Protein, increasing bone mineral density, saturated fat and more reflections | Drew Harrisberg

Welcome back to the proof and welcome to episode 400, a milestone that I am still having trouble believing. I started this show back in 2018 in Venice, Los Angeles where I am right now, thinking at the time that I was late on the podcast scene. In reality, it was still early days and since then the show has been listened to more than 50 million times, with over 17 million views on YouTube since mid 2022. We're certainly not the biggest podcast in the world, but truth be told, I never imagined that I'd be able to platform legitimate scientists, people like my dad, and reach this many people. So it is a milestone, it is something that I am really proud of and I'm incredibly grateful to all of you for being a key part of that journey. Today's conversation with Drew Harrisburg, one of my best friends in the entire world, was recorded just a week before the Bondi terrorist attack, an event that really deeply shook the community that I lived in for the better part of a decade and a place that I was staying in the days leading up to it. In fact, I'd been walking that bridge and through the park every day, the week before the event unfolded. And this is an area where Drew trains often many of my friends train in this area and so this whole tragedy has really rocked so many people that we love. My heart goes out to all of the victims and their families. I'm not here to make political statements, but I do want to just say this. I love my Jewish friends and I love my Muslim friends and I'm of the belief that kind-hearted, good-spirited humans, Muslims Jewish or other deserve to feel safe. In the shadow of something so heartbreaking, talking about protein and performance can feel almost trivial, but this conversation that you're about to hear with Drew also touches on something far deeper. What really matters in life and how fragile and precious it all is. It feels like a fitting conversation for episode 400. Please enjoy. Thanks for coming back. Been a while. Yeah, it's good to be back. In fact, I dug through the archives. My first time on the show was episode 62. And we're at 400 now. Very crazy. I don't know how many there's been in between them, but it feels like a lot. Well, well, 338 of me of me on this day. But yes, you're a very good maths. Well, you're a very popular. You're a popular guest and people have been messaging me almost every week to get you back on for whatever reason. I don't know why, but I'll take it. Here we are. And we thought that we could essentially unscripted just go through reflections. So people will be listening to this episode. I think first week of 2026. I think what will be instructive for the audience, but also for us is just to think about what are the conversations we've had in the past year or even earlier? What are lifestyle choices that maybe we've personally made? Where today we maybe we see them differently. Maybe we've changed our view on a particular topic and we can bring people into the way that that thinking has evolved. Yeah, I love that. I've sort of thought back to that first episode. The reason I went back to see what our topic was. And it was actually when I first went from keto to plant based. And that story's well documented. We don't have to go into it. But in terms of like reflections, if I go back to the very, very beginning, I think in that episode, I probably said some things that at the time felt very true, but in hindsight, after experimenting for another, it's been like seven or eight years since I've been plant based. I haven't changed my position all that much, which I'm proud of because it means that I've been able to hold this lifestyle as call it for eight years, which shows it stands a test of time. But there were some things that I think I've changed a little bit. One of them was that in that particular episode, I was new to plant based and I was digesting all of this information from experts who, to me, I hadn't yet seen any one challenge their positions. But one of the things that I was talking about was the adopting a lower fat plant based diet and how it's improved my insulin sensitivity. And again, at the time, it absolutely did that. But I think that I've changed my position a little bit since then where I've increased my fat intake. I think at the time I was doing like 10 to 15% of total calories from fat, which is pretty low. It's not like crazy low that people can't do it. But in terms of sustainability and enjoyment, I couldn't hold onto that. And was that decision to restrict total fat, all fats, because you thought you would have better diabetes management? Yeah, I thought it would improve my insulin sensitivity, allow me to control my blood glucose a bit easier. And also at the time, I thought it would help me to offset some of the cardiovascular disease risk that unfortunately when you get diagnosed with diabetes, no matter what the type, your risk for cardiovascular disease goes up. So I was like, well, this is a no brainer. Adopt a diet that can improve my diabetes management and independently reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. And the cardiovascular disease part, in particular, it's been a long time since we had that conversation. But I'm assuming you were influenced by like the Estlustin studies and the Dino-Wornish studies where a lot of people were talking about these low fat vegan diets as being the best diet for reversing cardiovascular disease was really the language at the time. Yep, that was used then. Exactly. And this is also another reflection if I may cover it now. When you discover something new that is exciting and you feel like it's working and you feel like you just found a solution or an answer that maybe other people don't know about or it's the first time you've experienced it, I think I let my enthusiasm get a little bit ahead of the reality of the situation, which is research evolves. It takes time to really understand the effects of a dietary pattern or any change in your lifestyle or intervention. So I think my excitement and enthusiasm was slightly ahead of the reality. Yeah, because I mean, ultimately that conversation has played out a lot since then, right? And I think just to bring everyone up to speed in case you haven't caught one of the limitations of that research, there's a few limitations really. And unless you double click on those studies and you're aware of the broader body of literature, then it would be easy just to accept it at face value that a vegan diet has been shown to independently reverse cardiovascular disease. Yeah. But there are issues or there are limitations, I should say, and there are limitations of any study, but it's important even when something confirms a belief or bias that we all have that we do go that extra step to kind of question the evidence that we're looking at and to understand the context. So Dean Ornish's study, it is a great study. It's a randomized controlled trial. It did look at a low fat vegetarian diet really. And in addition to changing diet, these participants stopped smoking. They started exercising. They meditated. They did practices to reduce stress. And compared to a controlled diet, they did have some regression based on the type of imaging that was done at the time, which is not the same as imaging done today. But if we just accept that the imaging that they did in the 90s was accurate, there was some regression from that total lifestyle program. And they also had significantly less cardiovascular events, which is amazing. But what that study doesn't show you is what was the independent effect of the dietary change. And it's compared to a control just eating a standard diet. It wasn't compared to a higher fat plant based diet. Yeah, exactly. So, and that's not me saying disparaging that study or Dean Ornish. It's just like that is what you can conclude from that study is that better compared to a just a control is overall lifestyle intervention and did better. And so if you want to go and adopt that overall lifestyle intervention compared to a standard diet and not exercising itself, then the evidence suggests that's going to be significantly better. Yes, exactly. And then with the essence study, that was unfortunately not randomized. So, there is no strict control to compare against. And many of the subjects were taking lipid lowering therapies. So, if they're experiencing some arc regression, let's say it's difficult to know was that medication, was that the diet, you really need to compare against a control group who is also on medications but not making that dietary change. Right. But I think a big takeaway from that experience of looking at those studies hearing people talk about it was where I can put up my hand and say I probably not that I was wrong, but I would take something back is that I remember giving a talk at a conference and I referenced the studies I spoke about all oil in a certain way that I don't speak about it today because again, my enthusiasm was so high at the time, I was so excited to share what I'd learned and discovered that I didn't probably do the due diligence to dig deep enough into it. And to be honest, I don't have the skill set like the scientific literacy you don't want to. I understand cardiac research. I just, you just kind of listen to the people who are proponents of a certain way and you sort of parent it a little bit. I think I was guilty of that. And I would, if I could go back to that talk, I would probably take a few slides out. But it, you know, it happens. I'm sure I'll do it again this year and in five years I'll change it again. But just trying to do my best, not to, you know, get overly excited about these things when you find them a bit more patient. - I have a related reflection. And it's to do with insulin sensitivity, insulin resistance and dietary fat. - Okay. So I think if you would have go back five or seven years ago, I was a lot firmer on the contribution of saturated fat to type two diabetes. And if you ask me today, I still think saturated fat affects liver fat and insulin resistance more than polyunsaturated fat. I think we have evidence of that. But through conversations with people like Roy Taylor and even Christos Mensoros from Harvard, it's become clear to me that the biggest drive away above the type of fat you're eating is the total amount of calories. And whether, when we're talking about type two diabetes here, whether you're over your personal fat threshold. And if you're consuming tons of calories above your personal fat threshold, even if the dietary fat is polyunsaturated fats, doesn't matter. And there's an additive effect where calorie surplus plus lots of saturated fat is like the worst combination. But a calorie surplus is still with a lot of plant-based fats, it's still gonna be problematic for someone who goes above their personal fat threshold. And really that's the greatest driver of the ectopic fat, the fat in the liver, back getting it into the pain-crease. And then as Roy Taylor puts it, that twin cycle, which ends up for someone with type two diabetes resulting in the pain-crease, essentially wearing out. But we do have studies showing the independent of calories, saturated fat can increase the ectopic fat more than unsaturated fat. - 100%. But the magnitude of effect compared to excess calories is way smaller. So my evolution of my thinking, often I would lead with, got to cut down saturated fats because of this, this and this. But the more I've learned about this, and just in terms of, I think giving people better information, they can really help them, understanding the magnitude is important. I mean, we were talking yesterday about the bone mineral density stuff and we might get there. But when you were thinking about, okay, there's a couple of different things someone could do here, they could look at dresser calories and their body weight. They could address their dietary fat. If all the conversation is about the type of fat, they're missing the big picture that really the big rock and what's driving instant resistance in the first place. Most of the fat in the liver and the pain-crease is coming from being in a sustained energy surplus. And that's where finding a way to lose weight through lifestyle, plus or minus leads like, G-O-P-1 agonist now, which are really driving ectopic fat down, is the biggest lever that someone can pull. - That's a fair point. So putting the big rocks before the pebbles in the sand, right? Like that conversation, when you're trying to educate someone, the calorie surplus versus deficit is probably more important off the bat, off the paddle racket. I think if I'm being completely honest, it's almost like, 'cause the data looking at heart disease is pretty convincing that saturated fats, particular types of saturated fats are causal in the production of atherosclerosis. It was almost like I was trying to find other ways to really drive home the benefits of reducing saturated fat. And I don't think that's even needed. - Yeah, 'cause if you, this is another reflection, if you are inaccurate or misleading with anything that you say, because you're attached to a certain sort of ideology or belief system, you do net harm overall, because people just no longer believe you or listen to you, but if you're just straight up honest, the whole time, and if you can say exactly what you just said there, like where you think you may have gone wrong or how you would change your message, I think it's just more productive, right? When you're educating people. Otherwise, you can come across as like some of the carnival crowd that we see online who's speaking absolutes. And you just begin to not believe anything that they say afterwards, especially if you can massively debunk a statement or show some inconsistencies, and then it's like, well, I don't actually believe anything you say now, even if they start to speak truth. I think it's dangerous just from a perspective of yourself, by the way you educate. I've been using Woop for over six years, and I can confidently say it keeps me on track when it comes to my sleep and exercise routines. The next generation of Woop isn't just tracking your workouts. It's monitoring your sleep quality, your recovery state, and even giving you insights into your biological age. No screen, no distractions, just continuous data on what your body actually needs. And here's what matters. Daily Woop Wear is linked to increased physical activity, to better sleep, and improved heart rate variability. I have no doubt that my Woop is helping me train smarter, recover faster, and make decisions that support my long-term health. Head to join.woop.com/simon. That's join.woop.com/simon to get one month off your first subscription. I want to play this clip. You sent me. I sent this? How would you approach this if you were 65 and wanting to improve your bone mineral density? Well, the unfortunate truth is that through exercise, we were probably aren't improving our bone density anymore at that age, because bone mass is peaking in our 20s. So we're really trying to hold on to what we have as opposed to trying to gain more, and that makes bone adaptations distinct from muscle adaptations. But certainly, we have really powerful anti-Astuoparotic medications. Okay, so that clip is from episode 391. We had to talk to Lauren Colensso simple. But I think overall did a pretty great job shining some light on an area of health and fitness where there has been some stretching of the evidence, let's say. And you brought it up with me yesterday. You said, hey, that part of the conversation where Lauren said, once you get to 65 or older as a woman, exercise is not going to increase bone mineral density. That when you heard that, it kind of sounded like a little bit of an alarm went off for you. Yeah, I felt like the message was a little bit disempowering, because I was thinking about your mom and my mom and any other post-medipal woman who's listening, thinking, oh, well, what's the point in going to the gym if I can't gain any bone density or increase my bone mass? So I was disempowering and sort of demotivating it away. But I also think it's just factually incorrect, because even the trial that you guys were talking about, the lift more trial, they did increase their bone density. Women, I think the cutoff was like age 58 and older. So most women in the 60s, if you look at the intervention group, they did the high impact high intensity resistance training. Compared to the control group, they did a bodyweight home program. They did increase their bone density. And the important point there that you're making, they didn't just experience less bone loss. They actually, from the baseline of the study, those people in the intervention group, their bone density went up in absolute amount. Correct. The T score improved. They had a percent increase between zero points, something percent up to, I think it was about 2.9 or 3.9% from memory on average. Some individuals gained even more than that. I was like zero to 12%. So some people in the study gained up to 12% at certain sites. I think it was the femoral neck in some individuals. But I think the message around resistance training for women who are trying to either prevent further bone loss or potentially increase bone mass, it's a bigger conversation than just medication is better. Don't worry about doing resistance training. It doesn't do much. That's what that's the sort of, to her point, that I don't, I think in that clip, it might sound like that was her view. I think there are other parts of that conversation where she speaks to the benefits of resistance training. It's just that when it got to that specific section, like when I listened back to that, when you brought it to my attention, it did seem to contradict the data that you're putting forward. I think, and we messaged her, we reached out to her yesterday. I think her point, the main point here is that from an increasing bone mineral density point of view, the magnitude of increase is much greater with medications than on average with exercise. We so I would agree with. But the conversation is way broader than that. And I think that even in that study, there's, I think it's like table four, looks at non-bone related metrics of like function, physical function. like profound increases in things that were not even specific to the program. Like the program was doing deadlift squats, overhead press, and dropping chin ups with a drop down of the ground, right, for the high impact high velocity. The program was pretty much eight months of exactly that, like five by five reps, five sets of each exercise. Yet when they did the functional testing of like sit-to-stand reaction time, vertical jump, all of these parameters increased dramatically, right? And those are the functional tests that ideally would prevent the fall from happening in the first place. So even if you do a program that's suboptimal for bone health or laying down new bone, let's say the loading's not enough or the reps are too high or the strains not adequate, the improvement in coordination, balance, mobility, confidence, I think it just outweighs any of the sort of like, you know, the parts of the program that aren't optimal. I think it is still beneficial on the net. Yeah, it's reductionist to look at an exercise program in a single outcome like bone mineral density and ask the question, is this exercise program good for that person's royalty and risk of falls and fractures? Which is really what, if a 65-year-old woman is listening to this podcast right now, go mama, mama, I don't care about that bone mineral density, the number so much. They care about the outcome. Are they going to fall and should they fall? Are they going to fracture a bone? Exactly. Right. And the other thing that I think is not captured in bone mineral density is that exercise can affect bone geometry, which we know is also related to risk of fracture. So even if exercise, I think in that lift more, I think it's a good point actually. It was zero to 2% on average. Yeah. Increasing bone mineral density. But they won't even measuring what happened to bone geometry. It's a good point. Right. You can only, what you measure is what you know. Right. If you're not measuring geometry, then you don't actually know sort of the outcome data that you're saying. If someone falls, if they have better bone geometry, what are the risk of fracture? And it seems from the evidence, if you can tolerate the medications, which increase bone mineral density by some of them were like 10%. Maybe more. It was more. Right. 10 or 15%. Yeah. And there are a range of different options. Plus exercise is like the best way to combat this problem. Yes. And even if the magnitude of effect from the resistance training in combination with medication is very small, right? You get this nice big bang for your buck when it comes to the medication and the resistance training on top of that is like tiny. You're still getting all of the other things we spoke about. Increase muscle size, the metabolic benefits of having more muscle on your frame, tendons strength, balance coordination, joy of moving, dopamine. There's so many reasons to exercise. And I would even argue that there are things in the lift more trial that could have made those results look even better. So they had a zero to let's call it roughly 3% increase in bone density on average. And the control group had an average loss of bone. So they on average lost, I think it was like one to 3%, which is like just naturally what occurs if you're not training over time with age. Yes, but with that said, they were training, which is again something we need to talk about. They were doing a home bodyweight program that wasn't loaded appropriately. And it was for that reason, it was sort of less than 60% of 1RM 10 to 15 reps. Bone is not like muscle. Muscle, you can build muscle at a very wide range of loading. You can do high reps, you can do low reps, light load, heavy load. If your proximity to failure is roughly one or two reps or close to failure, you can build muscle. Bone is different. There's a strain. You've got to hit it. Here a testament to that. Very light load. I've seen the weights. I reps. Do you want to go try to do a muscle up after this? We'll see what happens. No, so the control group, the reason why they didn't really gain or prevent bone loss is it just wasn't loaded properly, right? It was body weight at home. So I think it's very important that you understand the loading. But the trial itself, they only did four moves. It's like normal stimulus, different directions, different stresses on the bone. It stimulates more bone growth. I would argue that if they had that familiarization phase of a month or two, getting used to the five by five, getting used to the movements, and then towards the back end of the program, like let's say they extended it for another three months. It was an eight month trial, or even up to 12 months, with normal stimulus of different directions. Instead of the drop jump with the chin up, skaters side to side, or just other exercises, I think they may have even seen more bone density improvements. That's also an important point, is that a lot of the drug trials, looking at the bone drugs, it was like 12 to 24 months long. But that exercise, the lift more trial, which is the one that's cited a lot when you remove the ramp up period, it's just a little bit over half a year. They were training it about 85% of their 1RM for only five months of the eight months. The first three months, they ramped them up slowly, which is very intelligent, because they started about 60% of 1RM ramped it slowly up to 85. But once they hit 85, which is a pretty heavy load, they held that for about five months. Now imagine if they had extended the trial for a few more months at that same load and had new high impact exercises. I don't know, my gut would say that they would probably see even better results. When you remind people, if they are doing the five sets of five reps, how they can gauge if it's an effective set for the purpose of increasing bone mental density. Okay, so a five by five protocol for bone health. Yes. So if again, the listener is doing that program, but she or he is wondering, am I choosing the right weight? Am I actually getting enough force through the bone to get it to adapt? How do you, how do you troubleshoot that? It's actually way trickier than people think, because if you're dealing with a population who are not experienced in the gym and you're saying to them, you're going to be training at 85% of your 1RM max or 200 max. Who knows their 1RM max? So what do you have to do if they're testing? How safe is it to test someone with their 1RM max and they're in their 60s? They never put a geneal. Right. Or I'll see a process. It's calculations. We're hoping that we can roughly guess maybe we do a set that is like testing a rep range of six to 10 at a lighter load and then we use a calculation to figure out the 1RM max. But if they're doing deadlifts and squats, there's no way you're going to get, like my mom and going in the gym and doing a 1RM max deadlift. She's never done a deadlift before. So it's actually very hard to program load. And I think that the main thing is that you get this rough estimation of what you're on 1RM max is and you start out what this trial did. You start at 60% or 70%. When you do 5 reps with 60%, you could probably do 12 reps with that load. So you're leaving a lot of reps in the tank. If you're trying to build muscle, that's suboptimal. But for bone, it actually doesn't really matter because the bone is adapting to strain. So you just got to hit that threshold of strain. So above what is just everyday life. So 60% of your 1RM max exceeds just general life stresses of standing up out of a chair, walking to your car, picking up groceries. So that's enough of a stimulus. But bone gets bored very easily. So if you just held 60% of your 1RM max, did a 5 by 5 for 12 months, there's no progressive overload built in. So you have to slowly, incrementally increase. So I guess the way people can do it is you can use an RPE scale, which is sort of like a scale of sort of 1 to 10, how difficult the set is. That scale works well when you're thinking about building muscle mass. But for bone, it's tough because like I said, when you're lifting 60% of your 1RM max, you're leaving reps in the tank. So you're up here, it's not going to feel like a hard set. You're going to end your set and you're going to go, you know what? It was probably like a 5 out of 10. But for the first four weeks, that's fine. You're just, you're learning the skill. And that was the point in this. So if you're to your first time in the gym, if I'm talking to my mom, I'm saying, get used to doing a deadlift in a squat or use machines. You don't have to do deadlift in squats. You can use safe machines that are built to, so you can't really, at least slightly reduce the risk of injury. But I would just be saying, get used to the movements, leave some reps in the tank. It's fine. Every two to four weeks, we add a bit of load. And eventually when you get to 85%, that RPE is not going to be a 5 out of 10. You're going to be more like an 8 out of 10 by that point. Okay. So that's clear. The main reason that you wanted to bring this up was that you felt the message was disempowering. So you just wanted to clear that up. Yeah. I just wanted to, I think we get myopic in science and research and we look at an outcome and we try to isolate an outcome and build a program for one outcome. And we tend to ignore the byproducts and the myriad of benefits that happen aside from that. And when you're, I know you guys are having a conversation specifically about bone and I'm not having to go at Lauren. I think she's actually, it was a great episode. I just think that I would like to double click and I bet you if she was back in the chair, she would probably double click on this as well. Just coming back on. There we go. Yeah. Just to explain the benefits go well beyond, you know, the benefit of exercise go well beyond just bone metrics. And in her fairness, I think some of it is probably the way the conversation is going unfolded because we'd spoken about resistance training and muscle earlier and maybe she was just not doubling back to go back over that. But the point where I think fundamentally, I think is not 100% accurate is that the lift more trial did see an absolute increase in bone mineral density to varying degrees in subjects and yes medications the magnitude of effect on the average can be greater. But we also don't want to undersell the potential effects of exercise even just for bone because that small increase in bone mineral density actually could be really important for someone and it could be even more important for someone if they're not tolerating medications. Exactly. And I also think that if you can lay down that lifestyle part first being exercise before you jump on the medication. I'm not telling what people want order to do it in like to talk to your doctor. But if you can say to someone let's try 12 months of resistance training program. Let's test before test after let's see how much bone density that you can increase in 12 months. Then you've built a habit and built a lifestyle we can add medication and build it up even more. I think it's going to depend on I imagine the doctor's going to look at their T score and their risk of having a fall. How frail are they? How much time do we have? Do we have is it safe for us to wait this year? Or is this person super high risk and if they have a they fracture their hip they end up in hospital and have a high risk of mortality? 100% that's why I'm not a doctor. All these things need to be kind of weighed up. Yeah exactly. But I do like the idea of empowering people to pick a lifestyle that's going to actually benefit them for the thing they're looking at which is bone but also so many other things. And then when you you know take medication you might even be bigger benefits and you can take that with you for the rest of your life. I would like to see a study that to my knowledge I don't think this has been done that looks at post-menopausal women with say osteopenia on medications plus exercise versus just medications looking at risk of fall and fracture. Because we know we can speculate that if we're only looking at bone the outcomes will be better if you're taking the medication. Are you saying medication in both cases one with a resistance training program? Yes and instead of the outcome of interest being a bone mineral density. Got you. Because you might not see a huge difference in bone mineral density between those two groups because the medications are doing that heavy lifting for the addition of exercise maybe doesn't affect bone mineral density that much in that context but let's shift the outcome to the outcome again that people care about. Falls, fracture. Okay now you start to see the independent effect of exercise on the outcome that these women care most about. Avoid the the crash basically. Yeah. And that study doesn't exist. Yeah we're on a walker through that analogy. I can't. I would never try to do it right. I've got so many bad analogies in my head right now like I've been thinking even last night I was like oh I've got a great one and then I woke up in the morning and I played it back to myself and my that's just terrible. Do you ever get that mid afternoon crash or finish a workout with a pounding headache? A lot of times this is not caffeine that you need. It's electrolytes and that's where element comes in. Each serving delivers the key electrolytes that your body runs on sodium potassium and magnesium in the ratio that your cells actually need. I've been using element daily about a third of a sachet on lighter training days and closer to half a sachet per hour when I'm doing more intensive activity. Element keeps me clear headed. Seems to improve my recovery and I sleep better too. What I also love about element is that it contains zero added sugars. Personally I'd rather get my carbohydrates around training from whole fruit. Element just gives me the electrolytes I actually need and nothing more and the flavors are genuinely good. Raspberry and citrus salt being my current go-to's. You can try it for yourself and right now with any purchased element will send you a free sample pack of their most popular flavors. Just head to drink element.com/simon. That's DRINK LMNT/simon. Every new year we talk about diets, workouts, habits. But the more I learn about health the more I believe the best place to start is with a clear picture of what's happening inside your body. Consider it like a car service but for your body. A routine check-in that helps you understand what's running well and what might need a little attention. That's why I use function. Function gives you access to over 100 biomarkers each year. Things like hormones, inflammation, metabolic health, nutrients, and even environmental toxins. These are tests offered through function and they provide a far deeper understanding of your health than the average annual physical. When I got my first full panel back some results were expected and others genuinely caught me off guard. Seeing that data and how it changed over time has helped me make more informed, confident decisions about my health. It's not about replacing your doctor, it's about being more informed when you walk into the room. Testing is fast and convenient through 2000+ applications across the United States. And the wild thing is that if you were to order all of these tests independently you could easily spend over $10,000. Whereas function makes it $365 a year, literally $8 a day for ongoing access to your biomarkers and personalized insights based on your unique results. All tracked securely on the function platform. This new year give yourself the gift of clarity, understanding what's actually going on inside your body and making evidence-based lifestyle changes from there. Learn more and join using my link at functionhealth.com/simonhill and use the gift code Simon25 for a $25 credit towards your membership. A few days ago I had Dr. Luke Van Loon who's actually sitting in that seat right there. He's from a mass strict university in the Netherlands actually and he's a protein scientist. So I was interested in studies that he's performed with his group looking at how different types of protein affect muscle proteins synthesis, which is a as you know is a acute response in muscle tissue and somewhat correlates to growth of the muscle. And the backstory here, this is a reflection I guess. This is what I wrote the my first substack on actually. Yep. That'd be published next week. The backstory here is their papers are being written by Stuart Phillips and other experts in this space that create I think a pretty compelling case someone who is 65 plus really anyone to be consuming at least 1.2 grams of protein per kilogram. And the basis of that research is a body of studies comparing 1.2 down to the idea of like 0.8 and looking at lean body mass outcomes like that. And a question that has not been answered today. Actually that's Stuart Phillips and his colleagues wrote about in this paper where they were recommending 1.2 grams was at that level of protein intake particularly for an older person who has some anabolic resistance. Let's say less sensitivity to protein is plant protein going to be sufficient to protect that person against psychopenia. And there hadn't really been any studies looking at this demographic comparing an omnivorous diet to a vegan diet and looking at muscle protein synthesis or strength and hypertrophy. So all the studies that we've had have been on healthy adults pretty much or single meals not looking at a entire dietary pattern like maybe looking at an isolated way versus pea protein but in the background of omnivorous diets which doesn't tell us exactly what we're trying to answer here. How does a diet that's omnivorous so a mix of animal and plant protein about 60% of that's typically his animal protein. How does I compare to a diet where a hundred percent of the protein is coming from plants at a protein intake level of about 1.2 grams per kilogram. And we hadn't had a study that had looked at this until 2024 where Luke Van Loon his team compared an omnivorous diet to a vegan diet. Very an omnivorous meal at this stage, a single meal, 0.45 grams per kilogram of protein. Which if you had across three meals would be 1.2 grams per kilogram. This is just looking at a single meal the acute post meal muscle protein synthesis in these older subjects. There are about 70 years of and that one diet that was omnivorous had 60% of protein from animal foods, 40 from plant and then by the diet was 100% from plant. In that study, muscle protein synthesis was significantly. rate R in the omniverse diet after the omniverse meal in these subjects. And that was actually, that was their hypothesis going into it because animal protein is thought to have a superior amino acid and a ratio. And in particular, a higher concentration of looseain, which is considered to be important for triggering muscle protein synthesis. They then wanted to conduct another study. Instead of looking at just to post meal muscle protein synthesis, they wanted to look at daily muscle protein synthesis over 10 days and a crossover trial. So every participant, again, is with 72 year old participants on average, got to do an omniverse diet and a vegan diet. This was at a daily intake of about 1.2 grams per kilogram protein. And they're measuring that daily muscle protein synthesis response. There was no significant difference between the two groups. So despite their hypothesis, they walked away from that study thinking, maybe when you only look at the few hours post meal, the animal protein meal is performing better, but the plant protein meal for whatever reason, maybe it has less of a acute spike in muscle protein synthesis, but it stays up for longer. And so the area under the curve is still the same or not significantly different. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just kind of fascinating to think that on a meal to meal basis, how different the area under the curve can be, but when you extrapolate it across 10 days, maybe meaningless. Right. So you might look at that study, and I've spoken about this with Dr. Nagar, and kind of conclude that okay, elderly subjects can get the same kind of muscle protein synthesis response, consuming it diet with 100% plant protein as long as they are at 1.2 grams per kilogram. And that would have a small caveat that that study is not as good as a study that goes out longer and looks at hypertrophy or strength. That needs to be conducted. But this is where I think Dr. Luke van Lennon, my conversation with him, it gave me polls, and it was a concept that I'm aware of, but to hear him talk about what he's seen with these subjects, I think it's something that we should talk about and double click on, and I want to get your thoughts on it. So the more controlled a study is, often the less generalizable it is to the real world, but it's more reliable. So if I bring people into a study and I feed them all the meals, I can get a very clear understanding of how those meals are affecting whatever outcome. But that's different to if I run a study and I don't supply all the meals to you. I just tell you how I want you to eat, and you go and eat according to that based on your behavior. Now we introduce behavior. I know they go with this. Yeah. Okay. A good example of two scientists who do very different research, but on the same area, Kevin Hall runs tightly controlled metabolic world studies on weight loss. He can feed people, meals, he knows exactly what they eat, what they don't eat, can control it all. But then Chris Gardner also runs a low carb versus low fat diets, but out in the real world, where he just has a diet tissue and educating people when they go out and make their own meals. And the results in a metabolic world do not often reflect what happens in the real world. It was on the count for behavior. Yes. Right. So in many ways, the way I think about it is like the metabolic world shows what's possible, that's not necessarily the probable outcome. Right. And it can help understand a mechanism, but not necessarily a long term outcome. And some people will say, oh, but that's that study out in the in the real world. They didn't eat the way that they said outlined in their methods. And it's like, well, they didn't, but they actually ate the way that people are going to eat when given that advice. So what do you care about exactly? So where he brought some new information to light here was that after that 10 day study that I just shared, no significant difference in muscle protein synthesis, they ran the study again. Same population, 72, whatever age this time, just instructed them how to eat. And you're going to go away and do your own shopping and meal prep. This hasn't been published. So I should put a little caveat. Astrox next to it. So it's got to go through peer review. So we're getting these findings early. But I think there's enough literature out there to support these results at a high level. All these for us to discuss now. And I think it draws attention to something for people that are eating this way. What do you think happened? I think for people in their 70s, was this a whole food diet? Can they start from with protein powder? What did they say? That's a very good question. It was a majority whole food and the omnivorous diet to be clear also was whole food representative of the Dutch National Dietary Guidelines. So they didn't do like a crappy omnivorous diet or anything. It was a high quality. And the plant-based vegan diet, it wasn't completely unprocessed. It was soy yogurt in there. There were a few ways to increase the protein intake. That was in the meals that were supplied. Yeah. In the wild. In the wild. Different people are going out and buying their own food. Okay. Thinking about this a few different ways. But my initial gut feel is that a 75-year-old, let's say, who is told to eat a plant-based diet from whole foods, who may have an appetite. There wasn't as strong as when they were in their 30s or 40s. He's going to struggle to eat 1.2 grams of protein per kilo from whole foods, just purely by not being able to eat enough total food and probably total calories. They may lose weight incidentally. I think that this could easily be offset with being told to eat a protein powder or being say, you know, scuba day, just to bulletproof the amino acids and the total protein to eat a target. But I feel like in the wild, the omnivorous diet would outperform. As predicted, one of the positive side effects of eating more plant-based is weight loss. Right. For most people in the Western populations, where high risk of cardiovascular conditions who have excessive ectopic fat, that side effect is really beneficial. One of the downsides, as you say, is people are getting older generally, they're appetite slower, particularly if they're not exercising. Appetites even lower. That's something we could discuss here. Ways to have greater appetite. As a result, the vegans were consuming less total calories, losing some weight and less protein. That is consistent. Look at vegan populations and look at older people in those populations, protein intake, and some studies is around 0.8.9 grams per kilogram. The reason I bring this up is one, I think, it's silly to dig your head in the sand. I think it's great that the controlled study exists to show you what's possible. Yes. Okay. Also, I think if you're 65 plus and eating a completely plant-based diet, you need to be thoughtful and have some intentionality. Like you said, there are ways to optimize protein intake. You do get to 1.2 grams per kilogram and you get that same antibiotic response. That way, you're protecting yourself with your diet for against cardiovascular disease, but you're protecting yourself against priority and fractures. If there is a consistent long-term negative effect of plant-based diets on an outcome, it is fractures. It's shown up in multiple studies, high risk of fractures. People, there's a lot of different arguments about that data, about how good it is and are these people experiencing, do they have lower bone mineral density simply because they're lighter? It's often a claim that I see, but there's really no arguing that their protein intake is lower than omnivores in these populations. It's lower than that 1.2 grams per kilogram, where we've seen from a muscle protein synthesis response, there's no significant difference. This ties nicely to a reflection that I didn't get to talk about before. Over the last eight years, the way that I share my message about the benefits of plant-based diet has changed quite a lot. In the beginning, I think I made it sound too easy to get enough protein. I didn't say, well, if you're in your 20s or 30s, it's different to when you're in your 70s. All of the nuances we discussed right then, I made it sound way too easy. It was this silver bullet because, again, I was so excited that it was working for me. I think these are the conversations that you have to have. If you make something sound too easy for the wrong person, then they fail at it and then they blame it. It doesn't work. I've tried plant-based. My bone density got worse. I lost muscle, etc. Also, imagine. like hospitals as a place where people lose a lot of muscle quickly when they're immobilized. How many of those hospitals do you think is set up to feed someone a completely plant-based diet and get them 1.2 grams per kilogram? I think without supplementation like we discussed, like either a meal replacement shake or protein fortified food, satan, tvp, that's not happening. Definitely tofu. You're going to get a handful of chickpeas in a little curry with some rice. You're not even close to those targets that you just mentioned. So I think if you're listening and you are thinking, "Hmm, I'm in that age group or I'm approaching it, I wonder where I fall here." I would start with an order of like where are you currently landing? So track, track three or four days of eating. Just exactly how you eat normal. I'll get in to chronometer or whatever. And just see where you're landing and is at a you at 1.2 grams per kilogram or not. And if you're south of that then starts to look some of these foods that you're bringing up like a good protein powder, which if you have low appetite and you don't want to consume too many calories, if calories are something you're keeping an eye on, for body weight purposes, that's where a protein powder becomes really helpful. Oh yeah. I mean, I use, I can only imagine how hard it can be for some people in the 70s to hit those targets of purely whole foods because I lean on protein fortified foods and supplements pretty much every day just to take this digestive stress off trying to eat, you know, I can sometimes eat like 80 grams of fiber in a day. Right. So I think even for me in my 30s, I'm still leaning on supplements and I can already hear the carnivores saying it's that's just shows that plant-based is inferior. You have to supplement to get your protein. You don't. You can get it from whole foods. It just takes a little bit more planning. You've got to slowly ramp up your digestion to be able to tolerate so much fiber. And again, this is just us talking about it in the context of building muscle. When it comes to incidental weight loss and appetite regulation, I mean, we know that this plenty of studies showing that plant-based diet, high in five, it makes it so much easier. And then all the other chronic diseases that it ticks off, you know. So but that is a really interesting study. So is that, when does that actually come out? The result of the second- I've got the feeling it's probably not out for an early year or so. You've got to sneak peak. Yeah, interesting. But I think the other kind of pushback that some people may have, as I you talked about, protein powder is that, you know, surely that's not natural. Like we're not designed, that's often what you're here. We're not designed to consume those kind of foods that come out of a factory. And I think the simplest just response to that is that if we want to say designed is evolution, your body, we have not evolved to get to 60, 70 and 80 with strong bones and without psychopenia. There's no selection pressure on that, right? We've simply evolved to get to an age where we're healthy enough to to procreate. And anything after that is about optimization. And that's where we can really start to find tuning use science. And it may be that something that wasn't available to Homo erectus is actually advantageous and helps you in your 60s, 70s and 80s be healthy. Homo erectus didn't have to worry about that. Yeah, the longevity conversation is completely different to making it to the age to be able to reproduce. My nutrition philosophy has always been pretty simple. Start with a healthy plant-rich dietary pattern built around Whole Foods. That is the single most important nutrition move that you can make when it comes to optimizing your health. But even with a great diet, even with the best diet out there, many of us are still susceptible to falling short on our intake of key essential nutrients. That's where I am made daily ultimate essentials comes in. Daily ultimate essentials was formulated by yours truly alongside previous guests of the proof, Dr. Dawn Musselam, Dr. Suzanne DeVcoa and Dr. David Katz. With the right dosage and forms of essential nutrients like vitamin D3, B12, iodine, selenium, zinc and coline, I made was formulated to help you optimize your essential nutrient intake to support your energy levels, cognition, mood, metabolism and overall well-being. It's also NSF certified for sport, which means that every ingredient is third-party tested before blending and every single batch is tested after blending. To confirm that the active ingredients on the label are in the product, in the right quantities and nothing more. In a world where supplements are under-regulated and many supplement companies are cutting corners to keep their costs down and boost their profits, it makes sense to me to buy supplements that are NSF certified for sport where possible. For listeners of the proof, IMAIT is offering 10% off your first order. Head to IMAITHealth.com and use the code Simon at checkout. That's IMAITHealth.com code Simon for foundational nutrition that's clinically backed, tested for purity and built for performance. Have you guys ever tried creatine gummies? I have. And in fact, for a while there between you and I, they were a secret vice of mine. Damn, they tasted good. Problem was like many creatine gummy brands, while they taste good, they contain very little if any creatine at all. A lot of brands that have been selling these creatine gummies over the years have been knowingly or unknowingly doping us. So I've been waiting for a brand to bring out creatine shoes that are actually legit and momentous stepped up to the plate big time. The old new momentous creatine shoes deliver exactly one gram of Creapure creatine monohydrate, which is the gold standard form, single source from Germany and NSF certified for sport, meaning that every single batch is independently tested for purity, for safety and for label accuracy. There's no artificial sweeteners, no fillers, just science backed, clinically proven performance in a portable, craveable format. And right now momentous is offering our listeners up to 35% off your first order with promo code, the proof. Go to livemomentus.com and use promo code, the proof, from the 35% off your first order. That's livemomentus.com promo code, the proof. Question, if these subjects who are in the 70s, who are eating a whole food plant-based diet, struggling to hit 1.2 grams per kilo, can they offset that sort of, I don't want to call anabolic resistance, but like not hitting that target of increasing NPS by doing resistance train? Does that resensitize them so that at a lower total protein, they can actually build equivalent muscle to an omnivore? We don't know. We spoke about that though. There is definitely a hypothesis out there. And I actually think I spoke about this with Luke after the episode, where he's interested in the exact question you're asking. If you put people through a resistance training, who haven't resistance trained before, do they need less protein because they're more sensitive? Right. But we also know that anabolic resistance increases as you get older. Yeah. I think for now, until we know that answer, I would err on the side of caution and do a resistance training and get protein to 1.2 grams per kilo. And don't be scared to lean on supplements and shakes to get you there. And the other point I would say about the supplements or a food like satan. Some of these foods we might describe as more process or even ultra-process like a high-protein plant plant-based milk is considered ultra-process just by definition of the way it's made. But ultra-process is a very broad, diverse range of foods. So yeah. And just because of the headline say ultra-process foods, increase in risk of cancer and obesity and whatever, it's not that all the foods in that category. No, you've got to do that. I think critically. It's the foods that are calorie dense, are hyper-palatable. So what makes them hyper-palatable? I sodium, I sugar, and then high fat. And the fat that is really a problem is the saturated fat in ultra-processed foods. It's not the seed oils, it's by word. Some people may lead you to believe. But the AHA put out a review on ultra-processed foods recently and they made that point abundantly clear. Like not all ultra-processed foods are created equal. 100%. So if you can within the context of a mostly whole food plant-based diet, strategically add some of these processed foods in, and yes, they're processed, but they help you get to that optimal protein intake, then they can be absolutely healthy for you. Yeah, it comes back to outcomes. We talk about this all the time. Like if adding an ultra-processed food into your diet helps you achieve more muscle mass and bone health and you can live a longer healthy life, I'll take it. Don't worry about the label. Yeah, forget about the label. The main reason that I think this isn't important to bring up, and it kind of comes back to what your reflection was, about how you maybe spoke about protein earlier. I don't think you ever put it this way, but there are some doctors in the plant-based space who will say, don't even worry about protein, just eat enough calories and take care of itself. Yeah, and if you are just filling up on chickpeas and kidney beans, and broccoli and rice and fruit. All healthy foods. It's going to be very hard for you to be just naturally landing at 1.2 grams per kilo. Yeah. There'll be a very small percentage of people that would get there. Yeah. No, I agree with that. And if they were getting there, I bet you they're the people that are doing a lot of exercise that have a bigger appetite. Let's relate this to a blue zone then. If you're sort of looking at a blue zone population who don't really perform structured resistance training like we do here, they'd mostly plant based diet. And they're certainly not thinking about, you know, optimizing protein intake at every meal to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. They just they truly just eat a pattern. It's cultural is traditional. It's it's about the food, not the macronutrient. When they look at a plate, they're not looking at protein carbs and fat. They're not seeing this mathematical equation like we are or our science docs or even for me with my diabetes. Like when I look at a meal, when I sit down for a meal, I'm seeing numbers. And either it's one of the things that says total segue, but one of the things about diabetes that actually has bothered me, that I hate is it turned food into a maths equation trying to like see protein carbs and fats, how they interact, how much insulin do I need? Did I dose correctly? And you sort of lose the joy of eating food. Like sometimes I think we get so focused on these macros and microbes that we forget about the broader pattern. Is it is the trade off worth it to say to somebody, you know what, just eat the whole food part, I just diet. Don't worry so much about the numbers. Have variety, have diversity, eat when you're hungry, stop when you're full, have an active lifestyle, you'll probably live a long healthy life and avoid the risk of many chronic diseases, but you may also not be optimizing your muscle mass and bone strength. I think we are doing it in injustice to community listeners by not sharing this information. And if you're going to say just consume a diet and don't worry about tracking protein or being thoughtful about protein intake, I think the responsible message is to recommend people consume a Mediterranean diet. Yeah, I agree with that. As you go from Mediterranean to a more plant exclusive diet, and there are really good motivating reasons for one to do that and how to an individual level. As you do that, you need to be more intentional about certain things and I think it's irresponsible to say just to eat a plant exclusive diet and we don't want you to focus on protein or any micronutrients because that might create a bad relationship with food. If someone has issues with tracking protein for a few days or thinking about micronutrients and it is creating a bad relationship with food, might not be the best dietary pattern for that. Yeah, I don't think the messages don't focus on protein. It's still responsible enough that it's include foods that we know plant foods that contain protein like tofu, 10 pace, that kind of. But it's the micro management of like measuring serving sizes, getting 30 grams per meal and hitting these targets that can take the joy out of food for people. I don't think you need to do that though. I think once you do an order, you can see where you're landing. How far are you following sure? I'm following sure by 20, 30 grams a day. Well, that's a scoop of protein. Yeah, how do I make up that difference? Okay, cool. Do it for a week, track your protein. Yeah, I'm getting there and then it's almost set and forget. Yeah, it's true. You can track my protein intake. No, but you have a good, your literacy level, your nutritional literacy is so high that you can very easily. What I'm saying is that I think it's, I think, the someone who's 65 plus as a health educator, it's irresponsible to recommend that that person consumes a completely vegan diet without any scientific nutrition literacy unless someone's preparing their food for them. No, I think that's absolutely fair position. I agree with that. I think that this message can go a couple of ways. I think that some people are going to hear the message of this study and go, it's way easier to hit your protein target when you're in your 70s if you do an omnivorous diet. Then you're going to see a lot of people go, well, plant based is healthy, but I'm just going to go for this because it's easy to get my protein. Then they're leaving other things on the table like reduced risk of cardiovascular disease, stroke, etc. This actually is another reflection. The other thing that I don't think it accounts for is when I first went plant based, the reason, as you know, you're a huge part of it, probably the biggest part, but the reason I went plant based was for health reasons. I went plant based to help manage my diabetes and try something different. I tried the keto diet, I've tried the paleo diet, it wasn't working to the level that I wanted. It was time to try something else. That trigger was health related, but very quickly evolved into a strong pull to ethics and environment. Over the years, that environmental and ethical and animal consideration. It's not that I've drifted away from it, but the pull that I had in the beginning was so strong and emotive and I could not imagine not just helping people to wake up to what we're doing to the animals. Sometimes I think when we get so science-centric and so protein-focused in this and that, we completely avoid the conversation of animal ethics and environment, which I feel like over the last eight years, I used to argue in comments sections and try to scream to the masses like, "God, you got to see this. Look what's happening." Then all of a sudden, I just want to deal with notifications from all these haters and arguing, it just got so exhausting that I stopped. That's one of the things that I've reflected on. It is tiring and I felt that, but what I would say is that if we want more people to eat plant-exclusive diets, it's not debatable. They've had it for the environment. They're debatable. Have you been on the internet? From a truly academic perspective, I do not think it's debatable. I use just substantially less land that produces substantially less greenhouse gases because it's substantially less eutrification. Ocean is certification. The list goes on and on and on and we could bury our head in the sand on that piece. But my end and from an ethical point of view, that's also clear as day in my view. But the best way to inspire more people to consume a completely plant-based diet is to have healthy people that are consuming a completely plant-based diet. Yeah. Right? Because most people are intrinsically motivated. It's what's in it for me. Before planetary health and before animals, people think about themselves. That is human nature. That is a survival adaptation. It's a selfishness that has helped our species. People need to be able to look to 60, 70, 80-year-olds that are thriving and are not frail and not at an increased risk of fracture. A population who has, yes, low heart disease, low risk of cancer, but is also moving through their environment and doing well from a physical point of view. That is a very good point. That comes back to the responsibility of the educator. Even just this conversation, just saying, again, just full 360, right? The first study that you presented was about what we know is possible. The second study is behavioral and this is what happens in the wild. If we know this is possible, it is our responsibility to give people the tools and resource to achieve that outcome if they want it. There are probably a lot of people who do want that, but you don't know how to get there. That's also, I think, a gripe I have of other health communicators who don't even present the data that shows that a completely plant-based diet is as good as an omnivorous diet for hypertrophy or strength. There are communicators out there who, when speaking, just about healthy adults and these outcomes, it's promoting animal protein, because it's superior because it's easier. But I think we do have a responsibility to give people the information and at the same time have a caveat. Talk about the fact that it might require a little bit more intentionality. You might need to be a little more strategic with the food selection because you're going to be any more fiber and you're not going to be as full. And it just seems a little more of a 360-degree conversation for me because it's how we are optimizing for many things. How are we optimizing for Drude to have clean arteries? How are we optimizing for you to not have fat in your liver? How are we optimizing for you to have strong bones, strong ligaments, muscles to be doing as little harm to planet and to animals along the way? Yeah. I mean, that's exactly you just summarized pretty much perfectly why I am plant-based eight years later. I feel like the list of benefits is so long that you tick off so many things and beyond self, but I think that's the main thing. It's like sometimes when you find a dietary pattern that motivates you to stay on track beyond self, beyond your health. It ends up keeping you on that path longer and you still get the benefits of the person. So my diet-beats management has been fantastic for eight years. But I'll go through waves where I'm not even really thinking all that much about health, but I'm thinking about how to do my best for environmental choices and animal ethics and those kind of things. I think when you've got multiple things that motivate you, it's much easier to stay on track, but you also do need to know potential downsides or where you can fall short, which is, as you get older, the appetite goes down, gotta make up for these things. I want to get your reaction. Okay. What are you got? Did you bring a video for me? I got something for you. I'll get something for you. If I get to look at the screen or is it just a audio? All right, ready? Nice. Hey, I've got a video I can share too. I love you. You and your new music. You love for music. I rate it, bro. Post Malone in Angus, Stone. Sounds like. Tell us something. Yeah, I know. That's familiar. Can I play them with a clip of you? Why not? Get your reaction. I'll do it. Have it here. I gotta say, mate, your love for music is very refreshing because I've obviously been obsessed with music since I was a kid and I, you know, people might not know this, but before entering the exercise physiology world, I was like, I wanted to be a singer songwriter. Like, I was my dream. I was selling out. Not quite enough. 50 people were. But it's gone. Of course. I think I probably played some shows in front of maybe a few hundred people, but like that was my dream. It's very much like he has a genuinely incredible voice. But having you fall in love with the guitar and us being able to jam and stuff, mate, it's so awesome to see. It's almost like I'm looking back at myself when I started, because I pick up a guitar when I was 12 years old, I think, or 11. And I can see you still got that like. Well, I picked up the guitar when I was 14. Yeah. Did I tell you this? And I got the tire lessons. He may have told me this one's actually. And my teacher was really strict. Yeah. And it was these like really boring drills. And we never just kind of jammed or learned songs. Yeah. And I hated it. Yes. But quit. I had the same experience, mate. But with piano, same experience. I quit. And I didn't pick it up until I was like 37. I had the same experience. I was playing the piano. I was learning these songs. I had like, blah, blah, black sheep and twinkle, twinkle. And I wanted to play like proper songs. And there was a day at my school where all the people who in this piano, you know, lesson thing would come and do their concert to the parents. And it was a full auditorium. And they called my name. And Drew's going to play twinkle, twinkle, little star. And I said, no, I'm not. No chance. And I didn't get up. And they called me again. And my parents said, go, go. I'm like, no, I'm not playing that song. I said, get the next guy on. So I sat there. The next person went. And then when the show ended, I went up there on my own. And then I went to the other person's walking out. I played the song that I wanted to play. Oh, wow. So always being that kind of guy, like, I was not going to be told what to do in that music. But we had a great jam yesterday. You're definitely improving. Can I play this clip? You can play it. I mean, we were just, we were channeling Post Malone. Haha. That's a little like life. Oh, gosh. You fell in love. Oh, man. That was fun. We played. We were playing for a couple of hours. Not that. And then, have you got something from me or if I thought I'd do, I've got a post, but I just wanted to, but before we, I've got something if you do react to, but before we do that, just tell people about the birth of present that I got you that you didn't get. So I could all get over this. Well, a mystery, a mystery kind of set of guitar books turned up to my house. And it was like, uh, ways to different ways to play it chord, essentially. So you can go to the C chord and find another five or six variations, which just makes it interesting, right? When you're playing songs to get a little bit of a different flavor. And they turned up. I remember saying to, to Tony, because we'd been away and came back. I was like, I don't remember or any of these things. And we just, her and me, we kind of just convinced myself that I must have ordered these for yourself. Yeah. Because I, you know, when I, when I find a new passion, I go, I go right, I go, yeah, super deep on that. You brought your battle to the podcast sitting in now. I'm just trying to get a grip time, grip time. Just drop it on. You can hold it. You can just hold it. The thing is, mate, how do you think I got the address? I asked Tony. I should have straight away gone, oh, just drew a cent it for sure, because it was a surprise birthday gift. But anyway, like six months go by. I'm trying to like find out. I'm messing up your PS. I'm trying to find this. But you never told me what you sent. Yeah, I know. But I thought it was obvious enough. You're a very smart guy. Tony's pretty smart too. Like, you could have figured out. But anyway, you've got the books. I'm glad to see you playing a tie and improving. I'll put a little video off. Okay. With the book. Do you want to react to something? I hope you haven't seen this because I really want you to react to this for the very first time, because this is a post that I saw a few months ago. And I'll just paint the picture a little bit. But I have been in a part of my life the last, say, six, 12 months where my, I feel like I'm entering a new phase, right? Where I look at the world and I think it looks so divisive. And I've been a little just a bit pessimistic about what the world looks like and what the future looks like. It looks like a dark sort of grim place in many ways. And in other ways, in my own little bubble, it's beautiful. But I've been thinking about what I want my life to look like for the next however long I get to live up to 100, hopefully. Where do I want to live? What kind of life do I want? What are my memories? What are the things I want to achieve? What's my legacy? Like, what am I doing here? Why am I arguing in the comments of a fucking Instagram post about protein and plant based when I'm missing out on all this richness in other places? And I came across this post that just, I mean, it just hit me. It hit a nerve so hard. So if you've seen this, is this going to, is this new? So this is the thing, right? When you were like, bring something to react to, I was thinking, if I make it funny, we'll just laugh for the whole, it will be gone. Like, we'll get the giggles. No chance. So it's not funny. And I was like, I feel like this is a stitch up because you asked me to bring something to react to. So you already had this planned. But, yeah, no, but I didn't know what I was going to bring in. Okay. So I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to give it a try. I'm going to drop the snack, crumbs everywhere. I used to get so frustrated, but I'll miss this mess. I will miss this mess. Dinner is loud and unorganized. No one wants to sit still. There's shouting, giggling, and so much life. And before bed, I pick up the phone and I call my mom. I hear her voice. Mom! Mom! I haven't heard this voice in so many years. And I tell her, I love her again and again and again. And I never want to hang up. At bedtime, I don't skip the pages in the story. Not tonight. I don't want this day to end. I got one more day. And this time I knew. This was joy. This was love. Those little hands. Those loud, messy dinners. Our strong young bodies with no aches or pains. Our parents. It was still alive. It all mattered. So much more than we ever realized. Doesn't that just put you right back to where we have to be grateful? We're just surviving. We're not thriving. But it's just a moment where we have to think whenever we are overwhelmed and wearing the trousers, just think of that eight-year-old and go back to that time. Because you're going to miss this. We will. Oh. Oh, powerful stuff, eh? Life's long, but at the same time it goes too quick. And what we put our focus on attention on is just so misdirected. And it's so easy to just just in there in the day to day be so harsh on ourselves critical. Right. And and to not be able to cultivate that gratitude. And like even how unimportant is 1.2 grams of protein now sound after half of honestly, I think we can delete the first hour and 40 minutes of this. You know what I mean? Go for it. See I never want to get over again. No, but it's just such an important reminder. I know. If you don't mind, can I ask you a question? We did this at our retreat. You and I in Bali years ago, but I did it recently in Byron again. I would like to challenge you to answer this question. If you only had 24 hours left to live tomorrow is your last day starts when you wake up. You've got 24 hours. How do you spend your last day? What does it look like? Medically, I think about surrounding myself with friends and family, but I'd be highly selective. Not trying to focus on quantity really, the quality. So I wouldn't really be starting myself with that many people. I would do the things that I love to do that bring laughter and joy. And I think I would be sharing memories and talking about all the things that we've either done together or the things that I've done through my life that have brought me joy, the lessons that I've learned that I could share with my nephews. It would all come back to memories, it's the memory difference. It wouldn't be about being in any particular place. It's really who I was with. Well, you know, my funny side of me wants to say playing paddle, but honestly, I'm not sure at that time. Yeah. Just comes down to the most simple, basic thing which is human connection, right? And then the words I would want, like I would want 20 to know anything that I'd left on said, my mom and my dad, like, I'd be digging deep. Is there anything that I haven't said to my mom and my dad that they should know? The question is, if that's how you would live your last day, why haven't you done that today? Or yesterday, or have an opportunity to do it tomorrow? We need to say these things. We need to, you know, spending how much screen time are you having on your last day on Earth, but you would absolutely zero minutes. I mean, I spend more time probably watching paddle highlights on Instagram than speaking to my parents. I mean, I'm laughing, but that's kind of sad. So if you were to add up, I mean, that goes for a lot of us, I think. I mean, how many, how many minutes a day have spent scrolling on social media? Versus genuine connection with the people that you would invite on that last day to be with you. I thought that's just the same for all of us, right? It's, I think it's a few things. It's one. We don't want to accept that that day's coming. Even though it's an inevitability, kind of delusional almost. We're going to get out of this one alive. Yeah. Like, yeah. Somehow this is going to end differently for me. Right. And we think it's so far away. We have so much time. Yeah. But we, we underestimate time. Think about the things that you are doing day to day now that you wouldn't do on your last day. As a thought experiment. If the overwhelming majority of your day is spent doing things that you would never even consider doing on your last day. They're so unimportant. They're such time sucks. They're such a waste of your energy, your time, your love to give. How do we re-engineer our days? Like, why are we doing that? It's the opportunity cost. So if you're spending all your time doing that stuff that you wouldn't do on your last day, you're not doing the things that you would do on your last day. And we know I've spoken about this on this show. Psychologists like Tom Gillibitch have literally looked like that was a, was she an 83 year old woman or something? Yeah. Right. It's been 89 and something like that. They've studied what drives the most regret. Because a lot of what she was, she was verbally communicating sounded to me like regret. Right. Looking through life in their free of you mirror and wanting to have taken action where she didn't. Or just simply to have a different perspective. Correct. It was like, be present. Simply being present in the moment. That is an action. It is an action. Yeah. And when you do speak with people who are in their last few years of life and you ask some questions to find out what's driving regret. It's not really the things that you took action on in their life. It's the things they didn't take action on. It's in action. And it's in action towards your ideal self is what they describe. They're not the ought self, which is like what society thinks you should be. Have a job promotion and more money. Get the big house. That's that's the ought self. I ought to be like that. But the ideal self is based on your values. Right. Who is that person? And what are the actions you'd have to take consistently to be that person? If we are not taking those actions to our life, those are the things we want our deathbed. That we're going to be thinking about. And they're mostly not always, but they're mostly very little things like very accessible. Small things every day like a connection with the kid or your parents or your partner or a dog or taking in a view or jumping to the ocean learning instrument. I actually remember years ago you said one of your regrets would be if you didn't learn guitar. I mean, part of this research was what made me look at my life and think about the things that I wasn't doing. But there's always more. There's always more, but there's also a base level of importance where in this world of optimization, you just want to go, it's okay to not optimize everything all the time. Like it's so okay. In fact, that pursuit can just, it's like two steps back, one step forward sometimes. You're always just trying to catch up. Well, if you can just drop that optimization and just focus on the little things, like I think that poem or letter, whatever that was was just everyone feels that straight away when you hear that because we can all do that right now, but we're not. I can't remember if I spoke to you about this on the pod in previous episodes, but I had a wake up call like this when my grandma passed away. And I was, did I tell you this story? I may have told you offline, and sorry if I repeated online, but I'll just tell you now because it's relevant. But my grandma passed away. And before she passed away, she was in a hospital bed surrounded by a room full of people, 20, 30 people, generations, 34 generations, great grandkids, grandkids, her kids, cousins. It was just a room packed for this one individual who was taking her last breath. And I remember thinking, you know, I don't have kids. And at the time, I didn't even know if I would ever want to have kids, but I just remember thinking if one day I get to that age of 95 and I'm lying in a bed, this room is going to be empty. Unless my partner, Carly can outlive me if she passes first. Because I, one of us may be alone in this room. And I just remember that it hit me so hard thinking how if you don't, and I'm not saying so, I don't want to get into it about people should or shouldn't have families, but like getting to that last breath in an empty room being alone to me was just kind of a bit of a scary thought. And I was thinking like, who am I leaving behind? What is my legacy? Have I done enough? Should I do more? What am I going to regret? I'm going to regret the inactions that I'm going to regret, not the actions, but the inactions that you said before. And when I heard that, I just took me back to that room and made the first time I saw that I was like crying, watching it even just then like it just hits you every time. A lot of what was in her speech was really about the way in which she was affecting others around her as well. So I think that's what we really care about, the big part of it. You're sitting there on the death bed. It's when you're thinking about your kids or your siblings or the conversations you have or haven't haven't had. It's really like how you affected these people in your life. And how you, in a moment of impatience, the little thing that annoyed you, if you had it over again, you would take it in and be thankful for it. It would be a privilege, you know, an absolute pr. Like, because there's another side of this, which is like an ego driven side of like, am I worthy enough of having 30 people around me? That's what I was just trying to think about. Like, what's really the driving never regret? Like, because you're your fearing being alone, is that because of what it says about you? No, or is it because of. If you are alone, that's meant that you haven't done anything. That's something behind. That's the way I see it. So it's not about, I'm not scared. I'm going to die. Who cares? I'm going to be alone or not. It's what I'm sorry. It's a good point. I did not articulate it that well. It was what you're leaving behind, right? So my grandmother left behind a huge family who are all having their own offspring and you've got this line that's just going to continue on. But it ends at you. And I think that that for me was the fear of like, what, what am I doing? Who am I leaving behind? And what are they going to do for the world? And if it just ends here, then what is the, you know, but you're right. It is there's something there is a reason there's an immortality nest to what you're saying. To your grandma's past on, but she's still here because her effect back to like how you've affected someone. That's where I was. I was thinking about where you were trying to go without or where you were going. Like what was under it? I think it's the more people you're affecting in a positive way, like through your family and social communities. And what last the impact that you have, which in a world that needs more positivity is a really good thing. And that seems to be something that would drive peace just before you take your last breath. I mean that, you just nailed it. My grandma, who passed away with a body that was broken, shall we say, in organ failure, but a sharp mind. She like laughed in her last moments and smiled. Just knowing who was there, what she'd done. Like she, I mean, she couldn't even see who's in the room, but she knew that her kids and grandkids and great-grandkids were there. She left with a smile. It was unbelievable. And like not, not, not no fear of going just. Yeah. Well, this went way deeper than I thought from that clip, mate. Well, in order to make this practical, how do you cultivate her level of gratitude and presence and commitment? And I want to that, like what's the take away here? Because we can enjoy socializing. But the cows come home. But I've still probably getting a message from my mom tonight and not call us tonight. And I mean, to your point, it's not about being perfect, but what is the strategy that will help us all realize that even that feels like we have a lot of time on our side? We don't actually. I wish I had the answer. I truly am searching myself. I think it's harder now than ever for our generation. And I just think we're too distracted, too fucking distracted. We're not nowhere near as present as, say, our great-grandparents. The word distraction by definition, pulling you away from something that's more meaningful. Right. Because, like, let's be honest, having a phone in your pocket where you can scroll and be connected with every other person on earth without being connected to the person you're sitting across. It's not very, it's not a tool that's really helped quality relationships, right? But in some ways, I look at some people like Tony, she's very good at using a phone to connect to keep up with her friends, like a wide circle of people, phone calls and connect with them in there in different states. I, on the other hand, I had a really bad relationship with my phone in that I will fall into the doom scrolling with most of us, but also at times I just look at my phone and it kind of repulsed me in. And the last thing I wanted to be doing is making lots of long phone calls. That's why we can do that. And then I go away and sit down and play the guitar. And it leads to, I guess, a disconnection with a lot of people because I'm not, you know, spending the 30 minutes on the phone call with this friend and with that friend. And I'm waiting until the, you know, in frequent time is the overlap in there and then in person's head. That's a great point. I'm so similar to you. I'm so similar. I think the way Tony does it is she uses the tool for the job of was probably best assigned for me. Like she's hammering a nail with the hammer, we're trying to like unscrew a freaking screw with it. Like it's not going to happen. So I think like I'm not saying that a phone completely disconnects you from people it can. If you use the tool, how it's designed or use it properly, I'm like you made it. I'll just, I'll just go from too much screen time to zero. I'm not responding to anyone and that I don't speak to my friends for long enough. I don't check in on them and then all of sudden relationships start to fade. It's, I think it takes work. It is, we need to treat this like we do our bodies in the gym. Like you've got to shop every day and put in the reps. Like what's the best way to do it? Like I used to try to, again, like you fall back into your ways, but on my drive home from golf, let's say I've got a 40-minute drive in the car call someone that you care about and just talk to call. I mean, I've, I said this at the retreat. I said a goal for myself call my sister after golf. How many times have I done it? Maybe twice. This goes back to something we were talking about the other day where part of me often thinks about just wanting a simpler life with less things and less distraction. And then I think maybe we're we're distracting ourselves on purpose, though, from doing the hard things. Maybe it's subconscious because it would think that you could just be intentional like you was talking about. And then this would just come be really easy. I'm not sure what works that way. It's not that it's definitely not that easy. It's definitely like it's the knowledge action gap. Like you know something's good for you, right? And I'm going to throw my mom out of the bus, done it before I'll do it again. She knows exercise is good for her. She's very smart woman. She's a doctor. She's, I'm her son. I have in her ear all the time. She knows it's good, but she has a hard time acting in a way that aligns with technology or wisdom of exercise is good for my muscles and bones and health and longevity and mental health, physical health, but can't consistently show up to do the hard thing. But she's so good at doing so many other hard things in life. All right. And I'm like I'm the opposite, right? So I'm so good at showing up for the workout, the ice bath, the, you know, the self inflicted pain and struggle. But then the thing that is hard for me, the equivalent of the workout for my mom is calling my parents and telling them I love them or calling my sister and saying, I love you. Can't do it. It's not, it's just so hard. But yeah, I just don't know what the answer is, man. You're going to have to get an expert on that. That's all. We're going to have to circle back, but I'm just thinking out loud here. Is it a, is it a values question? Because I don't necessarily think it is. I think you value your relationship with your sister and with your parents. Some people in my pressroom say you value your health more than or whatever it is that you're doing instead of like do you value scrolling and screen more than relationship with your parents? I mean, obviously not. And I imagine that everyone's answer would be of course not yet. There's still often a priority towards the scrolling and we feel disconnected from people in our life. Right. There's a, there's a natural resistance that seems to always be there that is hard to overcome. But I think your question before was like, what is a strategy? Like what's a practical way around that? You'd have to speak to like a behavioral psychologist or something because I just can't, I just don't know. I really cannot answer it. And I go, I, I have all these ways to achieve the goal of, you know, pick up the phone and call your sister or connect with this person. And then the resistance is just slightly bigger than my motivation and drive to do that thing. And then it month goes by two months ago another year, 2026, 2026. And before you know it, it's just the years of ticking off. Right. Until something major happens. And as a, there's a, an event that creates a lot of fear. Right. Because fear is a good, acute short-term motivator. But when the fears subsides, you just go back to base what you're baselines. But and I've heard you say you, joy is a better motivator. Yeah, it's just a better long-term motivator. Long-term. Yeah. So it would follow that through intentionally catching up with the sister doing the things with your parents that you're driving more, you have to drive more joy for that to become a habit. To feel a reward from it. And I think a lot of people did feel it as a chore. And unfortunately, it feels like hard work. Now I agree, I need a psychologist to understand what's going on there. But where my mind's going is that kind of grit your teeth and you just do it because like you think, you know, this is what your toll leads to a meaningful life. But if you're not getting that hit of dog main or joy or reward, doesn't shift from something that requires a whole lot of intentionality and thought to something that's just happening subconsciously. Yeah, it's a great point because if I think about the way I show up to the gym every day, it's not hard. I know how much joy I'm going to feel the other side of it. There's not much resistance. I don't require a lot of motivation. Like I say, I feel like it's quite easy. By the way, we sound like the shittest sons right now in the world. No, I feel like she's the thing, right? That's actually, I'm glad you said that. Thankfully, my parents and myself, my parents know that I'm a good son who loves them and cares about them. even though I don't tell them all the time. So I think you can show that in other ways. It doesn't have to be telling them all the time. Like there's, I am acting in a way that they know. Right. I just feel like, you know, when I listen to that poem and I think back one day, I probably haven't said it enough, you know, I would echo that. I would say particularly with my mom, the initial immediate thing I think about is she's more available for me than I'm available for her. Yeah. Most moms are not right. Which, maybe that's just how it is. That's a very maternal, that often leaves me feeling a bit guilt. Yeah. Me too. Hey, we get up. It's a lot of keep each other accountable. I mean, we did say earlier, we're big babies. And I mean, this is just a testament to the fact that everyone's got things to work on. Yeah, 100%. Yeah. Okay. So that went down a track. I didn't think we were going. Me too. Bad we did though. Do you want to do trends for 2026? Yes. Hi, I think from a sporting perspective, okay, just start with a P. That's what the BNN's with in our, okay, I think in countries like the US and Australia, we will see people probably think this is silly. Like why this guy, these guys talking about paddle, what is this sport? I was first introduced to it in Bali. So it's a combination, I guess a mix of squash and tennis. Really fun game. Kind of like half the size of a normal tennis court play, play in doubles. And it's been big in Europe for a long time. It was like 30 or 40 million players worldwide. But in the United States, pickables like the biggest kind of rackets poured outside of tennis. And in Australia, neither pickable nor paddle, I've been that popular. But now there's like an explosion of paddle courts. So much other, there is a new paddle court going up every 2.5 hours or 1.5 hours. Well fact, check that. This is from play, Tomic. Every one and a half to 2 and a half hours globally right now. There's a new paddle court being built. Pretty impressive, something. But I think I think 2026, we're going to see a lot more paddle centers being set up with numerous numbers of courts and little gyms and recovery. And similar kind of to how we saw run clubs take off. I think you're going to see these paddle clubs take off because it is a sport that, a, incredible workout. Fine. You've seen you've seen you whooped out. Mine's not as good as yours in terms of heart rates, but yes. But wow, like for a good quality game. For a zone two, zone three. It's the most fine you're going to have doing so in the night. 90 minutes to zone two, zone three. Maybe in a really big game, you might get some zone four. And you play that two or three times a week. That adds up. And it's so much fun. It's so much fun. You don't even know you're doing it. To me, it's like the perfect unstructured exercise. It's just, it's really just masked as play. Yeah. But you're getting a tremendous cardiovascular workout. And also you're getting mobility. Social connection, power. Up and down, changing directions. Social connection is a big piece. It's a great community. And now with these apps, you can just kind of plug in and find competitive games based on people that are at your level, jump in. So I think that'll be huge strength. Yeah, I agree. And that's not only going to be a, it's a sport that women are taking up as well. So everyone, a lot of fun. And what I was going to say was that unlike tennis, if you're a beginner in tennis, you jump on the court with someone who's like even just intermediate to advanced, you're not going to be hitting many balls back. The thing with paddle is maybe, maybe when you are just first, you're jumping on the court, you need a few lessons and like get a feel for particularly playing off the wall if you haven't played squash. But after you have done a little bit of that and maybe played four or five games, you can play with a lot of people. You can play with people that are better than you or even a little bit not as good as you and you can still have good rallies, different to tennis. And that's what I think is resulting in rapid growth. The name is pickleball. But pickleball, we're seeing a slightly different demographic, I think. Right. A lot of 25 to say 50 year olds in paddle. That's not to say everyone's in that age bracket, but that's probably where the hot spot is. And then I think pickleball, skews a little bit more powder, probably because it's like it's a little bit slower. I think the skill of pace, a little lower and the physical functional requirements are a little lower. But it's an pickleball is also an amazing sport to keep people active in their 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and you get a good workout as well. It's a little less intense on the joints. Yeah. Yeah, I can see paddle absolutely exploding. I mean, I feel like it is already quite big. It's got to be the fastest growing sport in the world at the moment. Growing. It's got to be up there. And then I think I think I'm going to be able to do a lot of the other trender. And this is growing. We've done retreats together. You've done retreats by yourself. I think retreats are just going to explode next year. There's going to be a lot of longevity style retreats. And some of them will be like collabs with specific hotels and results around the world. And then the next one is going to be a little bit more of a good workout. And then we're going to be able to do a little bit more of that. I like that. I think those predictions are going to be bang on. I'm just going to check my blood glucose while I talk about this. And you may have noticed that I'm going back to the old. Yeah, what was what's behind that? It was an accident. It was an accident. It's the first day that I've done it in truly like a few years. My CGM came out today when I was training. And I forgot to put one back in and I left the house. And it really feels like I'm flying blind like doing this. Because you just get a snapshot every couple of hours. I've done it twice since we started recording. And I'm in a good spot. But I just in the last two hours, my brain, I'm thinking, am I going low? Am I high? Should I do the banana? It's amazing the amount of mental kind of energy calculations that you're running on a daily basis. You don't even understand. If you don't live with diabetes, you have no idea. I didn't even understand the burden that was being placed on me, even over the last, I've had it for 15 years. The last 12 months, it sort of hit me. I'm like, holy shit, this is exhausting. And I think it's because I'm dealing with more stress than ever. After Dennis passed away, the last six months, I'd say, has been weird for me. I felt like a lack of purpose. My days were centered around Dennis and taking him to the beach and the park and looking after him and Nekali and I and Dennis, where we were like a wolf pack and then we lost a member of the pack. Our relationship is amazing. I feel like we're closer than ever. But it's just like this piece of the puzzle was missing. Yes. And we're thinking, the conundrum is, are we trying to replace that piece of the puzzle? Or do we accept where we are? And enjoy this moment and create a new one. So it's been a weird six months, but I think the stress, as my diabetes management has been the worst, it's been in 15 years. And I've got a great tech. I've got a CGM. I've got a smart insulin pen that, when I give an insulin dose, it's Bluetooth to my phone. It's this metronic in pen. I can see how much insulin's on board, when was my last dose, it can help me calculate doses for meals. I'm well looked after with tech and it's still been very hard to keep my levels in range, so the degree that I would like. But the last day doing this, I feel like I've got, like, so antiquated this. I'm like, what are we doing here? Like I need my CGM back, and I was, I've been so dependent on this tech, that I'm kind of like, even more anxious now. Yesterday, I think that's where you, you had your CGM on your leg. Yeah. You changed. Well, yeah, I've changed it to my leg. This is an interesting conversation, actually. I didn't plan on speaking about this, but I've been thinking about this a lot. Every day, I used to wear a mail, right? Every day that I would leave the house, I would have someone come up to me, see the CGM and they would go. You have type on diabetes. My son has it, or I have it, or how long have you had? And we just straight away, like, like, brothers or sisters, like hug it out, connection, right? I move it to my leg. I've not spoken to someone on the street about diabetes ever since I moved it. So I've lost so many potential points of contact with people, just purely because I don't have this sort of label or badge showing that I'm someone living with type on diabetes. It's just been so interesting. You're going to move it back. I'm moving it back. And I really enjoyed it on my leg, and it's out of the way. It doesn't come off in my workouts, how my arm used to. But I'm almost thinking now, it's, I might even wear two. Just keep an old one on the arm that doesn't even work, just so I can have that interaction. Like, I really have missed that. But I also can. get people coming up to me or was every day this kid makes crimes. I'll get people come up to me and say, I see where a CGM is it good? I'm like, but is it good? Do you mean does it keep me alive? Yeah, it's good. It's like unbelievable to life saving tool. And then they're like, do you recommend it? Like do you have diabetes? And they're usually like, no, no, I just don't want to know how this food affects it. I'm like, my I guess, yes, if you really want to learn about some foods and how it impacts you, I guess it's not there for quite a quote, quote, good. Unfortunately, it's not there for me. I mean, but it's just this is the world we list the world we live in. And this is the optimizer world. And this is why I'm so torn, you know, having these conversations with people, I'm never like, I will never be rude. I totally understand where they're coming from. They want to just improve their health. It's good. It's awesome. I take my out of it. But it's the not understanding that this thing is keeping me alive in my sleep. Like that is the thing I think that people don't understand. Diabetes is it is a full-time job. I mean, you're you want people to understand your lived experience. And and when someone sees the CGM and thinks you're optimizing, they're actually not seeing you. I think that's part of it. I also, what else is well, I'm never offended by it. Let me just say that. I know, but you you you you you you you're pointing out that you want them to kind of really understand why you're wearing it. No, no, no, not for me. I want them to know that they are fine and healthy and that you don't need to be optimizing every piece of data. This is a life saving tool that keeps me like I want you them to go, oh, you're healthy without disease. And you're at the beach right now and you just ate a healthy meal. I said, we don't want them to look at you and you're adding to this motivation to over optimize correct because you're wearing it for another reason. Right, I'm not offended. I did that. I can answer their question. I'll tell them exactly what I just told you. No problem. It's the fact that it's a broader picture of the world that people are just trying to optimize everything all the time. And I just want people to just be present you're doing great, mate. Enjoy your life. Call your mom. Tell your mommy lover, you don't need to buy a CGM. You'll be right. But then the other thing is like I do respect people who will do whatever it takes to improve the health. So you know, part of me is like, good on you buddy. And I'll give them a bit of a fist bump, but we need part ways. But anyway, that was a bit of a tangent. The over optimization conversations important though. Because I think it's gone so far to that, to that extreme. That it's almost as if people are kind of deriving their joy from the over optimization. And it's it's it's robbing them of of investing time into all the other areas. It's coming out of cost. Right. Yeah, it's like it's like they're putting in all this work. But the return on investment is just many school. And actually that kind of ties into what I think a trend is. I could be so wrong with this is a bold prediction. I think we're going to see a pendulum swing to like a wave of people might be a small minority of anti optimizers like just back to basics. Keep life simple. And it's going to actually sort of those retreat things where it's just about connection. You know, just do your best have fun enjoy your life, but less about trying to optimize every single biomarker and metric. I think there has to be a pushback at some point where people are just fed up with it. Maybe it's not next year, maybe it's like 10 years time or maybe I'm so far off that. But I do think that I don't think we're not like agree with you, but I don't think it's going to go from the, you know, crazy biohacking with still 150 things to just eat, move sleep. It's going to be a distillation of 150 plus things that people are optimizing down to like 10 or 12 important things. Right, like a short list of the biggest levers. Yeah, that's that is probably right. And I say that largely, largely because I think these longevity clinics are just picking up steam. I don't think they're going away anywhere. And I think, so I think more of the public are going to have access to VO2 max testing and to Dexascans, measuring a puppy, hopefully, testing their blood pressure at home. Like some of these things are important to keep an eye on. I agree with you, but I think the difference is those are very acute tests. You don't do those every day. I'm talking about the daily micro managing of blood glucose that you don't really need to do if you don't have diabetes. Right, there's some biomarkers that I agree. Every now and then test your via to you've got to do the blood pressure test. Do an HPA on C get a blood test every few months, whatever. But those are the big rocks for me. It's those micro managing every bit of time, I waking up, looking at your sleep, how many minutes I slept an extra minute in a REM last night or by fel behind and recovery 1% like it's we just need to take a foot off the gas sometimes. Yeah, the perfect having the perfect morning routine. Seven different things that you do in order every morning. And you see, as you as you do that, as you do more of the over optimization, the ironic thing is, you actually become less resilient and less adaptable. So when you get the prone off course, and you can't do your morning routine, you're way less resilient than the person who has a less complicated morning routine. I agree. I've had that myself. There are days sometimes where I wake up feeling fresh and I'll check my whoops score and it's in the red and I go, I thought I slept so well. Why is my HIV tanked? But if I just went with the subjective, I'm like, I'm ready to go. Let's go. Let's swim. Let's go to the beach. Just get that work out whatever. It's the relationship you have with your daughter is very, very important. And I think that there's a find out between, you know, subjective and objective data. You said antiquated before. And that made me think of of RFK Junior. He has is coming out. Guidelines come out. He's come out said the dietary guidelines are are antiquated. I can't wait to see these guidelines. When did they come out? I think they come out in January. Oh, my what's your prediction? I have so firstly, I have an episode. Two episodes with Kevin Hall is a very interesting story involving the NIH and RFK Junior. He resigned because of this, right? And one of those conversations is with Kevin Hall and Christopher Gardner. Christopher Gardner was on the dietary guidelines committee that's informed the Republicans and Maha about what the dietary guidelines should look like. But it appears as though RFK Junior is is at least when it comes to saturated fats, not taking on the advice from that committee. And it's going to be promoting some type of of dietary guidelines that's encouraging the consumption of saturated fat rich foods, which of course has created a lot of pushback already. But just to put this on on people's radar, you'll see these published in January, you'll see tons of headlines. And you'll see an almost pushback from the academic community as to why this is silly. The problem is it's probably going to happen. And it probably will it's not that the dietary guidelines themselves are that influential? Is not a false in any way? Well, most of the when I say that, most of the people in the in the United States are not adhering to the dietary guidelines. Right. Because of social economic reasons, right. Right. The food environment, the amount of money they're owning, the ways that big food companies are lobbying the government, the ways that big food companies are donating money to the to the parties. And in return, I've not having their food legislated in a way that lowers profits. Right. That's really what's controlling most people's diets. Yes. Just can you look out on that in my episode with her? But that said, I do think the dietary guidelines, particularly in this instance. I think they're going to I think they're going to have an effect. And I think they're going to have an effect because they're going to encourage the consumption of animal foods. And there's a large contingency of people online on social media who are going to jump on that. And use that as a bit of a see, this is what happens when you get a government that has the truth with capital T. And so I think it will influence a lot of people in wellness sphere, not necessarily broad population who are outside of this bubble. And the wellness fear has a big voice. Right. A lot of people has a big voice. Millions of millions of followers and big podcasts like Rogan and all his disciples. And if the guidelines tell people what they want to hear and they're already doing it, they just got to double down on that, right? A problem that that I see with with RFK Jr. And just that group in general is two things can be true at once. So they they're argument is often that 1980 guidelines came out, said, he low fat, look what happened? That on my high level. Again, coming back to where we started this conversation. If if you just have a bias towards loving animal foods, you could just accept that at face value, right? But if you're actually interested in being objective here, like let's double click on that. In 1980, the guidelines came out, sitting low fat people got sicker more time to diabetes. Actually, let's cut it out to the disease. People got heavy at all. or what happened? Well, the guidelines told people to eat a certain way, but very few people actually ate that way. So we sort of significant increase in ultra-process food consumption in refined carbohydrate consumption. And so, and we didn't really see much of a reduction in saturated fat. So it's difficult to when you see the data and actually how people made changes to their diet. It's difficult to say, hey, we've already done this lower saturated fat increase, polyunsaturated fats, and it didn't work. It's difficult to take that position. We didn't do that. So maybe less fat and they ate more ultra-process foods, and they gained a lot of weight. And they put themselves at risk of metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and fatty liver disease. We're reviewing the overall data, like I was beginning here. Two things can be true. Cessedif saturated fats can be problematic for cardiovascular disease, and refined sugars and carbohydrates in hyper-pelible foods can be problem. And you want to know a dietary part in the really de-emphasized saturated fats and ultra-process foods, the Mediterranean diet. You only have to look over to bunch of populations in that part of the world to see that that diet produces really good health outcomes. So the oaring on the side of the cautioned kind of recommendations, and this would probably be what was in the scientific committee's recommendations. It would be to recommend a diet that's consistent with the healthy Mediterranean style diet for the population of the United States. Just so I understand how this works, because I'm not sure like the policy behind these guidelines of how it actually comes to being this black and white guy that's delivered to the public health. The scientific committee of experts reviews the broad body of evidence and presents a case as to why the guidelines should be XYZ. RFK and his team can decide what to do despite the science point of one direction. Is that right? That's exactly right what happens. And he's also making this very political in that he's saying that the current dietary guidelines have failed and they were current dietary guidelines were Biden's work. They were actually the current dietary guidelines actually were came through during Trump's first presidency. So that was completely misinformed. And I don't lean to Republican or to Democrat. I just care about the science here. And so yeah, the way it should work is you form a committee of experts, of nutrition scientists who understand how to evaluate the literature and you get a committee so that it's not just one person's point of view. They're going to get together, way up all of the evidence, debate the evidence, what scientists do, debate the events, talk about the uncertainty, understand based on all of the different types of study designs that we have. What should we be recommending to the general population to target the types of conditions that people are experiencing to lower the risk of the things that are driving low quality of life, early mortality, premature death and increased health care costs? Unfortunately, your point, what the committee comes up with is not what's published. Yeah, but what's the point in that process? I just do not under what a waste of time for everyone. If at the end of the day, the big boss can just go cool story, we're going to do this. Or I had dinner with Dr. Christopher Garnady up night and I don't think you're mind me saying this, but I think your frustration is representative of that entire. Can I imagine their frustration? Committee. Right. I feel like they just wasted not just the time in trying to convince RFK what the guidelines should be, but the years of research. Like, some of these people have dedicated decades, their whole life to research and then they're just going to seek, to see. Just to see. To see that would come undone, unstuck, like someone like Dr. Walter Willard. Even Kevin Hall. He's 80, something years old now. He's across all of the state, probably more than anyone else. And it's just out the window going. So, beeftellers are going to come back. The guidelines are going to be very high in saturated fat, almost no limit. I imagine. Obviously it's going to be cooking with butter, coconut oil, beef, tello. Oh boy. His strong position against seed oils. He's already celebrated one of the fast food chains, popping from tello to seed oil. Is this the irony? Sorry, seed oils to tello. But that's the irony. He does celebrate McDonald's. Fruit loops that are different color. Like, he's an overall message does not seem one of die quality. That's Jessica Neurick's. The thesis is that those things that he's celebrating and Mahat celebrate generally are a distraction. If you want to improve quality of died in America, back to what I said at the beginning, first you have to stop the donations from the food companies to the to the different parties. Because if they're receiving these millions and millions and millions of dollars, you would have to be a very brave government to legislate against them. They just helped you win your campaign. Yeah. Right. They're going to support you next campaign. Right. God, it's a mess. It's such a mess. What do you think can happen? Are the guidelines for years? No. How many years do they come out? Oh, how often do you redo the guidelines? Yeah, 2020 was the last one. So no, it's more. More than four years. What damage can be done in six years? Six to six to eight years? If people actually double down and start doing this, and you've confirmed all the biases they already have, I think we're in an interesting time because at the same time, G.O.P. one agonist, so going up. Right. So I expect weight in America to come down. But I mentioned earlier, cardiovascular disease mortality since the 1950s has come down. That's going to be multifactorial, less smoking, better medications to reduce cholesterol, slightly less saturated fat in the diet, better medical care, better surgeries. But if the average person is influenced by the dietary guidelines, starts having more blood and more fatty cuts are read me. More full fat dairy. We know what's going to happen to their A-per-B. This is in a population of people that are not metabolically healthy. Evidence suggests those people will be laying down arthritis chlerosis at an accelerated rate. So if carried out for long enough, I'm going to be able to probably detect this in 12 months. But if there are significant changes to diet that results in those foods being consumed in a significantly increased amount, you would expect to see a knock-on effect on cardiovascular disease stroke and heart attacks. If it encourages high consumption of red meat, this is where dose becomes really important. Healthy dietary pattern, like a Mediterranean diet, can have some red meat in it. Until you appreciate dose and look at studies where there's enough contrast between low and between high that you see increased risk of an outcome like colorectal cancer. Typically, that's when you're comparing above 100 grams of red meat a day to below 30 or 40. But you start to see enough difference to detect an effect for that outcome. Who knows what you would see for risk of colorectal cancer? What I could say is that the data there suggests if eating an off-red meat, the people could be at increased risk of colorectal cancer. Given what we're already seeing about heightened rates of colorectal cancer in people aged under 40, we're probably the people that are going to be most influenced by these guidelines online. That's I think that's worrying. I think in the next six years, I don't know, is it long enough to actually see these things on the rise? And the next set of guidelines are come out. There's no way they flip flop back to plant heavy. So I think it'll take a decade or so because once the guidelines come in, it's only going to get studies just going to be set up straight away and it's going to take time for people's diets to shift. And the confounders that you said, OZM pick and JLP ones, they could, those in and of themselves are lowering body weight, which lowers risk of cancer. Very, very tricky. Oh boy. We're entering an interesting time as in. That was a good prediction though. Let's see what happens. What do you think the guidelines will actually be though? Can you imagine? Is it a pyramid? Is it a plate? Is there a focus on on micronutrients, macronutrients, or is it just these are foods we want to be eating every day? I think it'll be whole food based. So generally, I like the idea that it'll be interesting to see how they handle ultra-process foods because it comes back to the donations and the alignment. I think this is going to be very telling. Are they going to come out like Brazil and be super firm on ultra-process foods? Or are they corporate interests at play? The language around ultra-process foods will be super interesting. I suspect it'll be a plate. And on that plate, when you look at it, animal products will feature very heavily. Meet will be the hero. I have a feeling cereals and refined carbohydrates. rate are gone. A very sort of like primal paleo carnivore-ish, you know, hopefully a few veggies and fruit hit the plate. But I agree, I think the saturated fat is going to come back. What I wish, honestly, I think I made this point earlier, is I just recommend more of a Mediterranean diet. It doesn't have to be low fat. I agree in 1980, problem was people like low fat, not eating refined carbs. Let's give them a plate of food where it's healthy carbs. God forbid we could do this. Healthy carbs. We're not going to demonize carbs because there's different types. Healthy fiber rich carbohydrates, sources, healthy sources to protein. Get the bed a little bit on what they are. And healthy sources of fat. It's not low fat diet. And then give people a bit of flexibility. Dial the carbs up a bit, moderate at low. Very sensible. Ultra process foods to less than 10% of calories. People are just so confused. So confused. There's absolutely no trust left in the system. You know, people get their advice from TikTokers who are 16 years old. Like it is unbelievable the world we're in right now. Well, it is the world we're in. So we've got to just navigate today. All right. Or we just don't call our mom and focus on focus on. No, it's every man for themselves, I guess. We need to get out here. Okay. Just play it out. Seems fitting. Is there two cool adudes? Jamming on a stage. And unlikely you are very unlikely to do it. Actually, what are some artists that you've been listening to lately? What are some music recommendations? Last gig we went to was Hermanos. Hermanos Gutera's amazing. Yeah. Ecuadorian guitarist. Incredible music. Yeah. I often play that in the house like. No, I mean, music. Lovely. Anyone else? I mean, I rotate a lot, but at the moment, I'm listening to songs that I'm trying to what alone. Right. Horse with no name. We don't have a song. No. I think you're a challenge. I want to give you a challenge. 2026 challenge. I challenge you to write a song of your own. However you want to do it with it with a bridge and a chorus versus a full song lyrics, verse, chorus, bridge, any chord structure you want. Challenge you to do it. Is there a riff in there or whatever you want. See your song. Challenge you. And then next year in studio. Okay. We'll perform it. You play it. It'll be the most vulnerable moment of your freaking life. But what's it been like? Did you be recording again? Oh, I love it. I love it. Yeah. I've got, so I recorded this song 10 years ago and I never released it because I was never quite happy with it. But I got back into studio last week and I'm like, it's ready. I'm going to release this thing because when you play a song over and over, you actually begin to almost hate it. And I remember when I first wrote it, I said to me, this is the best song I've ever written. I cannot wait for the world to hear it. I recorded it. We tried a layer. It produced weeks, went on months, years. And now I'm like, oh, my god. Is this even a good song anymore? But you forget, it's your first reaction to it. That's like the strong one. So I'm back. I'm going to release this thing. It's an amazing experience. I really think you will enjoy this challenge. Okay. That's a challenge, except it because it can be any sort of a motive chord structure you want. The lyrics, obviously, need to be meaningful to you. So it makes you think about what you need to let out. You write it down, you refine it, you figure out the phrasing, even if you're not like confident singing, maybe I'll sing it for you. You can write the chords, tell me the lyrics and the melody. I'll sing it. We'll do a chord. Okay. I think we've got to stay tuned. Matter of that. That's my challenge. MSG. Here we go. I don't think you are some listening to it at the moment. I tend to have a lot of Spotify, like radio lists, where like I'll find an artist who I just love there, whatever sound they're producing, like Lamb Bridges, and then let's find a lot of new artists through that. I do. To discover on Spotify is great. Then I have a playlist of all of the songs that I'm learning, like parts of the songs. Usually I learn a part and then I get bored of that song to your point. I'm like, "Okay, let's go and practice something else." Right. But when you get bored of your own song, it's quite a sad day. Like getting bored of someone else's song when you're trying to do a cover, it's like that makes sense. When it's your. Love and Luminance. Right. What was that? Edward Sharp. Yeah. That song, huh? You're like in the sort of folky. That folky. Yeah, there's a bit of that happening. Yeah. I was really listening to a lot of pervacuver. I was in there. Like a year, two years ago. Yeah. Tons of that. Great sound. Yeah. That was also tended to be some background music. Yeah. That's awesome. What about you? Oh, man. This is like my discover. I just. I'm broad. Like I've thrown a big white net. I've gone Spotify discovered and I don't know what's going to hit me on each day. But I. I mean, I'm only a Olivia Dean hype train. No, no. I'm so do you have to share it. I just. Yeah. I just think she's unruly. There are also voices I just go back to that old Jeff Buckley. Yeah. At times. Root Spring Classics. Are you confident to sing if you would have. No, I need to get some coaching. Yeah. I'll wait and do it. I need to get some coaching. For a couple of vocal lessons? I actually have done some diction. Like coaching. Or pronunciation. I thought you were talking about something else for a second. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah. I love how your head is straight to the color. For podcasting, you mean? It's for speaking in general whether it's on a stage or whether it's podcasting. It's controlling vocals more. But the diction coach is also seen coach. That's both. Cool. So you're in good hands. Yeah. All right. I hope the community keeps you accountable to this. I want your inbox. Okay. The whole me accountable. Weekly monthly. I did commit to the guitar. I said that call. I will give you that. I said that call a couple of years ago. But I will say I think my. I think my approach to guitar. So I flipped 180. So I told you my teacher when I was at school. Drills. A lot of. like structure. Now? Free playtime. No structure. I think there's pros and cons. Yeah. There are. I need a little bit of structure. So some formal lessons probably will help me progress quicker. The structure is important. I'm self-taught. You reach a ceiling where your creativity is capped. I can't write songs that don't sound like the ones I've already written. Because I don't have the skill set to explore the guitar anymore. So I probably should be doing the same thing. It's. yeah. You've got to get that balance right. But you're still a beginner. So you've got plenty of time. Your ceiling is very tall. I think we did it. We did it. Yeah. Go back. We are back. Nice to have you back. Episode 400. Happy New Year. It's crazy. 400 man. You've got 400 episodes. Yeah. Wow. That is under a lot. Geez. We've covered a few things today. Yeah. Sign up to my sub-stack. I want to read that. How do I find it? How do you do it? I've never done this. I'll put a link on Instagram. Okay. To sub-stack. First one is on protein. What we spoke about. Yeah, cool. Wow. Check it out. Should we go optimising the song or an ice bomb? Yeah. Finish. It's going to spit. It's going to spit. I've got a spare CGM. You want to wear it for a little bit? Yeah. I'll do it. There you have it, friends. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did and want to stay up to date with future episodes, be sure to hit that subscribe button on YouTube and follow on Apple or Spotify. Finally, thank you for showing up and the effort that you're making to take control of your health. I look forward to hanging out with you again in the next episode. [MUSIC]