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The Joe Rogan ExperienceThe Joe Rogan Experience

Joe Rogan Experience #1624 - Mark Sisson

Mark Sisson is a fitness author, paleo diet expert, and retired elite athlete. His newest book is "Two Meals a Day: The simple, sustainable strategy to lose fat, reverse aging, & break free from diet frustration forever".

Mark SissonguestJoe Roganhost
Jun 27, 20242h 52mWatch on YouTube ↗

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  1. 0:00 – 2:18

    Catching up: Leaving California for Miami’s lifestyle and tax benefits

    1. MS

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

    2. JR

      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. MS

      It sure does, man.

    4. JR

      How's it been five years?

    5. MS

      A little over five years, yeah.

    6. JR

      That's ridiculous.

    7. MS

      I know. But-

    8. JR

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

    9. MS

      I know, and the world has changed.

    10. JR

      Yeah, a little bit.

    11. MS

      (laughs)

    12. JR

      Little bit.

    13. MS

      Yeah.

    14. JR

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

    15. MS

      Yep.

    16. JR

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

    17. MS

      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. JR

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

    19. MS

      A fat bike is a, is those, uh-

    20. JR

      Fat tires?

    21. MS

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

    22. JR

      Oh.

    23. MS

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

    24. JR

      Yeah, let's call it a fat bike.

    25. MS

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

    26. JR

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

    27. MS

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

    28. JR

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

    29. MS

      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. JR

      Wow. That's a good endorsement.

  2. 2:18 – 4:47

    Spring break chaos, COVID-era crowd control, and why Miami feels ‘wide open’

    1. JR

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

    2. MS

      Ugh. Yeah.

    3. JR

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

    4. MS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      Pepper spray balls at, uh, the-

    6. MS

      I mean s-

    7. JR

      ... people that were-

    8. MS

      Yeah.

    9. JR

      ... all over the streets?

    10. MS

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

    11. JR

      Why are the cops shooting pepper spray balls at them?

    12. MS

      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. JR

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

    14. MS

      No, it's, it's-

    15. JR

      ... Florida doesn't have restrictions?

    16. MS

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

    17. JR

      Yeah.

    18. MS

      ... 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. JR

      During spring break?

    20. MS

      ... during spring break.

    21. JR

      It's that bad?

    22. MS

      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. JR

      How long does spring break last?

    24. MS

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

    25. JR

      Two months?

    26. MS

      Well, you know, because-

    27. JR

      Different schools?

    28. MS

      ... 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. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    30. MS

      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 outcomes: lockdown skepticism and Mark’s COVID experience

    1. JR

      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. MS

      It is correct, and it's predictable.

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. MS

      I mean, you know, it-

    5. JR

      But that's nuts.

    6. MS

      That's-

    7. JR

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

    8. MS

      Yep.

    9. JR

      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. MS

      Yes.

    11. JR

      What was it like?

    12. MS

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

    13. JR

      And how old are you?

    14. MS

      Uh, 60-

    15. JR

      You can tell us.

    16. MS

      67.

    17. JR

      67.

    18. MS

      Yeah, I'll be 68-

    19. JR

      You look fucking great.

    20. MS

      Thank you, man.

    21. JR

      I hope I look half as good-

    22. MS

      (laughs) Thanks.

    23. JR

      ... as you when I'm 67.

    24. MS

      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. JR

      Yes.

    26. MS

      ... 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. JR

      Yes.

    28. MS

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

    29. JR

      Yes.

    30. MS

      ... with other people for long periods of time.

  4. 7:39 – 9:48

    Statins, cholesterol, and the ‘real’ drivers of heart disease (oxidation & inflammation)

    1. JR

      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. MS

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

    3. JR

      Yeah.

    4. MS

      That's the irony there.

    5. JR

      That's where it gets confusing, right?

    6. MS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    7. JR

      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. MS

      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 diet messaging got distorted: Ancel Keys, food pyramids, and cereal culture

    1. JR

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

    2. MS

      Um, you know, uh, I-

    3. JR

      Does it have to do with-

    4. MS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

      Uh, h- hate to interrupt you there.

    6. MS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

      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. MS

      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. JR

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

    10. MS

      Oh, just-

    11. JR

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

    12. MS

      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. JR

      Yeah, I have.

    14. MS

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

    15. JR

      I have.

    16. MS

      ... 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. JR

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

    18. MS

      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. JR

      Oof.

    20. MS

      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. JR

      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. MS

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

    23. JR

      Right.

    24. MS

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

    25. JR

      Obesity is a big factor in terms-

    26. MS

      Huge. No.

    27. JR

      ... just overall diminishing of your immune system.

    28. MS

      Yeah. Exactly.

    29. JR

      Your, your, your vitality.

    30. MS

      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 – 33:42

    Primal eating basics: eliminate sugar, seed oils, and (for many) grains

    1. JR

      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. MS

      Thank you.

    3. JR

      ... so many over the years.

    4. MS

      Thank you. Yeah.

    5. JR

      You've kept me fully stocked out.

    6. MS

      You're welcome, yeah.

    7. JR

      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. MS

      Go, go figure.

    9. JR

      ... so simplistic.

    10. MS

      Go figure, right?

    11. JR

      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. MS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

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

    14. MS

      Yep.

    15. JR

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

    16. MS

      Yeah.

    17. JR

      ... e- and it all goes away.

    18. MS

      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. JR

      It's literally the building blo- box of-

    20. MS

      Yeah.

    21. JR

      ... uh, building blocks of your body.

    22. MS

      Right.

    23. JR

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

    24. MS

      Exactly.

    25. JR

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

    26. MS

      Yeah, yeah.

    27. JR

      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. MS

      Yeah.

    29. JR

      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. MS

      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. 33:42 – 40:12

    Body positivity vs. health: weight gain during COVID and ‘fat-shaming’ debates

    1. MS

      ... was, you know, again, this is, this is an immune system issue. It's not so much a public health issue as it's a private health issue. In other words, you ... People take responsibility for yourself, and that doesn't mean, you know, locking yourself up in a room. And y- I read the other day, the average weight gain, um-

    2. JR

      Yeah, it was crazy.

    3. MS

      ... was like half a pound every 10 days during COVID?

    4. JR

      Yeah, they, they, I think they said the average ... Like, 42% of the people gained weight and the average weight gain for millennials was 39 pounds.

    5. MS

      I mean-

    6. JR

      Which is-

    7. MS

      ... I'm not sure if it l-

    8. JR

      ... fucking insane. Well-

    9. MS

      It's insane, yeah.

    10. JR

      Let's find that, that statistic, 'cause somebody sent it to me and it was a meme, which means it couldn't be that good.

    11. MS

      Yeah. I don't ... Yeah, I'm not, I'm not believing that. But even if it's 20 pounds, it's, it's 20 pounds (laughs) in the wrong direction.

    12. JR

      Well, I think what they're saying is for the 42% that did-

    13. MS

      Oh, yeah.

    14. JR

      ... gain weight.

    15. MS

      Yeah.

    16. JR

      It's not that everyone gained weight.

    17. MS

      No.

    18. JR

      Most people didn't gain weight, but the 42% that did gain weight, the average weight gain was more than 30 pounds, which is-

    19. MS

      (laughs)

    20. JR

      ... a lot of ... That's a big change in your body over 30 years that could also have a massive negative health impact for years to come when you, when you put that kind of a burden on all of your sys- your endocrine system, uh, all, all your, your body systems so rapidly.

    21. NA

      Oh, yeah. This is one of those things that gets to the polling, but they polled 3,000 people.

    22. JR

      Ah, see.

    23. NA

      So when you get into those numbers, it's 3,000.

    24. JR

      Yeah, exactly. That's why memes are so fun. (laughs)

    25. NA

      Yeah. (laughs)

    26. MS

      Let's make-

    27. JR

      Okay.

    28. MS

      ... one up right now.

    29. JR

      Yeah. Okay, here it is. 42% of adults said they gained more weight than intended. Of course, the amount they reported gaining averaged 29 pounds, so I was wrong there. Uh, 10% said they gained more than 50 pounds, just that alone. Weight gain leads to obesity, behbehbehbehbehbah. Uh, more women, 45%, reported weight gain than men, 39%, but men reported a higher average gain of 37 pounds. Okay, that's what it was, compared to the women's average of 22 pounds.

    30. NA

      Wow.

  8. 40:12 – 50:39

    ‘Two Meals a Day’: metabolic flexibility, fasting windows, and hunger control

    1. JR

      You got a book?

    2. MS

      I got a book. (laughs)

    3. JR

      Two Meals a Day?

    4. MS

      Yeah.

    5. JR

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

    6. MS

      So, um-

    7. JR

      Why not just one?

    8. MS

      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. JR

      (laughs)

    10. MS

      So I start-

    11. JR

      Isn't that The Warrior's Diet?

    12. MS

      ... 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. JR

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

    14. MS

      Yeah.

    15. JR

      He, he, he does it all the time.

    16. MS

      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. JR

      Right.

    18. MS

      "... 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. JR

      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. MS

      Bingo.

    21. JR

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

    22. MS

      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. JR

      Right.

    24. MS

      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. JR

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

    26. MS

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

    27. JR

      That's the best strategy?

    28. MS

      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. JR

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

    30. MS

      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.

  9. 50:39 – 1:05:57

    Long fasts, autophagy, and the ‘repair mode’ explanation (plus Great Reset aside)

    1. JR

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

    2. MS

      They-

    3. JR

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

    4. MS

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

    5. JR

      Right.

    6. MS

      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.

    7. JR

      Hm.

    8. MS

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

    9. JR

      Oh, Jesus.

    10. MS

      Twice a year.

    11. JR

      Oh, Jesus.

    12. MS

      That's what I sit in.

    13. JR

      Do you s- do you go on vacation-

    14. MS

      That's wh-

    15. JR

      ... when that's happening?

    16. MS

      No.

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. MS

      But I eat more. I eat for her.

    19. JR

      (laughs)

    20. MS

      While she's gone.

    21. JR

      Why does she do that?

    22. MS

      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-

    23. JR

      Explain that.

    24. MS

      ... the anti-aging...

    25. JR

      It burns, it burns cells that are fat cells.

    26. MS

      Yeah. So this, when you're... One of the things, one of the many things that happens when you, when you fast is that your body goes into a different mode and it starts to realize that there's not gonna be a lot of fuel around for a while. And so, in addition to burning stored body fat, in addition to making ketones, um... And by the way, ketones come from fat, so some of the fat that you combust is also just converted into ketones so your brain can use. Um, it also, the body also says... Like, if you were to be a s-... If you had a, a brain, if you were a cell and you had a brain and you thought, "Well, generally there's a lot of fuel around, so my job is to pass the genetic material along to the next generation. So there's plenty for two of us, so I'll just divide, and there'll be two of us, and that'll be great." That same cell, when the, in the absence of, of this sort of bathing and, and nutrition goes, "Well, there's not even enough for one of me, let alone two of me, so I'm not gonna divide. I'm gonna repair what I have." And so the cell goes into a repair process, where it starts to consume damaged proteins and damaged fats within itself, uh, it, it... And it actually gets energy from that. Um, starts to repair, uh, broken strands of DNA or whatever little things are going on. It a- actually kills off senescent cells at that time. So it's a, it's an anti-aging strategy that a lot of people use. Um, it's also a... God, I hate the term reset. I gotta, I, uh...

    27. JR

      Why do you hate that term?

    28. MS

      'Cause.

    29. JR

      It's overused?

    30. MS

      No. W- but... And I used it in a book.

  10. 1:05:57 – 1:16:46

    What Mark eats now: steak-forward meals, cooking methods, and dessert pitfalls

    1. JR

      Is that a staple of your diet?

    2. MS

      Yeah.

    3. JR

      Is that mostly what you eat?

    4. MS

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

    5. JR

      Really?

    6. MS

      Yeah.

    7. JR

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

    8. MS

      More for me.

    9. JR

      But, but isn't that the-

    10. MS

      (laughs) More for me.

    11. JR

      I don't mean it's-

    12. MS

      Yeah.

    13. JR

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

    14. MS

      Yeah.

    15. JR

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

    16. MS

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

    17. JR

      (laughs)

    18. MS

      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. JR

      Mm-hmm.

    20. MS

      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. JR

      And so you do most of your cooking?

    22. MS

      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. JR

      Do you let her cook the steak?

    24. MS

      No. Don't let it-

    25. JR

      Ah.

    26. MS

      ... be a steak. (laughs)

    27. JR

      I knew it. (laughs)

    28. MS

      No, there is, there is some stuff.

    29. JR

      Isn't that weird?

    30. MS

      Yeah.

Episode duration: 2:52:05

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