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Dr. John Sherk, owner and president of Operations Laboratory reveals all of his HVAC technician career happiness strategies, income improvements and killer tech-happiness tips and tricks so you can get ahead of the curve with your HVAC technician career. Discover how you can create a quality negotiated agreement with your manager that works for you so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love, whether it’s coaching your kids’ teams, getting out there for hunting season, or just living comfortably at home with your family. Since 2010, he’s been consulting his many HVAC clients on how to develop and manage a culture that is friendly to tech-happiness, and here he openly shares his wins, his losses, and all the lessons in between with the community of energetic but humble HVAC techs, managers, and owners who follow him. Self-proclaimed “Technician Happiness Guru” you’ll learn about getting paid what you deserve, building genuine and loyal relationships at work and at home, recruiting winners (tip: they all already work for someone else), building a tech-happy culture, quality communication, skills mastery, optimizing performance, negotiating compensation, professionalism, , and productivity tips so that you create an amazing, tech-happy life without burning yourself out. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from John you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
John 00:00:00 Hey, everybody, Welcome to the HVAC Joy lab podcast. I'm your host, Dr. John Sherk. This podcast focuses on creating more and more conversations about what optimizes life for an HVAC technician. My goal is to produce the most helpful content available for text full stop. Today you're going to hear part two of two podcasts with Adam Coleman, health coach and trainer with a focus on technicians. In part one, we focused on diet. This time we drill down on hydration, alcohol and sugar. Lots of good information for texts in the summer heat. All right, let's get started.
Speaker UU 00:00:37 We're regular guys. Always early to rise. We get into our trucks. Another coil to wash. We always treat the customer my right. Yeah, well, one guy in a truck. Guys. A good life is hard at the HDFC Joy ladder. A good life is hard at the HVA c joy. Laugh. HVA c joy laugh.
John 00:01:35 Welcome back to HVAC Joy lab for part two with Adam Kuhlman. all you guys, all you text, getting all this great knowledge from Adam about, food and part one of the podcast.
John 00:01:47 And we're going to continue right in now with the issue of hydration, which is a big topic in the summertime for technicians. So what are your thoughts on hydration, Adam?
Adam 00:01:56 Oh, Ooh, very, very good. good topic here. So there there is a lot of stuff that we can discuss when it comes to hydration. Now, I'm sure most people are going to expect me to say, like, drink your water, right? You'll be right. I am going to say, drink your water. but at the end of the day, I know when it comes to being on the job, a lot of texts can be very used to drinking, you know, maybe soft drinks, sodas, all that kind of stuff. And, you know, one of the best things that you can do is start with water, but flavor your water. We're just going to start there. You mean, so most people don't know. They're like, how much should I be drinking? The general rule of thumb, if you can, is drink half your body weight and ounces no more than about 120oz per day.
Adam 00:02:39 But if you're an HVAC tech, you're going to be sweating a lot, so you can easily break that 100 to 20 ounce rule. I know HVAC techs, John just off the top of my head with the very few I know who drink like, you know, sometimes a gallon or two a day. those are HVAC techs who are in Arizona. Arizona saps out your hydration pretty quickly without dry. It is there, but sure. for those of you who are techs out there and you know you enjoy flavor in the water, there's a million different ways that you can flavor your water. You can hop on Amazon Prime and you can, you know, you can get a lot of those flavoring packs, you know, little juice extracts, whatever it may be, you can throw it into a gallon or two of water and you're going to be just fine. what I would say for most HVAC techs is I wouldn't go to much coffee throughout the day, like, stick with it in the morning. It's cooler in the mornings, of course, but if you're going to drink coffee throughout the day, just know that coffee is a diuretic.
Adam 00:03:31 It's going to dehydrate you. So you're going to want to make sure you want to drink plenty of water, even if you're going to drink coffee. I totally understand. but when it also comes to any type of hydration, one of the most important things that I want most HVAC techs to remember is when you are sweating, when you're up in those attics, when you're on the top of those rooftops, that sweat is also, it's not just water that's coming out of your body. You also got electrolytes that are being excreted potassium, sodium, big ones, magnesium as well. So I would say for a lot of HVAC techs out there, if you want to not only flavor your water, but you could also get electrolyte, flavoring packs to put into your water. It's going to help replenish the sodium, the potassium and the magnesium. Sodium is a big one, John, that gets lost through sweating, you know what I mean? And I know sodium is kind of a it's a topic right now, you know, for, you know, if you get excess sodium you can get high blood pressure, so on and so forth.
Adam 00:04:23 But if you're an HVAC tech, I'm promise you, you're going to be excreting a lot of sodium through your sweat. So it's okay to replenish that. Like going back again to those HVAC techs I knew in Arizona. Some of them would take like a half a teaspoon of salt and put it into their water every day because they were just sweating out that much. so I would say flavor your water half your body weight and ounces at least. and then I would say also do an electrolyte powder in that water as well. You're going to have an amazing performance cocktail right there. So that's kind of everything in a nutshell with high tech.
John 00:04:58 So and give us your thoughts as well then about things like Gatorade, Powerade, those, those, those things in the gas station, you stop and they, some of them are, are they have sugar in them, some of them don't. what are your thoughts about that?
Adam 00:05:15 So with those ones it's kind of mixed, John. Like, sometimes I feel like the cons outweigh the benefits when it comes to Gatorade and Powerade because they come loaded with a lot of sugar.
Adam 00:05:28 Sometimes they're artificial, sometimes they're sugar alcohols, sometimes it's even just regular sugar, you know? I mean, so you're doing that plays a lot on your metabolism that that works a lot on insulin and stuff like that. And it has a negative effect on it. So if you're going to have a negative effect on one part of the body while you're replenishing, you know, electrolytes in another part, it's like, you know, what's the most benefit out of that. You can make your own Gatorade, you can make your own Powerade, you can make it a lot healthier, and you can make it your own self at home for pretty cheap, you know what I mean? The thing is, though, is Gatorade and Powerade has done a phenomenal job marketing to people. You know, I mean, you have those post game conferences like press conferences with players. They throw a Gatorade bottle up there, they throw a Powerade bottle up there. They've they've done really good at getting some athletes to endorse it.
Adam 00:06:16 Yeah. When to be honest with you, between you and me, John, athletes should know better. Athletes are on a very, very regimented, way of eating and drinking, and they should know better than to put that stuff into their body. But it's money, it's sponsorships, it's getting your name out there, so on and so forth. But that doesn't mean Gatorade and Powerade are actually good for you. I would I would argue that they're not, and I would say steer clear of them. Go back to that electrolyte powder, go back to those flavoring packs in your water, and you're going to be a lot better off.
John 00:06:44 Okay. and then how about, energy drinks, the Red Bulls, all that kind of stuff. What are your thoughts on using them as well?
Adam 00:06:55 So when it comes to those energy drinks, I would say it's those energy drinks are incredibly, interesting because it's sometimes it's like combining caffeine with a fizzy Powerade or a fizzy Gatorade, if that makes sense. Yeah.
Adam 00:07:10 I would tell people when it comes to a Red bull, when it comes to NAS, when it comes to a monster, whatever your preferred energy drink is, there's so many out there. again, a lot of those have even more caffeine in them than your standard cup of coffee, so you're going to have an even further diuretic effect. It's worth noting, too, when you're having a diuretic effect. John. that you have a tendency to to excrete more sodium and potassium throughout the urine. So you're also depleting electrolytes a lot quicker. For those of you who who may or may not know electrolytes or how your body functions, you need neurological impulses to make the motor neurons in, you know, basically tell your muscles to fire. We'll just put it that way. That action potential in your neurons rely on potassium and sodium to fire, if that makes sense. The less of it you have, the less efficiency you have of your nervous system activating your body. You're going to feel a lot more tired.
Adam 00:08:08 You're going to feel a lot more sluggish. You're going to have a lot harder time tolerating the heat. so if you're going to take like one of those those drinks, I would say use it sparingly. And if you can just do a cup of coffee and some creamer rather than an energy drink, I hate to take anybody's favorite energy drink away, but I think we all kind of know in the back of our head it's probably not the best thing for us. Right? and we need energy, but just stick with I mean, stick with that cup of coffee and the electrolyte, cocktail that I was talking about, and you're going to be just fine. You're going to feel a hell of a lot better, and you're just going to save some money, too, because you don't have to buy all the energy drinks, you know.
John 00:08:40 Well. And it and so let me see if let me say this back to you and tell me if I'm hearing you the right way. Essentially, when you get dehydrated, it makes, it makes it harder to handle the heat.
John 00:08:52 And so the chain reaction to either too much coffee, too much caffeine to energy drinks is that it drains your body of fluids, of water and electrolytes. And the net effect is it makes it harder to handle the heat outside.
Adam 00:09:10 Absolutely John. Absolutely. You hit the nail on the head. It's like I mean your body has to cool itself through liquid means and through the air, you know what I mean. And if it doesn't have adequate hydration core temperature raises quickly. And then what you get is you get heat exhaustion. And then if you do it long enough you get heat stroke. Yeah. So that's the last thing you want. So don't dehydrate yourself on the job y'all. Especially during the summer months, you know. And that's and.
John 00:09:35 This is good to know because a lot of technicians like to grab an energy drink in the morning to get the caffeine and get it, get that little bump of energy, but realized that the net effect as you go throughout the day is that it's going to be harder on you to handle the heat outside.
John 00:09:49 And so just realize that just, you know, if you if you want to I mean, obviously it's your body. You should do whatever you want with it, but just realize there is a net effect of increased, or decreased capacity to handle the heat when you when you drink energy drinks or too much coffee.
Adam 00:10:07 it puts you in a negative cycle, John. Like if you, if you drink a lot of that stuff, you're going to notice a dip in your energy. Then what are you going to do? You know, you're going to reach for another one. You know, grab another one and it's going to dip your energy again. You know, you get a temporary spike. But you'd be surprised. I challenge everybody listening to this. Do it for two weeks. Do the electrolyte powder, add that flavor impact in there, drink the water, do a cup of coffee and tell me that you don't have more energy throughout the day. Staying adequately hydrated and keeping your electrolyte levels stable.
Adam 00:10:37 you're going to feel a lot better energy throughout the day. More stable energy, more sustain energy, and you're going to feel like you have a lot more at the, you know, in your tank at the end of the day, for your family, for your kids, for your wife, whatever it may be. So thank you.
John 00:10:49 So. And do you have any recommended? No. Nobody's getting it for the sake of the audience. Nobody's getting any commissions here on this. But do you have any brands you recommend in the electrolyte powders?
Adam 00:10:59 Oh man. John, I'm not going to lie, man. There's thousands that you could choose from. The. For me personally, I will just tell everybody this like, I sometimes I even skip the powder for myself. I used to do a lot of electrolyte stuff back in Arizona when I lived there because, like, I'm telling you, all like, that dry heat just sucks the moisture out your body. You have to drink so much. and even there, what I would do is I would actually squeeze a lemon or a lime into some regular, like, ice cold water.
Adam 00:11:26 And then I would sprinkle, like, mineral salt on top of it, like Himalayan or Mediterranean. And that was my electrolyte go to. That's what I did. but the thing is though, is you can find these electrolyte packs anywhere. Costco's got tons of em. Sam's Club, all that kind of stuff. Just be careful on the sweeteners. Sometimes they'll throw in those artificial sweeteners. and some of them are pretty good in natural. They'll have like a stevia sweetener or something like that. I would say stick to the stevia sweeteners if you can.
Speaker 3 00:11:52 So you'd be good.
John 00:11:53 Well, one brand that I'd I'd again, no commissions paid on this, but, it's called element. But if you look it up online, it's just the letters lm ent, but you pronounce it element. And, probably if you used one a day, it cost you 40 bucks a month. but it's, it's they're very good. They're high quality. and I would say that those and their competitors are among the best ones.
Adam 00:12:19 Perfect. Heck, yeah. Go get on that, everybody. Amazon Prime right now. But we missed the Amazon Prime. That's right.
Speaker 3 00:12:25 Prime day right.
Adam 00:12:27 Hey those will still only cost like ten bucks anyway. So Amazon probably would have advertised like a dollar off.
Speaker 3 00:12:32 Like oh, big Prime Day sale.
John 00:12:34 Well now since we're since we're into beverages, let's roll over into alcohol. Talk to us about alcohol. obviously. Hopefully you're not drinking beers during the day while you're working. But but talk to us about alcohol, Adam. And and the pros and cons and and all of that.
Speaker 4 00:12:56 Well.
Speaker 3 00:12:57 Let's let's let's.
Adam 00:12:59 Talk about it from an energy standpoint. We'll do it from there. so your body will naturally store fats, naturally store carbohydrates. Our body can store both of those things as, ready, you know, very, very readily available energy source. Right. But most people don't know this. There are calories in a gram of alcohol. So when it comes to carbohydrates and proteins, you have four calories per one gram fats, you have nine calories per one gram per one gram of alcohol.
Adam 00:13:28 You have seven calories. So it's actually pretty calorically dense alcohol. But our body has nowhere to store alcohol like it does fats and carbohydrates. So this is the very first thing that your body will metabolize if you ingest it. I mean, if you eat a beer and pizza, the beer is going to be the alcohol and the beer is going to be metabolized first. So what happens is, is when you consume alcohol, alcohol metabolism takes place in the liver. This is where the liver is going to process it. This is why people who are long term alcohol users, the liver is kind of, you know, toast after a little while because the liver takes a huge hit processing alcohol. what this does is it processes the alcohol through a process of, oxidation. And there's enzymes that break down the alcohol into, oh, it's a really big weird name, John. It's like acetyl Telluride or something like that. It's a weird, you know, those anatomy. I don't even know what to say.
Adam 00:14:26 I'm half.
Speaker 3 00:14:27 The time, even when I went through the.
Adam 00:14:28 Anatomy classes, I'm like, whatever. And then it gets into acetic acid and this process releases energy by doing that. So then your body has to expand, expand or expand that energy. That's the word I'm looking for I'm sorry. And that's what happens. So when you're on the job, since alcohol can be very calorically dense and because it's processed in the liver, you'll get energy from it. But it's like a sluggish energy, Jon. It takes more oxygen to metabolize it like it takes more oxygen to metabolize fats as well. You'll notice like, if you ever work out really hard, John, and you, you know, completely deplete your carbohydrate store, then your body switching over to fats, you notice you're breathing heavier and you're more sluggish, but you still got energy. That's because that takes more oxygen to metabolize. It's the same with with alcohol. So health wise, you're going to notice over time a negative impact on your metabolism because your body gets better at metabolizing the alcohol calories than it does the carbohydrates and fats.
Adam 00:15:32 And then you're also going to notice a dip in the energy because your body is prioritizing energy burn from the alcohol, calories over carbohydrates, and even fats. Now remember, everybody, carbohydrates are your body's preferred energy source because they're easily metabolized. So you can get quick energy from them. And you'll that's that quick energy you get when you start working out. You got all of it. And that's stored up right. So with alcohol though, it's going to be a much more sluggish energy. And it's going to be also we'll just we were talking about hydration earlier. Has dehydration effects has diuretic effects as well. So that's kind of a in a nutshell when it comes to alcohol John.
John 00:16:10 so and then what's if a guy has a few drinks the night at night gets up the next day and it's got a little bit of a hangover. What do you recommend? The hangover itself, is it not. It's based on dehydration because the. So so what do you recommend for a guy who wakes up. He's got to go hit it.
John 00:16:27 He's got a headache and whatnot from the night before.
Adam 00:16:30 That's a really good point. I mean John, the very first thing that you want to start off with is getting adequate hydration. So getting in a good glass water good two glasses of water if you possibly can flush out the system aid your liver. The liver loves water to detoxify itself. And a lot of a lot of the reason why people do feel like crap after they drink is because the liver is just overtaxed, and you get all these liver enzymes that are elevated and, you know, that's kind of sending signals to the body. You're dehydrated, you're sluggish. So I would say hydrate as much as you possibly can get in a really good meal as well, because alcohol also has a tendency to screw with your blood sugar. that one's the whole podcast in and of itself, but it can definitely cause problems with blood sugar. especially if you're type two diabetic. It can induce. Oh, man, I'm thinking it's hypoglycemia, John, but I might be wrong.
Adam 00:17:22 Don't quote me on that one, but it can definitely induce hypoglycemia. So I would say get your good a good meal and that is composed of good lean proteins and some complex carbohydrates. So if I were to put that into something, what that would look like for breakfast is like two hard boiled eggs or some scrambled eggs with a little bit of cheese, a little bit of seasoning, and then like a whole grain piece of toast if you want to, or like a Dave's Killer Bread or something like that, that's going to help you out a lot. And then I would also say, if you want to do a supplement wise, I would say a good milk thistle supplement. Milk thistle has been shown, even through science, that it has tremendous detoxification, detoxification effects on the liver and aids deliver with doing that. So if you want to get past it, these are all kind of natural ways to get past it. I know there's also probably pills out there that people can take, to help get them through hangovers.
Adam 00:18:15 Personally, John, I'm going to be honest and transparent with your whole audience. I got hung over once. I do not like alcohol at all.
Speaker 3 00:18:21 I do not feel good on it.
Adam 00:18:23 I got hung over on my 29th birthday when I was in Arizona. My birthday is in August. I went and played top golf outside. It was 110 degrees. I drank two double mojitos, didn't know they were double mojitos, and I turned into a complete hangover and I was.
Speaker 3 00:18:39 Holding on to the.
Adam 00:18:39 Porcelain throne on the evening. So I.
Speaker 3 00:18:43 Don't have a lot.
Adam 00:18:43 Of extensive knowledge in dealing with hangovers, but this is what has worked with training all my other clients.
Speaker 3 00:18:49 In the past.
John 00:18:52 well, I have a little more experience than you do with it.
Speaker 3 00:18:54 So, there you go.
John 00:18:56 South Louisiana. It's just part of the air we breathe down here. But, the what I'll add to it is just this thought. If you if you find yourself, you feel like. Man, I'm drinking too much.
John 00:19:08 I need to slow down a little. if you say, but I don't. I don't want to stop, but I want some help slowing down. Go online and Google the Sinclair method. David Sinclair developed a method using a drug called naltrexone Zone that basically when you take it and you drink alcohol, it cuts off the reward pathways in your brain. And so, over time, it and it's, it's literally a kind of treatment that you have to drink in order for it to do its thing. So it's not like, you know, don't guzzle at fifth or whatever, but, but, but when you drink, your brain stops getting the message, this is great. Let's do more of this. And so it the receptors of, your, just the hormones that, that I don't forget the names of them, but the dopamine.
Speaker 3 00:20:05 Yeah.
Adam 00:20:06 You don't get that.
Speaker 3 00:20:06 Reward, that dopamine reward.
John 00:20:08 And so and so the idea there is that it's it is an approach. If you don't want to go completely abstinent.
John 00:20:15 It's one way to go there, of course. And there's all the 12 step stuff as well. If you want to go that far and you and and that's you know, and if you need to do what you need to do. But so anyway that's that's alcohol. make sure that you're taking care of yourself when you, if you drink alcohol, all of the standard stuff applies about don't drive all the, all of that. But, it's not uncommon for technicians to enjoy a beer after work. And so, you know, just just be aware that if one turns into six that you're dehydrating yourself and that the next day when you need to, you know, get out there and get at it, the main thing you need is hydration. That's. Yeah. Not don't don't there's no hair. The dog thing that doesn't work that you need to get, you need to get yourself hydrated and that will help you recover faster.
Adam 00:21:13 Yes. And you know what, John? now that you're talking about hydration, there's one method that I've used with my clients throughout the years.
Adam 00:21:20 That seemed to help a lot. Like I never tell anybody, don't try and eliminate alcohol unless you absolutely need to. If you need to abstain from alcohol, if you have an alcohol problem and you just feel like you need to go cold turkey, go ahead. But if you're more of that, that type of person who, you know, you maybe drink socially, maybe there's a wonderful game going on during the weekend. You're hanging out with your buddies. You want to drink, it's all good. but you may be asking yourself, how can I do this in a healthy way and not go overboard? Well, it's really simple way. I always tell people, drink 1 to 3 glasses of water before you're about to take, any drink of alcohol. And the cool thing is, is you already adequately hydrated yourself. You also got about 2 to 3 glasses of water in your stomach, and you cannot stomach more beer, can't stomach a lot more. The harder liquor, all that kind of stuff.
Adam 00:22:02 The cool thing is you're also hydrating yourself, but then you're also cutting back on how much you can really drink, but you're still drinking, so your buddies aren't going to be like, what? Dude, you ain't down in the, you know, five, six beers. No, I'm cutting it back to one or 2 or 3, you know what I mean? It's a lot better, you know? I You mean you can still enjoy yourself? Still have fun, still hang out, still be a part of the gang, but you know, you're also helping your health in in the meantime. So that's one method that seems to work really well with a lot of the clients I have.
John 00:22:29 Okay. Very good. Well let's let's these are all kind of connected topics. Let's roll over now to the topic of sugar which this can be a this is a deep rabbit hole. If we went all the way we probably won't go all the way down it. But this is a very deep rabbit hole because there's lots of different versions of sugar.
John 00:22:46 There's artificial sweeteners. so let me open it up again to you, Adam, what are your thoughts on sugar?
Adam 00:22:54 A loaded question, so I you know what I think? what Peter Attia said in one of his podcast bears repeating here, like when we say the word sugar, it's like an umbrella term. It means 61 different types of sugar that we know of. Yeah. these days and, and, you know, we have, like, the natural occurring sugars that are like, in our fruits, table sugar that we're all very familiar with, so on and so forth. But, you know, that leaves like another 55 that none of us really know anything about, right? and many of these ones can be significantly times more sugary than table sugar. You know, there's there's sugars out there, John, that are hundreds of times actually one of the most, if I remember correctly, one of the most sweetest sugars is almost 2 to 3000 times more sweet than your table. Sugar is the most sugar.
Adam 00:23:45 I don't even know how to say the name of it, and I'm not even going to try because I'm just going to sound stupid. But, it's not one that is typically used because it takes a lot of money to process it, and most people don't request it. but when we talk about sugars, everybody, this means, you know, 61 different types. And then there's common ones found in a lot of different products that you use. You may see things that say like zero sugar zero this, zero that still has sugars added to it. It's just a way that they've gotten around saying that there's sugars in there.
Speaker 3 00:24:14 That's right.
Adam 00:24:14 You want to dive into that real quick? Like how they get around that?
Speaker 3 00:24:17 Well.
John 00:24:18 What I was just going to say is that the when you get into the issue of sugar, the there's so many sort of chemical words for it that. Yeah, it's, it is very, very difficult, to find any product in a box that doesn't, that you're going to eat that doesn't have sugar in it.
John 00:24:39 Processed meat has sugar in it. There's it is practically everything. Milk that's coming from, a dairy probably has sugar in it. And so and you would think, well, it's milk straight from the cow. Yeah. But they condition it to make it taste a certain way. And so if you're really trying to watch sugar, usually you have to stay with Whole Foods and, or really kind of familiarize yourself with some of the, the language, that's used to refer to sugar because when you look at the labels on those boxes. Sugar has a preservative quality some sugars. Part of the reason they use it in processing is it extends the shelf life of the food. And so but it still does its thing to you in your body when you take it when you eat it. So that was really my thought there that if you, you know, there are lots of foods that you would think oh shoot that doesn't have sugar in it and it's good chance it has sugar in it.
Adam 00:25:38 100% John, I was I was anticipating this, this discussion on sugar today, and I was trying one of these coconut antioxidant infused drinks that I got from my local Sam's Club, and I and I bought this actually for the purpose of this podcast because I thought it was very interesting.
Adam 00:25:56 On the very front of it, it says no artificial sweeteners, one gram of sugar. But then if you look on the very back of it, there is a sugar that is added to this. But it's another one of those weird names. it's your erythritol or something like that. so I was actually looking it up for for our audience. And it's ten grams, ten grams. So on the front of it says one gram of sugar on the back. Then there's ten grams of this sugar added, which is very interesting. But the total sugars, the naturally derived sugars is one gram. So they have clever wording going on here. They have sweetened this product. Yeah. Naturally there's one gram of of naturally occurring sweeteners in here. You know, I mean just the fact that it is coconut and it's also mixed with mango. So there's naturally occurring sweeteners in there that's typically like a sucrose or fructose from naturally occurring sources. But this sugar is what's called a sugar alcohol. Sugar alcohols John. the there's good and bad things about it.
Adam 00:26:57 We'll just say this like they don't have too much of a negative effect on your metabolism. We'll just put it this way. And even like your blood sugar, however, there is a significant negative effect on your gastro gastrointestinal system. If you ingest too much of sugar alcohols, what you're going to get is you're going to get a horrible gut. Your gut is going to get very, very upset. So people either get like some form of almost IBS from this, so either they get stopped up or they can't stop going, if that makes sense. and then there are the I hate to say this, y'all, but that usually means you're the one ripping one every five minutes on the top, and it can very much be because of these sugar alcohols. But you have to understand something. There's ten grams of this being put in this product. While on the front of it it says there's only one gram. Yeah. And they can get away with that because I believe the sugar alcohol is about 300 times sweeter than your table.
Adam 00:27:51 sugar, sucrose. And when I drink it, I can confirm it is definitely a lot sweeter. it just doesn't taste like alcohol or, not alcohol. coconut anymore. so I wanted to use that as an example for everybody to when it comes to a lot of HVAC techs. You know, people are, you know, particular about what they're drinking and so on and so forth and maybe even what they're eating. Maybe it's a protein bar, or maybe it's some some sort of bar. You look at the front of the label, they know exactly what you want to see. They know you want to see low carb, or they know you want to see 1 or 2g of sugar. Look on the back of the label, y'all. They're probably using some form of sugar that's not naturally derived, but is more artificial or more of a sugar alcohol that will have a negative impact on you in some way. Sugar alcohols or gastrointestinal artificial sweeteners don't even want to go into that. I mean, some of that can be a contributing factor to cancers, dementia, Alzheimer's, all that kind of stuff.
Adam 00:28:46 so yeah, just want to give everybody a little bit of.
John 00:28:49 Yeah.
Speaker 3 00:28:50 Well, John.
John 00:28:51 Yeah. Well, I'll, I'll add one more in there, which most people think have heard of high fructose corn syrup. Oh, yeah. which is used in sodas especially. And some other things as well. The, When you consume high fructose corn syrup, it it like it gets converted to energy in a way that makes it harder to make more energy. The when when that gets consumed, you remember from a previous podcast are the things we consume to make energy get converted to this molecule, ATP, right? But in order to make ATP, you need some ATP. Right. And so what happens when you consume soda? Coke, Pepsi, whatever. Mountain Dew. And there's high fructose corn syrup in it. It drains your cells of all the ATP. And so it you when you feel the, the, the net effect of that high fructose corn syrup, it's a significant energy drain, even though you get a pulse at the beginning and it makes it it takes longer for you to recover your, kind of standing energy.
John 00:30:04 load, let's say, because of the high fructose corn syrup. So, you know, people talk about sugars all the time, and and is it good? Is it bad? And diabetes is connected to it? the biggest thing I think Adam and I can tell you guys is try to educate yourself, you know, trying to find out because the table sugar is different from the sugar that's in, like, fruit from a tree. that's different from high fructose corn syrup. they all fall under this general category. And when you, when you look at the label on a, on a box or in the back of a can, it says carbs, and then it'll say how many grams of sugar? But it's like Adam just said, you know, maybe maybe not. It's just the way the FDA has this thing set up. They have to say things around certain parameters, but there's so many different types. It can be just listed as an extra ingredient and not as sugar. And then you're still consuming it.
Adam 00:31:02 Exactly. Really good points, John. And you know what? I have a whole bulleted list here of everything that high fructose corn syrup does. And I want to just educate everybody on it real quick. What do you think?
Speaker 3 00:31:14 Okay. Don't go for it.
John 00:31:15 Yeah, yeah.
Adam 00:31:16 So there's four things that you can count on if you consume this on a regular basis. And believe me. High fructose corn syrup is in a lot. You'll find that even in some energy drinks, you'll find that in even sports drinks. So on and so forth. Mountain Dew sodas, even just regular candy you get at the store. You wanted to roast some, marshmallows with your little kiddo. Odds are you'll have high fructose corn syrup in there. So there's four things that you you can expect if you eat this on the regular. And I just want to educate everybody on this because this, if I could ban this one sweetener, I would. I'll just put it that way, John. Number one, you can expect insulin resistance.
Adam 00:31:55 I think that's pretty much an obvious one. high fructose corn syrup has a way of not gently pouring blood, you know, sugar into your blood. It has a way of putting a fire hose on your face type of thing. Yeah. And and doing that. So what happens is, of course, as you continually spike that over time, insulin has to spike as well. It's trying to push those sugars into the cells. The cells say, okay, this is way too much insulin. Can't can't listen to it anymore. They kind of retreat into the door a little bit. And, you know, the insulin is trying to knock on the door and the doors aren't opening. Second thing that you can, count on is increased fat deposition. Consuming too much of this can honestly just be converted immediately into fat because it's such readily, readily, quickly available energy that if you're not using it right away, the body's got to say it's got to go somewhere so it can be easily stored into adipose tissue.
Adam 00:32:50 Third one and this is a huge one, very, very huge. If anyone's even remotely been listening to anything health related to the last 5 or 10 years. This can increase inflammation and oxidative stress. Inflammation is your body's response to a stressor. We'll just put it that way. Too much inflammation repeated it over time. That is chronic leads to any number of diseases. You've probably heard of autoimmune disorders, cancers, diabetes, all that kind of art. The perfect one, John. Yep. Arthritis, all that kind of stuff. One that the fourth one is one that is starting to gain more traction. I would say within these last 5 or 10 years, it disrupts majorly your gut microbiome. Now, we could do an entire podcast on this. And I feel like sometimes we almost should, John, just to talk about the gut microbiome and how it's connected to so much. But, you know, within your gut everybody is billions of little organisms, bacteria. There's good ones, there's bad ones, and there's constantly a fight going on.
Adam 00:33:52 They're all kind of contained in this mucus layer. good ones will will have a good relationship with the body. Bad ones will try to set up shop and make their own little like Iron Dome, and try and crowd out all the all the good ones. It's crazy. If you ever get to read about these ones, like literally the bad ones will create like their own dome. It's it's just it's just insane. but what happens is when you consume this type of sugar, is it actually can promote the bad ones, the bad one. It's like you're it's like you're fighting the enemy, and then the enemy calls in a million reinforcements every time you take a drink of this high fructose corn syrup, because the bad stuff loves to feed off of it. But if you feed your body good.
Speaker 3 00:34:31 Food.
Adam 00:34:31 High amounts of vegetables, regular fruits, lean proteins, the bad bacteria hates that. And it kills it off, actually, because there's nothing left to eat on or to feed on, if that makes sense.
Adam 00:34:43 So you can have a major disruption of your gut microbiome with excessive consumption of high fructose corn syrup. And you may be wondering like, well, what's the big deal about the gut microbiome? Almost everything. You're 90% of your immune system is contained within your gut. And the reason for that is, if you think about this from your mouth all the way to your butt, and we'll just put it that way, is a tube that is technically considered outside your body. think about it like this. If I were to run a pipe from the outside of my house, through my house to the other side, inside that pipe is technically considered outside my house, correct? Even though the pipe is inside, the outside of the pipe is inside my home. Right? So our immune system hangs out on the other side of our gut, because when we consume something, there can be bacteria there. There can be viruses there. And when it tries to make its way through the gut into our bloodstream, our immune system has to neutralize those threats.
Adam 00:35:37 Right. So the reason why you don't want your gut microbiome disrupted to the point where it's overwhelmed by the bad stuff, is because the bad stuff can start causing bigger, microscopic holes in that gut over time, which allowed bigger food particles, bigger pieces of bacteria, viruses through the bloodstream, which sometimes can really overwhelm your immune system. And what you'll find then is if you get you can get sick a lot easier. If you do get sick, you get sick for a lot longer. It's harder for you to get over a sickness, so on and so forth. You might even start finding that you're intolerant to certain foods, because your gut is allowing bigger particles of that food through. And when you get the the immune system is trying to scan the barcode of that, that particle, it says, we don't recognize this too big, not sure what it is. Your immune system attacks it. You get a food intolerance, sometimes a food allergy, so on and so forth. So anyways, like I said, John, we could talk a whole podcast on this, but that's why you don't want to do that is because your gut is so important to your overall health.
Adam 00:36:38 Majorly important. So yeah for us. Back to you John.
Speaker 3 00:36:42 Yeah.
John 00:36:42 No all good stuff. All good stuff. Now I'm sure the texts are listening to this are going to be like, man, you guys are killing me. No Gatorade, no soda. What am I going to eat? Like tree bark and river water. Like what? Where are we at? Here. So listen to to some degree that the goal has to be at least moderation. And then, you know, the guys, we really want to own this high fructose corn syrup. You know, if you if during the day, you stop at the gas station and you get a 64 ounce soda and you down that thing the rest of the day, man, that's, that's, you know, just realize there's tons of things that's doing to your body that you may not realize. And, you know, if you can replace that somehow with water with that's got some kind of electrolytes in it, unsweetened. other than maybe with a, you know, a citrus or something like that, that, to go in there, it just so much better for your body over time.
Adam 00:37:43 100%, 100%. John, if I could wrap up all this, I don't want anybody to feel like we're saying red pen this, never eat it or drink it again. In my coaching practice, I've been very successful. And many coaches have been successful at this too. Not just myself. It's practicing what's called the 8020 rule 80% of the time. Have a good established baseline of good eating and drinking habits. You mean if you love taste, if you want to drink something with good taste, do what I was talking about. Add those flavoring packs in there. Add the electrolyte. You're going to have the taste, but don't be so rigid on this that you think that you have to do that every day, day in and day out for the rest of your life and never set, set eyes on a soda again. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that if you do this daily, over and over again, every single day, and you repeat this for years, if not decades, don't expect good health.
Adam 00:38:35 Yeah, what you can do, though, is you can reduce your consumption of that and displace it with things that equally taste as good, but are more beneficial for your body because you're the one creating it. You're the one creating the electrolyte drink versus a company just making it for the the the bottom dollar. You know what I mean? And the cool thing is when you're doing that, it gives you more freedom. You mean it doesn't make you feel like you're caged? It doesn't make you feel like you can't have these things. It's just more in moderation. I always tell people this like, one salad isn't going to make you healthy, and one cheap meal isn't going to make you unhealthy. It's what you repeat over time. So repeat more of the better things that are going to bring health, vitality, energy to your life and reduce the things that are going to go against that, if that makes sense. And back to that earlier podcast with food. What is your priority with food and drink? Is it for pleasure? Okay, that's great, but it needs to be expanded.
Adam 00:39:31 It needs to be for health. It needs to be for strength. It needs to be for vitality, longevity, all that kind of stuff. So enjoy the taste of things, but make it yourself. Make those electrolyte drinks. You mean just make the better choices? You want to crack a beer open on the weekends? Cool. You want to enjoy one more Mountain Dew a few times on the weekends? Great. But don't do it every single day, day in and day out for ten years. That's all I'm saying.
John 00:39:54 Yeah. And to some degree, you know, people, we all have kind of standing habits. That's where the zones of this stuff are the most dangerous to us, when we're just used to downing four Cokes a day and we're just that's just part of our normal day. It's just it's a habit. And that's where we create this cumulative effect over time of doing it day after day after day after day, when it's broken up. The way Adam is describing it doesn't have the same negative effect.
John 00:40:24 Just on that one off time. It's when we're doing it. It's the same thing with alcohol. It's the same thing with anything that could have a negative effect on our bodies. If we're doing it day after day after day after day, it builds up and the cumulative effect our bodies have to adjust to it, and that's when it's the most dangerous. So, you know, take what we're looking at or take what we've talked about in this podcast and just look at what are your standing routines, what do you do in the morning? Do you have like a 9:00 stop every day at the gas station for a soda, you know, can you make an adjustment there? How can you change the most routine parts of your your, you know, hydration, alcohol, sugar? How can you change the most routine components of that and break it up and then still enjoy it at times, but not have such an every day, every day, day after day dynamic to it?
Adam 00:41:19 Absolutely right there, John.
Adam 00:41:21 It's just what you do repeatedly over time that makes the biggest difference. You know I mean so consistency you know when it comes to habits. We'll just put it this way a habit can you can run it for for run or you can run it for profit. The cool the thing about habits is they're not biased. The habits that you have in your life and in your mind, they're not biased. Your mind isn't seeking out to cultivate more good habits or more bad habits. They're down to your choice. And that's the beautiful thing about habits is they are 100% your choice. But there's neurobiology that comes in there. There's all the wiring and all the firing that happens, of course. So with everybody, when it comes to these things, it's just making small changes over time. As cliche as it sounds, Jon, climbing Mount Everest is, you know, it's no small thing. But I always tell people in my coaching practice, can you walk 50ft in front of you and what does that look like? And they say, yeah, I can.
Adam 00:42:14 Okay, cool. Let's get you 50ft in front of you. Repeat that over time. Guess what? You're at the top of the mountain, right? And it's same for everybody else. Don't say today I'm going to eliminate all sugars. No, just tell me what you can do. Don't tell me what you can't do. Tell me what you can do. What do you feel is doable right now? And then put that doable ness on a scale of 1 to 10. Ten being hell yes. One being hell no. You want to be at an eight or 9 or 10. Okay. If it's not eight or 9 or 10. Break it down smaller. That's all you got to do. It's simple stuff. You just got to make it into a process. Don't make it all or nothing. Make it always something. That's all you got to do. There you go.
John 00:42:51 Well, then, let's leave it at that today. Adam, thanks so much for your time again and the contribution you're making to the lives of air conditioning technicians by being a regular guest on the podcast.
John 00:43:00 Really, really appreciate it.
Adam 00:43:02 Heck, yeah. Thanks for having me on, John. I appreciate it.
John 00:43:05 All right. And to you guys, be sure and reach out. If you got questions you want to say hi to Adam. You want to say hi to me. Go find us on social media. We'll be happy to get to know you better. We'll see you next time.
Speaker 5 00:43:19 A good life is hard.
Speaker UU 00:43:22 At the HD, a CGI lab. A good life is hard. At the HVAC Joy lab.