Joe Rogan Experience #1624 - Mark Sisson

1. 0:00 – 2:18

   Why Mark Sisson left California for Miami Beach (and why he loves it)

   1. MSMark Sisson0:00

      (drumbeats) Joe Rogan podcast, check it out. The Joe Rogan Experience.

   2. JRJoe Rogan0:06

      Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music plays) All right, here we go. (instrumental music plays) Time flies, Mark.

   3. MSMark Sisson0:16

      It sure does, man.

   4. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      How's it been five years?

   5. MSMark Sisson0:18

      A little over five years, yeah.

   6. JRJoe Rogan0:19

      That's ridiculous.

   7. MSMark Sisson0:20

      I know. But-

   8. JRJoe Rogan0:20

      I feel like I saw you, like, eight months ago.

   9. MSMark Sisson0:22

      I know, and the world has changed.

   10. JRJoe Rogan0:23

       Yeah, a little bit.

   11. MSMark Sisson0:24

       (laughs)

   12. JRJoe Rogan0:25

       Little bit.

   13. MSMark Sisson0:25

       Yeah.

   14. JRJoe Rogan0:26

       And you're in Florida now. We were talking about this.

   15. MSMark Sisson0:28

       Yep.

   16. JRJoe Rogan0:28

       I wanted to save it for the camera, 'cause you were gonna tell me how great you like Miami.

   17. MSMark Sisson0:32

       Well, um, you know, I, I grew up in Maine. And, uh, when I w- was in New England, Miami was sort of the place where, you know, only old people went, and it had all of the clichés behind it and I never really thought much about living there. And then when I lived in Malibu, I'm like, "Okay, this is, this is the cat's ass. This is the best place ever, Malibu." Well, um, much like yourself, Joe, I got a little bit disillusioned with California over the years, and, um, thought that I would, uh, try a different location, particularly one that didn't have any, uh, personal taxes. Uh, and, you know, we had gone to Miami Beach, uh, for a week every year for vacation, so we felt like we knew it. And then (laughs) we wound up, um, saying, "You know what? Let's try it for a year and see if we like it and we'll move out of California, and if w- it doesn't work, we'll move back." And I'm telling you, man, a year in, I'm like, "This is like summer camp and a spa and a playground every single day." I mean, the, uh, look, the water's 20 degrees warmer on any given day. The sand is nicer. The women are a little bit, you know, m- dressed a little bit more provocatively. Uh, I've got a great gym. Uh, I, I do stand-up paddling. Um, I've got an eFoil, an electric foil that I use, uh, a fat bike. Uh, I found a-

   18. JRJoe Rogan1:48

       What's a, what's a fat bike?

   19. MSMark Sisson1:48

       A fat bike is a, is those, uh-

   20. JRJoe Rogan1:50

       Fat tires?

   21. MSMark Sisson1:51

       ... met- like, fat tire bike, yeah.

   22. JRJoe Rogan1:52

       Oh.

   23. MSMark Sisson1:52

       We should, we should probably, given the current turn- tenor, we shouldn't probably call it a fat bike anymore.

   24. JRJoe Rogan1:56

       Yeah, let's call it a fat bike.

   25. MSMark Sisson1:57

       It's more of, like, a, a pneumatically challenged bike. (laughs)

   26. JRJoe Rogan1:59

       It's a male. It's okay. You can call it a fat bike-

   27. MSMark Sisson2:01

       That's right. (laughs) Yeah, yeah.

   28. JRJoe Rogan2:02

       ... 'cause it's a male. No one cares.

   29. MSMark Sisson2:02

       Exactly. Um, and so I ride in the, in the sand with some friends, and I, I ride with my wife. My wife has an electric one, so she can keep up with me. But I mean, it's, it's amazing. It's li- just like, like, every day, I feel like, you know, I'm a kid on vacation.

   30. JRJoe Rogan2:16

       Wow. That's a good endorsement.
2. 2:18 – 4:47

   Miami spring break chaos and policing during COVID

   1. JRJoe Rogan2:18

      I've, I've been watching the news though.

   2. MSMark Sisson2:19

      Ugh. Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan2:20

      And, uh, it seems a little wacky down there right now. They're, they're shooting, uh, what, uh, pepper balls?

   4. MSMark Sisson2:25

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan2:25

      Pepper spray balls at, uh, the-

   6. MSMark Sisson2:27

      I mean s-

   7. JRJoe Rogan2:28

      ... people that were-

   8. MSMark Sisson2:29

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan2:29

      ... all over the streets?

   10. MSMark Sisson2:29

       Spring break, I mean, yeah, spring breakers have always-

   11. JRJoe Rogan2:31

       Why are the cops shooting pepper spray balls at them?

   12. MSMark Sisson2:33

       Uh, you know, they tried to enact, uh, some, uh, temporary ordinances that (laughs) failed immediately, failed out of the gates, and I don't think they knew how to control the crowds that, uh, that surged.

   13. JRJoe Rogan2:46

       Is spring break always like that there, or is it just because of COVID, 'cause-

   14. MSMark Sisson2:50

       No, it's, it's-

   15. JRJoe Rogan2:50

       ... Florida doesn't have restrictions?

   16. MSMark Sisson2:51

       Yeah, yeah. It's p- because of CO-, I mean, s-

   17. JRJoe Rogan2:53

       Yeah.

   18. MSMark Sisson2:53

       ... generally, spring break is, is a challenge. And this is the time of year when everybody sort of hunkers down, and a lot of people, uh, that live in my building and live in my neighborhood would leave town, uh, for-

   19. JRJoe Rogan3:04

       During spring break?

   20. MSMark Sisson3:05

       ... during spring break.

   21. JRJoe Rogan3:06

       It's that bad?

   22. MSMark Sisson3:06

       Uh, well yeah, it's just, it's a pain to try and get, you know, reservations at a restaurant or to navigate the streets because the, you know, the streets are not built for that amount of traffic. So, a lot of people just leave, and that's f- th- you know, that's fine.

   23. JRJoe Rogan3:19

       How long does spring break last?

   24. MSMark Sisson3:20

       Well, (laughs) this year's gonna last apparently two months. I don't know. But-

   25. JRJoe Rogan3:23

       Two months?

   26. MSMark Sisson3:23

       Well, you know, because-

   27. JRJoe Rogan3:24

       Different schools?

   28. MSMark Sisson3:25

       ... different sch- you know, the whole school strategy and the, and the opening and reopening and not opening and having spring break and not having spring break and, and, uh, yeah. So I think, and then COVID. I mean, look, uh, as, as I was saying to some friends literally a week ago, a month ago, two months ago, there's no better place in the world to be right now than Miami Beach. The beaches are open. People are having fun. They're out in the, they're, sunshine, they're getting vitamin D. You know, they're breathing fresh air. The restaurants are not only open, they're, they're, (laughs) they're probably exceeding their previous capacity, because during COVID, the restaurants were allowed to spill out into the streets, right?

   29. JRJoe Rogan4:03

       Mm-hmm.

   30. MSMark Sisson4:03

       And they closed some of the streets down in terms of traffic. So they kept that, and they opened the insides of the restaurants, so now the restaurants...
3. 4:47 – 7:39

   Florida vs. California lockdown outcomes—and Mark’s mild COVID case

   1. JRJoe Rogan4:47

      The, the fascinating thing about Miami or Florida in general, their approach to the lockdowns, it shows you that the, the idea that you're gonna force people to stay home, it doesn't work. It's ineffective. They, they, even though they are wide open, they have less cases, they have less deaths, they have less hospitalizations per capita than California does, which is just... I think that's correct. Right?

   2. MSMark Sisson5:12

      It is correct, and it's predictable.

   3. JRJoe Rogan5:13

      Yeah.

   4. MSMark Sisson5:13

      I mean, you know, it-

   5. JRJoe Rogan5:14

      But that's nuts.

   6. MSMark Sisson5:15

      That's-

   7. JRJoe Rogan5:15

      Well, 'cause everybody in California is, like, they got Stockholm syndrome.

   8. MSMark Sisson5:19

      Yep.

   9. JRJoe Rogan5:19

      They, they're, they're still thinking that the lockdowns are a good idea and that we have to protect ourselves from this thing. You got COVID.

   10. MSMark Sisson5:25

       Yes.

   11. JRJoe Rogan5:25

       What was it like?

   12. MSMark Sisson5:26

       Uh, for me, it was n- a lot of nothing. It was-

   13. JRJoe Rogan5:29

       And how old are you?

   14. MSMark Sisson5:30

       Uh, 60-

   15. JRJoe Rogan5:30

       You can tell us.

   16. MSMark Sisson5:31

       67.

   17. JRJoe Rogan5:32

       67.

   18. MSMark Sisson5:32

       Yeah, I'll be 68-

   19. JRJoe Rogan5:32

       You look fucking great.

   20. MSMark Sisson5:34

       Thank you, man.

   21. JRJoe Rogan5:34

       I hope I look half as good-

   22. MSMark Sisson5:35

       (laughs) Thanks.

   23. JRJoe Rogan5:35

       ... as you when I'm 67.

   24. MSMark Sisson5:37

       You know, um, (sighs) I, I don't wanna piss anybody off, but I've, I've looked at this from the beginning as a, you know, bad case of flu. Um, it's a virus. There are millions of viruses that we, you know, viry, that we, uh, encounter on a daily basis. Um, it's a, you know, it's a, it's an issue of personal immunity. I mean, if you have a good, strong immune system, I think you're gonna do well during this, and that's been the biggest issue. Like, if, instead of lockdowns, if the government had said, "Stop eating sugar, spend some time-

   25. JRJoe Rogan6:02

       Yes.

   26. MSMark Sisson6:02

       ... out in the sun," uh, you know, "move around a lot," and, and maybe even, and I, this is, I think, one of the issues was this whole thing about viral load. I don't know if, how much you know-

   27. JRJoe Rogan6:12

       Yes.

   28. MSMark Sisson6:12

       ... about that. But people who got really sick had-... massive viral loads partly because of being locked inside-

   29. JRJoe Rogan6:18

       Yes.

   30. MSMark Sisson6:18

       ... with other people for long periods of time.
4. 7:39 – 9:48

   Cholesterol, statins, and the claim that ‘cholesterol isn’t the villain’

   1. JRJoe Rogan7:39

      Can we talk about that for a second? So statin drugs, the, the idea is you're lowering cholesterol because people who have high cholesterol, the high- high cholesterol puts them at a higher risk of heart attack and stroke, right?

   2. MSMark Sisson7:49

      Not really. Not really. But (laughs) , I mean, we can talk about that too.

   3. JRJoe Rogan7:52

      Yeah.

   4. MSMark Sisson7:52

      That's the irony there.

   5. JRJoe Rogan7:53

      That's where it gets confusing, right?

   6. MSMark Sisson7:54

      Yeah. Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan7:54

      Because you- you- some people will argue that it's the balance of LDL and HDL, and that cholesterol is actually essential for production of, uh, sex hormones and a lot of other things that the human body requires.

   8. MSMark Sisson8:07

      A lot of things. It's probably the most important hor- uh, it's a, uh- cholesterol is probably the most important molecule in the human body, if you really were to parse it. Uh, vitamin D, sex hormones, uh, it's a working molecule on a lot of, uh, cell membranes. And, uh, to think (laughs) that we would- I mean, the body- it's so important, the body makes like 1,300 milligrams a day regardless of what your cholesterol intake is from food. So in my mind, the notion that we would, um, take this amazing molecule that is basically life-giving in- in many regards and vilify it, and then take drugs to lower it, uh, which if- if you look at the research and- I- I wasn't planning on going down this path today- but if you look at the research on cholesterol and heart disease over the past 20 years, it's shifted everything away from cholesterol being the proximate cause of heart disease. Cholesterol and saturated fat are not the proximate cause of heart disease; it's oxidation and inflammation. Cholesterol is- is involved in the repair of damage to tissue, and as a result people get- because of the oxidation and inflammation, there's cholesterol that's in the plaques and things like that. But, but I think many, many doctors- I'm gonna say the preponderance of doctors now- agree that cholesterol isn't the bad guy, uh, that people made it out to be. And, and if you look at other, other studies' cohorts of people who've had, um, cholesterol of, you know, like 130 and lower or 200 and above, the all-caused mortality- you die of everything else at a much greater rate with low cholesterol than you do with high cholesterol. The only difference is the- the cardiac outcomes. Um, and it's not even deaths, it's just cardiac events is a little bit higher in the- in the higher group.

5. 9:48 – 18:45

   How fat got blamed: Ancel Keys, food policy, and industry narratives

   1. JRJoe Rogan9:48

      And what- what is it about cholesterol that- why- why did cholesterol become the bad guy? Why did it become the- the boogeyman?

   2. MSMark Sisson9:58

      Um, you know, uh, I-

   3. JRJoe Rogan10:00

      Does it have to do with-

   4. MSMark Sisson10:02

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan10:02

      Uh, h- hate to interrupt you there.

   6. MSMark Sisson10:03

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan10:03

      Does it have to do with when they- when the sugar industry paid off those scientists to, uh, put the- push the blame on saturated fat?

   8. MSMark Sisson10:11

      Yeah. I mean, um, a lot of this goes back to (sighs) - I'm not a conspiracy theorist, you know. I'm- I'm not, uh- I think most people at the top are too greedy and stupid to organize into a cabal, right? So I'm- I'm thinking, how did this happen in terms of the collective conscious? So mistakes were made early on, whether it's Ancel Keys- and I know you've had a lot of people on the show talking about Ancel Keys and the- and the seven, uh, country study. Um-

   9. JRJoe Rogan10:36

      Do- could you explain that real quick for people who-

   10. MSMark Sisson10:38

       Oh, just-

   11. JRJoe Rogan10:39

       ... don't know what we're talking about?

   12. MSMark Sisson10:39

       This- this scientist, uh, in the, um, '60s I guess, uh, around then, uh, Ancel Keys had done a study looking at, um, saturated fat intake, uh, of, um- and heart- uh, correlated with heart disease in different countries. And, and found, um- at the end of the day he found that there was a correlation between high saturated fat intake and heart disease. Um, but then later on you find out that he looked at 32 stu- uh, 32 countries but picked the seven that fit his- his paradigm mostly. So that was- you know, I- I don't know if you've had Gary Taubes or- or-

   13. JRJoe Rogan11:12

       Yeah, I have.

   14. MSMark Sisson11:12

       ... me and he on the show, but-

   15. JRJoe Rogan11:13

       I have.

   16. MSMark Sisson11:13

       ... you know, they've all- everyone has sort of beaten this one to death, so the- the idea was that- th- that was the s- sort of the start of it, and then, um, um, McGovern and his committee w- when he was with the, uh, you know, uh, overseeing the US Department of Agriculture and, and trying to create the first food pyramids was convinced by Pritikin that, uh- because McGovern's wife had had a good experience at the Pritikin Longevity Center, which was a zero fat sort of, um, protocol. Um, so that politicized that enough that they decided to vilify fat. Um, cholesterol over the years has been, um, more vilified because of, uh, studies done- again, correlating, uh, higher cholesterol with- with, uh, higher incidences of- of heart issues, and the drug industry certainly got on that, and that's why statins came to the forefront. Uh-

   17. JRJoe Rogan12:08

       Statins themselves, though, have a host of pretty bad side effects.

   18. MSMark Sisson12:12

       I'm- I'm telling you. I mean, I think (laughs) , until-Some of these other things have come down recently. I would say that the s- statins are probably the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American public in terms of medicine. But that's just me. I'm not a doctor. I just do a lot of research and reading. So the idea that we would- Yeah. So to your point, statins tend to, um ... You know, there are, uh, brain fog issues, liver issues, uh, um, muscle weakness issues. Um, one of the things that statins do is they, uh, decrease the amount of CoQ10 that your body produces, uh, because it's a s- similar pathway, and so you have to ... should generally take supplemental CoQ10 with statins. Um, a friend of mine said that when he did the original ... when he was researching statins, one of the original patents on statins includ- acknowledged this deficiency of CoQ10, and so it included CoQ10 in the drug. But CoQ10 was so expensive to make, they just cleaved off that part of the patent.

   19. JRJoe Rogan13:11

       Oof.

   20. MSMark Sisson13:12

       Anyway. Um, where ... I don't know wh- where, where that was headed, but, um, you know, where the ... If we're talking about COVID, it appears that high cholesterol, higher cholesterol is protective for infections like COVID.

   21. JRJoe Rogan13:25

       But how is that the case? Because one of the problems with COVID is people with high obesity. Obese people tend to have a really hard time with COVID. In fact, 78% of the hospitalizations, they found out that those people were obese. I would imagine a lot of those obese people also have high cholesterol.

   22. MSMark Sisson13:41

       Okay, but look at all the other factors. So-

   23. JRJoe Rogan13:43

       Right.

   24. MSMark Sisson13:43

       ... you know, if, if we're, again, I'm-

   25. JRJoe Rogan13:45

       Obesity is a big factor in terms-

   26. MSMark Sisson13:46

       Huge. No.

   27. JRJoe Rogan13:46

       ... just overall diminishing of your immune system.

   28. MSMark Sisson13:48

       Yeah. Exactly.

   29. JRJoe Rogan13:49

       Your, your, your vitality.

   30. MSMark Sisson13:50

       But I would say, I would say that from, you know, what I've read, um, blood glucose. So, you know, diabetics are much more susceptible to COVID, because this virus tends to like higher blood sugar. Um, if you have a preexisting, uh, systemic in- inflammation, not a good sign. Uh, vitamin D probably, you know, across the board, the greatest predictor of your survivability of COVID.
6. 18:45 – 25:38

   Primal eating fundamentals: sugar, seed oils, and the ‘real food’ reset

   1. JRJoe Rogan18:45

      Yeah. Um, you've always been a propon- ... I mean, I, I really love your products for- by the way. And thank you for sending me so-

   2. MSMark Sisson18:51

      Thank you.

   3. JRJoe Rogan18:51

      ... so many over the years.

   4. MSMark Sisson18:53

      Thank you. Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan18:53

      You've kept me fully stocked out.

   6. MSMark Sisson18:54

      You're welcome, yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan18:55

      You, you just make excellent stuff, and it seems so simple. I love the concept of it. You, you know, just your prime- the idea of primal. Like, what are you eating? You're eating whole vegetables, whole meats, food, just real, unprocessed, regular food. Eat that, you'll be healthier. It seems-

   8. MSMark Sisson19:14

      Go, go figure.

   9. JRJoe Rogan19:15

      ... so simplistic.

   10. MSMark Sisson19:15

       Go figure, right?

   11. JRJoe Rogan19:16

       It's the most simplistic thing, but the first time you and I talked and you talked about the issues that you had with inflammation of your joints, and that you were kinda told that this was gonna be your situation from here on out.

   12. MSMark Sisson19:27

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan19:27

       And as you got older, it was gonna get worse.

   14. MSMark Sisson19:29

       Yep.

   15. JRJoe Rogan19:29

       You changed your diet, eliminated all the processed sugar, eliminated all the bullshit, and-

   16. MSMark Sisson19:34

       Yeah.

   17. JRJoe Rogan19:35

       ... e- and it all goes away.

   18. MSMark Sisson19:37

       Uh, again, it's like, um ... it's so simple and simplistic, it's almost like unbelievable. And yet, my whole background is in evolutionary biology and, and genetic science, and looking how our bodies respond to information from food, from sleep, from sun exposure, from play, from dirt exposure. Uh, and when you, when you realize that we evolved over, you know, two and a half million years of human evolution and 100 years of mammalian evolution and a billion years of multi-cell evolution, a lot of these things are encoded in our DNA that, that, uh, expect us to, uh, act certain ways and eat certain things. And when you bypass that with, you know, crunchy, salty, fatty, sweet, cheap stuff, you mess with the signaling and you wind up with, uh, genes getting turned on that might cause inflammation, and turn off the genes that would burn fat, and turn on the genes that would store fat, and turn off the genes that build muscle. And these are all just, uh, it's ... i- it sounds really, if you look at the level of every study now that looks at what happens at the level of gene expression, you understand that, that so many of these things that we, uh, that we do on a daily basis affect how we rebuild, renew, regenerate, recreate ourselves minute by minute. And food is still probably the most, you know, important aspect of that, if, if you had to pick one.

   19. JRJoe Rogan20:59

       It's literally the building blo- box of-

   20. MSMark Sisson21:02

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan21:02

       ... uh, building blocks of your body.

   22. MSMark Sisson21:03

       Right.

   23. JRJoe Rogan21:03

       And if you eat shitty food, you're gonna have shitty building blocks. I mean-

   24. MSMark Sisson21:06

       Exactly.

   25. JRJoe Rogan21:07

       ... it seems so simplistic when you put it that way.

   26. MSMark Sisson21:09

       Yeah, yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan21:09

       But people have this odd disconnect between what they put in their body and what kind of effect it has on them because they seek out food pleasure, and they seek it out as a reward. Oftentimes when you're working and you're bored, you go to the candy machine.

   28. MSMark Sisson21:22

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan21:23

       You know, this is like a, a standard thing that people do. They, they give themselves a reward for being in a shitty state of mind.

   30. MSMark Sisson21:30

       Well, I'll, I'll go you one better. Guys who go to the gym every day and train two hours because they like to eat. It's like, okay, wait a minute, I get that you like to eat, everyone likes to eat, you're wired to eat, but you're gonna go struggle and suffer in sweat and, and strain so you can go home and have a few more bites of something you probably shouldn't eat in the first place?
7. 25:38 – 35:47

   Grains, cereal culture, and the Kellogg origin story

   1. JRJoe Rogan25:38

      Uh, it's so hard for people to swallow because of that, th- this, it's this thing that's been shoved into our face that grains, whole grains... Like, that term whole grain, you know, if you like, if you had a box and you said whole grain and, you know, you had an option healthy, non-healthy, the ma- vast majority of the country-

   2. MSMark Sisson25:56

      Yeah.

   3. JRJoe Rogan25:56

      ... would check healthy for whole grains.

   4. MSMark Sisson25:58

      Of course. Again, they've been indoctrinated for years and years. It's been a, you know, ever since Earl Butz and the fir- and the first subsidies for-

   5. JRJoe Rogan26:05

      Fucking Earl Butz.

   6. MSMark Sisson26:06

      (laughs)

   7. JRJoe Rogan26:06

      I don't know who that is.

   8. MSMark Sisson26:08

      Okay.

   9. JRJoe Rogan26:08

      But there's been a lot of weird shit with grains too.

   10. MSMark Sisson26:09

       Secretary of Agriculture under Jimmy Carter.

   11. JRJoe Rogan26:11

       You know the Kellogg story, right?

   12. MSMark Sisson26:13

       Yeah.

   13. JRJoe Rogan26:13

       He's the weirdest one ever.

   14. MSMark Sisson26:14

       (laughs)

   15. JRJoe Rogan26:15

       Do you know...

   16. MSMark Sisson26:15

       And-

   17. JRJoe Rogan26:15

       Tell people the story behind it, because-

   18. MSMark Sisson26:16

       Well, you tell it. I mean-

   19. JRJoe Rogan26:17

       Okay.

   20. MSMark Sisson26:17

       ... I mean, basically, you know, it was about sexual-

   21. JRJoe Rogan26:20

       He thought-

   22. MSMark Sisson26:20

       Yeah, yeah.

   23. JRJoe Rogan26:21

       He thought that by giving people bland food-

   24. MSMark Sisson26:23

       Yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan26:23

       ... it would curb their sexual urges.

   26. MSMark Sisson26:25

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan26:26

       So I guess he thought, like, Mexicans and, you know, like, their spicy food, like, or other people, like, uh, who, whether p- uh, Indians have spicy food, he, it felt like foods with a lot of flavor made people wanna fuck. (laughs)

   28. MSMark Sisson26:41

       (laughs)

   29. JRJoe Rogan26:41

       (claps) For some strange reason, this guy.

   30. MSMark Sisson26:42

       Your, your point being?
8. 35:47 – 40:12

   Obesity, ‘fat shaming,’ and why health messaging gets politically toxic

   1. JRJoe Rogan35:47

      Yeah, and you can't ... This is the other thing that we have a real problem with in our culture today, you can't say, "You need to lose weight." 'Cause even though it's true, you, y- th- we, we have this bizarre, l- like, participation trophy concept-

   2. MSMark Sisson36:03

      Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

   3. JRJoe Rogan36:04

      ... of, uh, uh, of how we-

   4. MSMark Sisson36:05

      Everything's okay.

   5. JRJoe Rogan36:05

      ... treat people-

   6. MSMark Sisson36:06

      Yeah.

   7. JRJoe Rogan36:06

      ... when it comes to real issues, like being obese, like being fat. It's fucking terrible for you. But if you say that, you're fat shaming-

   8. MSMark Sisson36:14

      Yeah.

   9. JRJoe Rogan36:15

      ... which is so nonsensical and it's just designed to protect lazy people. Or excuse me, maybe not even lazy people, inflicted, people that are inflicted with weight lo- Maybe they're not w- lazy, maybe they're just ... They're, they're mentally fucked up. Like, maybe they've got issues and, uh, they, they can't seem to get it together and discipline themselves and lose the weight, whether it's because of their sugar levels or their addiction to food or whatever it is. But my God, that we're not helping anybody by protecting their feelings and letting their body d- get destroyed. It's crazy.

   10. MSMark Sisson36:44

       No, it's crazy and, and, you know, th- seeing-... um, obese models-

   11. JRJoe Rogan36:50

       Oh.

   12. MSMark Sisson36:50

       … uh, you know, on the cover of magazines with-

   13. JRJoe Rogan36:51

       They're curve models, Mark, you piece of shit.

   14. MSMark Sisson36:53

       Whatever. Oh, it's my bad.

   15. JRJoe Rogan36:54

       You don't even know what you're saying.

   16. MSMark Sisson36:55

       Okay. Um-

   17. JRJoe Rogan36:55

       How dare you?

   18. MSMark Sisson36:56

       Yeah. But I mean, it's, it just, it, it-

   19. JRJoe Rogan36:58

       A curve model.

   20. MSMark Sisson36:58

       Again, they talk about sending the wrong message.

   21. JRJoe Rogan37:00

       Yes, it's a terrible message.

   22. MSMark Sisson37:01

       It's, it's a terrible message.

   23. JRJoe Rogan37:02

       And, and not only that, but here's where it gets even worse. When people do get healthy, folks get mad at them. Like, there's fans that are mad at Adele.

   24. MSMark Sisson37:10

       Oh, right, yeah.

   25. JRJoe Rogan37:11

       'Cause Adele is really slim now and s- she looks fucking great.

   26. MSMark Sisson37:15

       Yeah.

   27. JRJoe Rogan37:15

       Which, by the way, I have a theory. She's one of those women that got hit up by a male gold digger. Her, uh, her ex-husband, she divorced him and he got a shit ton of money.

   28. MSMark Sisson37:25

       Yeah.

   29. JRJoe Rogan37:25

       And I think, uh, you know, that's-

   30. MSMark Sisson37:27

       The divorce diet?
9. 40:12 – 50:21

   Mark’s ‘Two Meals a Day’ framework: metabolic flexibility over dogma

   1. JRJoe Rogan40:12

      You got a book?

   2. MSMark Sisson40:12

      I got a book. (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan40:13

      Two Meals a Day?

   4. MSMark Sisson40:14

      Yeah.

   5. JRJoe Rogan40:14

      What is the idea behind that? Why f- why two meals a day?

   6. MSMark Sisson40:17

      So, um-

   7. JRJoe Rogan40:17

      Why not just one?

   8. MSMark Sisson40:19

      Well, (laughs) I was gonna do one, one a day and I thought, "Nobody's gonna buy this fucking book if it's one meal a day."

   9. JRJoe Rogan40:24

      (laughs)

   10. MSMark Sisson40:24

       So I start-

   11. JRJoe Rogan40:25

       Isn't that The Warrior's Diet?

   12. MSMark Sisson40:26

       ... I start, I started with two. Um, you know, I've gone through, again, all these iterations of trying to, um, assist people with the information that I've come across in my research on how they can achieve an ideal body composition, have more energy, um, maintain or, or build, uh, you know, muscle, um, improve their immune systems, have better sex, be more productive. Whatever it is, th- these are the things that, these are what I'm trying to, um... Uh, the, the hidden genetic switches that I'm trying to uncover for people. And in, in so doing, you could choose to do it or not. I'm not suggesting you have to do this to have a great life, but here are some of the ways that we do it. And it started with a primal blueprint and then sort of morphed into, "Well, the primal blueprint works really well for a lot of people and even worked well for me, but is there something else? Is there a new, like, level I could get to?" And that was the keto. So I ha- I wro- I wrote a book called The Keto Reset Diet, since I was on here, and I was, I was into keto for a while. But then I, I sort of said, "Well, you know, ketosis is not a way to live your life. It's a, it's a tool, a strategy that you can use to build metabolic flexibility." And so-

   13. JRJoe Rogan41:30

       Some people do think that it's a way to live your life, though. Like m- you know, Dom D'Agostino.

   14. MSMark Sisson41:35

       Yeah.

   15. JRJoe Rogan41:35

       He, he, he does it all the time.

   16. MSMark Sisson41:37

       Yeah. I mean, I have a lot of friends who do, who do keto the whole time. I'm just... I'm not a person who says, "That's the way. Keto's the, you know-"

   17. JRJoe Rogan41:44

       Right.

   18. MSMark Sisson41:44

       "... the, the be-all and the end-all of how you should live your life." Because I'm, I'm more about achieving metabolic flexibility. And, and that's a term that's come up in the last couple of years, I don't know if you've heard it, but it basically describes your body's ability to extract energy from whatever substrate is available at the time.

   19. JRJoe Rogan42:00

       So making it easier for your body to bounce back and forth from fat to carbohydrates and not require so much of a gap?

   20. MSMark Sisson42:06

       Bingo.

   21. JRJoe Rogan42:06

       'Cause usually the gap is, what, is it, like, two weeks or something like that for you- if you're a carbohydrate?

   22. MSMark Sisson42:11

       Yeah. And if you're, and if, and if you never go down the route of, of keto and all you do is eat carbs your whole life or have a carb-centric diet, you never get to the point where you're burning fat efficiently or effectively.

   23. JRJoe Rogan42:22

       Right.

   24. MSMark Sisson42:22

       So you're, you're really metabolically inflexible. Your body is just demanding that it continuously run on carbs and never tap into your fat stores, so you get... Typically, you get incrementally fatter and fatter, um, and then if you skip a meal or skip two meals or try to go on some sort of a fast, you-... the wheels fall off because you haven't built the metabolic machinery to, to burn fat, to burn ketones, and a- and all the things that go along with, with metabolic flexibility. So, it turns out metabolic flexibility is the Holy Grail in how you get there, whether it's, uh, primal, paleo, uh, v- vegetarian, vegan, uh, fasting, IF, whatever. I don't... It's almost like it's, it doesn't matter what route you, you use. If you can get to the point where you're metabolically flexible, now you have this ability to, to extract energy from your own stored body fat whenever you don't eat.

   25. JRJoe Rogan43:14

       And how does one do that? Like, what's the best strategy to become-

   26. MSMark Sisson43:16

       Well, the best strategy is keto. (laughs) So ...

   27. JRJoe Rogan43:18

       That's the best strategy?

   28. MSMark Sisson43:19

       For sure, for sure. That's the best strategy. So, um, because, uh, as long as you keep feeding your body carbohydrates every two or three hours all day long, the body goes, "Hey, I got, I got plenty of fuel. Um, taking the carbohydrates in raises my blood sugar. Blood sugar is a fuel, but I don't want too much of it in my system." And so the body produces insulin, which tries to take excess glucose and protein and fat out of the bloodstream, and sequester it in the cells. Um, and in so doing, your blood sugar drops (laughs) because it's, it's... And then you have to eat again every two or three hours. And it's this cycle that people enter into that they, that they're on for a lifetime sometimes. And, and the tendency over time, because you're not burning your stored body fat, is to accumulate body fat. You never get really adept at burning body fat, and you never... Because you never take time off to require that your body burns its fat. You just keep accumulating it.

   29. JRJoe Rogan44:19

       So how does someone go from being metabolically inflexible to metabolically flexible without going into keto?

   30. MSMark Sisson44:27

       That's difficult. The way to do it is, is through f- fasting. Um, and k- it just, keto is such a, a, a better way to do it. And the reason is, you, you're trying to prompt the body into making changes that it doesn't wanna make.
10. 50:21 – 1:02:06

    Fasting, autophagy, and making ‘not eating’ feel easy (not miserable)

    1. JRJoe Rogan50:21

       But what if, but what if someone just fasts?

    2. MSMark Sisson50:23

       But, so n- what... So give me a term. Like-

    3. JRJoe Rogan50:25

       Okay.

    4. MSMark Sisson50:25

       ... what does fasting mean?

    5. JRJoe Rogan50:25

       So if you decide, "I'm gonna go on a-"

    6. MSMark Sisson50:27

       20 hours? 36 hours?

    7. JRJoe Rogan50:28

       Yeah. "I'm gonna go on a 36-hour fast."

    8. MSMark Sisson50:30

       That's probably the high end of what I would do, and then anything beyond that, I'd be a little bit concerned that I hadn't prepped myself with, with fat adaptation yet.

    9. JRJoe Rogan50:39

       So when people d- go on these crazy three to five day fasts-

    10. MSMark Sisson50:42

        They-

    11. JRJoe Rogan50:42

        ... they, they report all this energy. They feel great. They feel amazing. What's going on there?

    12. MSMark Sisson50:46

        Well, they're, th- they've got ke-... Their brains are using ketones.

    13. JRJoe Rogan50:49

        Right.

    14. MSMark Sisson50:50

        So that's definitely where the energy, the feeling of amazing comes from. Um, typically, if you're fasting that long, you're not working out.

    15. JRJoe Rogan50:58

        Hm.

    16. MSMark Sisson50:58

        Like, you... Like, any of these... Like, my wife does a seven-day water fast.

    17. JRJoe Rogan51:03

        Oh, Jesus.

    18. MSMark Sisson51:03

        Twice a year.

    19. JRJoe Rogan51:04

        Oh, Jesus.

    20. MSMark Sisson51:05

        That's what I sit in.

    21. JRJoe Rogan51:05

        Do you s- do you go on vacation-

    22. MSMark Sisson51:06

        That's wh-

    23. JRJoe Rogan51:07

        ... when that's happening?

    24. MSMark Sisson51:07

        No.

    25. JRJoe Rogan51:07

        (laughs)

    26. MSMark Sisson51:07

        But I eat more. I eat for her.

    27. JRJoe Rogan51:10

        (laughs)

    28. MSMark Sisson51:11

        While she's gone.

    29. JRJoe Rogan51:11

        Why does she do that?

    30. MSMark Sisson51:12

        She has this... You know, she feels that, like it's, uh, good for her. She's into the autophagy and the, and, and some of the, um-
11. 1:02:06 – 1:05:57

    Primal Kitchen expansion: frozen meals, scaling quality, and donations

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:02:06

       People like those meal prep companies. It's one of the things that people like about them is that they give you a reasonable portion of food.

    2. MSMark Sisson1:02:13

       Right.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:02:13

       Especially if it's a good company, it'll, it'll be based on your body mass and what kind of activities you're involved in. Do you, uh, do you ever use one of those or do you recommend anything like that?

    4. MSMark Sisson1:02:22

       Well, no, because (laughs) now we produce, uh, meals, so-

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:02:25

       Oh, you do?

    6. MSMark Sisson1:02:26

       Yeah, we, yeah, we have meals. You have-

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:02:27

       When did you guys start doing that?

    8. MSMark Sisson1:02:28

       Um, last year, pre- pre-COVID, and then COVID sort of shut down the distribution because it, they're frozen meals.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:02:34

       Oh.

    10. MSMark Sisson1:02:34

        So they're f- they're frozen, but, you know, we have, uh, steak fajita. We have, uh, ch- you know, uh, uh, teriyaki chicken. Uh, we've got a, Asian, Asian dish. I mean, it's, uh, these are in, in bags and it's all, you know, free range and grass fed and, you know, organic. Um, but it got-

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:02:52

        And do you microwave it? How do you heat it up?

    12. MSMark Sisson1:02:54

        You can microwave it, yeah. And some, the skillets you do in a, in a skillet pan. Um, so-

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:03:00

        Which, how long did it take to figure out how to do that where it tastes good but still maintained all the nutrients? And it seems like that would be, that's a challenge in and of itself, right?

    14. MSMark Sisson1:03:08

        That's a huge challenge, yeah. And, and the challenge is making it to scale, right?

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:03:11

        Right.

    16. MSMark Sisson1:03:11

        And, and doing it in large quantities.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:03:13

        How many people do you serve with these?

    18. MSMark Sisson1:03:15

        Uh, oh, just one. It's just that these are individual serving, uh, sizes.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:03:20

        Right. I'm sorry. I meant how many people do you distribute these to?

    20. MSMark Sisson1:03:25

        Um, well, they're, they're available in stores throughout the country that carry us.

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:03:29

        Oh.

    22. MSMark Sisson1:03:29

        Yeah, yeah. So, uh-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:03:31

        So it's not like y- y- you're not, it's on like a website where somebody orders it?

    24. MSMark Sisson1:03:34

        No, no, no. You can't. It's because it's frozen, it's too, um, logistically complicated to do individual shipments.

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:03:41

        Ah, I see.

    26. MSMark Sisson1:03:41

        They, they have to stay frozen. So it's in the frozen section of, of a lot of stores now. And, uh, that was one, one of the things that was curtailed from COVID. So we were gonna like launch last year in April, and then a lot of the stores said, "Look, there's gonna be nobody coming into our stores and we're not gonna make any big shifts until we know what this thing is, how this sorts out."

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:03:59

        Right.

    28. MSMark Sisson1:03:59

        Yeah. But it's taking off. It's, and one of the programs we have right now, and I think, uh, we told your team this, is we're, uh, we're gonna donate 50,000 of these meals to needy families, uh, through a program. And I think it m- I hope it's in the show notes, but if not, just, you know, you can google Primal Kitchen and, and check it out there. But we're, um, by purchasing Primal Kitchen products and showing a proof of purchase, we'll donate a, one of these meals to, to families in need.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:04:24

        Oh, that's great.

    30. MSMark Sisson1:04:25

        Yeah.
12. 1:05:57 – 1:16:46

    Steak as a staple: carnivore adjacent eating, desserts, and insulin ‘gotchas’

    1. JRJoe Rogan1:05:57

       Is that a staple of your diet?

    2. MSMark Sisson1:05:58

       Yeah.

    3. JRJoe Rogan1:05:59

       Is that mostly what you eat?

    4. MSMark Sisson1:06:00

       Well, um, red meat is still mostly what I eat, yeah.

    5. JRJoe Rogan1:06:03

       Really?

    6. MSMark Sisson1:06:03

       Yeah.

    7. JRJoe Rogan1:06:03

       Now, (sighs) what do you say to people that think that's terrible for you?

    8. MSMark Sisson1:06:08

       More for me.

    9. JRJoe Rogan1:06:08

       But, but isn't that the-

    10. MSMark Sisson1:06:09

        (laughs) More for me.

    11. JRJoe Rogan1:06:10

        I don't mean it's-

    12. MSMark Sisson1:06:11

        Yeah.

    13. JRJoe Rogan1:06:11

        ... for the environment. I mean terrible for you physically.

    14. MSMark Sisson1:06:14

        Yeah.

    15. JRJoe Rogan1:06:14

        Like there's, I'm, I'm sure you must run into people where you tell them, and then it's-

    16. MSMark Sisson1:06:17

        Not anymore. Not after you had Saladino on the show and, and, uh, and Baker.

    17. JRJoe Rogan1:06:21

        (laughs)

    18. MSMark Sisson1:06:21

        You know, uh, like these, like the carnivore diet, it's, it's, it's a thing. This, this really is a thing. This, this, eating a lot of steak is a thing. Now when I say a lot, I don't eat a lot of steak, but I have steak frequently, right? Um, and I have fish fairly frequently. I probably have two... You know, both my meals are high in protein, moderate in fat, and low in carbs every day. And, and that's the way I want it. That's what, that's what my, you know, satiety requirements are. That's what my taste buds want. Um, that's what goes (laughs) best with wine. I mean, uh, you know, I, every meal I eat has to be a great meal. I don't eat anything that's healthy just because you tell me it's healthy.

    19. JRJoe Rogan1:07:03

        Mm-hmm.

    20. MSMark Sisson1:07:03

        Um, and every bite of food I put in my mouth, I want to be spectacular. So I orchestrate my, my eating around that and when I'm done, I'm, I'm, I'm full and...

    21. JRJoe Rogan1:07:11

        And so you do most of your cooking?

    22. MSMark Sisson1:07:14

        Um, I do most of my cooking, or my wife. My wife has recently decided to become a great chef and she's been preparing some amazing stuff. So, uh-

    23. JRJoe Rogan1:07:24

        Do you let her cook the steak?

    24. MSMark Sisson1:07:25

        No. Don't let it-

    25. JRJoe Rogan1:07:26

        Ah.

    26. MSMark Sisson1:07:27

        ... be a steak. (laughs)

    27. JRJoe Rogan1:07:27

        I knew it. (laughs)

    28. MSMark Sisson1:07:29

        No, there is, there is some stuff.

    29. JRJoe Rogan1:07:31

        Isn't that weird?

    30. MSMark Sisson1:07:32

        Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:52:05