Mark Bell's Power Project - Preventing Childhood Obesity Through YOUR Diet - Stan Efferding || MBPP Ep. 958

Episode Date: July 17, 2023

In Episode 958, Stan Efferding, Mark Bell, Nsima Inyang, and Andrew Zaragoza talk about how your diet and daily habits could prevent your kids from ever having to deal with needing to lose weight. Stan also shares amazing exercise advice for all levels. Sponsors mentioned on air: ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to recieve 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panal or any custom panel! ➢ https://PowerProject.Live for the NEW Power Sandal 2.0 ➢ https://www.eightsleep.com/powerproject to automatically save $150 off the Pod Pro at 8 Sleep! Follow Stan on IG: https://www.instagram.com/stanefferding/   Join The Power Project Discord: https://discord.gg/yYzthQX5qN Subscribe to the new Power Project Clips Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC5Df31rlDXm0EJAcKsq1SUw   Special perks for our listeners below! ➢https://drinkag1.com/powerproject Recieve a year supply of Vitamin D3+K2 & 5 Travel Packs! ➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!   ➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!   ➢ https://mindbullet.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off Mind Bullet!   ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save up to 25% off your Build a Box   ➢ Better Fed Beef: https://betterfedbeef.com/pages/powerproject   ➢ https://hostagetape.com/powerproject Free shipping and free bedside tin!   ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!   ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1 Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM   ➢ https://www.vivobarefoot.com/us/powerproject to save 15% off Vivo Barefoot shoes!   ➢ https://vuoriclothing.com/powerproject to automatically save 20% off your first order at Vuori!   ➢ Piedmontese Beef: https://www.CPBeef.com/ Use Code POWER at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $150   Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ https://www.PowerProject.live ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject   FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell   Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ https://www.breakthebar.com/learn-more ➢YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang ➢Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=en ➢TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nsimayinyang?lang=en   Follow Andrew Zaragoza on all platforms ➢ https://direct.me/iamandrewz   #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

What are some of the biggest challenges you think in trying to keep people ahead so they can not only be on a decent diet themselves, but have their children on a decent plan themselves? The education piece, but things at home that the kids can make themselves. What happens when your kids discover donuts? Do they like those things? Do they handle it differently? They're church. Every Sunday they go to church and it's soda pop and donuts and chips. And I just, I cringe. But I live in the real world. What I try and do is help educate them as to the dose makes the poison. I don't want to create eating disorders. What's your take on zero sugar? Yeah, they're fine.

At the end of the day, there's only three ways to lose weight. You have to be in a calorie deficit. And you can either calorie restrict. You can time restrict, eat in whatever window. And the other one is restricting some sort of macro or food item. Only one of those three ways. Every diet can fall into one of those three categories. Approach to Family, welcome to the podcast. We are 900 plus episodes deep, bringing tons of different experts in fitness, health, nutrition, and business. And we thank you all for your

support. And we're also glad to be bringing these individuals to you. Now, if you've enjoyed this podcast and it's brought benefits to your life, we'd really appreciate it if you left a five-star review on Spotify or Apple, as that helps the podcast grow and thrive, and we can continue bringing you amazing content. Thank you for your support, and enjoy the episode. Stan, what is new with you, buddy? What's going on? Oh, man. I moved into a new house. Yeah. I had to buy a lawnmower. Your wife kicked you out?

It's an acre. Yeah. It's an acre and a half. I haven't done landscaping in over 20 years. And now here I am with my arm halfway in the ground fixing uh, fixing irrigation, mowing grass. And you're like a real dad. Yeah. Yeah.

Chopping. Kids are watching you like in the yard. Yep. Yeah. And they don't even help. They don't even bother to help. Yeah. But that's,

uh, are you out there getting frustrated? Like that's like a real dad. Like you're out there saying, God damn this. God damn. You know, it's funny as I did maintenance, uh, I multi-family properties for many years i owned multi-family properties

for many years and i was a maintenance guy right out of college and so i'm like the jack of all trades master of none right the amount of mistakes that i made over the years trying to do uh you know plumbing and electrical on these apartments was laughable don't leave it up to me that's for sure yeah so i i got this idea in mind that i can i can do anything and then you go out there and you got to mess it up pretty bad before you call a pro in and you realize you probably spent more time and money messing it up than it would have cost just to call the pro to begin with so do you uh youtube it sometimes i. I often do. I had some moles in the yard and I YouTubed some little traps and I've been out there

with Caddy Shack with Bill Murray. That's been me. I've been winning that battle. Are they lean enough for you to eat or no? No. Too fatty of me. I looked at all kinds of options. Pumping gas into the... lighting it. They had some people doing that.

Yes. Ground exploding. It was actually – I went to take these – Sand yards on fire. I had a whole bunch of these ugly shrubs, and I was out there snipping them. I'm like, this is going to take forever because it's a huge property, lots and lots of – That's probably good for the packs, right? Yeah, try and turn it into a workout.

So then I pull up this YouTube short short and there's this guy on there, big chawed backy in the pickup truck and he's like, here's how you take that bush out and he wraps a chain around it and hooks it to the bumper and takes it out. So I go rent a U-Haul and get a chain and I wrap it around those things and those big bushes just pop out of the ground.

Sometimes they come out so fast they hit the back of the U-Haul. It was kind of fun. We made short work of that. There's come out so fast they hit the back of the U-Haul. Oh, wow. That must have been kind of fun. It was kind of fun. We made short work of that. There's nothing like heavy equipment to get the job done. Beats a shovel every day. Anything new with Vertical Diet? You were mentioning some stuff with kids that you're doing now.

Yeah. You know, Vertical Diet 4.0 is supposed to be out any day now. I've been saying that for a year. But we just keep adding and adding and adding things to it. But Vertical Kids is something I've been working on for quite a while. Obviously, my kids are 9 and 11 now, and a lot of parents ask me about what their children should be doing. And I'm hosting a Vertical Kids Power Hour every Sunday at Sin City Iron, the gym I own in Las Vegas now. Just little kids, 6, 7, eight, nine, ten years old, teaching

how to squat, bench, and deadlift, making it fun for them. Their parents come in. I like to put loads on them. And so we give them a little bit of instruction, but mostly it's participation. The social media interweb experts, of course, are like, oh, those kids are going to get hurt. You just go take your kid to the jungle gym, okay? We talk about the injury rates compared between jungle gym usage and squatting. So it's been fun. The kids love it. It exploded.

We got on the local news there. The Fox News affiliate came in and videotaped all the kids. And so the thing exploded. I got a couple helpers now. Are they like dragon sleds and farmer's carriers? I do all of it. I start them with, you know, I do three rounds of squat, now. And are they like dragon sleds and farmers? I do all of it. I started with, you know,

I do three rounds of, of a squat bench and deadlift, you know, just teaching the basics. And then we would do a whole bunch of stuff. We'll do some med ball throws, do some box jumps. We'll do some sled drags,

some chin ups and things like that. And just keep them just work hard for an hour. The parents just want to see him get tired, to be honest with you. I really want to see him, uh, strain. I want to see him do something,

sometimes something like a squat. You know, there's a skill component to it and a balance and all that. So you're not really able to see what the, get the kid to really strain. But with a sled, pushing a sled, you get maximum output from them, you know, especially if they're competing with each other. And that's, they're always competing with each other who can push. especially if they're competing with each other. They're always competing with each other. I've got some little seven-year-old girl in there who will push more on the sled than any of the guys, and they kind of feel bad about it.

Yeah, crushes everybody. It's awesome. We have this one gymnast, this young gymnast who comes in, who's by far the strongest of the group and had never lifted before. It does seem to matter what kind of sports you're exposed to, gymnastics being the one that you do a lot of body weight exercise, and that transferred over very well for her. But the only one thing that I encourage the parents to do outside of the gym,

other than just doing some push-ups and chin-ups at home, is sprinting. I'm a huge fan of sprinting for the nervous system, even for load. I mean, if you think about the pounds per square inch when sprinting under the foot, people are like, oh, squats, you know, you're going to get injured. It's pales in comparison to the amount of load that you're going to put from sprinting. But it really helps with coordination and balance and nervous system. You know, speed is obviously a key component to power being, you know, strength divided by time. And so, you know, it's just how much force you can produce as fast as you can produce it. And over speed running,

you know, I have that over speed treadmill that we used with John Jones and, uh, we'll put kids on that and just get them to sprint. Uh, that's probably one of the biggest things. You ever seen the Kipchoge treadmill? They have,

uh, this treadmill that's set to like 13 miles an hour. Yeah. That's how fast, uh, Ilya Kipchoge runs when he does a marathon. He can run for 13 miles an hour the entire time so they have these giant treadmills at these uh conventions and people try

to get on there and try to mimic or run whatever and people just get toasted by it but yeah he runs that way for two hours straight that's incredible so that was pretty close to your time wasn't it yeah my my time was actually was actually about half an hour faster than his. Yeah. That's incredible. Just rode a motorcycle the whole time. I did take the liberty, not that I like to do anything that would insult you, but I did take the liberty of looking up.

It's his favorite thing is to make fun of me. Yeah. I looked up Oprah's time. And what did she do? She ran faster than you in the Boston Marathon, I must say. I think that one post I made on Instagram, her arms are also bigger than yours. So I don't know what you're winning in that though. Nothing. I'm not winning anything. I'm falling behind. I don't mind it. Hey, it's a starting point. Yeah, good for you. We don't want to talk about my running.

You don't do anything conventionally. So I'm imagining you must have a plan for this vertical kid stuff. And I'm imagining that you're probably getting some sort of high-level coach in there or something like that, other than just your own self who's already a high-level coach? Yeah, I mean, I partner with Dr. Damon McKeown, who's a PhD, RDN, was director of dietetics for UNLV and taught in the exercise phys department there. So he'll be my co-author again on this. So it's very solidly science-based.

But I'm kind of writing it for a five-year-old. It's more of an infographic sort of book layout. So that, to be honest with you, in today's time, that's kind of the way adults expose themselves to information. Anyhow, just short infographics, just something that's easy to understand if it's made for a fifth grader. But it's supposed to be for conception to college, I say. For all ages, I'll try and give parents

some solid information on what they can do for their child's health in terms of nutrition and performance, obviously. The big thing for me, I think, is the next evolution in terms of promoting the vertical kids is to go to high schools and do presentations. And a lot of those are going to be highly motivational. Kids need to be inspired. I find that when I've done colleges over the years and high schools and do presentations. And a lot of those are going to be highly motivational. Kids need to be inspired.

I find that when I've done colleges over the years and high schools over the years, is they just need to be inspired. And then they need some very practical, I say it's 1% inspiration and 99% execution. I know you hear perspiration. And hard work is certainly important, but it's execution. I know you hear perspiration, and hard work is certainly important, but it's execution. They just don't know what to do or parents don't know how to create a sustainable program they can adhere to. It just seems like it's difficult to navigate in terms of compliance, time management, those kinds of things.

So I try and create ways to make it easy on them to help their kids eat a better diet, to get on a regular training program, and then talk about what are the most effective things they can do for their kids to prepare them for whatever. The sports-specific stuff is really a matter of the kid's personal preference. Hopefully there's some genetic predisposition for their sport so they can be good at it. As you know, you're not going to be a center for the LA Lakers if you're five foot seven or probably not going to be a great marathoner if you're Samoan and you're 300 pounds. But understanding what a kid's, I think, genetic predisposition is and putting them into positions where they can be successful is helpful.

But beyond that, I try and build a foundation for them. I kind of put it into a pyramid of sorts. And things like strength and speed will benefit all sports. I don't even call that general physical preparedness. That would be mostly cardio, et cetera. Fundamental. But yeah, and it's the basis of all sports, no matter what sports you're playing.

And now as early as junior high school, and certainly we see in high school and college, the kids are doing some sort of strength training. The American Academy of Pediatrics uses the word essential for adolescents to participate in some sort of resistance training. And that not only helps them with their development, but it helps prevent injury, which is really important for a lot of these kids as they participate in sports. And they see that as being a huge component so i try and set them up

with programs that are easy to comply with that that that uh allow them to have the foundation needed to perform well at any sport because uh the skill component can be learned much faster and then somebody who's significantly under muscled or under it's not strong enough even with a higher level of skill, we'll be outperformed by people who are just more athletic, faster, stronger, uh, to a point. And so I try and build that foundation for them. And that's what we're doing with our kids now and what I'll promote a lot with the vertical kids as I, as I go around to high schools and, and make the presentations. I think something that's detrimental to our kids

that do want an opportunity to play a sport is just them getting too heavy at too young of an age because then their strength-to-weight ratio is thrown way off. And, you know, the kid that can't do the pull-ups and the kid that's a little heavier, it's just going to be harder. And maybe that kid could be a lineman and maybe he could excel. Or a powerlifter. Yeah, maybe he can excel somewhere else.

But it's really tough. It's really challenging. What are some of the things you're seeing as a parent now and working with these kids? What are some of the biggest challenges you think in trying to keep people ahead so they can not only be on a decent diet themselves but have their children on a decent plan themselves? Yeah, well, a lot of it is just having things that are convenient uh the education piece but things at home that the kids can make themselves you just you got to get the junk food out i don't care how many times you tell a kid

you know if you've got that stuff right there in hand they're gonna they're gonna be eating it so we you know we focus on obviously lean protein sources and fruits and vegetables and that kind of thing is the as the foundation What's in your house? Because I've been to your house before. Why don't you walk people through a little bit? Like there's a lot of convenient, delicious food. Yeah, it's what's not in there mostly because I'm not too terribly picky as long as they – I tell kids just protein first.

I want them to get as much – interestingly enough, kids don't seem to need as much protein per meal to trigger muscle protein synthesis. It seems to just happen even at like 10 grams. But you want to get enough protein throughout the day. And I kind of shoot for a gram of protein per pound of body weight. Dr. Jose Antonio from the International Society of Sports Nutrition has two college-age daughters, I believe, that compete in sports. And that was kind of his recommendation. It's a nice foundation. And the foods associated with that protein, a variety of foods such as dairy, yogurt, preferably,

and eggs and lean meats and fish, those kinds of foods are very diverse in micronutrient quality and quantity. And so add in some fruits and vegetables to that. Oftentimes with kids, you've got a couple of tricks we'll use is maybe smoothies, juice smoothies to get the fruits and vegetables in. It's got to taste good. They're pretty picky about that kind of thing. You know, I like the monster mash because the kids will pick through and they'll eat the carbs and not the protein. So if I mix it together, whether it's scrambled eggs with rice or a carb, or whether it's, you, whether it's scrambled eggs with rice or a carb, or whether it's your lean ground beef with rice or something,

so it has a consistency and a taste that they value, the bone broth. Stan made me this giant bowl of Monster Mash when I went over to his house. It was the best thing ever. Yeah. He's like, here, take it. And it was just this giant, I don't know,

probably two pounds of meat in there or something like that. It was so good. The kids love it. So you've got to find things I don't know, like probably two pounds of meat in there or something like that. The kids love it. The kids love it. So you got to find things that they'll – and then, again, you really got to take the ultra-processed snack foods and candies. I don't have any soda pop in the house. That kind of thing. What about alternatives to those things? Have you found decent alternatives?

Because I have like Quest bars and legendary Pop-Tarts and tasty pastries and stuff. I got all that shit in my house. Yep. There are definitely some alternatives that are higher in protein, lower in sugar that you can put in there. And that's an important point is that even with dieters, when I tell them to take the crap out of the house, you have to have substitutions. So when they get hungry, they'll eat. I like yogurt and berries. The kids will put one of those calorie-free flavor packets.

What are you talking about? Yeah. Like the Crystal Light thing? Crystal Light, yeah, because then there's a whole ton of different flavors. They find their favorite flavor. You can't put too much of that stuff in there. It's too strong. But just a little bit.

That's how I get them to eat yogurt. I'm a big fan of Greek yogurt for the kids. I think it just has so many benefits. some protein powder in there too it's delicious sometimes yeah protein powder i wouldn't even let them eat like if if they want ice cream uh i'll tell them they got to eat their protein first or does he know you got oh yeah the ninja yeah there's a something called a ninja creamy yeah and it will turn even like your your regular protein shakes into like an ice cream that That's what we need. Have you discovered it? Yeah, you haven't. I have

the kids do scoops of protein in the ice cream. I won't let them eat ice cream straight. They gotta add protein to it. Stan, you can literally make a protein, like it's it could be a consistency of a protein shake, but when you do the thing, it has, when you make it into an ice cream, it has the consistency of ice cream. It could be like 80 or 90%

protein. Yo! It doesn't really need a lot of carbs. It doesn't need a lot of fat. I love this cream. It could be like 80 or 90% protein. Yo! It doesn't really need a lot of carbs. It doesn't need a lot of fat. I love this passion. It's the way I talk about the Monster Man. The Ninja Grill where I cook like salmon or stuff in, I just did a video on that recently. Unbelievable.

It's life-changing. When I get a client that calls me, does like a phone consult or hits me up for some coaching, some of the biggest changes, some of the most, I think the information that they appreciate the most is when I tell them how to prepare the food so that they're good. Because then it becomes, again, part of a lifestyle that they can sustain. And they get a diet.

They're like, oh, my God, this is good. I don't even feel like I'm dieting. And you still have things like what you just mentioned. You still have your monster mash that people can order, right? Yeah. Yeah. Meal prep company. So they can dig in order, right? Yeah, yeah, meal prep companies. So they can dig in there.

And I even eat my own meal prep, and I pay for it. I don't get free food. Obviously, food is – somebody has to buy it and make it. But it's better than what I can make myself, which is why I buy it. And it's convenient is the big thing. I packed a bunch up and brought it up here with me when I left Vegas to fly up here to Sacramento. And you got every power lifter like on that, like everyone's hooked on it. Yeah. Surprise. No one tried to raid your bag today. It's convenient. It really is.

What, what happens when your kids, you know, they, they go and they discover donuts or ice cream or these other things in other places. You know, I think Andrew has a few stories of that, but like, how do they, like, do they like those things? Do they handle it differently? Their church, every Sunday they go to church and it's soda pop and donuts and chips. And I just, I cringe, but, uh, you know, I live in the real world. What I try and do is help educate them as to the dose makes the poison. And I don't want to create eating disorders and, you know, body dysmorphia. I've got to be cautious to make sure that I give them the education.

It's part of what will be in the Vertical Kids book is that there's ways to handle those situations such that they can, as best they can when the opportunity presents itself, is make those decisions. The challenge is, I can't remember who one time had told me that when you look at the opportunities to eat off schedule, whether it's a holiday, a birthday. Fourth of July. Yeah, a celebration for whatever.

And then how many kids are in your class at school and how many birthdays do they have? There aren't too many days that you can't find a special occasion at which you have to have some sort of junk food. Today was stressful. Yes. Today was really good. Yeah.

Today was horrible. Exactly. Today was meh. Yeah. Today was horrible. Exactly. Today was meh. It always seems to be a good reason. And then it's the reward component. Dad, I did this. Can I have that? Can I have ice cream?

We did really good today. Did all our chores. And you certainly don't want to interfere with the ongoing chore project. But at the same time, what rewards are you going to give them? I'll be honest with you, though. I find ice cream to be the least offensive of the options because it is dairy, I suppose. And it was interesting.

I think Lane Norton just did a video recently. He posted and said ice cream was cardioprotective. It was actually the healthiest of desserts. He was being somewhat facetious, but there is some research to suggest that it's probably the least worst option out there. And there's probably ways, like you mentioned, with

Ninja Creamy that you can choose the ingredients such that it's not as high in sugar. It's interesting, my pops is 92 years old. He lives with me, has for a number of years now. He's got macular degeneration and he's had two hip replacements and he's practically deaf. And so it's pretty interesting. He turns his TV way up and watches his MSNBC and I have to listen to that at total volume in the next room. He started drinking, he asked me for some v8 and i thought i was sharper than this but

i went to costco and i threw v8 in the in the cart and i brought it home and i gave it to him and i used to drink v8 when i was a kid he used to feed it to us and then like three days later his ankles started to swell and i keep a real close eye on that with him you know and my pops your ankles are swelling uh and so i started looking through all of his diet and v8 has like 900 milligrams of sodium for a little six ounce can he was drinking four a day yeah he was getting four grams of sodium like a little can of soup yeah and he eats sauerkraut and pickles and and you know you have some frozen food meals for him stuff from costco for quick, easy microwave stuff. He was probably getting in eight grams of sodium a day.

He sits in his chair all day, you know. And so I had to pull that right out. But the point of the story is, is so I was looking for some replacements for him. And I ended up ice cream. It was 25 milligrams of sodium. And he loves ice cream. And he'll eat it with fruit. And so I'm like, hey, that's a health food. Fruit's a health food.

And so and he loves these uh what are they and sure they're the chocolate oh fair life fair life protein drinks 30 grams of protein like two grams of sugar and one gram of fat uh and so he'll down those every day it's important to point out your dad's not heavy, right? Yeah, he's a little overweight from when he should be at 92. He's carrying a little bit of a belly. He's been relatively thin most of his life, right? Yeah, he was a runner. He ran the Boston Marathon.

Oh, nice. Yeah, he was a runner. We used to do jogs in the morning. He'd be one of those runners that every step was a fart. Bink, boom. You got to get them out, you know? Yeah. I'm jogging.

I'm like, Jesus Christ. You know, maybe behind me. Get up at 6 o'clock in the morning and go, I actually went jogging with him for quite many years there when I was a kid. Was that good soccer prep, running with him when you were young? Yeah. You know, I got to be honest with you. I was never good at the endurance stuff, the running.

I was always explosive. I could sprint, but I never good at the endurance stuff, the running. I was always explosive. I could sprint, but I didn't have the endurance. And I'm still that way with training now. I really like the – like a guy like Eric Spoto, he's got a huge single, but he's also – he can bench 315 for 45 reps. Oh, yeah. Wow.

The muscular endurance is incredible. A guy like John Jones, he's both strong and has incredible muscular endurance. I don't have any of the endurance at all. I remember asking Eric, I was like, how many times can you bench 225? He's like, that's too light. I never tried. Yeah, he was coming in every Monday night and breaking the world record. I think it was the Guinness Book of World Records for the most pounds bench pressed in, I don't know what it was, 90 seconds or two minutes. Yeah, just as many pounds as you – every Monday night he was breaking the record.

And you know the story about how he never competed in an actual bench press competition until he benched 700 in the gym. Wow. And he wouldn't have benched 700 in the gym except for we had put – All forced him. We put five pounds on each side of a 695 lift that he was about to do and made it 705. There's a video on YouTube of this. And when he benched it and he gets up and we were like, you know how much that was? He's like, 695. Like, nope.

And he looked. He's like, he did 705. And that's when he decided he was going to come down and do your meet. It was not until he did 705. TRT, it's a popular topic. A lot of guys are hopping on it. It's something you did 705. TRT, it's a popular topic. A lot of guys are hopping on it. It's something that we've talked about a lot. And you might think you're a candidate, but how would you know if you haven't got your blood work done and you don't know where

your markers are? That's why we've partnered with Merrick Health owned by Derek from More Plates, More Dates. And the cool thing about Merrick is you'll get your blood work done and you'll also have a patient care coordinator that can help you analyze your blood work, analyze your testosterone, all these other markers to help you actually figure out if you're someone who needs TRT. Because there could be things that you could be doing nutritionally with supplements or even with your lifestyle that can boost your testosterone to the levels that they should actually be at. Andrew, how can they get their hands on it? Yes, that's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. That's over at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject.

And at checkout, enter promo code PowerProject to save 10% off the PowerProject panel, the checkup panel, or any individual lab that you select. Again, that's at MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. Promo code PowerProject at checkout. Links in the description as well as the podcast show notes. What you got over there, Andrew? Yeah, you mentioned not having soda in the house. What's your take on diet soda or like the zero sugar sodas? Yeah, they're fine.

There's a big dust-up now on Instagram because the IARC committee said that aspartame was a possible carcinogen. Everything the IARC committee has ever touched, probably over a thousand different things, they put it in there as a possible carcinogen. But the problem is that their definition doesn't account for dose. And you'd have to eat, drink 800 bottles of Coke a day, of Diet Coke a day to have any kind of adverse effect. But anyhow, probably people seeing that information would wonder if it was unhealthy. It's not. We do see that replacing sugar-laden drinks with diet sodas does facilitate weight loss for people who are trying to do so.

So that's a good recommendation. I don't have any problem with diet soda. And I'll let the kids have a diet soda here and there. It's a treat or whatever. It's the least worst option. Have you ever heard of something called Olipop? No, I haven't heard of that either. Yeah, it has prebiotic fibers in it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It ends up being like three or four grams of sugar. It has prebiotic fiber and something else. And it tastes really good, actually. Oh, they taste good, yeah. There's a bunch of versions of it, too. Yeah, yeah. Do you get the kids' menu when you go to the restaurant?

Sometimes. You know? Every now and then I'm just like... It's like grilled too. Yeah, yeah. Do you get the kid's menu when you go to the restaurant? Sometimes. You know? Every now and then I'm just like. It's like grilled cheese. Yeah. I saw that Sprouts one and I was like, that looks kind of good. And it is very good. It's very low calorie.

And I don't think it has any artificial sweeteners. Chicken tenders. I don't think so. If anybody really cares about that. I think we had this conversation sometime, maybe a couple years ago, where we were talking about how I don't really have cravings, you know, because ever since college, I've always looked at food as can that make me bigger? Yeah. You know, if I had any room in my stomach, I was only going to put something in there that would make me bigger.

And so that's kind of how I always looked at food. I really don't have a sweet tooth like that. That's awesome. I remember. Yeah. You said that when you would let loose, you would have strawberries. And I just remember I looked at, you know, looked into myself and be like, you got to get better, dude. Like, I got to get better.

That is a huge treat for me. I recommend that to all my clients. That fat-free Greek yogurt, the Kirkland brand from Costco, tastes great. Most fat-free Greek yogurt, they taste like chalk. You know, they're pretty terrible. But that one has a real good consistency. And you mix that with some strawberries, that's a treat. That's a dessert to me.

And blueberries is your favorite, raspberries, whatever it is. But that's the likes. Oh, my God, there's one now. Costco has them. They're these little grapefruit cups. Have you seen those little grapefruit cups? They have the big grapefruit containers, but it's peeled grapefruit. And so you can eat a ton of it really fast. But these little cups at Costco, you just peel the top off.

They're in a light syrup. So I pour that out. But eating that with yogurt, oh my God. I've got a $100 a month habit now. They're a buck a piece. I've been eating like three a day. Uh, the same thing with none tablets at one time, I had a hundred dollar a month habit. I was drinking none tablets all day long every day. And after a while I realized damn things are expensive. And, uh, I had a hundred dollar a month habit just drinking. Every time I look at a particular food, I ended up doing that. I ended up calculating what's the monthly cost of adding this to my diet program. I went in the other day and bought salmon and steak. They have those – Costco has those little thin-sliced steaks, super, super thin slices of steak.

And I throw them in the Ninja Grill and I kind of tend to overcook them a little bit. It's probably not great with those – the heterocyclic amines or whatever. But they're almost like bacon at that point because they're crispy when they come out. But those are like 50 bucks a pack for salmon and steak. I got to the front and I'd only bought a few things. It was like $372. I was like, $372? I looked down and there's $100 worth of meat between the salmon and the steak.

But it's unbelievably delicious. There was a meat between the salmon and the steak. But it's unbelievably delicious in that. Again, I did that video on my YouTube and my Instagram of cooking the salmon in that ninja grill. Outrageous. And I'm not a huge salmon guy, but it was incredibly delicious. My daughter loves it now. She'll eat salmon almost every night.

Salmon to me is, I think, just a superfood. It's a fantastic one. I love it when the kids will eat those kinds of things, preferably over, say, a mac and cheese, obviously. In your house, do you guys get an opportunity to eat together? Does everyone eat like a little similar or is it just like kind of mayhem? We're kind of on our own schedule. We have a lot of family. My wife, Simone, she has 12 brothers and sisters, a number of which live in town and have kids themselves.

And that's kind of why we bought the big house with the big indoor pool is so we could have a place to host our family. Oh, an indoor pool. That's cool. Yeah, it's awesome. That's salt water, too. Oh, nice. Yeah, so the kids swim every day and they don't have all the chlorine eyes and stuff. You can use a lot less chlorine. It's got to be nice in Nevada.

In Vegas in particular, yeah, it's pretty nice. But the whole place facilitates the kids all gathering. They love to come over. They sing in the choir church and stuff. And so we get together. But sometimes they bring some pretty crappy food over. Samoans are kind of known for having a high-fat diet. You know, the pig and the – there's just a lot of gooey stuff.

There's not a lot of meat in a lot of that food. It tends to be really, really fatty. Sounds delicious. But the kids are always like, Dad, I'm hungry. Dad, I'm hungry. Nice to meet you, hungry. Stupid dad jokes, you know. Poor kids. Shit, I swore I'd never do.

But so I'll cook for them and when that opportunity, I like, you know, when that opportunity presents itself because, you know, I'm not just like, what do you want? I say, well, you have these three options

or these two options. I'll make you this or that, you know, as opposed to what do you want? And if what do you want is always, you know know something high in carb and low in protein yeah generally speaking you've uh turned a vertical diet into a great business for yourself i don't i don't think that that was the initial goal i think you just were like i think this could help some people and maybe i can make a little bit of money off of it but

i mean you've been at it for what like almost 10 years now or eight years or? Yeah, I think damn near seven years. Obviously the meal prep company is, was great. Had a little hiccup there last year. My business partner passed away and not appropriate to say anything bad, but I ended up finding out that there was half a million dollars in loans taken out against my company when that all transpired. And so we ended up having to shut down for about six months while I went through all the legal hassle with that. But then reemerged, reopened, and are fully in service now. And got about half my customers back, which is great. And they're happy that I eat the food every day and had had for years traveled with it you guys i brought it up here and you know uh delicious stuff and so i was kind of like you know i i feel for my customers because i'm i'm a client you know i'm a user and i'm pretty addicted to uh having

those convenient good tasting foods and uh so it's that that's been great. The Vertical Diet eBook was great. And being able to evolve that over the years from version 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0, and to add in some things and revise some things, and now we're very close to getting the 4.0 out. That's been awesome. And I provide the updates for free to anybody who's bought a previous version. I just, I think it's important to stay current and to make the, you know, whatever changes. It's interesting that your brother, Chris, Chris Bell said to me earlier, he goes, uh, how has your diet evolved? What's changed? And the major stuff hasn't. And what's interesting about that is I remember years ago I was on a podcast and some guy commented on YouTube down below. He's like, Stan just keeps repeating himself every time. I'm like, well, yeah, because I talk about the shit that works, you know, and I don't make shit up.

And I don't take these plausible or possible mechanisms of action from rat studies and then take these giant logical leaps into 27% improvements in this, that, and the other. And there's not a single human trial to suggest such. And a lot of people exaggerate the meaningfulness of particular interventions. And your audience probably knows the name of who those folks are. They're quite popular because they traffic in sexy, exciting things that, generally speaking, have very little meaningful difference in terms of outcome. And so the basics are the basics. And for me, I focus mostly on compliance how can i get you to do these things that work consistently over and over again and the vertical

diet includes a lot of food like there's a lot of different types of food on there it's not you know sometimes with like a very particular bodybuilding diet or paleo style diet or something like that it seems like you have to eliminate so much. It's funny that I got tagged in fruit and vegetables. As compared to the guru diet, it's funny that at one time I kind of got tagged as being restrictive because I had introduced FODMAPs to those people who were susceptible to IBS or to gas and bloating, and the FODMAPs is perceived to be an elimination diet, a restriction diet. It's pretty generous. It's over a hundred items on that menu and really I only proposed it

for those individuals who were susceptible to those things. It's individualistic, dose dependent but in comparison to the things like, you know, the typical guru diet where they exclude red meat and they exclude fruit and they exclude dairy and they take the egg yolk out and you're pretty much eating egg whites, tilapia, you know, broccoli and a tablespoon of peanut butter. That's your pre-contest diet. That was the go-to thing. So I was more inclusive.

I thought, you know, I was really providing a much more broad dietary choice. And so, yeah, I've tried to endeavor to find a program that people would consider to be something that they could adhere to long term. It became part of a lifestyle instead of something I did temporarily to achieve a particular goal. I did pull back on, say, people who are trying to gain weight. I was cautious about things like, you know, pizza, pasta, pancakes as being the driver of that, because we saw a lot of metabolic syndrome from that, as you and I both recall from being over 300 pounds. There's some things you can eat too much of and suffer the consequences in terms of fatty liver and insulin resistance and high blood pressure, et cetera, et cetera, and high cholesterol.

So I tried to make some adjustments for that in the diet. But at the end of the day, there's only three ways to lose weight. You have to be in a calorie deficit. And you can either calorie restrict, in which case you just measure and weigh all your food and make sure that you eat less than what you burn in the day. You can time restrict, eat in whatever window, and oftentimes that helps people to eat less total calories in the day. If you can't do it with a 10-hour window, then maybe you got to go to eight, maybe you got to go to six in order for you not to overeat over the course of the day. And the other one is restricting some sort of macro or food item, and that other one is, uh, is, uh, restricting some sort of, um, macro or, uh, food item.

And that's more like your paleo or your keto, or you eliminate carbs or you eliminate, you know, particular foods. Um, fortunately in the process of eliminating those foods, we tend to, they tend to get demonized and that's not the goal really. It's just, Hey, if you stick to this menu, you'll probably lose weight because you're taking out a whole bunch of calories from an entire macro group. And so it's only one of those three ways. And every diet can fall into one of those three categories.

And they all work for the same reason, the calorie deficit. It's just that some people find it easier to adhere to different styles of restriction. Some people find it easier to adhere to different styles of restriction. And whichever diet feels the least restrictive, whatever one you can adhere to, is probably the best diet for you. And that may change over time. That may be very effective initially, and then long-term you may decide, hey, I want to add this back in or that back in.

But meanwhile, there should be some process of education to understand that different foods have different satiety benefits, potentially different caloric density. When you start to add in a pat of butter here, a tablespoon of oil there, those calories can start to... You ever looked at... Probably not, but... You ever looked at McDonald's, those little dipping sauces? When I was working with John,

I probably told this story before, but I was working with John Jones. John likes to eat fast food. John eats what he wants to eat when he wants to eat, right? It's whatever he's hungry for. And I was just like, just eat enough protein, John.

Or don't just eat one meal a day because some days he would just eat one meal. And so really it wasn't rocket science with him. I was just trying to get some level of – and so we would leave Jackson Wink and Matt and I would be driving. I'd look in the rear view mirror and John's car would be in the McDonald's drive-thru. And I'm on the phone. I'm like, John. He goes, no, I'm getting gas.

You're getting gas. You're going to McDonald's drive through. So I looked up on the Internet the menus of the places that John likes to frequent and tried to at least give him choices. I do this in the vertical kids as well, because I think it's it's a great way that you can have kids able to do what everyone else is doing, but make particular choices. have kids able to do what everyone else is doing but make particular choices. And so I would try and find the higher protein, lower fat food choices for them at those restaurants with whatever fast foods they were. So I don't know where I was headed with that. You were mentioning the little dipping sauces. Oh, when I was looking at those dipping sauces at McDonald's, some of those were like 300 calories.

That little tiny cup. I mean, how do you get 300 calories. That little tiny cup. I mean, how do you get 300 calories in that little tiny cup? That's delicious. Wow, that is a very small cup too. Yeah. Holy shit. And some of them are very little calories. So there's going to be a huge difference of things. I can go to a restaurant and some guys are like, you know, they're on the vertical

diet and they're eating top sirloins and, you know, 96.4 beef at home. And they're like, hey, we're going to Ruth Chris. Can I just get a steak? I'm like, that's a ribeye with a cube of butter melted on it. So your steak at home is very different in terms of total calories. At home, it's probably a 350-calorie steak, and it's probably a 1,700 at Ruth Chris. So there's a lot of hidden calories, whether even like a pan-fried steak, what would you call that if you cook that in a, just cook a steak in a pan with oil. A lot of times it's a lot of oil

that you soak up into the steak that ends up in your, even just dressings on your salad. That's 300 calories that you probably aren't really accounting for. So it's good to get educated about calories. It's not necessarily good to obsess about them for some people. They don't like the whole process of tracking every single thing.

But long term, you should have some semblance of what foods keep you full and what foods are super calorie dense if you want to be able to maintain weight loss. On the steak side of things, I've never used used the ninja grill but like just air frying a steak i gotta tell you air frying when i used to air fry steak it would just come out gray all the way through it was terrible the outside inside it just looked terrible really okay the ninja grill is different i don't know how they do it they're magical over there there's something going on there's like little cooks inside or something. You know, these little elves inside.

Oh, like the Ninja Foodi Grill. The Ninja Foodi Grill. That's what I use. Yeah. The outside has that cooked, and the inside can still be pink. And so that's, again, when I get a client and I tell them, you need to get this Ninja Grill. And when they're on sale at Costco, sometimes they're like, on Amazon, they're like $199 or something like that. Sometimes Costco has it for like $119.

I'm putting out a blast. I'm like, Ninja Grills are on sale. You got to get down and get the Ninja Grill. I've done that. And they're, I mean, I've had guys who have signed up with me, their wives would be like, oh my God, this is so good. This is life changing. And I don't say that about a lot of things.

I've been in this business a long time. But things like a CPAP, a 24-ounce thermos to have hot food when you travel, and a Ninja Grill, those are pretty life-changing. There we go. The Paris Sandal version 2 is here. Last year, we partnered with Shama Sandals to make a sandal that all of you guys

would like to wear out, but would also be functional for your feet because, well, flip-flops suck and they're bad for your feet that's why we made these but these are the version two has a tan vibram sole which will last you thousands of miles a german leather footbed which will mold to your foot with every step you take so the cool thing about these sandals is that the more you wear them the more comfortable comfortable that they become. It has a heel strap so that it doesn't mess with the way you walk and you can have your natural gait, which is why in these Paris sandals, not only can you walk in them, which we're all walking, you can run in them, you can sprint in them, you can lift in them,

and they're going to be great for your feet. But now, rather than the all black version one we had, there's a little bit of color to the baby. So now you look a little bit better in these. If you want to get them, head to powerproject.live. We appreciate your support, and we are so pumped to get these on your feet. A lot of things, a lot of things you're sharing may not have changed a whole lot, but some of the influence that we see in the health space has changed a lot and we've seen a lot of things just end up falling right into our lap right into our hands where other people now are talking about the importance of strength people talking about the

importance of grip strength the importance of leg strength and I think we've been kind of sitting back being like yep all right here's our chance to speech. I'm almost a little smug about it. I got to be honest with you. Because I'm quiet. I've been in this business a long time and I'm patient and I watch people go through these evolutions, these different dietary trends that have come and gone and come back and gone again. And I saw a lot of folks, the whole running phase, run, run, run, run, run. Running's fine. But those people wouldn't lift at all. And they probably didn't prioritize protein. It was all carbs, run, run, run, run, run. Running's fine. But those people wouldn't lift at

all, you know, and they probably didn't prioritize protein. It was all carbs, carbs, carbs. I remember my pops used to just down spaghetti the night before a marathon and he would just feel terrible the next day. He didn't understand the whole process. The runner's world was not very good with nutrition for many, many, many years, certainly back in the 70s. And you're right. All the longevity people in that space now, well, I'm going to say all of them. Walter Longo is kind of a low-protein, you know, God forbid, mTOR.

I think David Sinclair, too. David Sinclair is the same way. Mouse studies and that kind of thing. But them notwithstanding, because they're both scrawny, everyone else is lifting weights. Peter Tia, kind of probably the most popularized, one of the most popular with his new book, Outlive. I've been following him for years as well,

and at times somewhat disappointingly, listening to him do the keto diet and all this other stuff and probably too much cardio. And he's even talked himself about the fact that he didn't have the right balance. And when strength became important, things changed. He started incorporating more carbohydrates in his diet, particularly fruits. uh, you know, more carbohydrates in his diet, uh, particularly fruits, uh, Paul Saladino, uh, when performance became a priority and lifting weights and getting stronger, uh, he went from strictly, uh, carnivore keto, intermittent fast, how many other things you could pile onto that list of fad diets. Uh, he, uh, now eats fruits and yogurt. But Mike Mutzel, who's a sharp guy,

masters in nutrition or biochemistry, one of the two, I went on his podcast years ago, and he was keto, intermittent fast. Now he eats carbs around the training window. Understanding how important performance is during that given time period where you're trying to provide a sufficient stimulus for progress. And the better you can perform, the more weight you can lift, the higher intensity that you can invest into that bout, the better results you're going to get from it. And so you're 100 percent right. We've seen this evolution now where strength is becoming important. We see it with women who are focused on – I think the CrossFitters especially kind of led the way. We saw this in powerlifting, kind of the transition from all men in the meet to half women in the meet.

And most of those women were CrossFitters. Because once – it's addicting. Once you start touching a heavy weight like a deadlift, I could do 10 more pounds or I could do one more rep. And that's, it's the same thing I do with the kids. You mentioned that, you know, what's important for,

for kids. Uh, and that's the hook. If it should be fun, it should have some sort of competitive, uh, fervor. If that's what attracts them to where they'll do more because somebody else did,

they saw somebody else do more. And we see that with women and now we see that with longevity people who have bought in. And the research as well supports, as you mentioned, grip strength for increased lifespan and healthspan, which I should mention is a proxy for strength. It's not necessarily you have to go out and get your grippers here. Any level of strength from any exercise, any resistance exercise, especially women, bone mineral density, we see a decline, an increase in osteoporosis as they age.

You can't fix that with protein and calcium. And sometimes the information, the studies that they do is just because of convenience. So it might be convenient for them to test an elderly person. You're right. It's a proxy. It's a convenient and repeatable test. But you need resistance training. I mentioned protein and calcium doesn't solve that problem. The resistance training component has to be included with those substrates in order to improve bone mineral density, especially in postmenopausal women. We see now that because of the low estrogen, it becomes important that they seek endocrinologist

input and potentially medication to increase their estrogen because that has a significant impact on bone mineral density and endothelial function. And so their cardiovascular disease risk increases after postmenopausal because of that. So, you know, you're 100% right. And it's exciting. You know, the industry has exploded as a result.

Of course, we've got bodybuilding, figure physique, bikini wellness, you know, people competing. The CrossFit, of course,'ve got bodybuilding figure physique bikini wellness you know people competing yeah um you know the crossfit of course is still huge but now uh you know just the gen pop uh the dad bods and soccer moms are in the gym crushing weights one thing that's real interesting about again matt widmer out at beat trading in cincinnati he's been doing this for over 20 years uh training gen pop in his gyms over there, runs just personal training centers. And he'll bring in people that have never lifted in their life and they're up in years and they maybe even have some injuries or coming from whatever else.

He puts their name on a board. He puts a bunch of different PRs. You know, mostly you go to a gym and there's a big whiteboard that just has like the biggest lift in the gym. He has everybody's name. He's got like 50 clients listed and he's got like 15 lifts across the board and now they start comparing themselves

to other, and you put their age there. Yeah. So they compare themselves to other women in a similar age group and what they're lifting and that starts to,

you know, get people amped up about making progress. But he measures everything by strength. And it's not just a single rep. It could be a five-rep this, and it's not just a squat, bench, and deadlift. He has a whole variation of different lifts. And every day they come into the gym, the goal is to set a PR of something.

It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't have to be a straight squat. It could be a five-rep box squat. Let's set a PR today. Pick one. And that's what they do. And that makes it fun. Cause it's like, you're going in and usually like most people, you can just do a workout, but if you have a goal for something, right. It's like you came out winning something out of your workout. A hundred percent. How did you like change things? Cause I

know you mentioned in terms of your nutrition, not much has changed. The concepts are pretty similar. Maybe it's a little few things adjusted here and there, but as far as exercise, you probably train a little bit differently than you did maybe a decade ago. Yeah. I mean, we've been doing the 10 minute walks forever, so I still have a, I'm still a big believer in having some GPP and general physical preparedness, obviously bodybuilding, uh, the way I used to do it in particular with the shorter rest periods and higher volume contributed a lot to my cardiovascular fitness, of course. Those things are still very important to me that I move around a lot. I breathe a lot.

What I do differently now and I do with my clients who experience kind of the same evolution that I did is I try not to hurt myself. I try not to do things that create an extraordinary amount of fatigue, even when strength is the goal. Last fall, I was trying to get my deadlift up. And so over about a five month period, I was only deadlifting once every four or five weeks. And I went from like a 635 to a 650 to a 675 to a 700 to a 725 over the course of five months. But I didn't, I deadlifted once a month or once every five weeks, right in about that. In between those deadlift times, I would use lower fatigue movements

to progress my strength that were transferable. One of them in particular was the box squat. I find that I'm just not as sore. It also replicates a deadlift much better. I eliminate the stretch reflex at the bottom, which you're not going to have in a deadlift. You have to create tension from the ground. Also, with the Kabuki transformer bar, as I'm coming up off the box, I lean forward a little more,

which really involves a lot of my lower lats and spinal erectors into the movement to stabilize, I think, just as though I were deadlifting. Because based on my limb lengths, my torso angle is over the bar. You know, I don't sit very vertical. And so you kind of want to try and replicate that as much as possible. And I just found that I was able to recover better from that. The other one is the Camber Bar Good Morning out of chains or straps. Yeah.

But Mark and I did when I was down here in 2009. You guys were doing that with some crazy love. Yeah, a lot of concentric stuff was the point. We had so many demands in such a short period of time that we had to try and get the greatest benefit, the greatest stimulus with the least fatigue. I did the same thing with the fighters. Some people saw – they posted a video of Jon Jones doing squats out of straps. And people freaked out that that was not a great squat or whatever.

But it was intentional not to impact his – not to add to his fatigue from training. He's a martial artist and I can't break him down in the gym. So I would pretty much crash down the eccentric, drop it into the chains or the straps, the spud straps is what we have at our gym. And then I would lift the concentric portion. concentric portion and i and i tried to the strain component of that the speed at which the bar moves is what's most important to me because it's going to you know strength is specific and you the closer i can get to replicating that the same speed uh the same amount of intensity or strain the more transferable it is and so i would do that and i would again i would experience less fatigue from doing those movements waves of three or four weeks building those each week tested on the deadlift

and that's i look at the at the bench squat and deadlift as a test uh but i don't i don't live there uh to train to to improve it because it's just for at my age it's just too fatiguing overall how about uh sodium i've been very curious about that um because pre-jiu-jitsu i'll take uh so like right when i wake up i take uh some sodium so i take some electrolytes a thousand milligrams and then i'll take another another shaker cup full of another thousand milligrams. And then post-workout, I'll have one of these big guys right here and it'll have two in it. So I'm, what is that? Four already? Yeah. I've gotten up to seven and I felt pretty damn good. And then I've had like six this week and then I would eat dinner and

I'd have to run to the bathroom. And I knew right away what was happening, right? Because these have magnesium in it. I'm curious, what are your thoughts and advice for sodium intake for athletes, specifically jujitsu athletes? Yeah, well, I'm glad you specified athletes because when I talked about sodium previously, the medical community went apeshit as though I was making recommendations for sedentary, hypertensive, geriatric people. And they had some issue with the timing. Generally, well, always, athletes will need more sodium than the general population.

It kind of depends on diet as well. I also mentioned that if you're not eating a lot of fast food or packaged food, that you'll want to supplement the sodium back in. So I said salt your meals. I'm not salting a McDonald's or a can of potato chips, but I will salt whole foods that you make at home by from the grocery store. Generally speaking, on average, you lose at least two grams of sodium

per hour of training from sweat. Huge variability there is genetically determined. You might use up to, Lane Norton burns up five grams of sodium per hour of training and he trains two hours a day. So he's burned up 10 grams of sodium. We might've talked about this last year, to be honest with you, because I went through and I spoke quite specifically about the fact

that Lane Norton had made a very similar video subsequent to mine about how he oftentimes will use up to 10 grams of sodium on particular athletes because that matches their demand. We like to weigh our athletes before and after training. This is consistent with the International Society of Sports Nutrition's recommendations. But we weigh them before and after training. And for every kilo of – about every two pounds of weight that they lose during training, we replace that with about 1.5 liters of water and then sodium and carbs with that. sodium and carbs with that. Dr. Sandra Goddick, who's a PhD in thermal regulation and hydration,

runs the Heat Institute and does most of the sweat testing on the NFL and hockey players. I just spoke to her a few weeks ago. Matter of fact, she's been helpful for me over the years, getting sweat test patches for a number of the athletes that I've worked with so she can actually determine what their actual sweat rate is. That can be important at a high level for some people. She's got a product called a Levelin, and it's somewhere between 900 and 1,500 milligrams of sodium that she'll add per liter of water post-workout based on what the individual's sweat rate was or how much they sweat out, along with carbohydrates for that. It helps with absorption. It helps replace some of the carbs that you burn. So she puts it all together into one drink. Now, that's a good recommendation along with salting your meals,

especially immediately post-workout if you're training a second bout that day. That's when it becomes really important to get that post-workout window satisfied. I like to put carbs in a post-workout window anyhow because they're absorbed much quicker and stored as glycogen and replenish your system. You don't necessarily have to, but they seem to minimize muscle breakdown. So they can be helpful with that. Now, pre-workout, intra-workout. I had always recommended, say, 500 milligrams per liter of water pre-workout. It seems that some people may, as you mentioned, running to the bathroom, some people with 500 milligrams per liter pre-workout,

maybe too much salt and they might end up running to the bathroom. Some people with 500 milligrams per liter pre-workout, maybe too much salt and they might end up running to the bathroom. Some people who tried to overdose the recommendations, you know, one is good, 10 is better, ended up, you'll end up throwing up or either throwing up or having diarrhea. It's not a more as better scenario. The recommendation is, let's put it in percentages, is somewhere between one% and 2% sodium. So that's going to be about 100 or 200 milligrams of sodium per liter of water and about a 3% glucose solution. So it's about 30 grams of carbs per liter of water. That's the easiest to absorb. It sets it up so that your gut is able to absorb the salt and water and carbs together. They work

collectively to transport the water as a vehicle. Somewhere in that range, so you're looking at half of an LMNT, wait, a quarter of an LMNT per liter of water, because there's about a thousand milligrams of sodium in an LMNT,. Or liquid IV is only 500 milligrams, probably half liquid IV per liter of water would be an example, and then 30 grams of dextrose. You put too much sugar in, like a lot of the Gatorades, et cetera, it can stimulate the kidneys to release water. You end up overpeeing.

That's what happened at my meet. That's what happened at Larry Wheel's meet when I worked with him some years later. I was downing, was it Pedialyte or Gatorade? I think Gatorade. Really high in sugar, not necessarily nearly as high in salt. It's made for taste more than anything. And too high in sugar, too low in salt. I started pissing every five minutes and ended up dehydrating myself and cramping. And that's when Mark and Jesse jumped in with nun tablets and got me rehydrated. So there's definitely a benefit. I get extraordinary feedback that people who start to implement this have much more stamina and endurance. Their performance improves. There may be a lot of people that don't come to training sufficiently hydrated and this protocol it may

just be the hydration more than the salt that are drinking sufficient water but at those doses it's very well tolerated larger athletes can probably tolerate more and may need more i'm always cautious about the salt concentration. That's the biggest problem with foods, packaged foods that are high in salt, don't have any moisture or any water with them. So you're getting a lot of salt with no water. The salt concentration, the amount of salt diluted in the amount of water, can a really high salt intake with not enough fluid can have an adverse effect on the endothelial lining.

So that's a secondary concern. Or even potentially increase some cancers of the stomach, which we see in Japanese populations who eat a ton of fish and tend to salt a lot of their food. So cautious, not a more is better scenario. Use it as part of an athletic program responsibly, probably the bulk of it. Throughout training, I might also mention,

you want to try and sip, you're probably better off getting eight ounces every 20 minutes rather than gulping a huge amount of it, especially if your bout exceeds an hour and a half, eight ounces every 20 minutes rather than gulping a huge amount of it. Especially if your bout exceeds an hour and a half, if it's a really long bout of training, you will and should have some weight loss during training. You're not trying to stave off all the weight loss. You don't want to be over-consuming water during whatever exercise.

Football practice, soccer, etc cetera, some of those sessions go well over an hour, in pads, lots of sweating. You're better off drinking something 15 to 20 minutes in a 6 to 8-ounce portion. Okay. Yeah, I was actually surprised at the amount that you recommended for intra-workout because, like, you know, I'll have days where I'm feeling a little, you know, tired from the morning workouts and stuff. And then so I'll pound a bunch of electrolytes and I'm like, Oh, I feel better. Same thing. If I feel good off of four, then I'm going to have five and six and maybe I'll have two before or during my workout or whatever. But thankfully I never did that because I'm like, I just need to slow down.

So the thought of taking even less than what I'm already taking like i'm gonna definitely give that a shot because like i said i feel great like afterwards when i when i do kind of ramp up the electrolytes and the sodium but then when i do a little like probably like the one or two too many that's when it cleans me right out and like i said what, what was interesting though, is like I did seven and I was like, Oh my God, like maybe I really do need this much. And then kind of like what you're saying with the noon tablets earlier, it's like, well, shit, like this is going to cost a lot. But, uh, what I'm getting at is I did find my threshold. And then even when I tapered back, I still kind of had the same stomach reaction to it. So that's why I was like, I got to ask Stan what the heck we need to do with sodium.

Yeah, more isn't better. And the nude tablets tasted great, but I started feeling guilty about my $100 a month habit along with everything else that I do. I'm kind of a cheapskate at heart. So I ended up getting on Amazon and buying sodium chloride tablets. There's no taste benefit to them. One of the interesting things that Sandra Goddick talks about

is that she likes to have, it should taste good and be cold. She creates these slushy machines, especially like for sports, if it's hot out, that can help cool the core. But for kids in particular who don't have a very good, for adults, she says, you know, drink when you're thirsty, but kids don't have a very good sense of that, and they can get dehydrated. So she says it should be cold and taste good. They'll be more likely to drink more of it more often. Okay, and then what if you are peeing a lot? Then I would think it was too much sugar.

That would cause you to start peeing too much. Okay, because I'm on my – this is going to be my second one of the day. And I feel like I'm still, I could handle like another two. Cause I'm just, like I said, this morning was a really, really good session, like head to toe dripping and sweat. So that's, I was trying to ramp up a little bit more today, but again, I don't want to have that, that GI issue later on in the day. But there are some days where I'll have like one and like running to the bathroom to go pee and nothing's changed you know my diet's pretty much the same every single day just maybe I guess I hydrated more the day previously and now my body's like we're good yeah well you get you kind of

after a while you get a little better at not having to run and pee all the time your body gets used to okay to holding on to that water there is an adjustment phase that was interesting one of your lifters yesterday came up to me and he was talking about Stan I get up like twice a time your body gets used to holding on to that water. There is an adjustment phase. It was interesting. One of your lifters yesterday came up to me and he was talking about, Stan, I get up like twice a night and pee. Is that a problem? I'm like, well, what's going on right now? A lot of times, you know, bodybuilders, powerlifters, strongmen, football players, et cetera, they have to eat a lot of food and drink a lot of water throughout the day.

And I know the conventional advice would be to, you know, cut off your water intake after 4 or 5 p.m. And as an athlete, you don't necessarily want to do that. You know, you want to stay hydrated and keep hydrated and you want to go to bed thirsty. And so I said, really, the only alternative is the story I told you back when Flex Wheeler was making me drink two gallons of water a day, which I think was too much. And I had this little, what do you call those little plastic uh kitchen aid uh garbage cans next to my bed so i wouldn't have to get up take my c-pap off walk to the bathroom turn on the light what i would just do the whole roll over i'm telling you brother i'm telling you the time

you get up two times a night take off your c-p, walk to the bathroom, turn on the light, it's so much easier. You just had a catheter installed. No, I'm not doing that. But my 92-year-old pops, again, I mentioned he lives with me. He has one of those because he can't get up on his walker in the middle of the night and walk all the way to the bathroom. So he's got one of those little plastic hospital bed type of things hanging there so he can go to the bathroom. And then when my 9-year-old son recently broke his leg, same kind of thing. He couldn't get

up and walk to the bathroom in the middle of the night, and I certainly didn't want to have to get up and carry him there every night. So he ended up with one of those little plastic bottles. And so that's what I told your lifter last night. I said, brother, you get one of them little plastic bottles, your problem's solved. I said, you hardly even have to turn over, depending. I mean, you could probably just lay right where you're at

and dart. And hang it over into the can. No, that's Andrew. Yeah. Amazing. Higher Project family, if you're trying to increase your muscle mass, if you're trying to lose body fat, if you're trying to stick to a nutrition plan, if you're trying to get fit, pretty much if there's anything you're trying to do for your health, we know that sleep is the biggest determining factor to help you get from point A to point B. That's why we've been sleeping on 8C mattresses for probably more than two years now. And the main reason is the technology behind the Pod Pro. Now, the Pod Pro is like the Tesla of beds. It will change its temperature based off

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Again, eightsleep.com slash powerproject. Links to them down in the description as well as the podcast show notes. One last question before Andrew takes us out of here. And that is, can you give us your thoughts on what are, you've talked many times before about how important it is for most people in America to lose weight and the health benefits associated sometimes with even just losing about 10% of your body weight. What are your thoughts on Ozampic and some of these other types of drugs that are helping to suppress people's appetite? Is there something that we're not paying attention to?

Is there something that's going to rear its ugly head with these particular pharmaceuticals? I don't see it at all. I think it's one of the most amazing things to tools that has become available, incredibly effective, significant safety profile. I don't think any more so side effects than would be for that kind of weight loss in the absence of, I know that Dr. Peter Tia came out recently and made the claim that people were losing muscle at a greater rate.

And in fact, that's not the case. And we have obviously with, you know, us recommending lifting weights and eating sufficient protein, you can completely. Maybe taking a little testosterone. Maybe a little bit of that too. You completely eliminate that problem. Yes. They're incredibly effective. I mean, I've said many times that the biggest reason that people can't adhere to a diet is hunger.

And willpower is not an effective strategy to overcome hunger. You're not lazy. You're not undisciplined. I mean, there's a whole hormonal milieu that says, you know, F off, get me some food right now. And you're just miserable. And, you know, we utilize a lot of techniques for that. We have a whole toolkit full of satiety things, eat more protein, eat more fiber, you know, drink more water and sleep more. And, you know, whatever.

They're largely ineffective, I've got to be honest with you. I always felt like I landed in the wrong industry with our 90-plus percent failure rate. You feel bad all the time when you're trying to help somebody, and the recidivism is terrible, and most diets don't work, not specifically because of the diet, because of lack of adherence. I always said I wished I'd gotten into the chiropractic business because 95% of pain resolves itself spontaneously within four to six weeks no matter what the hell you do you high-five the guy to on 10 visits and be like you're good

I'd like to be in a business that kind of success rate irrespective of the intervention but those medications are unbelievably effective some people you know as everybody it's individualistic. They'll respond with more gastric distress than others. The same thing would happen with, say, metformin. Some people just get nausea. It does slow down gastric motility, the rate at which food passes through your stomach and your intestines.

That can cause a problem for some people in terms of, say, constipation or whatever, but you're just going to drink plenty of water. The recommendation there is just to titrate appropriately. Don't just jump right in at one milligram a week. You know, I would even, and they have weekly injections because they found that it's more convenient for the individual. The compliance is better.

Me, who's, you know's quite accustomed to jabbing myself with every other drug on the planet that makes me potentially bigger or stronger, I don't mind daily injections. You can do that. And daily smaller doses of more frequent injections can, and again, starting at a lower amount and titrating it over time, monitoring side effects over time, can help minimize the acute effects of the nausea, et cetera. So that would be my recommendation to try and get on the front end with some of those things. But my only complaint is that they're extraordinarily expensive. Not everybody can get them covered by insurance.

is that they're extraordinarily expensive. Not everybody can get them covered by insurance. The long-term weight loss maintenance is north of 16, sometimes 20 plus percent. Long-term weight loss maintenance in the control group is 2%. So, I mean, it's just nothing on the planet right now. People were talking about putting statins in the water because they thought that that would decrease

cardiovascular disease. That pales in comparison to the benefits of weight loss in terms of overall mortality risk. You talk about wanting to put something in the water to get people to eat less. who would wish that the government would intervene with ultra-processed foods because we see that overeating is the primary driver of the obesity epidemic. It's just increased calorie consumption and the availability of highly palatable, ultra-processed, high-calorie foods. And we see when you compare two groups of people that eat whole foods as compared to ultra-processed foods,

the ultra-processed foods people eat 500 more calories a day on average. That's really ultimately the foundation of it is what our obesity epidemic is caused by is over-consuming those kinds of foods. I did a video on the obesity epidemic some years ago, and I talked about the fact that I didn't, it probably would take government intervention to have a significant impact. Unfortunately, they'd screw it up and they'd charge everybody way too much money and they would pilfer, you know, as is happening now, they'd get donations from all of these large processed food companies to usurp any benefits that we might realize. So I don't think that's an effective solution. We'll have to come up with something, but it's going to take something at a great level.

This is probably the second best thing to some sort of intervention is using some of the glutide, ozempic, and the others. My big concern is that I thought it was too expensive. Merrick Health has, through their compounding pharmacy, pharmacies, one of the largest in the country. FDA is on site. This is why it really maddens me that you get some MDs that complain about using compound pharmacies. And the reason being is because their customers are going to compounding pharmacies to get this medication for less than half the price. And so they lose the customer.

It's not like they're getting kickbacks from pharmaceutical companies. And so they'll make these absurd claims about compound pharmacies being unsafe. But they are FDR regulated, and there are certain to be bad actors out there. But they're very safe, very efficient, very effective. Pharmaceutical companies are by no means absent responsibility for the most sued companies on the planet. Sixty thousand people died from Vioxx. died from Vioxx, I wouldn't want to bank on pharmaceutical companies to be more responsible than on average than the alternatives at an FDA-regulated compounding pharmacy. But yeah, you can, through Merrick Health, you can get the same medications.

They're very similar, very effective for about half the price. And I think that right now cost is the biggest barrier to entry. And I think more people suffering, I mean, 70% of our population is overweight or obese. More people should be losing more weight. And if this is the most effective intervention, we should make it more affordable for them. So just a question along with that. In theory, if somebody were to use Ozempic or semaglutide, Peter Atiyah mentioning how people lose muscle, would it just be a sense like your appetite is blunted and you have nausea so you don't end up

eating as much? When you do eat, you want to prioritize trying to get protein and try not to eat hyperpalatable food because it seems like if you have your same diet habits, but now you're losing a lot of weight and now you're just eating still processed crap. They did find that when people go off the medication and if they have their same crappy diet habits, they can gain their weight back. It's one of the concerns that some people have is that it becomes a lifetime medication because the behavior change doesn't come with it. So there should be some good counseling. And I want to go back and reiterate that because Dr. Peter T. has said that people were losing muscle,

it doesn't mean it's factual. It means when you compare a similar weight loss, whether it's ozempic or in the absence of that, you get a similar muscle tissue loss. He doesn't have any evidence to point to. This is what he said he saw in his clinic. We don't have any randomized control trials showing that that's factual. I just wanted to make sure and mention that that shouldn't influence somebody's decision. If you had any concern about that, eating sufficient protein and lifting some weights completely solves that problem. Take us out, Andrew.

So they want to put statins in the water? Why can't they put like Anovar in the water? No kidding. That'd be great. I did have one more question, but really quick, Stan, uh, where can people find you online and learn more about the vertical diet eBooks and the meals themselves? Yeah. StanEfforting.com is the website. Uh, eBooks are on there and, um, uh, meal preps on there at Stan Efforting's Instagram and Stan Efforting on, uh, YouTube have some videos on there, free content. Got it. And then so my son is two and a half years old. He loves steak.

He loves Monster Mash. That's like his main thing is meat, rice, and fruit. We're doing a really good job with his diet right now. He doesn't want sweets or anything. Obviously, he doesn't even know they exist. But for him, at what point should i start being concerned with like saturated fats and that sort of thing i mean it's always a good idea to make sure that the the dietary pattern uh is healthy and saturated fats are are kept

you know i'd say below 14 before you start to see a significant increase or potential increase um but keep those fruits and vegetables in throw in some the only thing i would add to that is if below 14% before you start to see a significant increase or potential increase. But keep those fruits and vegetables in. The only thing I would add to that is if you can get him to eat a little bit of fatty fish, tuna, salmon for EPA, DHA here and there, however you can get that done, and then a little yogurt, whatever, you can mix that such that it's palatable for him. It would be two great additions to his diet. Yeah, he digs yogurt and protein right now. Yeah, sometimes it's smoothies if you want to get vegetables for kids. He does smoothies as well.

Yeah, you can sneak them in there. Cool, very good. All right, Mark, we're out of here.