EVERY SPOKEN WORD
160 min read · 31,629 words- 0:00 – 0:38
Intro
- MLMax Lugavere
There is no long-lived population on Earth for whom which seed oils make up a, a significant calorie contributor. You might not believe that these oils are harmful to you. And, you know, I'm always willing to adjust my stance when new data presents itself, but there's no reason to consume them.
- CWChris Williamson
Max Lugavere, welcome to the show.
- MLMax Lugavere
Chris, honor to be here. Thanks for having me.
- CWChris Williamson
Look at you, fresh from the dentist.
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So smiley.
- MLMax Lugavere
Dude, I chipped a back tooth on a cacao nib.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- MLMax Lugavere
The irony. It's a super food.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- MLMax Lugavere
And it was super effective at chipping a, uh, a tooth in the back of my mouth.
- CWChris Williamson
What was that thing that you shared
- 0:38 – 5:15
Is Shredded Wheat a Superfood?
- CWChris Williamson
a little while ago that had, like, sh- frosted shredded wheat as the-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... the greatest super food on the planet? Take me through that.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah. So, that was something that was published by Tufts University, the Friedman School of Nutrition over there. Um, there's great, uh, interest in developing what's called a nutrient profiling system among scientists and, uh, ultimately to be used for the public good. And so the Food Compass, which was Tufts', is Tufts' sort of best take on what a, what an idealized nutrient profiling system, um, would look like, uh, came out and, um, it had all of these various different food items ranked. The, the, the supplementary material that came with the paper was, I don't know, it was like a couple, it was like a hundred pages long or something like that. And, um, it ranked every possible food in the supermarket. And basically, the, the, the reason why it's in the, why ultimately it's in the public's interest to create a food profiling system like this is because the public is confused, right, about nutrition. The public doesn't know what to eat, right? For decades we were told via the USDA food pyramid to load up on something like seven to 11, six to 11 servings of grains per day, right? And that's been replaced by the MyPlate paradigm with, which still implores us at every meal to include grains, um, to utilize vegetable oils and things like that. So, the public is confused, right? And so, uh, Tufts University thought that it was in the public's interest to create this, this food profiling system called The Food Compass. And, um, it had a lot, a lot of flaws that were illustrated by a separate group headed up by, uh, a researcher named Ty Beal, who teased out various food items and put them on a hierarchy. So, this was not an extrapolation. This was data taken from the supplementary material provided with The Food Compass paper. And it showed these completely asinine relationships between various foods that even a four-year-old would say, "This is absurd." Right? It ranked frosted Mini-Wheats above a poached egg, for example. It put ground beef at the bottom of the, of the chart, for the most part. Um, and it was just completely ab- absurd, right? It, it ranked egg substitute fried in vegetable oil above actual egg. Which, you know, eggs, ground beef, dairy, these are some of our most nutrient-dense foods. And so this chart went viral, which was basically a chart that was created by this separate group that published a reaction critique to The Food Compass paper, uh, which, by the way, went completely ignored by the journal that it was submitted to, and also ignored by Tufts. Just to show the ridiculousness of, of this Food Compass, and really, you know, again, uh, I don't think that it was like created out of, out of malicious intent. But, uh, it, it completely under-weighted foods for, uh, their, the nature of their processing. So it, it basically didn't penalize foods appropriately for being ultra-processed, which we know are a contributing factor to the obesity epidemic and the obese, the epidemic of chronic disease. Foods that are ultra-processed now make up 60% of the calories that your average American consumes every single day. So, this is a, a major problem. We know that, that only 10% of Americans have good metabolic health. The rest are struggling with some type of metabolic illness, m- manifest as either a dysregulated lipids or an oversized waistline, or what have you. And so, you know, you, you fail to penalize ultra-processed foods, which Americans are already over-consuming. You don't properly credit foods for containing protein, which is a very important, um, macronutrient, or, uh, dietary fiber. I think actually protein and fiber were given the same weight and they were both under-weighted relative to other, um, uh, features. So yeah, so it was a mess. It was just a complete mess. And they've since, um, I've, I've actually had a conversation with, uh, Darry, who's the, the lead researcher behind it, and you know, we just, we have different views on, I think, the value of protein. Um, but, you know, at this point I've communicated and, and I've done, you know, I've written three books and I've, uh, had many protein experts on the podcast, and I think protein is, is incredibly important. And so, um, you know, I think it's, it's kind of odd that we have such divergent viewpoints on that. Um, and, you know, again, I think, I think there is value in, in creating a nutrient profiling system but that ain't it. The Food Compass ain't it.
- CWChris Williamson
You mentioned
- 5:15 – 12:49
Why the Science of Nutrition is So Confusing
- CWChris Williamson
that diet science is kind of like built upon a foundation of a house of cards. That it's, you can manipulate data to wield any particular outcome that you want, which can fit a pre-conceived ideology. What, explain to me, someone who doesn't understand nutrition science, how it is that so many different interpretations can come from something with the word science in the name? Th- I, I don't see people in the physics community debating over the speed of light. I don't see people in the chemic- chemistry community debating about what happens if you add magnesium to water.
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You know, like, th- those seem to be closed systems, the same as our body. How, how is it that there are so many degrees of freedom that permit researchers to be able to do this fuckery?
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs) Yeah. Well, I think it's because nutrition is m- is a much more difficult science to study than, uh, say drug research. It's much more-
- CWChris Williamson
I thought you were gonna say physics there. The physicists are about to be-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... up in arms saying, "It's not rocket science."
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
"Actually it's nutrition science."
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah. Well, I mean, I feel like, yeah, rocket science is actually much easier to study than nutrition science. Nutrition science is very difficult because people don't eat single foods in isolation, right? They consume dietary patterns and people don't consume the same dietary pattern one decade that they do the next. And people have different needs, of course, over the course of their lifespan. So, um, and, and different preferences, dietary preferences, taste, cultural paradigms that, that, um, you know, nutrition sort of has to apply itself to. And making matters worse, nutrition is much less well-funded, right? So a lot of the studies that you'll see, for example, showing us the benefits of a food item like blueberries, are actually funded by l- by the Berry Board. Um, which is, uh, not necessarily a bad thing, right? That doesn't invalidate the science, but it's like there's always gonna be a ve- There's always a vested interest. Um, so you oftentimes will see, especially with more contested food, uh, categories like meat, right? Like, "Oh, well, that study I'm sure was funded by the beef industry." Well, you know, where else are you gonna find that, that kind of money to do these studies, right? Like, you can't patent broccoli, you can't patent an egg. And so there just isn't the kind of, uh, commercial interest in it the way that there is for, for drugs. And then on top of that, you apply the fact that people tend to make nutrition their identity. And so there's a lot of ideology within the world of nutrition, right? There's a lot of virtue signaling. There's a lot of, um, morality brownie points that are thrown about depending on what dietary tribe you choose to adopt, right? And so, um, and so yeah, so there's what's called the Diet Wars online, and I'm just like, I'm l- I find myself in the middle of it actually, because my... The recommendations that I make tend to be, um, among the more balanced of the recommendations out there. So I'm a, I'm a bigger threat to all of the groups, right? Because I actually present, I think, what I think is to be a very balanced message. Um, and, uh, and yeah, so it's just a, it's, it's just a big, a big problem. Um, and, and the reason why I think it's so easy for you to spin your message and to wield science in a way that can basically, uh, prove any point that you're trying to make ultimately is that, like I said earlier, it's sort of like built on a house of cards. Like, nutrition science for decades has been built primarily on epidemiology, because to get human beings to adhere to long-term multi-center randomized control trials is just impractical. Actually impossible, um, for the most part. I mean, we have a few seminal studies like the PREDIMED study, which I often evoke. Uh, there's the FINGER study, um, which is, uh, particularly for my sort of interest vertical, it's the first ever large population randomized control trial to look at a dietary intervention as it applies to cognitive health and, and d- risk for dementia and things like that. But there's just not many of those. So, you know, you rely for the most part on, on observational types of studies to make inferences about nutrition. And it's just all so incredibly weak. I mean, that's what you find out once you really get into it. Um, and, you know, re- researchers do their best to control things fo- for, to control, for example, for confounding aspects of epidemiology, like healthy user bias, which, um, basically is the, uh, the, the phenomena whereby somebody who's doing one thing healthy tends to do other things in their lifestyle healthy, right? Like, like somebody who is healthy tends to do healthy things. And so you can see that with people who eat lots of vegetables, fruits and vegetables, for example. Um, but it's the, the question that always arises is the... Are the... Is the health of the, of the population that you're studying due to the item that's being studied, or is it due to all of these sort of external variables, right? And so researchers try their best to account for all of those things, um, but, uh, but there's this healthy user bias always creeps in. And a good example that I like to give is quinoa, right? If you were to do, like a population level study of all of the people in the United States who regularly consume quinoa, chances are their health is gonna be much better over the long term than the average person, right, that doesn't eat quinoa. Chances are, if a person knows how to pronounce quinoa, right? Like we live in a country where the average reading level is, I don't know, what, third grade or something ridiculous like that. I don't know. Don't quote me on that.
- CWChris Williamson
Qui-no-a.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah. Like your average person doe- wouldn't know how to pronounce quinoa, right? Like I think that's a pretty fair assumption. So if you know how to pronounce it, you're already probably reading health blogs or shopping in a supermarket that carries quinoa, right? Or that lives in a city where quinoa is available, or a town where quinoa is available, right? So that's healthy user bias in a nutshell. If you're eating quinoa, you're probably also eating more whole grains in general, which means you're also probably consuming more fresh fruits and veg- vegetables. You're probably also more likely to work out. You're less likely to smoke. You're less likely to be sedentary. So is the health of that population due to the quinoa or is it in spite of the quinoa? Or is it maybe it has nothing at all to do with the quinoa? Maybe it's all those other external variables, right? That constellation of other variables that, that, um, play a role, right, in somebody's ultimate health. And so when you take fruits and vegetables, for example, you see healthy user bias. When you see... when you, um, look at, uh, conversely meat consumption in this country, it's well known that, um, people who, who consume more meat tend to smoke more. They tend to be more likely to smoke. They tend to be more likely to be sedentary, um, and the like. So meat always at the population level, it's, it's very easy to find studies that associate meat with, with poor health, right? But is it because of the meat itself? Like if you found somebody that was eating a paleo diet, for example, like a pristine diet with very high quality food, grass-fed, grass-finished meat-... you know, you, you likely wouldn't see a negative health, uh, effect from the meat. In fact, you'd probably see a health benefit. And ultimately, there are no long term randomized control trials to show that red meat has any negative effect. In fact, it's quite the opposite. Red meat is a, is a, is a wonderful repository of high quality protein, of carnitine nutrients like creatine, like taurine, like carnitine, like vitamin E. And so, um, and so yeah, I think that we need to get back to co- uh, like regain a, a bit of common sense when it comes to nutrition. And, um, and unfortunately, common sense isn't all that common these days, particularly, you know, when you look at all these different diet tribes.
- CWChris Williamson
You've mentioned there
- 12:49 – 22:17
How Important is Organic Produce?
- CWChris Williamson
about grass-fed/grass-finished, and I imagine that non-GMO and organic and suchlike would be thrown into the mix with that. How big of a deal is it to be someone that is optimizing for non-GMO, organic grass- grass-fed/grass-finished food? How big of an influence does that make on the, on the food profile that you're eating?
- MLMax Lugavere
That's a good question, and this is actually, uh, I think probably gonna be a surprising answer. It doesn't make that big of a difference. Um, you know, there's a lot of, uh, debate about organic versus conventional, and I think when it comes to produce, the, the, the big, like, bang for your buck when it comes to organic produce is that you're reducing your exposure to synthetic petroleum-based pesta- pesticides, which you're not necessarily getting with, um, conventionally produced. Like, with organic you're seeing a reduction in exposure. With conventional, you're seeing increased exposure, right? Now, the system isn't perfect. The organic, uh, the way that organic, um, labeled stuff is produced isn't perfect. Like, there was a study that came out recently that found that even organic wine had, um, detectable levels of glyphosate in it, right? But, uh, but I do think that that's... If you are, um, if you are wanting to hedge your bets and adhere to the, uh, abide by the precautionary principle, which I think, um, is smart, then organic would be the smart choice. But it's not necessarily more nutritious than conventionally grown produce. Um, you might see higher levels of various phytochemicals in organic, because, uh, these plants essentially develop, uh, defense compounds, right? And when they are, um, doused with these herbicides, pesticides, and the like, their, the responsibility, the onus is sort of offloaded from the plants themselves onto these, these external, e- you know, endogenous chemicals, ex- exogenous chemicals that are sprayed onto them. And so you see a reduction in, for example, polyphenols, um, which could include compounds like flavanols and flavonoids and, and things like that. But we don't really know. We haven't yet quantified the health benefit, the he- the, the, you know, the sum total health effect of that. When it comes to vitamins and minerals, there's really not much of a difference, and also when it comes to animal products, uh, the differences are also really small. Um, now-
- CWChris Williamson
Between a grass-fed/grass-finished and a, uh, whatever it is, corn, corn-raised/corn-finished?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, I mean, they're there. There are differences. So grass-fed is gonna be a better option for you. Um, it is healthier. Part of that has to do with the fact that, uh, grass-fed/grass-finished beef is gonna be leaner than conventionally produced beef, um, so it's gonna be more similar to the kinds of, for example, wild game that we probably evolved, uh, consuming, 'cause cows are actually not wild creatures. We created cows. And the modern cow is a very fatty animal. Um, so I do think that there's probably some benefit to going grass-fed/grass-finished if for the fact that it's a, it's a, you'd get a higher proportion of protein and, um, less overall fat. And in fact, you get a higher proportion of a particular type of fatty acid called stearic acid in grass-fed/grass-finished beef, which is actually beneficial to health. So it's a saturated fat, but it's a beneficial saturated fat in that it's neutral from a cardiovascular standpoint and actually has been shown to boost mitochondrial function. You get about five times the omega-3s in grass-finished beef as compared to, uh, grain-finished beef, but those are, that's just a relative increase. The absolute, um, v- the absolute concentration of omega-3s in beef is really not that much, right? Like, it's like, it actually is, is, is, uh, ve- quite insignificant compared to, for example, wild salmon. Um, you get about three times the vitamin E in grass-finished beef. Um, so it, it's definitely, it's got a healthier profile for sure, but that doesn't make conventionally produced beef, uh, unhealthy, right? It's still a great source of protein. It's still a great source of creatine. So, you know, I like to... And because of over the past decade I've been honed by getting to reach a, a wide, um, sort of audience, right, like people from across the socioeconomic spectrum, I don't like to let perfect be the enemy of the good, right? So if you're, if you live in a part of the country or the world where all you have access to is conventionally produced beef, I don't want people to shun that, right? Because it's still gonna be a better option for dinner for most people than the ultra-processed option, right, like the boxed mac and cheese. But, um-
- CWChris Williamson
There's something, uh, there's definitely something going on here. I can, uh, imagine people who are, uh, avidly non-GMO enthusiasts saying, "But what about the, the, the damages to the chemicals in my body, to the DNA, to the, to the breakdown of the telomere length, to..." There is something, I think, like, sacred about the way that people feel about putting stuff into their bodies, and when you have a particular, uh, bias or you've read something or seen something online and then you, you then start to attach your sense of identity to that, it's very difficult to then drag people back from it. The same person that wouldn't think twice about eating something that's been packaged in plastic and left on the shelf for six months would have a problem with going GMO because of sort of some natural... I think we saw this as well with the vaccine, right, that, that somehow the exposure to COVID as a, an infection risk was more natural than taking the vaccine, and, you, maybe there's a, an argument to be made that that, that that could be the case. My point being that as soon as it comes to putting it in or on your body-... there's, there's a, a, like a sacredness that comes to it, I think.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, and I, I applaud people who, who, who feel that, right? And I, I personally, like I buy organic when I'm eating the skin or the peel of whatever produce it is that we're talking about, and I buy grass fed, grass finished beef. That's the only type of beef that I bring into my house. I buy only wild salmon. But I also have to acknowledge that, you know, I can afford those things. I live in Los Angeles where I have access to the best supermarkets in the world, right? Living in Los Angeles, California. And so, um, and so yeah, that's, that's, that's all like, if you have the ability to, to do that, then I think that you absolutely should. But again, like I think that, you know, we can't let perfect be the enemy of the good. When people are, especially these days, like strapped for cash, right? And people live in all different parts ... Like, the people live in parts of the country that I can't even imagine, right? That I'll probably never get to visit where, you know, they buy, literally people buy groceries at gas stations. And so, um, and so yeah, that, that's all absolutely true. That's why I'm a big believer in what's called a precautionary principle, and I think that like, you know, that, that's where the data sort of ends and where your own-
- CWChris Williamson
What, what's the precautionary principle? You mentioned it twice now and I have no idea what it is.
- MLMax Lugavere
So the precautionary principle is basically like when we don't have enough data to, to act on something or to, uh, make a fully informed decision, then we take the more cautious approach, right? As oppo- as opposed to just gung-ho, running into the fire, so to speak, right? I think a lot of the times, you know, some of these newfangled products that we see on the market, whether it's like a food item or a supplement or a medicine, we take the approach of it being innocent until proven guilty, right? That's great for a, a justice system, but it's not so great for when we're deciding what to put into our bodies, right? So for me, the approach should instead be guilty until proven innocent, and that's sort of what the precautionary principle sort of implies. Um, because we can see many times throughout history where the food industry has let us down, right? Has essentially foisted a product or an ingredient or whatever onto the human public, only later to have then been recalled only after s- serious and immeasurable damage has been wrought, right? A perfect example of that would be the, uh, ubiquity up until only about 10 or so years ago of partially hydrogenated fats, right? Which are trans fatty acids, manmade trans fats, fats that were engineered from vegetable oil to behave more like saturated fat at room temperature, so they could be used in ultra-processed foods to replace, uh, traditional fats like, you know, butter, ghee, lard, and things like that. And so those were on the market for decades, right? As the heart-healthy alternative to those more traditional ancestral fats. We later found out that those were poisonous to the brain, to the cardiovascular system, and they were ultimately outlawed by the FDA, but only after decades of humans being exposed to them on a regular, near-regular basis, right? Um, other examples, lead in our paint, right? Or lead in our gasoline, for that matter. There are compounds that are, uh, that we are unwittingly exposed to, right? Because they are, um, because other industrial products have them in them. For example, it was recently shown that benzene is, you can find it in sunscreen sprays, right? So we spray our children with these carcinogens, right? Every summer when they, you know, head out to the beach or the pool. Um, there was, a- asbestos has been f- been found in talc powder. So it's just like the industry has violated our trust enough times where I think it's completely reasonable for your average person or parent to just be a little bit more skeptical than the media or, you know, the evidence-based voices on social media are, are telling them to be.
- CWChris Williamson
You've mentioned the oils.
- 22:17 – 31:57
What’s the Problem with Seed Oils?
- CWChris Williamson
I went to a bachelor party a couple of months ago and there, there was a bunch of guys that are pretty deep down the rabbit hole of no seed oils, optimized diet, all the rest of it. Uh, and we walked through Whole Foods together and I figured, I'm in Whole Foods, you know? This is the pinnacle of rich white people c- shopping for food, which is good for them. So I'm like pointing at different things. I'm like, "Can I have that?" And they're like, "No." "Can I have that?" "No." "Can I have that?" "No." Everything has estrogen, seed oils, canola oil, some other bullshit in it. First off, what's the problem with seed oils? Why are you so anti-seed oil?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, so seed ... The, the debate on seed oils, actually seed oils are having a moment right now where if you so much as mention seed oils, there tends to be a, uh, a gaggle of, uh, quote-unquote evidence-based diet warriors that come after you. The dieticians and the like. And that's because they're, I mean, they're, they're controversial because, um, they do, they're seen as being a heart-healthy alternative, again, to these tra- these traditional ancestral fats. Um, but they're a novel food, so they haven't been in the food supply prior to, I don't know, 60, 70 years ago. And humans are now consuming more of these types of fats than ever before in human history. And just to sort of define what seed oils are, because I think sometimes there's confusion about that. The seed oils that, that people are currently talking about are the refined, bleached and deodorized cooking oils, right? The industrially processed seed oils. We're not talking about sesame seed oil, which is created just by pressing sesame seeds. The seed oils in question are the ones that come from, for example, soy beans or corn, uh, or grape seeds, which we weren't able to produce prior to 100 years ago because we didn't have the, the, like the chemistry, um, the, the, the, the chemistry labs and the machinery able to extract these from, um, their, their constituent food items and then run them through these various processes to make them palatable. Because if you were to extract-For example, oil from grape seeds. Grape seeds used to be thrown away. Grape seed oil is now a by-product of wine making and it has to go through all these steps because it would otherwise contain noxious, um, aromas and flavors. And so, these are ultra-processed oils and we know that ultra-processed oils, ultra-processed foods are a defining characteristic of the modern chronic non-communicable health crisis, right? So, for some reason these seed oils, these industrially refined seed oils get a pass by the nutritional and the medical orthodoxy because relative to saturated fats they will lead to lower levels of, um (smacks lips) , LDL cholesterol, and now I think more specifically apo b, which is a sort of indicator of cardiovascular risk, right? And so, these oils being very unsaturated, right? You have your saturated fats, you have your, uh, unsaturated fats, and among your unsaturated fats you have your monounsaturated fats and then you have your polyunsaturated fats. Polyunsaturated fats are gonna be more unsaturated than monounsaturated fats, which are a little bit closer to being saturated, and then you have your saturated fats. So, it's a little bit of a, a chemistry lesson, but these polyunsaturated fats are still loved by the medical and the nutritional orthodoxy because relative to saturated fats they lower LDL, which is thought to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The problem with them is that they are very prone to a form of chemical degradation called oxidation. So, they go bad. They rot, essentially. Th- you can't see it, it's not, this is not a process that's visible to the naked eye the same way that when you slice an apple and you leave it on the counter and it goes brown, it turns brown. That's like rust, that's aging, that's decay playing out right in front of you in a way that the naked eye can see. You can't see this happening to grain and seed oils, but it happens because they're stripped from the an- anti- the antioxidants, right? The chemicals that would otherwise protect them in their whole food form, they're stripped of those, of those compounds when they're removed from their whole food form, and then they're run through all these myriad processes, right? Some argue that they are processed using hexane, but I wouldn't necessarily worry about that. Hexane is a neurotoxin, but they're, you know, you can't really find any detectable levels of hexane in the end product. But they're exposed to very high heat in the production process. One of the steps that they all undergo is a, is a process called deodorization where they're exposed to very high heat. Heat is one of these catalysts of this oxidative process, and that damages the oils, right? It accelerates this aging process, and it also creates trans fats which we've already established. There's no safe level of trans fat consumption. So, you're eating these very easily oxidized fats that are generally already oxidized by the time you consume them, right? I mean, even if you were to get fresh oil straight from the jug at your local supermarket, there's a good chance that, that, uh, significant amount of it has already, has already undergone this process, right? But then you ingest them in restaurants, right? Like, when you eat fried food where the oil has been sitting in that fryer for potentially days, right? Um, that, that process just it, it continues and it continues and it continues, and by the, by the end you're eating this, like, this mutated fat which contains trace levels of trans fats, right? About 5% trans fats and these, these oxidation by-products. And what happens is that those essentially damage you because, you know, it's not like sugar. Sugar is one of these, like, sort of compounds where, you know, you ingest it, your blood sugar goes up, the sugar gets stored or you use it, you know, if you're doing high-intensity exercise. The fats that you consume integrate themselves into essentially who you are. They integrate themselves into your cells. And so this can create, over the long-term potentially, uh, an inflammatory process. It's not that the oils are acutely inflammatory, but they do provide the chemicals that are the precursors to your body's inflammatory pathways. And so, you have all of these sort of like, you have all of this, like, kindling laying around in your body, right? So, it's not that you're, like, setting a fire by eating these oils, right? Like, they've actually done studies. You don't see an acute inflammatory effect when you feed, we'll say, fresh, um, oil to a, to a human, um, study participant. But you are providing somebody's body essentially with the kindling necessary for this inflammatory process, and so the thinking is that... And we don't really have the long-term studies to say this with certainty, so, you know, there's a bit of speculation here. But again, this is a novel food and I think that, you know, we do need to do these kinds of longer term studies and there's a lack of longer term, um, research that's been done that, uh, you're basically, you've got the kindling around for your body's inflammatory pathways so that when you ultimately do encounter an inflammatory stimulus that you're gonna see, uh, uh, essentially an over-response, right? We also don't know what these, uh, highly oxidized products do in the brain over the long term. We have very damning, um, animal research. We don't quite have the human data. Um, although there was a very interesting randomized control trial in humans that showed that when people that were prone to migraines, which is a neuroinflammatory phenomena, right? Migraines, you know, inf- neuroinflammation is involved in the migraine process, and as somebody who suffers from migraines occasionally, this, this was particularly relevant to me. But this was a really, really important study that found that when people, um, either increased their consumption of omega-3 fatty acids which are, have the effect of resolving inflammation, or increase their consumption of omega-3 fatty acids and re- and reduced their consumption of these vegetable oils, these grain and seed oils, they saw a, a, an improvement in migraine symptoms, but only when they reduced their, um, consumption of vegetable oils. So, they saw, like, a little bit of an effect when they just ate more omega-3s, but they saw the biggest, the greatest magnitude of effect when they increased their omega-3 intake but also dramatically reduced their consumption of vegetable oils.
- CWChris Williamson
In short, seed oil's not good. No bueno.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah. Now, I, I don't think that they're good. I don't think that they're, that they're good and I think that we have ... We need to do more research, but, you know, for, for even the, the, um, most, the, whoever's listening to this who, you know, is, who, who, you know, thinks, "Okay, well, this person that I follow said, said that they're great." You know, whether or not that data ultimately reveals itself to us, there's no reason to consume them because the Mediterranean dietary pattern, which is the dietary pattern that we know is associated with robust risk reduction for cardiovascular disease, for neurodegenerative disease, they don't consume these vegetable oils. They consume extra virgin olive oil as the primary oil, right? There is no long-lived population on Earth for whom which seed oils make up a, a significant calorie contributor, right? So, you might not believe that these oils are, are harmful to you - and, you know, I'm always willing to, to adjust my stance when new data presents itself - but there's no reason to consume them when you have a fat like extra virgin olive oil available to you, which has all these health benefits, right? You can't say the same for these, you know, these grain and seed oils. And humans have been consuming extra virgin olive oil for millennia because to make extra virgin olive oil, all you do is you press olives, right? Same with sesame seed oil in, in Asian populations. Sesame seed oil has been consumed for millennia, right? It's got all these benefits. It's loaded with vitamin E and compounds called lignans which might, uh, play an anti-cancer role. These grain and seed oils, they're new foods, right? So again, guilty until proven innocent. They haven't been proven innocent.
- 31:57 – 44:08
Why Max Isn’t a Carnivore
- MLMax Lugavere
- CWChris Williamson
You've mentioned a couple of times about how sort of, uh, novel foods that we're not necessarily used to eating, uh, is something that we should be skeptical of, at least. And it seems like the paleo community is sort of really trying to take this and run with it. What is the closest that we can find to what would have been a ancestral diet regime and I'll do that, and I'll spend more time in nature and I'll do CrossFit and whatever. I was with Mikhaila Peterson this weekend in Miami, and then I was with Saif Dean who is a Bitcoin guy and also a big carnivore. So I've spent, uh, sort of four days basically being force-fed a rhetoric-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... about, uh, the carnivore diet. Uh, now, Mikhaila is kind of like a, I think a bit of a unique case because her autoimmune disorders are so chronic and kind of highly attuned that a lot of the stuff that she has as takeaways for her, I'm not convinced are as applicable to everybody else because she's talking to a very unique cohort that has all of these different, like, whatever, maladaptive properties that, that, of their physiology. Saif Dean on the other s- on, on the other hand was just somebody that was doing it because he wanted better, uh, cognition, he wanted to feel healthier, he was overweight, he was blah, blah, blah. And yet you're saying that we're, we're not carnivores. You're saying that an omnivore approach ... I no- noticed that you had a couple of cups of leafy greens are in your-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs) .
- CWChris Williamson
... "you must have every single day" approach. Why are you not a carnivore?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, because I think a, a lot of the, just like Mikhaila, and Mikhaila's great. We're, we're friends and, and I'm completely sympathetic to her, her learnings, you know, and, and, and ultimately her teachings. I think that, like, you know, a lot of the people in the so-called evidence-based community that you'll see online tend to be, they tend to be down on what they're not up on. I'm not down on what I'm not up on. I'm just like, you know, I think that there should be room at the table for all perspectives. But I think the problem with the carnivores is that they tend to, it tends to be a cohort for whom, you know, many of them suffer from autoimmune conditions, they suffer from digestive issues, and so that's a cohort for whom I think removing a lot of these, whether it's FODMAPs or cellulose or some of these just not, you know, difficult to digest plant material, which we're not, you know, we don't, we don't easily digest. Uh, I think that's where you'll see a reprieve in symptoms, right, for somebody who's maladapted to that diet. And, alas, we live in a time where people have gut issues, right? There's widespread gut dysbiosis. Many of us are, are born via C-section when there's no medical necessity to do so. Sometimes there is, right? But oftentimes-
- CWChris Williamson
What's bad about that?
- MLMax Lugavere
Well, you get a bit of a what's, what, what's sometimes referred to as a bacterial baptism when you're born vaginally, right? And there's, there's, uh, lactic acid bacteria, bifidobacterium, all, there's all kinds of vaginal flora and, and fecal bacteria that get, you know, all over the baby. And that sort of provides the, the neonatal immune system with sort of, like, the, the seeds of what will ultimately train its immune system, right, to better recognize the difference between self and other, right? And so a lot of the time-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, is there an issue with water births if that's the case?
- MLMax Lugavere
Uh, not ... I think it's probably a little bit better, um, in water birth, although I, I don't, I don't know for sure. But yeah, in a water birth, everything is just, like, in the water, right, like in the wash. And so you're just like, it's a, it's, it's a bac- it's, it's, it's actually, you know (laughs) , it's a baptism in the more, uh, colloquial way that we-
- CWChris Williamson
"Let's get a nice big bucket. Let's collect it all."
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah. I mean, they're now starting to swab babies. Uh, uh, I don't know if they're doing this by default, but, you know, if you're expecting, like, I think, I think you can ask the physician to, to do this 'cause we're now starting to see the importance of this sort of bacterial, um, you know, i- induction into, uh, you know, exposure into these various different kinds of microbes. But it all comes back to the microbiome. Like, we're, we're recognizing the role that the gut microbiome... And we have a microbiome, by the way, everywhere. Like, there are parts of our bodies that were once thought to be sterile like mammary tissue, for example, or the pancreas, that we're now seeing are teeming with, with bacteria, right? But when most people refer to the gut microbiome, they're talking about the community of about 30 trillion microorganisms that live in the, primarily in the large intestine, the colonic, um, microflora. And that, the, that, um, ecosystem is thought to really train the immune system. The, the majority of your, of the immune system in your body is, is-... primed to focus on what's happening in and around the gut, because the gut is actually your largest interface with the outside world. You might be inclined to think that it was your skin, right? Your skin is a pretty tight barrier between the inner contents of your body, right, and the outside world. But your lumen, your digestive lumen, which is basically the tube that begins at your mouth and ends at your anus, right, like that's actually, that's actually your largest interface with the environment. If you were to take out the elementary canal and, and like spread it out, it would take up the, uh, area of a studio apartment. If not larger than that, right? So that's actually a much larger interface, um, with the external environment. And you can eat, you know, I mean, we were, we've evolved eating like dirty produce, right? Like our, the, our, our ancient world was a lot less sterile than it has become. And in fact, you know, you can look to the hygiene hypothesis, which provides a sort of framework for understanding why we're seeing such soaring rates, um, especially relative to, uh, to historically rates of allergies and autoimmune conditions and the like. And Michaela suffers from an autoimmune condition-
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- MLMax Lugavere
... or, or multiple, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MLMax Lugavere
And a lot of the people that are, that are seeing a reprieve of, of their symptomatology, um, on the carnivore diet have like these autoimmune conditions, right? And so it's, the, the microbiome really is there to train the immune system. But when we're born, whether it's via C-section or, um, we're not, uh, breastfed, breastfed which provi- provides another sort of way of strengthening the neonatal, um, immune system, or we overconsume antibiotics when we're young, which is a time when our, our microbiomes are particularly plastic, right? We've heard of this concept of neuroplasticity, but we have like almost like microbiome plasticity. Um, our microbiomes are more plastic early in life, right, when they're first forming. Um, and so there's all these like different aspects, right, like our, our obsession with sterility, with hygiene. Um, this all, I think, has become problematic from the standpoint of the immune system. And so that's where for, for people, and so, so by the way, that's like widespread, right? So for, so for somebody who has those kinds of issues, I think it makes sense that a carnivore diet, um, would at least provide temporary, uh, relief, right? Because you're removing some of these plant compounds. Many plant compounds exhibit what's called molecular mimicry, where they look so closely like compounds in us. It's also, it's actually in a way like a, a plant defense phenomena. Um, but to the underdeveloped, uh, immune system, um, it can actually trigger like an autoimmune reaction, right? Like you can see that with, um, gliadin, which is the proteins in gluten, where, um, somebody who is, uh, predisposed to, for example, celiac disease, um, you'll see this like aggressive, violent almost autoimmune effect, uh, in the small intestine. Um, people with autoimmune thyroid condition, right, there's like this like, uh, enzyme in the thyroid, transglutaminase, which actually looks a lot like, um, you know, various plant compounds. So yeah. So I, I think that like for some people the carnivore diet makes sense, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that it's because plants are a problem, you know? It's not that fiber is the problem. It's that like we have all these other factors due to modern life that are leading to so many of us having gut dysbiosis and the like. Um, but ge- for the general population, I still think vegetables are great, because if you have already a degree of robustness, right, in the system, and then you add this sort of like hormetic stress, like this like sort of external stress into the system, then you have like a strengthening effect. But you all have to have a baseline level of strength, right, to benefit from those hormetic phytochemicals that so many people like Michaela seem to do better without, right? So-
- CWChris Williamson
What about, um-
- MLMax Lugavere
... that's sort of like my, my long-winded answer. But yeah, I think that, I think that fruits and vegetables, and granted the carnivores tend to be more against vegetables as opposed to fruits, especially these days, but I do think that vegetables, um, are beneficial. But, you know, it's not a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Like you'll, uh, even person to person, people who are tolerant and, and will ultimately benefit from vegetables have to find which are gonna be the most, um, well-tolerated for them.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. I, the fruit and meat diet is something that I'm hearing more about at the moment, which is basically just a middle finger to vegetables and carbs-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... it seems to me. Like, so what about o- oxalates? I've been warned of oxalates if you have too many green vegetables. Apparently, that's a bad thing.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, that's, I mean, that's another thing that I think for most people is a non-issue. I mean, first of all, spinach is like the highest, right, in oxalates. So if you are sensitive, and people who are sensitive are gonna know that they're sensitive, whether they've, you know, suffer from gout or whether they're prone to developing kidney stones. Um-
- CWChris Williamson
Gout, dude. What a fucking medieval disease. Jesus Christ.
- MLMax Lugavere
Right? (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) It's me and Henry VIII dealing with our gout.
- MLMax Lugavere
I know. I know. It's not super common, but, I mean, generally, you, you know, you know. Like I think people with, with kidney stones because there's like this accumulation of calcium oxalate, um, in the kidney, like there's a, there are contributing, I think, genes to this. But for, I think for most people, especially if you're not over-consuming raw spinach, I just think it's like a non-issue. People will often point to kale and other dark leafy greens as being a, a, a source of oxalates, but there's really, it's very low. Like you're not really getting a lot in kale, for example, um, you know. So it's, uh, I, I just think it's a, it's a non-issue, right? I think that, um, the recommendation that I make for people is, uh, one to two cups of dark leafy greens a day, which if you actually think about that, that's not a lot of greens, right?... but researchers out of Rush University found that people who eat, uh, between one and two cups of dark leafy greens every day have brains that perform up to 11 years younger. So, that study could be attributable to healthy user bias, just to be perfectly transparent and clear, right? Somebody who's eating a salad a day. Like, most people aren't eating any salad, right? So, if you're eating a salad every single day, I mean, generally you're probably a health-conscious person. But we know that dark leafy greens, yes, they have, you know, they might have some concentration of oxalates, but they've got a lot of good going for them as well. They're one of our most nutrient dense foods. You're not gonna find a better source of folate than dark leafy greens. You get vitamin C in dark leafy greens. You also get really important phytochemicals like lutein and zeaxanthin in dark leafy greens. There was a study that found that plant, uh, flavonoids, right? So, these are plant defense compounds. That high, that plants that were high in flavonoids actually led to a- a boost in BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor, right, which supports cognitive health, and an improvement in cognitive function, right? They compared it to fruits and vegetables that were low in flavonoids. They didn't see... So, they didn't see an effect, right? They compared it with the baseline diet, didn't see an effect. It was only the- the high contain- the high flavonoid-containing fruits and vegetables that led to this cog- cognitive boost, and dark leafy greens were among them.
- 44:08 – 48:58
Worst Diet for Cognitive Ability
- MLMax Lugavere
- CWChris Williamson
If I was trying to design a diet to make myself think as poorly as possible-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... to slow my thinking, I wanna be muddy, I don't wanna be able to have good recall, I want my verbal a- agility to fall through the floor, what- what should I eat?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah (laughs) . I mean, I th- I think you just gotta consume the standard American diet. Like, just toe the line for the status quo. 60% of your calories coming from ultra-processed foods, just over-consuming grain and seed oils, um, lots of fried foods, refined grain products. I mean, that's, like, really the worst of the worst. Minimal fruits and vegetables, um, and then you throw in all the lifestyle factors on top of it. I mean, exercise, we're now seeing, is medicine for the brain. So, if you really wanna deprive the brain and le- and make your brain suffer, you'll be sedentary, right? Uh, a brain suffers atop a sedentary body, but it thrives above a body that is in motion, right? A body that- that is- that is doing what bodies are supposed to do, right? Moving and- and, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Did I s- did I start nerding out to you at Aubrey's place about my new bike desk that I got? Did I tell you about this?
- MLMax Lugavere
No, but I wanna hear. It sounds awesome.
- CWChris Williamson
Let me tell you. Let me fucking red pill you about the bi- the bike desk.
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
So, imagine a static bike, kind of like the one that you'll get in, like, Lifetime Fitness or whatever, and it's one of the ones where you're a little bit more, um, sat back and the pedals are out in front of you and there's a backrest. So, you can imagine there's usually handles down by the sides, like this.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Then place a lifted up, uh, desk on the top of it with a thick armrest that you can put on. It's purpose-built for this. It's called a Exo-putic Exo-work Desk. Uh, and what you can do is the seat goes up and down, slides forward and back, and then the backrest has got angle on it. Then the desk goes up and down, forward and back, and also has tilt on it too. So, you can lock yourself into a really nice posturally, uh, a great position. It's, uh, Stu McGill, I- I sent my photo to Stu McGill, the number one back mechanic on the planet. I was like, "Is this gonna fuck me up?" Uh, he didn't reply, so he- I'm gonna guess it's okay. But anyway, uh, point being, 180 accumulated minutes-ish of zone II cardio per week-
- MLMax Lugavere
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
... is pretty hard to do. Like, it's really, really difficult to do because zone II sucks. For me, it's quicker than a walk and slower than a run.
- MLMax Lugavere
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
So, what am I, what am I gonna do out and about? The nature thing, trying to double it up with nature is kinda hard. Um, also, 180 minutes just generally to add on top of maybe a strength and training ro- routine, there's not a ton of time left for that. However, if you have a bike desk, what you can do is you can do up to and no higher than moderate difficulty emails or, uh, little bits of admin. Like, if you start pushing yourself into the creative realm, it's not happening. Or at least for me, I- I- I can't think very well and then I get frustrated that I'm not doing my work, but I also get frustrated that I've gotta slow my legs down.
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
And I can sit, I can sit and happily just churn out emails for 60 minutes and I'll have burned 600 to 700 calories and I'll sit at, whatever, like, 120, 130 BPM.
- MLMax Lugavere
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
And I'll just sit and move away and I- I feel great once I get off it. Like, the- posturally, I feel fine. The seat's super comfortable. Uh, and it's three hundred and, like, 10 bucks or 350 bucks-
- MLMax Lugavere
Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
... for this thing. It's fucking great. I can't believe that more people aren't- aren't on it. And, uh, I- I got myself one as a little treat this summer, treated myself to an exercise desk-
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... (laughs) uh, this summer because I, it was, the choice was between that or, uh, do a Ben Greenfield approach and get a treadmill, uh, to- to stand and walk on. But with that, I figured, like, it's gonna be harder for me as I'm moving to actually be able to type stuff, especially if I was doing admin-heavy work.
- MLMax Lugavere
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, so yeah, I got that and that's my, um, current solution for, uh, getting some extra zone II in.
- MLMax Lugavere
Genius. I was gonna ask if you podcast while using it, but I would, I- I guess the noise, the noise would be prohibitive.
- CWChris Williamson
Silent. It's a magnetic drive.
- MLMax Lugavere
Oh, it's silent. Wow.
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, yeah, yeah. You can tell that I really went down the rabbit hole of the different features. Uh, but no, it's, it is silent. However, you could take calls on it. There's something about... I've taken a few calls and I get the impression that the person I'm on the call with feels like I'm a bit of a dick.
- 48:58 – 55:59
How to Choose the Right Magnesium Supplement
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, something else that I've been thinking about a good bit recently, especially since I had Huben on earlier this year, is magnesium. You are big magnesium guy. Big magnesium guy.
- MLMax Lugavere
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
What should people look for when it comes to choosing a magnesium supplement and also a diet that'll contribute to better levels of magnesium?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, magnesium is super important. It's, uh, a co-factor in hundreds, uh, something like 300 and, anywhere between 300 and 600 enzymatic processes in the body re- rely on magnesium. Um, which means that magnesium is essentially the rate-limiting element here, right? In hundreds of processes in the body that range in their importance from ATP synthesis, so the energetic currency of cells, ATP, all the way up to DNA repair. So, DNA damage is at the root of aging, but also tumorigenesis, right? So, cancer, essentially, you can, uh, chalk up to DNA damage, um, among other things. And so magnesium is one of these things that is so important, and about 50% of the population under-consumes magnesium. And yet, it's fairly easy to find. So actually, if you go to the produce section of the supermarket, anything green, anything that contains chlorophyll, um, which is a plant pigment, is gonna contain magnesium. If you actually go to Google Images and search for chlorophyll and hemoglobin, you'll see that they actually look almost identical, except for at the center of the hemoglobin molecule, you'll find iron. But at the center of the chlorophyll molecule, you see magnesium. So, anything green generally is gonna be a good source of, uh, of magnesium. Also, almonds are a fantastic source of magnesium. Just one handful, you get about 25% of your daily value, um, for it. Dark chocolate is another great source of it. Generally, you need about 400 to 500 milligrams of it every single day. That makes magnesium what's called a macro mineral. So unlike, uh, tray- uh, unlike zinc and copper, which are trace minerals, um, you only need about, you know, anywhere between 2 and 15 milligrams of those. Uh, magnesium is something that you need more of, almost like sodium, you know? Sodium is another example of a, of a macro mineral- m- macro mineral. Potassium is another example of a, of a macro mineral. And the problem with under-consuming magnesium, this was actually an idea proposed by, uh, aging scientist Bruce Ames, who coined what's called the Triage Theory of Aging.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MLMax Lugavere
So I already mentioned that DNA damage is at the root cause of aging, right? So when minerals, uh, or other, you know, vitamins, for example, are scarce in the body, they get triaged, essentially, to the processes that are more, um, important with regard to survival, right? So if ATP, the generation of energy, right? That's a lot more important to survival than DNA repair, which is more of like a long-term project in the body, right? So if you are, um, shorting your body on magnesium, you're probably gonna have enough to create energy, right? But you're not gonna have enough to create the DNA damage that's happening on a day-to-day basis in your brain just due to r- like, like, time passing. So magnesium is one of these, like, essential supplements that I generally will take every single day, and the kind that I reach for is magnesium glycinate. Um, there are other forms of magnesium. Magnesium is generally pretty bioavailable. You find, you'll find citrate, you'll find magnesium, um, carbonate. There's also magnesium threonate, which is thought to support, uh, more directly cognitive health. But magnesium glycinate I like because it doesn't have the effect of acting like a laxative, which magnesium citrate...
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- MLMax Lugavere
Magnesium citrate, you take enough of that, you're gonna find yourself in the bathroom soon after. It draws water into the, into the gut. Um, but magnesium glycinate, it's just magnesium bound to a glycine molecule, and also glycine is something that we tend to under-consume today, uh, as well. It's an amino acid, which is involved in metabolic health and, and, you know, we, I think we, we pretty dramatically under-consume magnesium, especially your average omnivore. And so when you get magnesium glycinate, um, or bisglycinate, which is two glycinate, um, two, two glycinate molecules, uh, you're basically getting, like, a double whammy. And, um, and it's a great source of magnesium. You don't have to take it with food or anything like that. Uh, and so that's generally, that's generally, like, my go-to. It's also a great, uh, it's important for, like, migraine prevention, um, you know, this is, like one of these, like, uh, nutrients that actually there's like good data on it. It's also, most people aren't aware of this, but it can actually help prevent noise-induced hearing loss. There have been a number of studies over the past couple of decades where they'll use, um, people that are, like, in the army, right? Like service men and women who are exposed to really loud noise on a daily basis. You couldn't expose, um, civilians to this degree of noise because it would be unethical, right? Like no, no IRB, no Institutional Review Board would, would let this pass, but you take people that are already, due to their occupations, right? Exposed to really loud noise, so those are the kinds of people that you can actually, like, easily enroll in a clinical trial like this. And they've shown that magnesium, um, at a dose around the, the level that I've already described, about 400 and 500 milligrams if I, if I recall correctly, um, is a really effective prophylactic for, meaning it can help prevent noise-induced hearing loss for people that are exposed to loud noise on a regular basis. So I value my hearing immensely, like I love music. It's like one of my favorite things in life, right? So when I, after like exposure to loud music or whatever, or loud noise, like if I, if I go to a concert, that night I'm taking, um-... you know, pretty high dose of magnesium just to, like, offset any other potential damage.
- CWChris Williamson
The real frontline of hearing loss, club promoters, right?
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
This is who we really should... You want, you want me to give you some nice test subjects for people that have spent way too much time in overly loud DJ booths? Club promoters. That's me-
- MLMax Lugavere
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... going up and telling the DJ that he needs to stop playing drum and bass because there's a fight over the far side of the club, or standing at the back trying to work out why the lights aren't moving and I've got my head next to some huge base bin or whatever it is. My business partner has lost 16 dB off the top end and I think 14 or t- 10 dB or something off the bottom end of his hearing. Thankfully, mine's not that bad, but he's got tinnitus, he's got a bunch of other things. So, um, I- I'm going to guess that it acts as a prophylactic, it's, uh, protective, but not regenerative. Is that right?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Right, okay.
- MLMax Lugavere
That's how I would see it, yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
So it's, it's, it's gone. It's gone. Sorry, Dave. It's- you've- you can't hear, you can't hear what I'm saying in any case, so I don't know why I'm apologizing.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, I mean, we don't have any data on, on it's- you know, any regenerative potential, but, um, but yeah, no. I would, I would take it more as a prophylactic and, and be just careful going forward.
- 55:59 – 1:01:39
Max’s Issue with Mouthwash
- CWChris Williamson
What's your issue with mouthwash?
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs) Oh man, mouthwash. So mouthwash, we talked a little bit about the, the fact that we have, like, bacteria everywhere, right? And we are just at the very, very, very tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding the role that, you know, all of, you know, whether it's like bacteria or viruses or fungi even, play in our health, right? Like we are, we are essentially super organisms, and the gut microbiome plays a role, so too does our oral microbiome. And about 40% of people in this country regularly use antiseptic mouthwash, which basically indiscriminately nukes the bacteria in the mouth, right? What could be the harm of this? You might say to yourself. Well, maybe you're mitigating bad breath, maybe you're preventing cavities. The reality is, which we're now starting to see, is that there is a whole host of potential downstream consequences that occur when we routinely nuke the bacteria in our mouth. So it turns out that they're not just doing bad things occasionally for certain people, right? They're actually also doing good things, and so by regularly using antiseptic mouthwash, what you're doing is you're killing off bacteria that, among other things, are involved in the nitric oxide pathway in your body. So when we consume fruits and vegetables that contain compounds called nitrates, right? So beets, for example, beet root powder is a very popular fitness supplement, dark leafy greens like arugula, particularly rich in compounds called nitrates, right? When we consume nitrates, the bacteria in our mouths, as we chew them, right, the bacteria on our tongues specifically, um, reduce nitrate to- nitrite rather, to nitrate, which is then what enters as nitric oxide pathway. And nitric oxide is a gas that we create in our blood vessels that increases blood flow, reduces blood pressure, and acts as a signaling molecule, so it's also involved in insulin signaling, um, it's involved in insulin, uh, sensitivity, which we know is a really crucial, um, characteristic of metabolic health, right? And so when you nuke that bacteria, you're basically disallowing the bacteria, or you're- you're basically negating your ability to derive a cardioprotective effect of healthy foods, fruits, and vegetables that you're eating, like beets or dark leafy greens, because you're- you're basically handicapping your ability to generate nitrite. And so they've done studies that have found, now these are not perfect studies, the baseline health of the study participants, not that great, obese participants, but what they found was that, um, obese participants that, uh, regularly used, frequently rather, used, uh, antiseptic mouthwash, so this is two times or more per day, were at double the odds of developing, um, hypertension and f- and they saw a 50% increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, right? So the hypertension thing makes perfect sense because as we established, this- these nitric oxide, um, supporting bacteria play a role in helping to reduce blood pressure, and those studies are correlational so they don't establish causation, um, but there was another study that came out that was a little bit more telling. So this was a randomized control trial that found that when people, um, in the post-exercise window... So one of the many benefits of exercise is that it has an antihypertensive effect, meaning it helps to normalize your blood pressure, right? It helps to bring your blood- keep your blood pressure at a nice and healthy range, which we know, like, having healthy blood pressure is crucial for having a healthy brain. I mean, it's- it's healthy for- it's- it's important for many reasons, but we know that the brain relies on- on healthy blood pressure, right? And exercise is one of the best ways to keep your blood pressure nice and healthy. So what this randomized control tri- trial found was that when people swished with antiseptic mouthwash, uh, in the post-workout window, they basically negated the amp- antihypertensive effects, uh, the antihypertensive effect of that workout, right? So typically after a workout you see this drop in blood pressure over time and the people, the- the participants who swished with antiseptic mouthwash, they didn't see the benefit. They didn't see that benefit. And in this study, uh, a type of mouthwash that's typically, um, prescription was used, it was called chlorhexidine, so it's not necessarily reflective of w- what you might see with, um, you know, one of these like, uh, commercially available mouth-
- CWChris Williamson
Like a Listerine or something like that.
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah, but I mean, you look on the bottle of like that brand for example, and it says, "Kills 99% of bacteria." That's not a good thing, you know? And it's well-known that people with type 2 diabetes are at increased risk of periodontal disease.... right? But it's also that, you know, people, people with periodontal disease, with, with dysregulated oral microbiomes are likely, you know, that is, you know, that it's, it's likely a bidirectional relationship, right? And so I think advertising this as something that's, like, somehow good for, for diabetics, it's a, it's a, it's a big problem and I think probably, um, pretty harmful. So we do need to do more research on this but, yeah, I mean, mouthwash is something that, like, if, unless you're using it for medical reasons, I would say stay away from it. You know, if you, if you use it now and then, that's totally fine, but if you're one of these, like, frequent users, two or more times a day, um, that's definitely a habit worth changing.
- CWChris Williamson
You also mentioned earlier on the dangers
- 1:01:39 – 1:10:23
How to Know if a Lotion is Really Safe
- CWChris Williamson
associated with certain types of sun cream, maybe all types of sun cream. What do I do if I wanna be out in the sun and I don't wanna get burnt?
- MLMax Lugavere
So I think it just comes back to developing a healthy relationship with the sun. And, you know, going back to the, to the mouthwash thing, you know, there are a lot of, um, practices that are, have been, um, or like, uh, paradigms that have been sort of put into place by our public health officials that I guess made sense when they were instituted at the time, right? Like, I can see how fluoride in the drinking water serves a public health good because of the fact that so many people today are over-consuming ultra-processed foods, refined grain products that easily gets retained by oral bacteria, and so that's why you see widespread dental decay, right? And so, like, but, like, it's, we're not seeing widespread dental dec- decay because of, like, a lack of fluoride, right? If you actually eat a biologically appropriate diet, you're not gonna need the mouthwash. You're not gonna need the fluoride in your toothpaste, right? Um, and obviously people have different, like, genetic, like, tendencies to develop, um, you know, cavities and the like, not everybody's the same, but, um, but the same goes with the sun. Like, we've been told that there's no safe level of sun exposure but the sun is crucially important. The sun is medicine in many ways. I mean, the sun actually directly on our skin helps to create nitric oxide, right? It's the UVA rays that actually acts like a hormetic stressor on our skin and just under the surface creates nitric oxide which is important for lowering blood pressure, right? It's also well-established that exposure to the UVB rays from the sun help us to synthesize vitamin D which is a steroid hormone responsible for regulating about 5% of the human genome, right? It's important for cognitive function. It's important for healthy immune function and downregulating, uh, an overactive immune system. So there's a, actually really compelling data on the role of vitamin D in quieting, um, autoimmunity in the body. MS in particular. There's a, you know, vitamin D is, like, one of the only vitamins that has a, a relevant clinical, um, impact on multiple sclerosis, right? And we get vitamin D for the most part from the sun. It's also crucially important to anchor our body's circadian rhythm. We know that every organ system is responsive to, um, to cues about what time of day it is and the sun is the chief light, bright light in particular is the primary time center for the human brain. So yeah, if you're gonna spend time in the sun, I think the way to do it is to gradually, um, ramp up your sun exposure t- and to not burn, right? But, like, I think by eating a healthful diet, um, you're gonna have some degree of protection, uh, against this. You know, probably more so than somebody who's on, like, the standard American diet. But you have to be, you have to ha- like, develop a responsible relationship with the sun, right? Like, you don't wanna just sit out all day, um, and burn. There's actually no reason to. We generate more vitamin D, um, it's more effective to, uh, have, like, smaller increment doses of sun as opposed to, for example, the phenomena whereby, like, you spend no time in the sun and then you go on vacation and you just, you know, from one day to the next you're spending zero time in the sun to spending four hours, five hours in direct sunlight. That is not good for your skin, it's not good for your health, and it's not an effective way of producing vitamin D. The more effective way of producing vitamin D is to actually spend, uh, sm- like, lesser amounts of time in the sun, but on a daily basis. So this whole th- notion that, like, the sun is bad for you, there's no safe level of sun exposure, yeah, it's pseudoscience.
- CWChris Williamson
Is there any safe way to put something on your skin as a lotion or a topical solution of some kind that can help to mitigate exposure to the sun?
- MLMax Lugavere
(sighs)
- CWChris Williamson
I, I'm going to watch a baseball match which I've learned can sometimes take, like, four hours in this country and it's gonna be in the middle of the day, in the middle of the summer and I'm gonna get exposed to the sun and I can wear a long-sleeved top and I can do all the rest of it but my face is gonna be in the sun, or whatever else. Like, there, there are certain situations in which people can't avoid sun exposure and haven't had time to build up a month's worth of 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening of sun exposure to get them a base tan. What should they do then?
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah. I mean, you're absolutely right. I am a fan of sun black, sun- sunblock in the appropriate context and the sunblock that I think is the best to use are the mineral-based sunscreens, like, um, 'cause they're actually sunscreens. They're, they pro- provide a physical barrier between your skin and the sun. So zinc oxide, titanium, um, oxide, I believe, uh, those are the two primary ones. You generally wanna steer clear from the chemical-based sunscreens, the in- the industrial, the- the synthetic industrially-produced, um, sunscreens like the oxybenzones and the avobenzones. Um, now if I'm desperate, uh, it's better to use those, I think, um-
- CWChris Williamson
Than burn.
- MLMax Lugavere
... you know, on a, on an infrequent basis than to burn, just to be super clear. Um, but, you know, we're now seeing that those actually are easily able to enter, uh, circulation, so that they, they do, um-We do absorb them, um, and new data is starting to show us that we absorb them at, uh, alarming rates and at, uh, a concentration that we actually don't really have a sort of full picture on the data of with regard to how they affect our biologies. There was a, uh, an alarming paper that came out that showed that, um, you know, if you use sunscreen in a level that is typical, right, you slather your body with it, it actually, um, absorbs into circulation and reaches, uh, a level that surpasses the FDA's threshold of toxicological concern. So, this is something that we don't know like the, the long-term. And I'm not gonna, I'm (laughs) ... You know, it's probably not good, right, like what, what these compounds are doing in us, um, when, when used chronically and over the long term, particularly if you are, um, a child, right, if you're still developing. 'Cause many of these compounds have exhibited, uh, endocrine-disrupting, um, abilities, right? So, the ability to scramble your hormones. Avobenzone, oxybenzone, these are, um, well-established, uh, endocrine disruptors. And if all they did was stay on the surface of your skin, you know, I think the concern would be, um, a little bit sort of less. But now we see that they, they easily enter circulation. So, I would, um, definitely opt for the more, the more mineral-based ones, um, which, uh, I don't think there's that, that level of, of con- of concern. Another thing that you could do, um, and this isn't gonna be as effective as using sunscreen if you're, you know, exposed to the sun in broad daylight, um, in one of these high UV, um, areas of the world. But, uh, astaxanthin is actually a compound that's found in wild salmon, and you can supplement with it, and it's sort of like an internal sunblock. Um, they've s- they've done studies where they've shown that, um, that there is a degree of photo protection provided by astaxanthin, which is this compound that is created. So, uh, so wild salmon, it's what gives wild salmon its characteristic red hue. But the salmon aren't born with that color. They actually get it when they consume algae, and algae sit at the top of the water surface, right, exposed to the harmful, you know, radiating rays of the sun all day long, right? Algae can't like swim away. They can't put like a T-shirt on. They can't move into the shade at will. So, what they do, they generate this super powerful a- antioxidant called astaxanthin, which is like specifically designed to protect them from the sun's rays. And that's why they've done these clinical studies to see, well, what are they ... what can this compound potentially do in us, right? And they found that aside from pro- protecting eye health and from, uh, improving skin appearance, right, it actually can also, uh, provide some degree of, of skin protection. So, uh, I'm a huge fan of astaxanthin. It's another one of like these staple supplements that I've been tak- ... I've been taking astaxanthin for about 15 years at this point. Um, really, really good data on it.
- CWChris Williamson
I learned ... I was in Zambia filming a mini documentary a couple of weeks ago, and I learned how easily hippos burn, uh, which you might not be familiar with. Apparently, really susceptible to the sun and they get-
- MLMax Lugavere
Hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... they get, they get all pink on the top of the ... on their heads and on their little snouts. They get all-
- MLMax Lugavere
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... pink and they get burned if they get caught out in the sun, which is bad for them. Uh, all right, so
- 1:10:23 – 1:17:15
Supplements You Should Be Aware Of
- CWChris Williamson
y- you've mentioned there asta- astaxanthin. Are there any other supplements that you take that you consider a staple of your routine, uh, that would not be common or that you think that people should be, uh, more aware of or should have a look at?
- MLMax Lugavere
Huh. Yeah, I mean, uh, I think like, uh, fish oil is fairly common, but I'm, I'm pretty, uh, religious about my fish oil supplementation regimen. I take about a gram.
- CWChris Williamson
I've heard that there are certain types of fish oils that you do want and certain that you don't. Do you want the ones that smell fishy or the ones that don't smell fishy after you've had them?
- MLMax Lugavere
(laughs) You want the ones that don't smell fishy. And actually, one thing that I do is I actually chew occasionally the fish oil, the ... especially if I'm buying like a new bottle, like a fresh bottle. I'll chew it, which, um, a lot of people, you know, listening probably are gonna be like, "That's gross, Max." But fresh fish oil, if it hasn't gone bad, actually shouldn't have any overt fishy flavor. And so, um ... 'cause, you know, like fresh fish doesn't stink. It's only like if you walk through a fish market, it's all the dried, oxidized fish oils that, um, you know, residues that are still, um, lingering. That's what stinks, right? But fresh oil, fresh fish oil shouldn't have any discernible, maybe like very slight, but it shouldn't have any discernible, um, fish-
- CWChris Williamson
Is there a particular brand that you use of fish oil?
- MLMax Lugavere
I mean, I've been using, uh, Nordic Naturals for years. I have no, no affiliation with them. Um, so I don't work with them, you know. I, I, I think in the past I did, like do a little bit of like ... You know, 'cause I, I have my own podcast, it's called The Genius Life. I, I think I have worked with them in the past, but I'm not currently. I just generally, like I go to Whole Foods and I buy it with my own money, um, because they, they just taste the freshest to me, you know? You can also smell the bottle. Like that's another good thing to do, smell the bottle. It shouldn't smell overtly fishy. You're gonna get like a slight, I think probably, um, odor, but, uh ... And that's not the only good brand. You can a- ... One good thing to look for on fish oil bottles is IFOS, I-F-O-S. It's the International Fish Oil Standards. Um, it's this, uh, third-party independent organization that routinely tests fish oil for oxidation and oxidation, um, byproducts. So, it's, it's sort of a way of, um, you know, it's just like one more sort of notch on the belt of, of knowing that the fish oil that you're getting is of sufficient quality, that they've been able to sort of afford, uh, to submit, you know, for testing, that the IFOS got behind it. So again, it's like not associated with any of these like fish oil brands, but you'll see it on some, on some brands. I think the Whole Foods brand itself actually is IFOS certified.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- MLMax Lugavere
Um, so, astaxanthin, fish oils, make sure that they are of a good quality and don't smell too fishy. What else? Yeah.Uh, I take creatine. Um, I take creatine not, um... I'm an omnivore, so I wouldn't expect to get a cognitive benefit from it, although people who are not omnivores, people who are vegan and vegetarian, there is some data that suggests that creatine supplementation can actually lead to a co- cognitive boost. Creatine is a compound that's naturally found in muscle meat, um, and organ meats to some degree, but you primarily get it in muscle meat. Um, and so you ingest enough of it as an omnivore to provide the brain with all of the sort of exogenous creatine that it needs. Um, but, uh, but they've done, um... There's one or two studies that have, that have, that, th- the signal was that, uh, creatine supplementation can actually boost cognitive function in people who don't regularly consume meat. But I take it. I take about five grams a day. It's a, it's a... There's a robust safety rec- record, um, and efficacy record for creatine as a ergogenic compound, meaning it helps to support physical performance. Um, and I think that, I think it's a great supplement for both men and women. It might lead to a very slight weight gain, but it draws mus- it draws water in, um, intramuscularly, so it's not like... You're not gonna see puffiness. It's, like, water that's, like, literally, like, in your muscles. Um, and it helps to boost, uh, energy, essentially, in the gym, um, which can then lead to, you know, long-term strength, gains, and the like. So I think it's a, a great supplement. Don't take it without checking with your doctor first if you have a medical condition. Um, you always wanna check with your, with your physician before, you know, adopting any new supplement. But generally, I think creatine's a good one. I also... I think, uh, protein powder is great. I'm a big fan of whey protein. Whey protein is very high biological value. It's a great source of leucine and other essential amino acids. Lutein, in particular, is, uh... Leucine, rather, is, is very important for simulating muscle protein synthesis, but it, you know, of course, comes with a whole complex of essential aminos. It's also, um, a rich source of, uh, cysteine, which can help support glutathione synthesis. So there's actually a role for whey protein for supporting immune function, which is, is really important. It helps to promote the synthesis of glutathione which is your body's master antioxidant. Um, so I'm a huge fan of, of whey protein. I think... I mean, I think protein is one of these macronutrients that's, like, um, almost magical in the, in the... for what it does to the human body, right? Like, it's... It supports your musculature, um, and muscle and strength is really, in many ways, the currency of longevity, so you wanna support your musculature, and, and whey protein. Protein in general, um, is a, is a great way to do that. A great way to do that, no pun intended. Um, it's, uh... You know, it's, it's the most satiating macronutrient, um, much more so than carbs and fat. You can look to the protein leverage hypothesis. Like we, we definitely, like... You know, in many ways it seems our hunger, our drive to eat is driven by our necessity for amino acids and pre- and, and, and, you know, protein, more generally. Uh, and actually, protein also drives up levels of GLP-1. A lot of people these days are talking about semaglutide, which is a GLP-1 agonist. It's a, it's been hailed as a revolutionary weight-loss drug. It's prescribed for helping better manage blood sugar. Um, and one of the reasons why it's so effective for weight loss is that it's very... It, it ba- it reduces appetite. It slows transit. It slows what's called gastric emptying, so the transits of, of, uh, the contents of the stomach into the small intestine. Um, it also boosts insulin sensitivity. Um, or rather it boosts... It, it, uh, releases... It causes a release of insulin. Um, and so you've got this, like, revolutionary, uh, right, like, weight-loss drug, semaglutide, but actually you can boost GLP-1 yourself by just prioritizing protein in your diet. And so it's one of the, one of the many reasons why I think people who even incrementally increase their protein consumption will see a, a degree of body recomposition, right? Less fat mass, greater lean mass. So protein is, yeah, protein is where it's at.
- CWChris Williamson
On top of those, uh, o- one thing that I've found that's interesting at the moment, I think you and Ben Greenfield both seem to agree on this, is that the healthy community, the fitness community
- 1:17:15 – 1:35:30
What the Fitness Community Are Getting Wrong
- CWChris Williamson
that are kind of considering what 20 years ago would've been revolutionary, you know, making sure that they're getting sufficient protein in, making sure that they're doing some sort of strength and tr- uh, and weight-training protocol, even if you're a woman who's not looking to get m- much more muscular. Uh, focusing on sleep, ensuring they've got proper sleep hygiene. Um, both of you seem to be kind of taking, uh, recommendations for fitness not into a more complex, uh, realm, but certainly beyond just that. Um, if you were looking at what you consider to be sort of the typical fitness crowd at the moment, what are the habits that you think that they are missing mostly that they're probably not thinking about at the moment?
- MLMax Lugavere
Well, I think the typical fitness crowd is, uh, tends to be obsessed... Well, there, there tends to be a lot of obsession within, um, the fitness community, a lot of, like, body image issues, um, a lot of fractured relationships with food. That's just my observation. And I, I don't actually consider myself part of the fitness community, maybe because I didn't come from a personal training background or a, um... I'm not a bodybuilder, I'm not an athlete, I'm not a powerlifter. I like... I've been... I've always been interested in bodybuilding, but, um... But, you know, I think that, like, I am versed in... I'm versed enough in fitness, uh, and, and nutrition science, but with sort of one foot also in the world of longevity where I can sort of, like, filter the, the... what the data says about how to best, for example, um, lose fat or gain muscle through the lens of like, "Okay, well what's also gonna be best for, like, my long-term health?" Like the long game, right? There's this concept, uh, that I've become kind of interested in that is, uh... It's a fascinating concept and it's, like, it's a very unfortunate phrase. Um, it's antagonistic pleiotropy. It's just... It's a, it's a mouthful, and it's like-
- CWChris Williamson
Not sexy.
- MLMax Lugavere
... not something-
- CWChris Williamson
Not sexy.
- MLMax Lugavere
It's not sexy. It's, like, not, well, it's something that your average person is gonna remember, but it's a very powerful, um, concept. And, uh, it basically is like-The things that are good for us, you know, as we're developing and as we are, uh, approaching peak reproductive shape, right? Like, to be in, like, our, our strongest and most, uh, you know, robust physical form aren't necessarily also gonna be what's gonna get us to the age of 100 or the age of, you know, 120 for that matter, right? And so I think it's a really interesting thought experiment to, to try to reconcile, like, okay, well, what if we did wanna do both? What if we did wanna get into, like, Ben Greenfield shape, for example, right? But also, like, have our bodies in fighting form when we're also, like, 80 and 90 and 100. And I feel like sometimes, like, you've got, like, the l- the world of longevity and you've got the world of fitness, and they don't, they don't... They're kind of, like, siloed off, right? But I'm, I'm actually very interested in, like, bridging that divide and reconciling, um, those two sort of, like, seemingly divergent ideas. And so, you know, one thing that I think is really important that people in the fitness industry don't really talk about very much is, like, the value of food quality, right? Like, I mean, I, I see so many people in the world of fitness boiling it all down to calories in, calories out. And calories, yeah, they matter, right? But, like, they're not all that matter. Like, food quality, I think, plays a major role and especially for somebody who's scratching their head wondering why diet after diet seems to fail for them. I think it's really important that people know that food quality, in many ways, dictates the quantity of food that one is inclined to consume, right? There was this really great seminal study that was performed in 2018 funded by the NIH, Kevin Hall led it, who's a well-known obesity researcher, who found that when people were given access only to ultra-processed foods, they tended to overconsume, um, their energy requirements for the day by about 500 calories. So that's a 500 calorie, essentially, in, in other words, energy surplus that they consumed when just eating to satiety, right? Like eating to a point where they felt like, okay, I can walk away from the table now. This was a crossover trial. So then what the researchers did was they gave them access to a, a diet that was less processed, right? Like a minimally processed diet, like the kinds of foods that you might find around the perimeter of the supermarket as opposed to in the aisles of the supermarket. And when they found... What they found was that when eating to the same degree of satiety, right? Like I've had enough, I'm good, the subjects ended up eating at a 300 calorie food, uh, calorie deficit. So that right there, that's an 800 calorie swing determined not by somebody counting calories in their, in an Excel spreadsheet or with an app, right? That was determined purely by the quality of the food that they're consuming. So oftentimes, a lot of people when their diets fail, they tend to feel a sense of moral failure, like, "Why couldn't I just count my calories, you know, more rigorously?" Or, you know, "Why did I overconsume the pint of ice cream? I intended only to have one scoop and, you know, before I knew it, I was looking at the bottom of the pint." Well, it's because that food quality in many ways dictates the quantity of the food that you feel compelled to consume, right? When you're, when you're basing your diet on higher protein foods, on foods that are, um, more minimally processed, maybe it's, like, because you eat them more slowly than something that's more, uh, refined, right? That you have this, um, release of hormones, right? Like GLP-1 for example, that, uh, that makes you less inclined to overeat. And I think that that's, like, something that you don't often get in the, in the fitness community that tends to make things all about calories, right? It's just like calories in, calories out is a mathematical maxim. Like, like it's a platitude that, yeah, it's true calories in, calories out. The, the, th- the key to fat loss is, is being in a calorie deficit. But where it fails is that it's really shitty advice. It's just not good advice. And that's what your average person... It's also, it's also that advice is exactly the advice that the food industry wants people to be giving out as well because, you know, with that advice, there's no such thing as a good or bad food, right? Like you can ha- It's like you can have the, the soda. You can have the, like, the ice cream. It's not our fault that you didn't moderate your consumption of the ice cream, you fat pig, right? It's your fault. But that's because people are not awa- They're not being told that these foods are not designed to be consumed in moderation, right? So I didn't mean to fat shame right there. That's not the intent. The intent was to say that that's, that's how the food industry thinks of you, right? That if you weren't able to lose weight becau- on, on this sort of, like, calorie-centric approach, you know, to weight loss, you weren't able to just eat less and move more, it's your fault, you know? That was a moral failure on your part. But that's not tr- That's not the case. The case is that we live in a toxic food environment, a food environment that, you know, ultra-processed foods are omnipresent. They're always at arm's reach. And, um, and they're designed to be hyper-palatable. They're designed to push your brain to a bliss point beyond which self-control is essentially impossible, right? And granted there is variation here. Some people will be better able to moderate their consumption of ice cream and some people can't. People have their different trigger foods, right? Like, but, um, but I think, like, talking about the, the behavioral aspects of food and the relationship that we have with foo- food, I think that's crucially important. Way more important for the long-term sustainability of one's sort of fitness lifestyle than the more calorie-centric approach which tends to be parroted by people in the fitness community over and over and over and over again.
Episode duration: 1:36:22
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