, Quite a bit of time before you get into your training camps leading up to a fight, you would focus on doing a lot of base aerobic training work to kind of lay that endurance foundation.
02:41:29.000And then you build upon that with the specific strength and explosive speed exercises to, you know, have that pyramid come to a peak when it comes to fight day.
02:41:38.000Well, one of the best fighters in the world, Nick Diaz, is a known triathlete.
02:43:36.000It's like my personal story, but it has a lot about how I sort of reinvented myself as an athlete and how I had to kind of relearn some certain principles about fitness that I grappled with and didn't understand initially that...
02:43:50.000Sort of allowed me, I believe, to reach a new level of fitness heights that I certainly didn't think was possible, particularly as a middle-aged guy.
02:43:59.000And you did this all through that method of building up the aerobic base?
02:44:03.000Yeah, and I was training for a very specific thing that is, you know, not what most people are training for.
02:44:08.000The kind of principles that we were just talking about, I think, are applicable to, you know, the sort of weekend warrior athlete, whether you want to, you know, go out and be able to feel good in your pickup basketball game or touch football or whatever it is, it's how to use your time-crunched days effectively, you know, rather than just going out haphazardly and saying, I'm going to blast this 30 minutes on the treadmill and do it time and time again and wonder why you're never getting any faster.
02:44:36.000So people can get any answers to any questions about conditioning and what you learned from Finding Ultra?
02:44:41.000Can they get that on Amazon and all the different places?
02:45:20.000You're an inspirational dude, and having you on the podcast is really cool, and I would love to do this again if you want to come in again.
02:46:23.000I can't thank you guys enough for being the coolest crowds ever.
02:46:26.000Sacramento was fucking completely off the chain.
02:46:30.000I never imagined that we would have these kind of crowds on a regular basis.
02:46:35.000It's really amazing, and we appreciate the fuck out of it.
02:46:39.000What I said earlier is not lip service.
02:46:41.000I really do feel a massive obligation to you guys.
02:46:44.000I know that this has become a part of your life, and it's a part of our life, too.
02:46:48.000Everything we're doing, Brian and I, is moving towards making sure we just keep doing more of this, keep digging deeper, keep having more people, more cool people like Rich Roll come on the show.
02:46:59.000And tomorrow, Mac Danzig will be on, as I said, as will the director of Cocaine Cowboys, Billy Corbin, who's also a cool motherfucker.
02:47:08.000Thanks to Alienware MMA for sending us some cool-ass laptops that Brian runs all the YouTube videos on.
02:47:17.000If you go to follow them on Twitter, AlienMMA on Twitter, and thanks to Onnit.com.
02:47:22.000Use the code name ROGAN, O-N-N-I-T. The code name ROGAN will save you 10% off any and all supplements.