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Vinnie Tortorich, creator of No Sugar No Grains (NSNG) returns to the podcast. He provides insights on the pitfalls of the standard American diet and interrogates misconceptions surrounding protein and plant-based nutrition. Vinnie provides actionable advice on how to cut through the noise of modern health advice, simplify your health goals, and develop lifelong health habits.
Vinnie is a celebrity fitness trainer, podcaster, film director, author of the best-selling book Fitness Confidential, and creator of No Sugar No Grains (NSNG). As a fitness influencer who rose to fame with his documentary “Fat Head,” Vinnie has spent over 40 years working with morbidly obese clients using low-carb, high-fat principles. He explains why and how an animal based diet provides superior nutrition and has helped him stay fit at age 61.
Other topics covered include why protein is falsely blamed for cancer, the horrors of seed oils, the benefits of beef tallow, dismantling myths that demonize animal foods, reasons why people becomes obese, what things people above 60 need to consider when evaluating their health, testosterone dropping in younger generations, electrolytes, longevity, and many other topics.
*** LINKS***
Check out our Newsletter - Food for Thought - to dramatically improve your health this year!
Join The Meat Mafia community Telegram group for daily conversations to keep up with what’s happening between episodes of the show.
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AFFILIATES
Vinnie is a celebrity fitness trainer, podcaster, film director, author of the best-selling book Fitness Confidential, and creator of No Sugar No Grains (NSNG). As a fitness influencer who rose to fame with his documentary “Fat Head,” Vinnie has spent over 40 years working with morbidly obese clients using low-carb, high-fat principles. He explains why and how an animal based diet provides superior nutrition and has helped him stay fit at age 61.
Other topics covered include why protein is falsely blamed for cancer, the horrors of seed oils, the benefits of beef tallow, dismantling myths that demonize animal foods, reasons why people becomes obese, what things people above 60 need to consider when evaluating their health, testosterone dropping in younger generations, electrolytes, longevity, and many other topics.
*** LINKS***
Check out our Newsletter - Food for Thought - to dramatically improve your health this year!
Join The Meat Mafia community Telegram group for daily conversations to keep up with what’s happening between episodes of the show.
Connect with Vinnie
Website
YouTube
Connect with NSNG
Website
Amazon
Connect with Meat Mafia:
Instagram - Meat Mafia
Twitter - Meat Mafia
YouTube - Meat Mafia
Connect with Noble Protein:
Website - Noble Protein
Twitter - Noble Protein
Instagram - Noble Protein
AFFILIATES
- LMNT - Electrolyte salts to supplement minerals on low-carb diet
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Creators & Guests
What is The Meat Mafia Podcast?
The Meat Mafia Podcast is hosted by @MeatMafiaBrett and @MeatMafiaHarry.
We're two guys who walked away from the typical path to carve out something different. Based in Austin, we’re on a mission to figure out what it takes to live a fulfilled life in a world that often pushes us away from meaning.
We have conversations with people we believe can help us, diving deep into the pillars of health, wealth, and faith, as the cornerstones of our mission.
Whether it's challenging the modern food system, questioning conventional health advice, or building something from the ground up, we're here to explore the tough questions and share the lessons we’ve learned along the way.
If you're tired of the noise and ready to find meaning, tune in and join us!
Vinny, welcome back for round 2. It's gonna be a good one.
Speaker 2:I'm looking forward to it, man.
Speaker 3:You, you specifically requested that the 3 of us don't have shirts on. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So, you guys go first. Take your shirts off, and then push on my gray hairy chest.
Speaker 3:We actually winter. But We had one guest that insisted that he do the podcast shirtless, and we had to go shirtless too. So that was an interesting experience.
Speaker 2:So how was Ben Greenfield?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Good guess. We haven't had Ben on the podcast yet. That would be that would be a great pod. It was one of our buddies in town.
Speaker 1:And I think Brett and I just both looked at each other and were like, are we actually doing this?
Speaker 2:Did you do it?
Speaker 1:We did do it. We'll send it to you.
Speaker 3:Not our
Speaker 2:I I don't I don't wanna see it. It's
Speaker 3:cute to you.
Speaker 2:I'm I'm good. Don't want my wife to see I'm looking at that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. What what what's happened? Yeah. But yeah. No.
Speaker 2:Ben came to my studio when we were in LA, and, he didn't have a shirt on. So I painted we we used to have these T shirts. There was a circle, and it said NSNG, and it had we actually painted the thing on Ben's chest. I have a picture of it somewhere. I should put it up.
Speaker 2:He would love that.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's actually a good starting point to kinda kick off the conversation. And for anyone that isn't familiar with this, we actually had this is your second podcast parents. We had you on episode 36, which was May of 2022, and we were super honored to get you on part 1. We're super honored to have you on part 2.
Speaker 3:We're huge fans of the 3 documentaries that you've created, fat, fat part 2, and beyond impossible, and something we hear a lot because it seems like every 2 to 3 years, these plant based documentaries pop up on Netflix, and everyone goes crazy, and it leads to this new spearheading in the plant based movement. A lot of people in our space are like, damn. I wish there was a carnival game changers. And Harry and I just say, look, man. That there we've got 3 documentaries that are carnival game changers that have been around for a long time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's it's awesome just to be able to point people in your direction, but my my initial point was, you know, you're talking about being shirtless. We talk a lot about how the health space just needs to be simplified, and there could be a very simple but powerful message promoted. We feel like you do an amazing job with that with NSNG, but it seems like we kinda live in this epidemic of there's more information than ever before, but people that are just kinda looking to lose 20 to £30 and change their health, they don't really know where to start. Where one doctor is shirtless, he's telling you to go carnivore.
Speaker 3:Another doctor is telling you to eat manuka honey, berries. It's really tough to disseminate what's good information versus what's bad information. So I'd love to get your take on just the current landscape of the health the health landscape and just how do we kinda fix this thing and point people in the right direction.
Speaker 2:You know, it's funny. It there there is no one size fit fits all. And the one thing I can say about the vegan diet is if if you're eating a junk food diet, which is the standard American diet nowadays, it's just a bunch of crap. It's just a bunch of, you know, people are eating fast foods around the clock. When I was a kid, man, I hate saying when I was a kid, but when I was a kid I mean, if you ate I think I ate McDonald's once a year when we went to Baton Rouge.
Speaker 2:Yeah. There was a McDonald's, and it was kind of a big deal because we saw the Ronald McDonald commercials, and we were kids. Oh my god. We wanna go there. You know?
Speaker 2:The golden arches and, you know, so we we literally ate fast food once a year. This is some kids their entire life. Mhmm. 2 meals a day, you know, and and breakfast is mostly served by schools now, and that's nothing but a shit show. And, you know, so so there's that.
Speaker 2:So even if someone went on a vegan diet and they were eating just whole plant based foods, they've now done pretty much a 100% better than what they were doing before. The only problem with that is that you're not getting all of the macro and micronutrients you can get and vitamins. You know, if you don't eat meat, you're not getting all of your b vitamins, animal protein in general, but you could get it from eggs and what have you. And, you know, you talk about protein and, of course, you know, as soon as you mentioned protein to a vegan, they pretend that, oh my god, you don't even need protein. It produces too much mTOR, and mTOR is gonna kill you by next week.
Speaker 2:And, you know, the you can always pull out one small fact and then blow it up and, you know, make the mTOR argument. But the truth be known, you know, look at and I I don't mean to disparage this guy, but look at Michael Greager or or doctor McDougall, and put him up next to someone close to their own age. Put them next to me or put them next to Sean Baker. We're both I I I'm 61. I think Sean is a few years behind me.
Speaker 2:He's maybe 57, 56. And these guys, I I think McDougal is my age, but, I mean, I don't think Gregor is even in his fifties yet. And
Speaker 1:He's in his forties, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And if you look at the guy, you would go, oh, oh my god. He's a decrepit old man.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Right? And all he's doing is eating fruits and vegetables, and he he looks he just looks he looks bad. I feel bad for the guy for that reason. I don't wanna see anyone in the old health, and he's he's got ill health. I mean, you can't look at that guy if your audience maybe you could throw a picture for your audience or something when you show this podcast, but you can look at Michael Greager and go, that's a healthy human being.
Speaker 2:You can't look at Google and say, oh, that's a hell or or or Clap or or I could go down the list of these vegan doctors. And then you can say, well, Ancel Keys look pretty good. But Ancel Keys didn't even follow his own advice. He was often out Ancel Keys for anyone who wants to know. He was the Anthony Fauci of his time.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. Preaching and doing something else. Right? He was a big bully in bullying people around. So, Ancel Keys was often seen eating steaks, and when his colleagues would say, hey, you're telling people not to eat steaks.
Speaker 2:And he he would literally he one of his quotes is cereals for little people. Can you imagine being that she's, you know, just that far up your own ass for the lack of any other term. You know? And you can sit there and go, oh, you're picking on a dead man, but that that man has caused because of what he was able to do in the 19 late 19 fifties through the late 19 seventies when when the McGovern Committee ceased in 1978. And the the the havoc is the the havoc that, you know, I was just on my podcast, I was just showing Gina Grad On my Wednesday show, I ran an ad.
Speaker 2:I said, let me show you an ad from 1984. And the ad was from special k, the serial, Kellogg special k. And the commercial was if you can pinch an inch, you're too fat. In 1984, we were fat shaming and commercials if they showed a woman grabbing her husband, and literally grabbing like that much fat on on his oblique. And then she grabbed, he grabs her oblique, and we're pinching 1 inch as well.
Speaker 2:Oh my god. These people are considered ripped out and shredded by today's standard. And in 1984, we were saying, if you can grab anything, you're too fat. Can you imagine that we've come that far in 40 short years? But that's all due to answer keys.
Speaker 1:It's actually remarkable to think that the narrative, the the goalposts have shifted that far in such a short period of time, not only from the messaging standpoint, but also our, I mean, our health. Like, gen 2 generations worth of health has shifted to the point where, you know, men are probably I think it's something around 20 or £30 heavier on average. We've seen the drop off in sperm count in, young men decline. It's really like the the quality of food now seems like it's just changing our biology at this point. It's like almost no other way to say it.
Speaker 1:We're, you know, we're not the same type of people we used to be.
Speaker 2:We're not. You know, I keep bringing and he's coming up on my podcast again next week. I don't know when you guys are gonna release this. Doctor Anthony j Mhmm. Who's the department.
Speaker 2:He was at, he was at, for a long time, Mayo Clinic and this and that. And he he wrote a book back in 2017 is when I first met him when he came on my show called estrogen. And he talks about, you know, all the estrogen. You know? So you see boys with, you know, man boobs now, young men.
Speaker 2:And we hear about young men not even being interested in girls anymore. And, of course, some people will go, oh, that's because they're more evolved than, you know, that they want sex changes. I I I don't know. I I don't study any of that. I don't know what that bullshit is, but maybe it's true, maybe it's not.
Speaker 2:All I know is that we have a lot more estrogen, you know, floating around now. And, because we have so much estrogen, you know, boys aren't interested in fucking anymore. And we shouldn't take that lightly because you're supposed I mean, you're supposed to be interested in that. You know, this is called procreation. You know, you can change, you know, and you can you can take some hormones and change and do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:That's fine. I I'm all for it. Knock yourself out. You wanna wanna change? Do whatever you want.
Speaker 2:Cut your cock off, you know, add a cock if you're a woman. Do do what you want. I'm good. But, good luck procreating. Sorry, God.
Speaker 1:You lost. I think so hard. I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:But, you know, and and none of it makes sense. You know? It's like, what what are we doing to young men? You know? If if you don't have testosterone, if we gotta go to war, what are we gonna do?
Speaker 2:It's gonna look like the last scene in Blazing Saddles when the gay guy is beating on the other guy going, you broke, you broke, you broke. You know? And then you're just gonna shoot his dad. I mean, it's it's not a good thing. You know?
Speaker 2:I I don't know where we're heading with any of it. Maybe I've said too much. I don't know.
Speaker 3:No. I think you I think you've honestly verbalized what a pea a lot of people really think, but we're just afraid to say it, you know, in this fragile, modern generation that we live in. You know, you made me think about talking about Michael Greger's exterior appearance and even just the special k commercials of kinda fat shaming people. I'm not saying we should bring fat shaming back, but I think a little healthy dose of honesty is good for everyone. Like, I think about you know, if I saw a buddy who was smoking cigarettes, I would be like, dude, what the hell are you doing?
Speaker 3:You're an idiot. You know this is gonna kill you. And I'm like, why don't we have that same approach when we see our friends or family members eating processed food? And I'd be curious to get your thoughts on that or how you think about that.
Speaker 2:Well, you're absolutely right. Body shaming does not work, and I don't think we should shame anyone to be they just, you know, I've been working with morbidly obese people for better part of 40 years ever since that special k commercial came out. And body shaming has never worked. Fat shaming will not work. I don't agree with it.
Speaker 2:Most of the people I work with are plus 300 all the way up to 6 or £700. If you would have told me 20 years ago, I would be working with 600 pound people on a regular basis, I I would have said, well, people can't get that big, but here we are. Right? So, I don't think body shaming anyone's gonna ever change anything. But when we start pretending that it's okay, then we start we start down the wrong road.
Speaker 2:We're supposed to pretend that Lizzo is healthy. I use Lizzo. Maybe I should change to someone else, you know. But Lizzo is a big star. Right?
Speaker 2:If Taylor Swift was fat, I would use Taylor Swift, but she's not. So I can't use her as my example. But Lizzo is a big star, very talented, beautiful woman. But when people tell me she's fat and beautiful, I go, okay, that may be true. And she may be aesthetically pleasing.
Speaker 2:That could all be true. But can it also be true that she's very unhealthy? Has anyone checked her a one c's? Has anyone checked her liver enzymes? Has anyone checked to see if she and they're like, she's perfectly healthy.
Speaker 2:Okay. Really? Because, don't look like she's gonna run a marathon anytime soon if you ask me. I could be way wrong. And by the same token, you take another celebrity like, Adele.
Speaker 2:Adele was also, you know, very talented just like Lizzo and put out an album, went gold and platinum, the whole deal. And then, she had the audacity to to get healthy and to lose weight. And literally people went after her for that. Am I am I the bizarre guy here? The woman who decided to get healthy and get her life back, she gets attacked.
Speaker 2:It makes no sense. And I always make this this joke, but it's not a joke. Everyone goes, Lizzo is beautiful. She's healthy. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Tell one woman, oh my god. You're beautiful. You remind me of Lizzo, and watch what happens. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's that's so true.
Speaker 2:You know, you can sit there and lie and say, oh, this looks great, and this is wonderful. But just tell a woman that she looks like Liza. And then
Speaker 1:I might have to try that. You might never again.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't do that to my girlfriend or wife if I were you because you would be out shopping for a new girlfriend or wife.
Speaker 3:Vinny, if you're if you're working with a client that's £600 or morbidly obese, are we just focusing purely on just nutrition and getting steps in every single day? What does that process look like to creating sustainable change with someone at that level?
Speaker 2:Most most of the time, they can't exercise at that at that way. You know, they're they're almost they're not quite bedridden, but they're couch ridden. If you saw the movie, The Whale, where the guy is kinda, like, stuck on the couch, You know, that that's where these people are. They can't move. Right?
Speaker 2:So you have to start with what you can start with. You start with a diet. Right? And, that's where these people are. And by the way, I always say my my feeling about these people is they're in prison.
Speaker 2:They're in prison by their own body. Right? And they can remember a time when they were healthy and they can walk around and run and jog and do things. As a matter of fact, they talk to me about that all the time. You know, hey, I used to play I I know guys, £600.
Speaker 2:He played d one linebacker. Wow. He's £550. I I I exaggerated about £50. He's a d one linebacker.
Speaker 2:The guy and he was recruited to, by just as many schools to be a decathlete. Wow. And now he's almost £600. You know, can you imagine what goes on in that guy's head?
Speaker 1:I can't.
Speaker 2:And knowing who he used to be and now he's imprisoned, that that I mean, people ask me why I'm so passionate about this. That that's why. Mhmm. Because I'm working with these people all the time, and it's just and I I have feelings for them, and and I care about, you know, I I know I sound like a tough guy all the time. I end up fucking crying with these people sometimes.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. You you because you you see the struggle. Right? You see the struggle. I can't tell you the number of times I fucking tear it up.
Speaker 2:It was like, oh god. I'm supposed to be the rock here, and I'm fucking tearing up, burning his chick. You know? It's not good.
Speaker 1:Can't imagine. Yeah. We were, we we had a podcast earlier today, and, we were talking about just the, the amount of human potential that has seemingly been lost due to the decline in overall health. And it just it it feels like more and it's becoming more and more common to be in these negative health situations, you know, whether it's obesity or having some sort of chronic disease, and all of it links back to food. And and I wonder with a food component when it comes to obesity, you know, it seems like a lot of these cases of obesity stem from more emotional eating where it's like people have some sort of almost like trump traumatic reaction to stress, and they immediately just queue up the hyperpalatable food and the foods that aren't nutritious but, you know, can still pack on weight.
Speaker 1:And you just, like, can't control yourself when you're eating it. I'm wondering, is that, like, something that you work on when you're working with someone, like, the emotional side of it? Because the friends that I have who are struggling with weight loss, I would almost diagnose it as emotional problem or not emotional things that they need to get over before they can really start to lose physical weight.
Speaker 2:Man, that that is a loaded question. Yeah. It's a chicken and egg thing. You know? You know, if I if I interview 20 people who are plus £450, I'm gonna get 20 different answers as to what happened.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, there there's a a version of I was molested by my uncle, sometimes, men and women. But most most of what I hear is and this didn't really happen with my generation. It happened more with your generation. I hear more and more I was a latchkey kid. You know, both my parents had to work to keep a roof over our heads.
Speaker 2:And my sister and I would get home from school and we, you know, we literally we knew how to make mac and cheese. And just so the parents would buy stuff that the kids could fix for themselves. So, there would be peanut butter and jelly. There would be, pop tarts, you know, things you can just stick in the toaster. There there are things people have told me that I'd never heard of before, like, you you it's like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:You can get, like, pastries to to look like a croissant that you stick in the microwave, and it, you know, kind of bubbles up to I never heard of any of this until people would tell me about them. You know? Yeah. Popovers and pop ups and all this kind of stuff. And, one kid I I mean, one guy told me, like, yeah, my my parents were just my mom would buy, like, 20 or 30 of these frozen burritos.
Speaker 2:Mhmm. And they were just in the freezer. I get home from school and pop 1 in in the microwave. And while I was eating that one, I would pop another one in. And while I was eating that one, I popped so they were always hot coming up.
Speaker 2:Can you imagine eating 3 microwave burritos in a run? You're a kid. Right? That's nothing but junk on top of junk on top of junk. So the addiction starts there because no one is controlling what's going on.
Speaker 2:Is it the parent's fault? No. The economy dictated that both parents went out and got a job. Right? And they couldn't afford to have help.
Speaker 2:I hear that more than anything else.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's insane what, just the convenience through the the medium of ultra processed foods is done to our health. And it just seems like carbs are seemingly at arm's length for everyone, whether you're a kid going to school and, you know, you can't even legally get whole milk at a school cafeteria, but, you know, Pop Tarts, Cheetos, Doritos, pizza slices, they're readily available. And And I even saw a video that you posted. I think you were at the airport, and so you're sticking to your your plan.
Speaker 3:I think you got 2 burgers, no buns, so just meat and cheese, and they still give you the fries and ketchup with it. So it's like even if you're trying to be low carb, there's there it just seems like we're just jamming carbs and grains and sugar down people's throat, and it's just so normalized.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, whenever I do that kind of thing in an airport or wherever where I'm kinda stuck, I can say 5 different ways. I can look the man or the woman. I said, listen, I know it comes with French fries. Yes, please charge me for the French fries also.
Speaker 2:Do not put them on the plate. And I don't wanna exaggerate, but let's say 7 out of 10 times. That's true. It's 8 or 10 out of sense. It it shows up anyway, and I and then I'll say, you know, I used to argue and go, I I asked you not to do this and there we go, but you paid for it.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, remember the conversation about, I know I'm paying for it. Don't put it on the plate. But I'm disciplined enough to eat around it. Right? Just to eat.
Speaker 2:Because I think that was probably the video. I probably did the things, like, I ate my whole meal and look what's left.
Speaker 3:Yes. That's what it was.
Speaker 2:Ate that. Yeah. Like, I remember one time I did one where I said no bun, but now I have 4 pieces of bun because both hamburgers came on a bun on separate plates, by the way. I said, look, just put the 2 hamburgers, one plate, forget the fries. So I had the 2 buns and 2 servings of fries when I was done.
Speaker 2:And anyone else would have said, fuck it. They're here. I gotta eat this. Right? But, you know, who I mean, they're full of seed oils, and it's just nothing but a big carb mess.
Speaker 2:Why do that to yourself? And you'll go come on, then why don't you just have 1 or 2? And I always answer because I'm not that good. I can't have 1 or 2 if I have 1 or 2 fries, there's gonna be 3 or 4. And before, you know, I'm stuffing 5 in my mouth at a time.
Speaker 2:I'm not better than that. I'm I'm not kind of, you know, soothsayer who can just be stronger than anything. I'm just not. So I just don't touch.
Speaker 1:Mike Oh, go ahead. Go go for it.
Speaker 3:I was gonna say, Vinny, so there's a great place in town in Austin called. I don't know if you've heard of it before. It's, it's a amazing restaurant, and everything in the restaurant is either hunter or forged in Texas, and they cook everything in beef tallow. So they actually make a burger where it's still a regular burger, but the dough is actually made in house, you know, local wheat, cooked in beef tallow. The French fries are just, you know, regenerative potatoes, sea salt, beef tallow.
Speaker 3:So if we broke bread at, would you indulge in a few fries, or are you staying strong even if they're cooked in beef tallow?
Speaker 2:If I knew I can eat a couple of them and then, you know, just say take it away, I I would try them because I I can't remember last time I had a a French fry, number 1, or number 2, cooked in beef tallow. And I don't think people just to let your audience just say, well, why are they going nuts over this beef tallow? The good old days of when we got fries when I was a kid, when they're cooked in beef tallow, they're crisp and crunchy on the outside and flaky on the inside that, you know so if I knew that there was a beef tallow fry that was hot on that plate, I would eat a handful of them and immediately say, I would take them to the kitchen if no one showed up to take them because I'm not stronger than that. But, yeah, I would taste it. I'm I'm I'm not some kind of weirdo where I don't taste things.
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I just know what I can taste and then stop, and what I can taste and can't stop. Mhmm. Right? So I'm very, very strict about that.
Speaker 1:You mentioned seed oils, and, they've become incredibly popular particularly on the Internet just in terms of getting virality and exposure, and a lot of people are talking about them. And I'm wondering just from what you've seen being in the industry for as long as you've been, what have you seen or or how have you seen food evolve? You mentioned fast food. It's everywhere. It's, like, pervasive.
Speaker 1:The quality seems to have gotten worse. Like, how have you actually seen that, in the actual quality of food?
Speaker 2:In the fast food or the seed oils?
Speaker 1:Just food in general. Like, how have you seen food quality decline over the past, you know, since you since you got into the industry?
Speaker 2:Well, I got I'll give you an example. And this might not be answering your question, so ask it again if I'm not answering it. In the nineties, you know, I've always been mister healthy. Right? So we we want to get our omegas in there back in the nineties.
Speaker 2:And, of course, when you when you drank fish oil, Yeah. They didn't come in convenient capsules like the ones I sell at my vitamin company. You drank fish oil. Right? You take fish grease rendered from fish, and, you would burp that for the rest of the day.
Speaker 2:Well, other companies would make stuff. You buy that, you know, we didn't have Whole Foods back then, but there was something called, god, what was it called? Before it was Whole Foods, it was, it was called something else.
Speaker 1:Fresh market? Or
Speaker 2:Say again?
Speaker 1:Was it Fresh Market? Or
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, I got it. No. It was a a woman's name, and Whole Foods bought them all up. At any rate, got, you know, hippie dippie types like me that was into health foods. We go to health food stores.
Speaker 2:Right? And, you know, I would buy fish oil and I would take that, but I would also take seed oils because they were, you know, polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and they were full of omegas and the whole thing and more omega 6 than omega 3. Now we know that it's the opposite. You should have the balance of omega 3 to omega 6. Omega 3 should be higher.
Speaker 2:But I can't tell you the number of years I purposely bought safflower oil or rapeseed oil or, you know, Udo's 3 in one oil and, you know, took teaspoons of it every day in the name of health. Right? So we were told that these seed oils are better than the fish oil. Right? And, you know, I I didn't have anything to say otherwise.
Speaker 2:You know, I just knew that taking omega threes and omega sixes were healthy for you. So when you talk about the fast foods and all the seed oil, hell, I used to ingest that stuff just because and didn't have any idea that it was having an ill effect on my health. Now when you're younger, you can get away with more. Right? But maybe that explains, you know, how backwards we were, you know?
Speaker 2:At some point, we all learned about trans fats, you know, that was kind of the first salvo. You know, we figured out trans fats were not good. And, so a lot of the companies started taking it out of candy bars and everything else. And we we look, we can have a whole podcast just talking about, you know, fats because coconut oil was always healthy except the seed oil companies ran ads saying, oh, no. Not good.
Speaker 2:Not good for you because it would it would naturally solidify, which means you could put it in chocolate products and everything else. And the same, you know, they ran they bastardized palm oil. They got the whole world thinking palm oil is bad for you. And if you eat it, you're some kind of lunatic because they're raping the rainforest with palm oil. You know, there's all kinds of stuff that when you look into it, it's just not the truth.
Speaker 2:So when you you get into well, what about seed oils and where yeah. Yeah. Everything's got seed oils in it now because it's cheap and it's almost free. And this is something we should be putting in our cars, not our bodies.
Speaker 3:Yeah. That's perfectly said. What, what like what type of fats do you like to cook with at home, Vinny?
Speaker 2:I don't like to cook, but when I do have to cook my my wife is for your audience, my wife is an actress and she's been on a series now. So I've been cooking a lot for myself because she's not here. The oils we use around here, olive oil, which is not a seed oil, it's a fruit oil. I don't use I would use avocado oil, but I don't know which one to trust. I haven't found one that might not be mixed with the seed oil, but avocado oil, if you could find a pure stuff is good.
Speaker 2:And if you find that you need to be a Rockefeller or Elon Musk or something because it ain't gonna be cheap. The cheaper stuff that I cook with is, tallow. You mentioned beef tallow. Keep that hanging around. You can cook with lard, but finding straight lard nowadays, good luck.
Speaker 2:They're always infusing something else in it. Yep. But beef tallow is one of my favorite. I cook a lot in butter. I love eggs cooked in butter.
Speaker 2:I love steaks. I like I like to hit my steaks on on a hot skillet with butter before I put it in the oven. So
Speaker 1:That's the way to do it. What, what is what have been some of your key insights, you know, getting into your sixties in terms of just eating healthy as you get older?
Speaker 2:You know, it's it's funny, but, when I look at myself, I see an old man.
Speaker 1:You look great.
Speaker 2:Well, thanks. But I I I feel like an old man. Right? And I realized that I don't, you know, my body like, if you saw me at the beach or something, you would go, jeez, the body doesn't match the face. Right?
Speaker 2:So there is something behind eating clean and working out every day and just doing it and staying, you know, at 61, you still can't pinch an inch on me. Right? I I'm still rocking abs, and it almost looks weird. You know? Old man losing his hair, gray beard, and his abs are ripped out.
Speaker 2:And I and I take it as a compliment when people say, hey, Mandy, are you taking any TRT, you know, testosterone replacement therapy? And the answer is no. 0. I've never taken anything like that in my life. You know, it's just a concerted effort of exercise every single day as hard as I can and eating on point to the best of my ability.
Speaker 2:And, you know, just the other day, I was at the grocery store, and on Thursdays, they give you an extra 5% off if you're over 60. And, I'm doing the self checkout, and I tell the lady, I said, hey. You you need to rub your card against this so I can get my 5% off. And she goes, yeah. You gotta be 60.
Speaker 2:And I said, yeah. I'm 61. And she goes, I don't believe you. And, you know, I kind of owe you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Because I figured she says that to everyone. And then she said, I need to see your ideas. Like, are you reverse carding me? K. And she goes, there, I'm sorry, but you're not 61.
Speaker 2:And so I pulled my idea and showed I was born in 1962, and she was like, I apologize. And I walked away going, well, my face looks 61. So let's say I was lying and I was actually 58, but they actually called me. And then Serena said to me, she goes, yeah. She she was looking at your body and you don't look 61 at all.
Speaker 2:Right? When you eat heavy amounts of animal protein, you eat a lot of protein in general, and you work out, everything looks the same. Now I'm degrading. I'm not where I was when I was 50 or 40 or 30, but I also don't look 61, if that makes any sense.
Speaker 3:It does. Absolutely. No. It does. It's a it's a compliment.
Speaker 3:It must have made you feel good. I would feel good if I was getting reverse carded.
Speaker 2:Yeah. It it was the first time, and I couldn't believe you know, I was I was a little annoyed that she was doing that to me, but I walked away feeling pretty good about myself, to be honest.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Rightfully so. Vinny, what would you say to the 60 year old guy out there that probably could afford to lose 15, £20. He's heard about, you know, NSNG, carnivore, low carb. He's interested in it, but he's worried about, you know, cholesterol or red meat intake, and he's on a statin.
Speaker 3:I think that's actually probably one of your superpowers is that you can relate to people that are that age that are that have put on 20, £30. And if they were doing these right things, they could, you know, lose that weight and feel amazing as they age. So I'd love to just kinda get your thoughts on that because I, you know, I think about my parents or family friends, and I think about how good they can feel, but they're still kinda living in that, like, dogmatic past of flawed information.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I get that question all the time. And usually when I'm getting it is by either a client I'm talking to on the phone that has time to listen because they're paying or I'm at a dinner party. And, you know, I'll have a guy telling me, hey, you know, I used to look more like you, but now I'll put on the weight, you know, and the whole thing.
Speaker 2:And I'll I'll say, look, you know, do this and the other thing. And I'll say, yeah, but I'm already on a I love this term, a light statin if there is such a thing. My doctor told me my cholesterol was too high and I'll say, well, what was your total cholesterol? And they'll say something like, oh, it was 198 or 205 or something. I'll go, what were your HDLs?
Speaker 2:And they everyone knows these numbers off the side. Oh, my HDL. Honey, what was that? 58? My ACLs my LDLs were blah blah blah.
Speaker 2:And I'll go, ratio sounds pretty good. But, what about your, small dose particles? What how's that again? Your small you know, did they check your APO a and your APO b? Do they know what your lipoproteins are doing?
Speaker 2:No. They didn't check that. And where were your triglycerides? Honey, do you know what a triglyceride is? No.
Speaker 2:I don't know. You know, so it's like, wait. They put you on a drug and they didn't check triglycerides, small dense particles. Did they do a CAC? That's like saying that's like, can you imagine walking into a doctor's office and doctor goes, okay.
Speaker 2:Okay, Brett. I'm I'm gonna, I'm gonna cast up your right arm. Say, but it's not broken. Doesn't matter. I'm putting a cast on it.
Speaker 2:You need a cast, but it's not broken, doc. Could be. I know it sounds stupid when I say that, but I'm being I'm being honest here.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:No. You know, doctor wouldn't do a protocol that made no sense. Yet, they don't mind handing statins out like candy. And statins have, you know, real consequences. Right?
Speaker 2:Anytime you take any drug, that's why people say, come on, then at 61, you're not taking TRT. No. Because it might make this 2 or 3 other things do well, but there are consequences to every drug. There's no drug that does not have 2 or 3 problems, and statins are the same thing. So are you trading off this belief that you may not have a heart attack if you take a statin to get 3 or 4 other things to happen.
Speaker 2:Does that make sense to you? Because it I'm I'm perplexed by the whole thing.
Speaker 1:Totally. Yeah. It's it's really interesting that the it seems like doctors are very willing to administer or prescribe statins as if there's no side effects, and I I feel like, you know, there's probably several instances where, you know, people shouldn't be taking statins, and they're just prescribed them just because like, my sister was in the hospital, and they just started prescribing her statins. I'm like, what? This makes no sense.
Speaker 1:She's, like, perfectly healthy. And I recently just came across Dave Feldman's work and, Nick Norwitz. Did you see this? The Oreos reduced cholesterol more effect more effectively than statins. Did you see that study that just came out?
Speaker 2:I did. And, of course, Dave has this great study that that is being reviewed right now, and, he was on the show about 2 weeks ago talking about all of it. And, it's just crazy making, and it'll be interesting to see how they bury this because you know they will. It's gonna get buried somehow. It's just what they do.
Speaker 1:Crazy.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It makes you think about, like, what are we overcorrecting for just to prevent this one singular LDL score. You know? So you're telling me that you don't feel good. You're £30 overweight, but you're worried about the score when really your waist size is the biggest indicator of your metabolic health.
Speaker 3:So I don't know. I don't I I don't know if we've just lost this intuition of do I feel good or do I feel bad, but it is always you've been you've seen this way more than I have, but just all these people that are there, they have this fear or this aversion to eating more animal products when they objectively don't feel good and their numbers indicate that they're not healthy either even if their LDL is low.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Look. We've been sold this bill of goods that animal proteins are bad for us for so long that it's almost impossible. Look. You know, back when we had 40 sitcoms on on television at one time, that that used to be the rate when they had 3 channels.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, 4 channels, including Fox. So you have 4 channels that there was 40 sitcoms on television. And every joke back in the seventies eighties was, hey, I'll take that sirloin steak with a side of cardiologist. You know?
Speaker 2:It it was just such a cheap punch line that we we we somehow bastardized meat and eggs and everything else. I mean, doctors would tell people don't oh, you have a cholesterol. Don't eat shrimp. Can you imagine? Right?
Speaker 2:You know, you get more omega threes from eating shrimp and crustacean than anything. You know, the doctor will say, poof, you know, we don't want you to have a heart problem. Stop eating something that's good for you. It makes no sense. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:It it doesn't take that long to do the math.
Speaker 1:Vinny, I see the bike behind you. How are you staying active these days? What are the go to workouts for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I go to the gym. I'm gonna say the gym, meaning either the gym behind me or, I go to the gym in town to lift weights at least 4 days a week, if not 5, but at least 4. So I'll get an upper lower leg and then upper, and then when I start back the next week, lower and then, like so every every other week, two things get hit. And that keeps my muscles going and you'll go with Jesus, and why don't you go a lot more than that? Well, I do a thing every year because I'm not training for anything anymore aerobically.
Speaker 2:So in order to make sure that I don't slack on my aerobics, I put down every year. I gotta do at least 365 hours of aerobics. Mhmm. So and you'll go, jeez, that's an hour every day. Some days, I don't do it.
Speaker 2:Other days, I'll do 2 hours. Right? On the weekends, I might go for 3 or 4 hours. But I jotted down on paper, the good old fashioned way, and I I just keep turning the calendar over. And every year, I usually get to 420 to 440 hours of aerobics, but I have to do at least 365.
Speaker 2:And then to answer your question more specifically, there's 2 spinner there's a spinner, and there's a bike on one of those treadmill wheels over here. So I use those 2 things right here. Right next to that is a concept 2 rowing machine. And that's enough that's another part of my thing. I have to put at least a 1000000 meters per year on the concept 2.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:So some of the the activity goes right into that. And then in the spring, you know, I'm gonna actually get on the water and row on the water. That doesn't count towards my 1000000 meters for concept 2. Right? And, and then I also kayak on the water.
Speaker 2:Right? So I don't have anything set up for that other than I like to go kayaking it. It's aerobic. So you I'm using upper body, mid body, legs, everything. And then once a year, I try to do a big hike.
Speaker 2:So I have to stay on hiking shape where I'm rocking, where I'm throwing anywhere from 20 to £40 on my back and going up and down a mountain all day long, just to get in shape for that. So I know to your audience, they're gonna go, Jesus Christ, that guy is insane. But this is what I do. It's what you know, some people are artists, and all they do is paint all day. Other people are mechanics, and they build engines all day.
Speaker 2:Right? This is what I do. So it's it's easy for me.
Speaker 3:How long have you been doing the 365 cardio in 1,000,000,000 meters on the rower for?
Speaker 2:The cardio's you know, saying 365 started, maybe the year before the pandemic, Something like that. Like right when I moved here from California because I went, Oh, it's easy to not. And when you're in California, I was out all the time. The mountains were all around me mountain biking, you know, skiing, cross country skiing, everything. And when I got here, I went, oh, boy.
Speaker 2:I gotta make sure I pay attention. The rolling started during the pandemic. As soon as I went to the gym one day and gym was closed. So the very next day, my wife introduced me to Facebook Marketplace. I bought a bunch of plate weights and barbells from some dude on the Internet.
Speaker 2:I had to drive my truck to go get it, over in North Carolina. You know, a a state over. That's how serious I am about not missing. So I bought some weights and I set up what I call my little prison gym right in the breezeway of my house. I wasn't living in this house yet.
Speaker 2:And then I went, well, my bikes were still in storage and my and my my thing. So I just called concept 2 for $900. You know, they shipped their concept 2 right to me. And, I've never really liked rowing before. I had to watch a bunch of videos to figure out, you know, why so many Olympic coaches to learn the technique.
Speaker 2:And because if you don't learn a technique, you're gonna do it wrong. You're gonna hurt your back. You're gonna do all kinds of stuff. But I'm easily trainable. And I noticed, after I just got on it every day, and it was hooked up to my phone.
Speaker 2:And this sends it to a cloud thing, and somehow it ends up in the thing in an app. I don't know how it works, but one day, I got something in the mail from concept 2. I thought it was just some kind of promotional bullshit. But but it was a thick package, so I opened it up. And there was a t shirt in there and a stick pen, and it said, congratulations, you did your first 1000000 meters.
Speaker 2:And I was like, what? I called him. I went, I think you guys sent this to the wrong guy. Thanks for a t shirt. I was like, no.
Speaker 2:And they explained to me, and I went on my computer and saw where I'd done. I was well over a 1000000 meters. And then I got interested in and say, you know, what if I could do another million? And then I started playing around. I was like, I wonder if I could do a marathon nonstop, meaning 26.2 miles, which is like 42,000 meters.
Speaker 2:So I did that, and they sent me another thing. Like, they kept sending me stuff. It's like, wow. I'm gonna run these people broke. And then, there there was another thing where, if you did 50,000 meters nonstop, right, which is way more than a marathon.
Speaker 2:So I went one day I was bored. It was still the pandemic. You know, everybody else is eating Haagen Dazs. I was I was bored to death. And, I'm almost ashamed to say, but I put on the computer which I had.
Speaker 2:I don't even have a television. I had a computer set up in front where I can watch something because that's how boring rowing is. And, I put on reruns of Gomer Pyle, a show weist as a kid, and just watched Gomer Pyle for 50,000 meters. How long
Speaker 1:did it take you to do 50,000 meters?
Speaker 2:Well, we could do the math. Every 45 minutes, I usually do right at 10000 meters. Oh my gosh. You know, so at that time, now I, you know, I usually do 10000 meters in 40 minutes, but at that time, I was doing 10000 every 45 minutes. I can pretty much hit that right on the head.
Speaker 2:And so 45
Speaker 1:Those steps are no joke. I mean, for anyone who's gotten on the rower, going going for a long time on the rowers, one, a mental tax because you like you said, it it it can be kinda boring, but 2, it's like it it is a full body workout.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You're working probably. I'm an exercise physiologist. I should probably know. But if I was guessing, I would say you're north of 80% of the muscles in your body when you're rowing.
Speaker 2:You know, when you think about it, you're you're moving every muscle in your body. And now one of the things I like to do is, you know, and I'm getting ready to lose this with football season. Right? The games are right at about 3 hours long. And so I'll watch on the roar at least the first half of the first three quarters.
Speaker 2:And then when they go to commercial at the end of the Q3, I'll get off. By then, you got, like, over 2 hours, 2 hours and something. And I just dry off really quickly and come back and finish the game. So the I I like playing games with myself with, I I'm sure this is boring the crap out of your audience, but, you know, I'm like, like, moving. You know?
Speaker 3:I think they're gonna love it. I mean, we have a decent number of endurance athletes that listen to the show. Do you have, do you ever get the the itch to do another, like, ultra endurance cycling race, or do you just kinda feel like that was something in the past and a great chapter, but you're ready for the next thing?
Speaker 2:I think I'm done with it. I I don't have anything else to prove. And I'm I'm more interested, you know, with all the football injuries, you know, the neck injuries and lower back. I like going to the gym and keeping a little extra muscle on my body, man. When I was when I was doing ultra cycling, your body I was lean as you could possibly get.
Speaker 2:You know, you can almost see the mitochondria swimming under my skin, but, you know, you lose a lot of muscle, and I'm not interested in losing that much muscle anymore at this stage. That's why I keep the over exam to what I consider a low roar.
Speaker 1:What, you I'm sure you've that you've probably gone through this cycle before, but how, how would you best approach putting on muscle? You know, if you're in your prime, what's the or or even whenever. Like, what what's your what's your go to, you know, muscle building strategy?
Speaker 2:The the main thing is and this is gonna sound like I'm putting you off, but it's so simple. You know, you hit the compound movements. Everything else is just bodybuilding fodder. Right? So you wanna build your chest, you push away from your chest.
Speaker 2:And we can get into the the nuances of, you know, doing incline press and all that kind of stuff. But you need to stress the crap out of your muscles and you need to do it twice a week. Most studies have shown stressing it 3 times a week is not gonna give you any gains over 2 times a week. And if any gains is so infinitesimal, it doesn't matter. So, look, I get asked at the gym that I go to guys go, man, you you're in and out of here in 45 minutes or less.
Speaker 2:And I say, yeah. And they'll go, how do you do that? You you seem to keep yourself in great shape. And the other question they asked me is, like, you move super slow. So I'm one of those guys that will just put lighter weight on to try to save my joint joints and then just move really slowly.
Speaker 2:Right? I I can I can cheat and look like I'm across theater and do 20 pull ups or as they call them kip ups? They they've created their own work. I I can do that and impress the crap out of you and do, or I can do 8 or 10 pull ups really slowly and have every muscle in my body quivering. That's where you're gonna build muscle.
Speaker 2:So you break down muscle and then you feed a protein, mainly eggs, red meat, chicken, fish, and you move on. I I I wish I can say it was it was more complex than that, but it's pretty simple.
Speaker 1:I stay inside. I was hoping for.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. That's all you can do.
Speaker 3:I think it's encouraging that the simple stuff works done over a long enough time horizon. And it's interesting how these guys at the gym are like, you know, Vinny, what are you what are you doing? I only see you in here for 45 minutes. And I also think they're missing the fact that you've put in 40 plus years of just consistent dedication, thousands and thousands of reps, staying content consistent on your diet, eating the right foods. It's like you've just built up this amazing conditioning over time, and it just seems like once you started, you never stopped and just went all in.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And there there's never been a time when I've taken off, other than when my my right arm was stuck at my side because, you know, my shoulder was completely done, and I had a lot of atrophy in my shoulders and upper back and the whole thing. But I was still able to do push ups and all that. As soon as I got that shoulder fixed, you know, I was like, okay. What can I do again?
Speaker 2:That that's why I'm always happy to go rowing and and just doing whatever because I feel brand new again at 61. I'm able to really use my body again.
Speaker 3:Mhmm. Yeah. So with some of these guys that because you you play football Tulane. Right?
Speaker 2:Yeah. Yeah. I was a middle linebacker.
Speaker 3:So yeah. So if you look at I don't know know if you stay in touch with any of your old teammates or other guys that are your age. Do you find that do a do a fair number of them get influenced by you and take their health seriously, or do you kinda see that decline at 61 years old? I'm just kinda curious amongst your peers, what does that look like? Because, you know, clearly, you're an outlier.
Speaker 3:But
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know, a couple of them like, a couple of guys went pro, and they were linemen. And the good news is they after they got done doing that, they lost that big gut and all the stuff that these linemen need to do. And, you know, I only stayed in touch with those guys on social media. So I see them, and, they're looking pretty good.
Speaker 2:You know, some, you know, some of them put on a little dad bod here and there. I'm in touch with a couple of them because they've gained a lot of weight, and they're trying to lose the weight. You know? So there's that. So it's it's kind of all over the place.
Speaker 2:Most of the guys lost a lot of the musculature. You know? That that's the biggest thing you see because, you know, you we were all working out like animals and just eating a shit ton of red meat. And, you know, you become a businessman or whatever. You sit on your ass and there you go.
Speaker 2:So and I don't think they look at me and go, oh my god. That guy really kept it together. I think they look at me and go, well, yeah. If I had spent 40 years just doing push ups and pull ups and stayed in the gym, I could look like him too, but, you know, they they they got on with their lives, you know, and became businessmen or whatever. And, that's that.
Speaker 1:Right. Yeah. You really you you need to be so focused on on fitness and really love it. And there's something to that where, you know, I think a lot of people feel like it needs to be this hard strain, this thing that you don't enjoy. And, obviously, working out is hard, but, you know, there's ways to to gamify it and make it enjoyable.
Speaker 1:And just that feeling afterwards is like euphoria when you have done a hard workout and your body is is drained and you have that good sweat going. Like, you can't really replace that. But there is some level of training your your mind to really start to think that way. And, I think the older and older you get, at least from my perspective with the friends that I have, it's like if you never tapped into that in an early at an early enough age, you never really your brain doesn't really adapt too much later in later later in life to, like, truly enjoy it.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I think there's a lot to be said for that. You know, I I always say, you know, you know, I have a few sayings. You know, one is what did I do for my pain today? Meaning, how did I put my body in some kind of jeopardy pain wise?
Speaker 2:And when I say pain, I'm not talking about bad pain. I'm talking about feeling it. Right? And the other thing I always try to impress upon people is, like, look, washing your you're brushing your teeth and and wiping your ass, those are just habits. Right?
Speaker 2:And nobody would ever consider not doing those two things, at least not in 1st world countries. Right? Everyone brushes their teeth and wipes their ass. Right? Habits.
Speaker 3:Unless you're Paul Saladino.
Speaker 2:Does he not wipe his ass versus the
Speaker 3:I I saw some video where he was shitting on toilet paper or something
Speaker 1:like that. So Not actually. What? It was
Speaker 3:Yeah. He was saying that, I guess, there's just microplastics and toilet paper, and I'm like, okay. So what are you supposed to wipe your ass with at this point? It's like, we're just it's where you start to lose people. But sorry.
Speaker 3:I interrupted your train of thought. But that No.
Speaker 2:It's but yeah. It's oh, god. That's a whole diff we could do another show after this show. But, no, that that that's the deal. It's like, you know, a habit's a habit.
Speaker 2:You know, I I wipe my ass and brush my teeth, and I work out every day. You know? And do I ever fret on days when I have to miss? No. Because the next day, I'll pick it up again.
Speaker 2:So people you work out every single day. No. Sometimes, you know, life gets in the way. You know, you're trapped somewhere or you're doing this or that, and you you just can't. I I don't even think about it.
Speaker 2:Just the next day I picked up where I left off. Mhmm. It's not you know?
Speaker 1:Vinny, is there is there anyone in the health and wellness space who's really inspired you to keep going down this path or think differently, someone who's continually challenging you? I'm just interested in understanding, you know, who the role models have been for you because I know I have my own personal set, and it's always cool hearing people's sparks of inspiration from others.
Speaker 2:All of my inspirations are dead. You know, the first one was my first strength coach, Joe Bonadonna, who died. Jack LaLanne was a big influence on me growing up dead. And, you know, Vince Geronda and all these kind of guys, you know, who and also Mickey Hargitay, who I got to know later in life. Mickey Hargitay was the original mister universe.
Speaker 2:You You know, it's he's one of the people that Arnold looked at and went, oh, maybe I can do this. And notice all the guys I mentioned well, my first trainer, Joe Bonadonna, was a steroid head. That's what killed him young. But Jeranda never never touched any kind of steroids. Guy looked amazing.
Speaker 2:Mickey Hargitay, mister Universe, little steroids, looked amazing. Lift to be in his nineties. You know, Jack Lalaine never tries to juice. So those are all heroes to me. You know, these guys that were able to do it and do it for a long time.
Speaker 3:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a lot of these golden era guys were essentially low carb, weren't they?
Speaker 2:To a degree. I mean, Arnold was the first one that was kinda pushing that. You know? You know, eat more fat and that kind of thing. And some people got behind it, some people didn't, but, I mean, look at the success he had.
Speaker 2:But, yeah, you know, Bill Pearl, all of those guys, ate a ton of protein, ton of fat. Hell, when I was a kid, when I first got into it and started buying supplements, Hoffman, which, you know, weeder and Hoffman were the supplement companies back then. They made something called Energel, which was oil. It was a you you bought a thing of oil. It was Energel.
Speaker 2:It's get your energy from taking in this fat. It was a seed oil, by the way. But, you know, everyone knew that the way you got more energy was to take in oil, get in get more fat in your body. It goes it's it's as old as time. Right?
Speaker 2:You know, people weren't carving up the way they are. I mean, look at these bodybuilders. Well, they're taking so much crap. They they they don't even like human, but if you saw him a month before the show, I was talking to, Laurie Frederick, who played ice on American Gladiators. She was a bodybuilder, and we were talking about that just the other day.
Speaker 2:You know, just the amount of crap and the carbs these people think they need to take nowadays. It never used to be that way. It's fairly new thing.
Speaker 1:It's interesting in the endurance sport. It seems like there's a lot of people who are almost abusing carbs in terms of fuel sources, and there's this whole low carb movement now coming into endurance with you know, you see people like Dan Plews and some others who are doing really amazing stuff, low carb. But I see a lot of these endurance guys. I'm like, you guys don't look healthy. Like, you know, your one, the your form of exercise is is, you know, extreme.
Speaker 1:And, you know, you're you're you're not really getting enough strength training in or or probably eating enough protein to be doing that sort of training. And 2, you are absolutely, you know, almost diabetic level of intake of carbohydrates throughout the course of the week. So it's it's just an interesting observation event, the endurance community and, like, kinda where where that community has gone.
Speaker 2:Well, they keep touting it. That's for sure. And they talk about, oh, when your insulin's up, you get to blah blah blah
Speaker 1:blah blah
Speaker 2:blah blah blah blah blah blah. But, I mean, look at it. Zach Bitter is set setting records. He's more low carb. My buddy, Mike Hite, is setting records.
Speaker 2:He's very low carb. You know, so there are people out there proving it over and over. Carlos Donas, he's not doing it at the same level that McKnight is, but he'll do rim to rim to rim low carb. You know, a lot of these guys buy stuff they buy products from me. You know, they buy my ultra solid or my, my ultra fat, which is a high fat, you know, food that you take out on the trail with you.
Speaker 2:So I talk to these guys all the time and they're doing it. Hell, I do it. You know, I was just talking about going 50,000 meters on on a I didn't have to I didn't have to carve up one time. I didn't have to take one goo or anything. I started to think I as a matter of fact, you're looking at the water jug I had next to me.
Speaker 2:I had 40 ounces of water. Oh, jeez. And and ultra fat ultra salt. That's all I had, you know, for, you know, 4, 5 times, you know, 45 minutes, whatever that comes to. You know, 4 hours and something, maybe.
Speaker 2:3 hours and something.
Speaker 3:With, with it seems like there's more electrolyte powders than ever before. And every time I look at the back of the ingredients label, I'm like, there's essentially 0 electrolytes in here or anything that matters. It seems like it's mostly just manipulative marketing and bullshit. What is actually, like, a good baseline electrolyte level to be like, alright. This is actually a product I should be taking.
Speaker 3:This is how I should be fueling for my either my day or endurance ride, etcetera.
Speaker 2:I'll give them to you in order of importance. My product and I'm not putting mine first because it's my product. I'm putting it first because it's the only one that doesn't have any other junk in it. But I tell people if you're not gonna take, UltraSalt, go get yourself some, salt stick or s caps. I just named all all of them.
Speaker 2:Got it. There there is nothing else. Nothing at Hammond Nutrition is gonna get you there. Nothing from Element's gonna get you there. You know, they're they're adding crap to this stuff to make it taste good.
Speaker 2:Real electrolytes taste like salt. Sorry. End of story.
Speaker 3:Do you think element has a good electrolyte profile? It's just some of the additives that they're putting in there that makes it not optimal?
Speaker 2:I haven't I haven't looked at it that close. It's probably fairly good, but they're putting other crap in it, so I'm out. You know? That's why I wouldn't recommend it. I just recommended the 3 I would recommend.
Speaker 2:Mine, solstice, s caps.
Speaker 3:Well, we've got the Austin Marathon coming up next month, so we'll we need to order some ultra salt for sure. That'd be pretty cool. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Are you both running it?
Speaker 3:We're both running it. We are.
Speaker 2:Got a carb up, fellas. You're not gonna make it. Put some carbs in you.
Speaker 1:I'm trying to lean out a little bit more between now and then, which is always a little bit of a challenge. You don't wanna be losing weight heading into a marathon, but I've gotten a little muscular this winter. So I need to probably trim a little bit so I'm not carrying so much for 26 miles, but should be a good rate. I'm looking forward to it.
Speaker 2:Well, you know, let me know, man. Yeah. Let me know how you guys do.
Speaker 3:Why don't you come out, or we can go to and get some tallow burgers and some fries? Just a couple, though.
Speaker 2:You know what? I I I may have to come out there at some point just to hang out. My buddy, Peter Pardini, who did my first movie with me, he lives in that area now.
Speaker 1:Oh, do I?
Speaker 2:Yeah. He doesn't live in your town. He lives about 30 miles away in some other town.
Speaker 3:Okay.
Speaker 2:I can't pick him up. I'm not trying where he lives. I just can't remember the name.
Speaker 3:One of those farming towns. But, yeah, we would we would love to see you in person, and it's always a pleasure to have you on the show. I feel like we learn a tremendous amount every time we talk to you. And like we said, we've looked up to you from afar and loved the documentaries, and just we appreciate you fighting the good fight. And thank you so much for doing this, Vinny.
Speaker 2:Well, you guys may wanna have me back on in a couple of months because I'm coming out with documentary number 4. And I want you guys Yeah.
Speaker 1:Wow. Can we get a little
Speaker 2:No. I'm not putting the name out there yet because the name is pretty cool. I love it. But I'm I'm doing it again, and, I don't think I'm gonna be making any friends anytime soon. Well, you
Speaker 1:you've got friends in us. We'll we'll have you back on as soon as, as soon as you drop it, so let us know.
Speaker 2:Yeah. You you got it, man. I I love talking to you guys. It's it's always a pleasure, and you guys do a great job. So thank you for having me on.
Speaker 1:We appreciate it. Thanks, Tony.