Transforming Your Health into a Competitive Advantage in Business | Ted Ryce

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testosterone is a symptom of the problem clomid by the way what it does is it stops this process called aromatization what is aromatization it's when testosterone gets converted into estrogen guess where that happens in your fat cells in fact women need that because it and you know women who compete in like bodybuilding and natural bodybuilding without drugs they're when they get super lean their estrogen levels drop the number one thing that's causing issues with testosterone is excess body fat, especially visceral body fat.

Guys are so quick to go out and take TRT.

If you wanna do things the right way, you gotta fix the root cause.

You have to lose the excess body fat.

All right, Ted, dude, so excited to have you on the show.

These are some of my favorite shows because I would consider myself like a like a fitness hobbyist you know i would never ever present myself as i know what i'm talking about but i loved to try all kinds of different exercises uh routines uh i got a cold plunge i got a sauna i got you know i love and you know what's fun is i like the testing part because you find out what works and what doesn't but i technically don't know anything.

So I love when I get people like yourself on here that I can just pepper with questions.

And I know the audience loves it too.

So thank thank you so much for your time, my friend.

Yeah, happy to be here.

And I appreciate how you're starting out because I deal with a lot of people who

they believe they know a lot.

And in many cases, they do.

But the way I define how good you are at health and fitness is the real world results.

Just like you would say

to someone who's giving business advice like, oh, here's what you need to do with your business.

You got to do this.

You got to run these ads.

It's like, okay man you must have a killer business ah actually we're struggling it's like okay

i don't think i'm gonna listen to you then right and so um so so i think that's really important

and

there are people who and we can talk about this too there's a lot of people who get results but don't even know how they're getting them like low-carb diet people or carnivore diet people they're like oh carnivore diet changed my life it's like no you finally got into a calorie deficit.

You lost the weight.

Your inflammation came down because visceral fat secretes inflammatory chemicals.

It makes you feel horrible, increases, you know, oxidation and stress in your body and all these things.

And you lost that visceral fat and now you're feeling better.

But you could have used, you could have even done a vegan diet, right?

So we can get into all that.

You know, you just let me know where you want to start.

Yeah, so I'm going to use this as like a personal fitness consulting hour that I get.

So I'm just going to pepper.

Now, yes and no.

Go for it.

No, I know that I know the audience loves this particular topic.

So our audience, and

it's a tremendous group, it tends to be men and women who are driven, ambitious.

If you listen to all the crazy shit on the show and the people I bring on, right, and you stick around, then this is kind of where your head is at.

And, you know, I know fitness is a big part for a lot of people.

And there's, and I did a poll about six months ago and got a, got some like feedback on the audience.

And a lot of our listeners tend to be in like that 35 to 50 range.

We do tend to skew more towards men, but we have a lot of females as well.

And

people are kind of across the spectrum in their health journey.

I didn't get detailed in the question.

It was more like, where are you?

And where would you classify yourself in your health journey right now?

And I'd say it's a very broad spectrum.

So,

you know, don't feel like you're being too simple or too complex.

There's people across the board that have interest in these topics.

So

I really want to focus on the transition in health from 30s to 40s and using that as the construct.

One, that's kind of what I just went through.

I'm 44 years old.

Two, a lot of the people that I interact with, peers,

even some of the founders and stuff that I coach,

they're either coming up to that transition, right?

Which tends to be a moment, or they're kind of, they've made the transition into their 40s and now they're going, hey,

I would like to be fit as long as I can into this second half of my life.

So I'd like to use that as our construct as we talk through this, because I know your recommendations or ideas for a 22-year-old would be different for a 50-year-old.

So we'll kind of use that as our construct as we talk through these things.

So

first and foremost,

you have this quote that I think is fantastic and kind of sets the table for our conversation today, which is success means nothing if you're exhausted, right?

I love this because it's right to the point.

If you're waking up every day and you feel like crap or you don't have energy or you're just not excited about who you see in the mirror, that sets the tone for the rest of your day.

So one,

I'd like maybe you to talk a little bit, just kind of give us some context around your own health journey and where you've come from and kind of where you're...

why you've made this your career.

And then I want to get into some very specific things and start talking through some things.

Yeah, sure.

So

health and fitness saved my life.

Everyone thinks when they meet me, oh, you must have played sports in high school.

It must have been a jock, but I wasn't.

I was a weed smoking, skateboarding,

rock t-shirt wearing kind of

guy, right?

And

when I turned 19,

ended up going, I kind of screwed around in high school, didn't do well.

Got into college, started really getting into physiology, and I wanted to study neuroscience.

I was in particular, I was super fascinated by it.

And then

I don't know how deep you want to get into this, but my nine-year-old brother was kidnapped and murdered.

And it's like big news, big story in Miami.

Anyone who was living in Miami during that time knows my brother's name, Jimmy Rice.

Don't look up the story.

It's really bad, but it was a very high-profile case.

They ended up catching the guy who did it.

But when it comes to my story and how that plays into why I chose Health and Fitness to dedicate my life to, is because during that time, I was like, okay, my life is over, right?

I didn't have my parents, like my parents were very focused on,

they got laws passed and they did all this great stuff for missing children in the United States, met with two presidents, et cetera, but I was just falling apart mentally, emotionally, and including physically.

And I dropped out of school, didn't know what to do with my life.

And

I ended up

finding my way into the gym again.

Because although I was like the skateboarding kind of party guy, I had lifted weights too.

And I did martial arts.

So I wasn't completely just, you know, I was a skinny, very active kid.

I just happened to party and that was kind of my thing.

And

I found my way back into the gym.

And that was my path to healing.

That was my path to getting back to a place where, like, oh, there is a light at the end of the tunnel after this terrible, tragic, horrible story, right?

That really devastated my family.

And put me in a dark place that took years to come out of.

And again, health and fitness was the thing.

And I want to make it relevant to everyone listening because that's a really hard story.

Like, hopefully nothing like that will even, even remotely similar to that will ever happen to you, I hope.

But we all go through hard things, right?

Your parent, best case scenario, you have the best childhood in the world.

You're going to watch your parents get old and die.

In fact, a lot of the people in the demographic that that you mentioned, that's who I work with, my clients, and we can talk about this because people love to talk about, like, oh, my metabolism is slow.

It's like, no, you are a caretaker for your dad who has cancer for the second time, and your mom who has signs of Alzheimer's.

And, you know, it's like these things that

happen in our social life that

really take a toll

on our time, on our stress levels.

And so a lot of people in their 40s end up having kids that require a lot of money, attention, and then require, and then have parents that require a lot of attention and sometimes money too.

And that's what a lot of people's experience in the 40s are.

So what I do is, again, health and fitness help me pull out of that bad place.

And I help

People who found themselves in a place where like, man, in a way, it's my best time of my life.

I'm in my 40s.

I'm more successful than ever, more confident in who I am.

And

I look in the mirror and I don't recognize the person

standing looking back.

And it's like, will I ever be able to get that back?

And a lot of people don't believe they can, but I'm here to tell you that it's possible and it's easier than you think.

So

I appreciate you sharing that story with us.

And while, you know, I'm assuming most people can't relate to the depth and public nature of the tragedy i i appreciate that you shared it to give us some context on you know you're you know we all have things right we all have things and and you know one of the things guys that i would i would caution you on this is don't compare your thing to someone else's thing your thing doesn't need to be as perceptually as big or disastrous for it to have a similar impact on you, your body, your mental, your depression, right?

So it's not like, you know, for you, it could be getting fired from a job or it could be a girlfriend or your wife leaves you or you're just having problems or, you know, a business partner does something.

You know, there's, there's plenty of things that can put us down this spiral and don't feel like your thing isn't as important or whatever.

Like we all have things and we have to pull ourselves out.

And that's what we're here to talk about today is how do we optimize our physical health?

Because I've been saying for a long time on this show, your health's a competitive advantage, right?

When you're thinking about competitive advantages in business, your health is a competitive advantage.

And I mean this sincerely, you know, I,

and I, I'll, you know, my kind of story with health is I had college athlete, athlete in high school, always just saw myself as this athletic guy.

But then into my late 20s, early 30s, I had kids, I was married, working a lot, all the things you just said, right?

In 2017,

I am hosting a conference and I'm seeing it.

And the final session of a two-day conference was I was doing a fireside chat with our last speaker to close out the day.

And I'm standing behind the curtain and we're like two or three minutes from going on.

And I collapse, pass out.

My physical health, my drinking too much, not sleeping, eating crap,

you know, just all the things.

I paid zero attention to any of them, you know, because I was so focused on work.

And the speaker had to go out on his own.

And essentially, I walked out, sat in the chair, you know, after pulling myself back together

and basically said, Hey, I think, you know, his name was Michael.

Michael wants to get after it, Michael.

Dude, we're here to see you anyways.

Go do your thing.

And I sat in the chair and literally was like worried about passing out again while he went and did it.

Thank God.

And no one even knew in the conference it was fine, but I realized I had hit this low.

Like, if I can't at 36 years old or whatever I was, not being able to make it through a two-day conference, you know, without passing out is bad.

And that's when I started my journey.

And what I found at that time was, and when I started to lose weight, is all of a sudden I could create more.

I could be better for my team members.

I could give more attention to my kids at night because I wasn't exhausted by the day.

Like all these amazing things started happening.

So

someone comes to you, right?

And they're in the situation that I'm in.

They want to get better, right?

So you're not convincing them they need to get better.

They've come to you and said, hey, I'm in this place.

I'm 20 pounds, 25, whatever it is, 40 pounds overweight from where I would like to be.

I don't have energy.

How do you start digging in with them?

Like, I know a lot of people get stuck on where to start because it feels like such a big thing.

Do I start running?

Do I start lifting?

Do I take testosterone?

Where do I get started with this journey and turning my health around so I can make it a competitive advantage for me in business.

Yeah, and the real answer is hire an expert like me

and they'll be able to guide you through the process in a way that doesn't lead to losing the weight, gaining it back or overdoing it.

But I know that's going to come across self-serving, but that is the truth, right?

If you want the fastest

the fastest path to regaining your health and getting into shape where

you you can be in the best shape of your life in your 40s 50s even 60s

provided you weren't like an olymp like an elite athlete in your 20s of course right so

but let's get into the steps like separate from that but i just want to drop that because how do you grow your business the fastest if you're not already like just a business wizard well you hire someone to help you right you hire a mentor you want to get good at golf you hire someone to to help you want to get good at tennis hire someone to help you I got my black belt a lot faster I told you earlier I got my black belt in jiu-jitsu a lot faster than I had planned on I was planning on spending a year in Brazil to make it happen I thought it would happen in like nine months some eight or nine months I got in

less than six months because I hired someone.

I hired the best person I could to train with.

That's and

helped me level up.

And I was already good, right?

But, and I think that's another thing.

A lot of people are like, oh, but I know what I'm doing.

It's like,

and here's coming into the part where, you know, if you're not sold on working with someone yet, totally cool.

But here's what I want you to focus on.

Then

you think you're knowledgeable about health, fitness, diet, and you probably are in a trivia sense.

Like if you go to a party and you can talk about the ergothionine and shiitake and king oyster mushrooms and the sulforaphane and broccoli sprouts, fantastic.

What results can you get for yourself and health and fitness?

What are your numbers, in fact?

So that's what I start off clients with.

Go get a DEXA scan to see your body fat percentage and also your muscle mass.

and your specifically your visceral fat.

Not all DEXA scans do them.

So you have to make sure you go to one that will test how much visceral fat you have.

Because if you have that,

you're not that healthy.

Because

I'll come back to the data in a second, but

a big mistake people make is tell them stories,

they tell stories about what they're doing instead of about the results.

It's kind of like someone in business saying, hey, we're running ads.

I just hired a rock star.

Man, our business is crushing it.

We're closing deals.

How much money are you making this year compared to last year?

Right?

If that was the goal, let's say.

And if it's not different, then you're just talking.

It's just talk, right?

And so, there's people, I remember a very obese guy telling me, Hey, listen, I drink green juice and I'm eating the acai and I'm doing this.

I'm going, I'm doing cardio, I'm lifting weight.

It's like you're out of shape.

I don't need anything else.

Yeah.

What you're saying is completely irrelevant.

And so, um,

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And I went through this journey too, where I had the same thing.

I had a story about, I was also got out of shape in my mid-30s and changed things around after that.

But start with data.

Go get your blood work.

I work with so many high-performers, they haven't been to the doctor and gotten blood work in a while.

This is, if you're in your 40s, you don't have time to mess around.

I had one client, he went and got a CT, not a CT skin, a calcium score,

and it was elevated.

Calcium score is how much hard plaque is in your arteries.

It should be zero at his age, but it was quite high, right

and so um

so get the data get a dexa scan if you have heart disease risks in your family get us calcium score i i had a ct angiogram i don't even have heart disease in my family luckily it came out fine go get your colonoscopy because um people are getting colon cancer earlier than before um and can i can i ask you one question for the dexa scan so i have one of those um

the brand that I use is Withings, but that's a DEXA scan scale.

How accurate, like, I know it's probably all relative.

Like, you want to see the numbers in general heading in the right direction, but like, how accurate are those types of scales, like at-home scales?

Yeah, they're typically not, right?

You want to go to an in-body at the very least, which is bioelectrical impedance.

And a DEXA scan is best.

now a dexa scan does come with a little bit of radiation but it's very very low right like so do dental x-rays and so does flying in an airplane and you know a little bit of radiation never hurt anybody you know what i mean it

yeah

outside my realm of expertise and i'm very i'll tell you when when i notice of like a radiation dosages it's not something i read a lot about but but anyway it's not gonna it

you know it's it having a DEXA scan is is gonna

help you a lot so one of those scales would be good in general for trends if you're if you're if you're in the process seeing you know obviously weight but seeing like you know uh uh fat percentage come down visceral fat percentage come out like muscle muscle mass going up as a percentage by like seeing the trends it might help but ultimately if you want to know where you're at you need to go to a facility and get like a DEXA scan and get an in-body scan so that you have like real accurate numbers yeah DEXA scan is going to be best.

And because the widthing scale, it's, you know, I've seen it trend similarly with

DEXA scans or embodied

or biolectrical impedance.

But man, it's just,

it's kind of like a better guess

instead of even the DEXA scan has a margin of error, but it's quite low.

So

yeah, there's always margin of error, but but definitely the Dexa scan is like the goal

standard when it comes to that.

So I uh I have a whoop.

I'm not wearing it right now because I go through cycles with it because I don't love having it on my wrist, but I love the data.

And

the scale.

So guys, so you know what I'm talking about when I say a withing scale.

And there's other brands.

This is just one brand, but like it's the scales that you step on and you pull the like little bar up and you hold it and it sends electricity through your body and figures out, you know, these different things.

And

I found it good for trends, but I've always kind of been like, because right now it says my body fat is like, this morning it was like 7.7%.

That's not accurate.

And I'm like, I'm like, look, I know I've

been in your face, right?

Percentage down.

Like, I know that's true.

But to think that I'm like 8% body fat is crazy.

Like, that's just not, this is not the truth.

You would have veins, and here's how you know how lean you are.

It's not what the muscle striations and that type of thing, it's the veins, the vascularity.

If you have veins popping, you would have veins popping out on your chest and your abs

at that level of body fat.

I would see veins on your neck right now.

Yeah, which I

for those just listening to the audio, I don't have that.

That's, that's not, and that's also not my goal, right?

It's just that, that was kind of like when I saw that, you know, as I've worked through this, um, whatever, you know, I've been kind of on a, on a mission the last like three or four months to kind of get myself back to where I wanted to be.

I let myself, not go, but whatever.

It doesn't matter.

Um, and you know, I've always kind of been like, this feels like good for what direction you're trending, not, not like you could, you couldn't quote 8% body fat.

Like, that would be insane.

Like, you know what I mean?

It's basically another thing about that and low body fat.

Some guys feel like, I think this is a misconception that a lot of people have.

Like, the bodybuilders or let's say the men's health cover models, when they diet down, their sex drive is low, their energy is low.

Yeah, they might be 7% body fat, but they're feeling horrible.

They look amazing for sure, but a lot of guys, they can't maintain super low body fat

because of the hunger that happens, the lethargy, the low libido.

You want to drop your testosterone levels into the double digits.

which

if you're

you know if you're measuring nanograms per deciliter which is what you,

the metric that we use in the United States, it's like low is 300 or 280, depending on the lab.

I've seen bodybuilders with double digits when they get contest.

Now it comes back, right?

And these are natural bodybuilders because if they're taking testosterone,

their testosterone will stay at the level that they're ejecting,

right?

But

yeah, for natural, if you're natural, not taking TRT, which I'm not a fan of, by the way,

it's going to tank.

So just keep that in mind.

What you think might be your ideal based on, especially now with social media and with all the steroid use and,

you know, the women with the BBLs and getting liposuction.

And people get, guys get liposuction on their abs too, like Drake.

I don't have anything against people doing any of this stuff.

Like, for example, Drake's a, you know, a

rap

slash musician, rap, rapper slash musician.

But you could see going back, if you look at his photo, if he had this

crease in his abdominal area and his arms, you couldn't see any veins.

Right?

If he were that lean, you would be able to see vascularity on his, you'd see bicep and forearm veins just popping, but he didn't have that.

So, a lot of and people use software as well.

Yeah.

So, um, and I think just crazy times we're living in.

And I love that you brought that up because I think this is, this is what happens to a lot of people, right?

So, um, you know, I, my, my fight is against dad bod, right?

I don't want to be dad, not not even so much because I care about the look or what, I mean, I don't, I don't like the look.

I don't like the way I feel when I put on weight, but like, but at the same, it's more, it's more the discipline of it, right?

To me, when we start putting on the keg belly and we start accepting, you know, our back pain and our knee pain.

And it's like, to me, that feels more like giving up, like you've just kind of acquiesced to life.

And, you know, my,

you know, I say, you know,

I, I refuse to go quietly into the night.

I'm going to fight this thing kicking and screaming as much as I can in terms of taking care, being, being diligent, you know, focusing on fitness, focusing on what I eat, focusing on mental health and all the different things.

Like, right,

I'm not just going to, you know, ride out what the universe decides to throw me from a mental and physical health perspective.

I'm going to fight it, right?

That's kind of my goal.

And

really where that came from was

not this January, we just went past, but the January before, right?

So I live in upstate New York, used to 66 days of sun, right?

So in January and February, you're basically drinking vitamin D and doing everything you possibly can to not get like the winner, the winter uh the winter blues but i'm used to it every it happened no matter what you do you have this dip in energy just you don't see the sun all this stuff okay very used to that so not this last january but the january before so that would be january of 2024

it's like i ran into a brick wall dude couldn't get out of bed no energy brain fog no libido um

just the whole thing

And I knew something was different.

And I don't have a great GP.

Hopefully she doesn't listen to the show, but she's kind of not awesome.

I don't trust her, she constantly wants to put me on drugs.

What drugs?

So, so I've traditionally had very high cholesterol.

I'm not right, right?

I'm traditionally, so since I was a kid, I've had a cholesterol over 200, I've always been over 200.

And in the last 10 years, I've seen it go from 200 up to the last time I just got my blood work yesterday, but before that, I was at like 275 and it was over-indexed on the LDL.

So, but I I went, so I go to my GP

and, you know, I find, I get this number 275 or whatever it was, 273, something like that, doesn't matter.

She goes, oh, your cholesterol is high.

I'll just write you a prescription for lipitor.

And I was like,

I don't want to go on lipitor.

I'm just like, I don't, I don't want, one, I just don't like taking things that I feel are unnecessary.

And two, I know there are side effects to lipitor.

And I'm just like, I don't want to do that.

I don't want to just go.

I don't want to just like go on lipitor.

So

I'd done enough research, cholesterol being an issue for me as long as it has been,

to know that

that amount of cholesterol, if my plaque is zero, is essentially

not an issue, or at least not enough of an issue to go on Libitor.

So I come back to her and I go, well, can you write me a ticket to go get a plaque and a plaque scan?

Because.

you know, if my calcium is zero and my plaque, if my plaque is zero, then I really don't need to go on Libitor.

And she agreed and I went and it was zero.

So, you know, that was.

You got a CT angiogram?

Yeah, yeah.

I got the whole thing.

So you got injected with contrast.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

So I got the whole thing and,

you know, came back zero, which is great.

Awesome.

Okay.

So where I'm going with this is.

I'm, I, I ended up getting, it was one of the services that Humer, Huberman talks about for men's hormonal testing.

I just got an at-home blood test, right?

So it comes in the mail, you take the blood, you mail it out, and they send you your results.

And I did that twice because the first time I did it, it was 77 for all testosterone, not just free.

And the second time, it was 84.

So I'm like, I'm like in the sixth or seventh percentile of men for testosterone, according to the stats, right?

So that's not free testosterone, guys.

That's all testosterone in my body, which is not good.

My free testosterone was like five.

So

I ended up getting a prescription for NClomidine, M.

Clomidine.

I always promote E-N-C-L-O.

N-Cloma.

It's a natural, it's a steroid that naturally activates your body's like testosterone production ability.

And it's, you know, so it's not TRT or whatever.

You take it's sublingual.

And after about three months, that had an amazing effect, right?

My testosterone came back up.

And, but then I started, this is what sent me down the journey that we're on, that we're talking about today, was because I was like, oh my God, like I've been relatively relatively healthy since 2017, you know, varying degrees, but for the most part, I'm the healthier side for men my age.

And this, my testosterone just dropped off the map for, for two months.

And, um,

and that's what kind of put me down this path of, I'm not, I'm going to fight this thing.

Like, I'm going to make, you know, within reason, I'm not going to fly to some shady country and get injected with some experimental chemical, but, you know, with as much as I can, you know, as reasonable as I can be, I'm going to do the things necessary to create healthy longevity in my life.

And that's kind of how we got to, you know, wanting to talk to professionals like yourself who know so much about this stuff.

Because

you really have to do, if you're not working with an expert, this is the last thing I'm going to say.

And I know I'm talking a long time.

I apologize.

Last thing I'm going to say to your point about working with an expert,

if I wasn't like a

research OCD psychopath, right?

Which is what makes me good at certain aspects of my job, but like if I wasn't so willing to invest hours and hours into reading and listening to all these different people and comparing notes and trying to figure out what could work for me and then going out and finding the professionals that could help, right?

I have no idea.

And I'm probably still sitting here with super low testosterone, feeling like shit, just thinking

this is what my life is, right?

So going back to your point of working with an expert, I know guys that when, you know, someone like Ted comes on a show and it's what he do and you hear that, you're like, oh, that's because, no, what Ted said wasn't call me he said find somebody that you can work with who can be your guide because i'm telling you unless you are a complete psychopath this is very hard to do yourself and it will take much longer and you will make a lot of mistakes so i just wanted to double into that point that i found a local hormone optimization specialist who i work with here in my local area and she has completely changed your sausage mcmuffin with egg didn't change your receipt did the sausage mcmuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just five dollars only at McDonald's for a limited time.

Prices and participation may vary.

Game for me, but it wasn't until I found her.

I was doing all kinds of different things until I found her.

So, so I just wanted to kind of push into, I do think it's very important that if this is important to you, that you find somebody like yourself to work with.

Yeah, definitely.

And just to, um, so were you're taking Clomid, is that correct?

Because you said chlomidine.

I could tell you exactly what it is.

But I'll talk in the clomiphene, right?

Yeah, and chlomiphene.

Yep.

And yeah.

Yes, what that does is it stops,

again,

I'm not an expert in this

area, but what it does is it

stops.

So here's what happens, right?

Because we can talk about testosterone because testosterone is a downstream effect.

And so, what I mean by that is you might say, Man, my problem, I don't have any money.

I don't have any money.

That is my problem.

It's like, no,

do you have a job?

Is your business like that's that's a symptom of your problem.

So, testosterone is a symptom of the problem.

Clomid, by the way, what it does, to my recollection, right,

is it

stops this process called aromatization?

What is aromatization?

It's when testosterone gets converted into estrogen.

Guess where that happens?

In your fat cells.

In fact, women need that because it and, you know, women who compete in like bodybuilding, in natural bodybuilding without drugs, they're

when they get super lean, their estrogen levels drop, right?

So

the number one thing that's causing issues with testosterone, according to the best literature that we have, is excess body fat, especially visceral body fat, right?

And so,

guys are so quick to go out and take TRT or some other type of medication.

And look, you know what?

It's everyone, I've put things in my body, MDMA, marijuana, alcohol.

Alcohol is one of the worst things you can do, but I'm not judging.

But if you want to do things the right way, you've got to fix the root cause.

And the root cause is this.

It's like you have to lose the excess body fat.

And another thing about that is we know that there's what's called a personal fat threshold.

For example,

Chinese people get diabetes at a lower BMI.

right so at a lower weight bmi is just a measurement of your height and your weight They get higher rates of obesity at a lower BMI than Americans do.

Well, why is that?

Well, some people have a genetic predisposition to having diabetes or insulin resistance at lower levels of body fat.

Just like I was,

I had a CT angiogram too.

My calcium score is zero.

I had what's called zerostenosis in my arteries.

So there's no signs of any type of issues with my heart, with my arteries.

I'm 48 years old, but I had a precancerous polyp removed from my colon back in 2021.

And I have to get colonoscopies,

you know,

quite frequently, right?

So why?

Because I had a genetic predisposition to it.

So you can't compare yourself to people.

And that's why going back to the second thing I said, first was, you know, hire an expert to help you but the second was get the data right you don't want to tell yourself a story about how you're doing go get a DEXA scan go get your blood work right go get

go get a VO2 max

because that's a VO2 max test is something that measures cardiorespiratory fitness.

In other words, how fit you are cardiovascularly, because a lot of people aren't very fit cardiovascularly, especially if you're fat, right?

If you've got excess body fat, if you've got a big belly,

you may be going out and pushing yourself and it feels like you're pushing yourself, but the issue is you're already out of shape.

Your body is under stress already, right?

You have,

what's called oxidation is higher, right?

Oxidative stress is higher.

If you're too overweight, you're going to have some sleep apnea, so your sleep isn't going to be good.

You're going to already, and you're going to already have issues.

And as we get older, to your point earlier,

age is not just a number, okay?

It's a good thing to say that, and you should say that if you're currently saying that, but the reality is this,

even if you're like doing everything perfect, let's take this person doesn't exist, but let's just imagine there's a lean, fit person.

They've been fit their whole life.

They're like Olympic level of in Olympic level cyclist,

VO2 max, right?

And they just, they've been doing the same thing.

They've never changed.

The only thing that's changed is their age.

Their VO2 Max is going to come down.

We're super focused on building muscle and strength, which is the foundation, in my opinion.

But VO2 Max is something where you can get your strength.

You can be strong and have muscle in your 70s, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s, not a problem.

But your VO2 Max is like,

it's kind of like you have an opportunity, the younger you are, the more you can invest in it to build it up.

And then the, the less the decline, right?

And every year that goes by, you're missing out on that if you're not doing dedicated cardiovascular training.

And our levels of what's called low-grade chronic inflammation go up.

Scientists are call it inflammaging, right?

And so these levels of inflammation go up, even if you're doing everything right.

And if you're not doing everything right, which is like 99.9% of us, right, unless you live, unless you're part of the Shimani tribe in Bolivia, living off the land, right, hunting your food, which none of us listening to this are,

you're not as healthy as you think.

Modern life is just.

You know, it just, it is what it is.

That's why we have to work so hard to stay healthy is we're really working against,

you know, the amazing and fun life that we've created, but it's a bit far away from,

let's say, what our biology is designed for.

Yeah.

Okay.

So good news with the N-clomiphene.

I used it for about a year and then my doctor and I cycled off of it once we felt we had everything stabilized.

So it was more of like a

get yourself fixed and then all the things that you said so it was funny.

She said you basically what she said to me was

in order to get you back to operational speed we're gonna use this tool right for a period of time and then in the meantime what I need you to do is get your ship together because I

in the end of 2023 I was selling a company there was a lot of stress I was exiting you know, there's all this stuff going on.

So like 2023, I kind of, I had put on about 10 or 15 pounds from where I'd like to be, which is pretty much where I am today.

And so some of that and, you know, just all the things, right?

You, you, you, you, I'm just as susceptible as anybody else to the, oh, I'll just have one drink tonight because I earned it, you know, because I worked so hard today.

And, you know, that kind of shit like adds up.

And

I have a bunch of questions on some individual things I'm going to save for the end and kind of like, maybe we'll do like a rapid fire section.

But there's two, there's two additional topics that I want to touch on that I know a lot of people are thinking about, hearing about.

And let's start with the big one, and that's GLP-1s, right?

And as I shared with you in the pre-show, and I don't know that I've ever shared this on the show, but I'm obviously, you know, it is what it is.

I take Trezepatide, Mongorno, which is what is a second generation GLP-1.

I take a micro dose of that.

So I take one point something milliliters or milligrams or whatever the metric is.

I take it once a week.

And so, I'll give you what I have seen as the result, right?

Sure.

The reason that I wanted to take it, and I did months and months of research on this, right?

So, one, it wasn't about fat loss.

I was already on that journey and kind of knew how to do it.

It wasn't, you know, the things that I was the most interested in were: one,

reducing food noise, right?

So, one of the things that I found is with the micro dose, all my food noise is gone.

Still, still like to eat protein, I still hit my calorie numbers.

It's not like I'm just not hungry, but I don't think about food all day.

You know what I mean?

I don't get that.

I don't get cravings.

I'm not craving.

I'm just like, oh, I'm hungry.

I'm going to go eat eggs or I'm going to go, you know, do whatever.

Inflammation, which also comes with deduction of flat fat, but there's some anti-inflammation.

And then the other one was

I wanted to completely cut sugar for the most, you know, for the most part, any processed sugar outside of like fruits or whatever out of my diet.

And what I found is, again, with the micro dose,

I have zero desire for sugar, right?

So my, you know, my mom, and part of that was my mom went pre-diabetic about six months ago.

So there's a little bit of nervousness in me that that might be, there's might be hereditary to that or, you know, whatever.

And I was like, I'm not a big sugar guy to begin with, whatever.

So, so I have really enjoyed it.

I've had no stomach issues.

I feel like I wake up with energy.

I feel, like I said, no food food noise.

The inflammation stuff has been great.

And, you know, in general, it's been a very positive experience.

But again, I'm taking like,

I'm taking less than what is normally a micro dose for most people if they're going to do it.

So that's kind of where I'm at with these.

But I, you know, obviously we started, we were talking on the

in the green room and you started giving me your response and I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, like, I want to get into it in the show.

So talk to us about GLP ones.

You know, and you're not going to hurt my feelings.

So, so, you know, share your honest opinions on how people should be thinking about these, positive use cases, places we need to be careful, etc.

Yeah, and

I'm a little bit more biased against using testosterone

because guys are like, oh,

I couldn't lose the fat.

And then I started taking TRT.

It's like, no, you're eating too many calories.

You think you know that you're training properly, but you're actually not, right?

And then you take testosterone, you build muscle.

Like we've done studies where people,

one group goes into the gym, starts lifting weights.

The other group sits on the couch and injects testosterone.

I forget the levels that they use, right?

Because that's really not something I know like the specific dosages.

But anyway, the point is the people who sat on the couch and took testosterone gain muscle.

The more muscle you have, the easier it is to lose fat, right?

Because your body mass goes up.

By the way, what do you think is the number one thing that determines how many calories or how many calories you burn per day?

What's the number one thing, do you think?

Did you walk?

How many steps?

How much you weigh?

A 300-pound person requires way more calories to maintain.

You have to, the inner, like

it's like people saying, hey,

let's forgive the debt of the college students.

It's like, well, someone has to pay for that.

You cannot build fat.

You can't move to a desert island and, and

be starving and eating bugs and climbing trees for coconuts and cracking them open and barely getting by and maintain a 300-pound body if you're like

5'9 or 5'11, right?

It's not going to happen.

You simply don't have the energy to do it.

Now, this might sound controversial, but it's not.

There's a lot of what's called metabolic war data

showing like this is this is like the case.

So anyway, I know I kind of went off on a tangent, but I wanted to just be clear about that before moving on to GLP-1s, where I work with clients who take GLP-1s.

I'm not as against them.

And the reason is I think taking TRT because you

think, I think it's just,

I think it's a total cop-out.

Unless you've been, had a traumatic brain injury or you had a testicular injury and you actually need it, I think it's a total cop-out.

And there's so many doctors who will prescribe it.

Like, come on in, let's

do some TRT.

When it comes to GLP-1, here's what changes my mind about it.

We know that to some extent

obesity is heritable.

Really good person on this is Stephan Guianet.

He was on the Joe Rogan show

and he's written a book.

I've had him on my show a bunch of times.

When I first had him on, he's a neurobiologist that studies obesity.

I was like, what the hell does neuroscience have to do with obesity?

But the biggest breakthroughs in obesity, including GLP-1s, have come from neuroscience.

In fact, what do GLP-1s do?

All they do is they affect the reward part of your brain to quiet it down.

so that you're not like, oh man, I'm feeling a little stress.

Let me go get some M ⁇ Ms or whatever the case is.

So we know that there's obesity.

And this is something I changed my mind on as I've matured and educated myself.

It's like, okay, there's a reason that

I work with clients who are extremely successful DECA

millionaires and they're 260 pounds at 5'11.

And it's not because they're lazy or lack work ethic.

Uh-uh.

Right.

And then I work with guys who don't struggle as much.

And it's like, okay, something's going on here.

And some people just have,

this is all a brain issue.

And some people,

if it helps, here's my thoughts on it.

If do the right thing because you don't want it to be a cop out.

I've talked to people who wanted to work with me and they're like, yeah, but I'm taking a GOP1.

It's like, well, 25% of what you lost is muscle because you aren't doing the right things.

You don't know how much protein you're eating.

You're not lifting weights.

I'm glad that you feel better and that's great, but

I'm striving for X.

I help people who want to achieve excellence here.

And that's the ozempic face that people talk about, right?

So

when you do none of the work, right?

When you continue to eat the same

macro percentages, right, which normally are over-indexed towards carbs instead of protein, and you're not weightlifting weights, et cetera, and you're just taking the GLP-1s, that's when you get that kind of gray, sunken face look that you've seen in a lot of celebrities, right?

And, you know, this was one of the biggest things when I was doing my own research was, you know, I'm trying to get as close to my body weight, which is 195 pounds in protein.

And if I can be within 70% of that, I'm happy, right?

I mean, some days, you know, you go a little bigger, whatever.

But,

you know, that has been a big part of not having any, I feel, any structural changes is all I really did was ramp up the protein and keep the carbs enough so I had energy.

And that way, you don't get that Ozempic face that people talk about.

And if you Google Ozempic face, you'll see some pretty gnarly looking things.

But that's not a ton of that, actually.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

You know, you dig out of, there's a ton of, and what you see is like your fate, your skin starts to turn a little gray because they're not eating enough protein.

They're not eating enough food in general.

And they get this like skinny, fat, sunken face look, right?

Because they're not,

all that's happening, they're not doing anything to improve their body structure.

They're literally just eating less calories because they're, because the

GLP-1s is telling their body, you know, is not giving them that indication.

It's really wild.

So don't get a zempic face.

All right, keep going.

Sorry.

Don't get it.

Yeah.

And starting off with lower dosages, I think, you know, I've worked with several clients on GLP-1 Agonus.

And yeah, one of them still struggles.

So it's not a, it doesn't work the same for everyone.

And it's something that you have to

commit to long term.

In other words, the research shows that when people stop taking it, they gain the weight back, right?

I don't know about microdoses and what we know about that, but the food noise comes back.

And depending on who you are and how much food noise you have to deal with, right?

Um, maybe it makes sense to take a microdose for a long time.

Now, here's the thing: I've created like a framework, I call it the metabolic reset sequence.

There are ways that you can manage your hunger and cravings without that.

Um,

you know, again, depending on who you are and how much you struggle, you still might have to.

Yeah,

I'm not against using GLP-1 agonists, um, but again, in the context of doing the right things.

Yes.

And I'll say this too: if you're someone who's like, I'm never going to do the right thing, I'm going to drink alcohol.

I'm going to eat what I want.

I'm not going to exercise.

But

yeah, give me a shot.

Like, I'll take a shot though.

It's like, okay, then do that.

Right.

It's better than losing your life to being overweight, but I agree with you.

And just so everyone knows,

part of my protocol is

has been,

you know,

I have made necessary

physical activity and diet changes and structures and discipline to go along with it.

It's not like this wasn't just like, oh, I'm overweight.

I want to lose weight.

This was like, look, I'm trying to optimize myself.

I know the places that I'm weak.

I know the places that I need help with and the things that I want to keep out of my body, right?

Like, I, and I'm interested in your take on this if you feel differently, but to me, like, sugar is the fucking devil, right?

No, disagree, okay?

Yeah,

yeah, no, I'm into that.

So, look, yeah, go.

So, look, sugar, the devil, okay.

Um,

I'll start by saying this: sugar is found in fruit,

it's not structurally, there's different types of sugar, right?

Fructose, sucrose,

galactose, lactose,

but it's not so, so it's not really sugar, right?

And going back to this brain thing,

right?

Because nobody is overeating oranges.

There might be someone who's doing that, but that's a different problem, right?

What we're really talking about, the thing that hijacks people's brain, if you look at, like, when you think about sugar, tell me a food that, you know, like, oh, that's a high sugar food.

Tell me what you think of.

I think of candies, baked goods,

cupcakes, treats, ice cream.

Let's go with that.

Yeah, that kind of stuff.

So candy for sure,

like jelly beans, that's like 100% sugar.

Most people, though, if they're eating like ice cream or cookies, crumbled cookies or whatever, if you look at the fat content, the calories coming from fat are much higher.

or they're equal to sugar.

So what it really is, and this is, look, and I want to say this too, I was low carb, like staunch low carb carb for 10 years until I got fat in my mid-30s.

And I was like, I'm doing everything right.

Why did this happen to me?

And I was so frustrated.

And now I really, I get into arguments with the low carb community all the time because of this.

So sugar being the devil, if you have metabolic dysfunction, meaning if you're pre-diabetic or diabetic, the more sugar you have, the more it's going to disrupt your

your blood sugar for sure.

However, what even causes diabetes?

What do you think?

I don't know the answer.

I know it has something to do with insulin resistance, our inability to create insulin.

Right.

And what causes that is fat deposits in your pancreas, which your pancreas is what secretes insulin.

So what this really is, like you cannot cure diabetes by going low carb.

You cure diabetes by losing fat, right?

Or they may not, I think the medical community uses remission or whatever.

They don't say, cure, can you cure diabetes?

That's not, that's for, you know, someone for a medical doctor to really explain the nuance there.

But I'll tell you this: I've worked with diabetics and people with pre-diabetic blood sugar levels.

The way you drop it is by two ways.

Number one, build more muscle because your muscles are a sink for glucose.

You store carbohydrate in your muscles.

It's called glycogen.

For some people, sugar is a performance-enhancing food or drug or whatever you want to call it, right?

But if you're like sitting around and jacking up your blood sugar levels because you're munching on

gummy bears or whatever, yeah, okay, it's probably

probably going to mess you up more if you keep that up and you're not doing any type of exercise.

And in general, you have high levels of body fat for sure.

but it's kind of throwing eating sugars like throwing gasoline on the fire what's causing the fire it is the fact that you have too much body fat and specifically fat in your organs the visceral fat and again when like one of the biggest thing that one of the biggest issues is liver fat People have non-alcoholic fatty liver.

It's being diagnosed at higher and higher rates.

These aren't people who are drinking a lot, right?

So why is that happening?

Well, it's because fat deposits start to get into

the liver, start causing it to start disrupting its function.

So really the answer is not about going back to data, right?

Because

I eat sugar, right?

Let's say, let's go beyond just using macronutrients or a type of macronutrient, right?

Subtype of macronutrient, sugar, which is a carbohydrate.

What is the root problem?

If you can't, if you're, let's say, if you're not under 20% body fat, you've got work to do.

If you've got a belly, you've got work to do.

If you don't lift weights at all, you've got work to do.

And or if you have high hemoglobin A1C, which is a measure of elevated blood sugar over the course of several months, you've got work to do.

If you have fasting insulin, fasting glucose high, C peptide high, like the answer is not in the foods you eat, It's in

it's in your blood work.

It's in your body fat percentage.

Because we're going, now look, if that's a helpful heuristic for you to not eat sugar, I'm not saying to you or to anyone listening, no, you got to eat sugar.

That's not true.

It's definitely not helping you.

Okay.

But I want to make sure that we're clear, right?

On, let's say, you want to make sure that if your business is having a problem, you don't say, well, we need to hire more sales guys or you want to be sure, like, well, is it because we don't have enough sales guys to handle the volume, or is it, you know, or do the guys just need better training?

You want to get cause, not simple, you want to get to the root cause, yeah.

And so, look, sugars, and here's something else:

saturated fat never gets talked about because saturated fat was demonized in the 80s unfairly, and now it shifted to

sugar, right, which is now being demonized unfairly, and or carbohydrates generally and sugar specifically, without the conversation with all the nuance, because that's really the issue here is nutrition is very nuanced.

For example, there's studies showing like if you wanted to increase the liver fat in someone,

we know that saturated fat in

Having a higher percentage of calories coming from saturated fat increases liver fat faster than sugar does.

Nobody talks about it.

Why?

It's not popular to talk about.

Comes from research.

Research is boring.

You know, scientists don't explain it well.

And I'm not saying saturated fat is bad either, right?

Because again,

it's how much are you eating and who's eating it?

Because if I eat saturated fat, guess what?

I can see my abs.

I've got veins.

All my shoulder, you know, I'm lean.

It's not going to be a big deal versus someone who's out of shape.

Again, it's these things that people are missing.

So especially if you'll see a lot of people in the keto and carnivore community, I have this one screenshot from someone.

Now, we have studies proving this, but it's always fun to share the anecdotes.

I take screenshots from these groups.

There was a guy doing keto.

He was in a carnivore group on Facebook.

He was doing keto.

Lost a bunch of like 40 pounds.

I believe the the weight was.

He switched to carnivore to get even leaner because that's got to be the answer and he gained 20 pounds back after doing it and he was dumbfounded why

and people are you know doing mental gymnastics and in those groups it's completely insane what you read in there but it the answer is this if you go from doing keto which I don't like it, but at least you're getting veggies and doing other things and you're filling yourself up with

more than just meat.

What most carnivore people do

because they show it off in their pictures uh their photos right their social media photos they're they're cooking ribeye and in um in butter and then eating bacon and eating cheeseburgers covered in cheese you know like uh i'm sorry hamburgers covered in cheese it's like dude

if you overdo your calories

And especially if a lot of them, and it's easy to overdo your calories from fat.

In fact, the biggest change in the American diet is more calories are coming from fat

than before.

Now in the form of vegetable oils, usually, because

there's been an increase in, you know, junk food, basically, right?

And so people are eating more food, eating more junk food, eating bigger size portions.

But yeah, it's a more nuanced conversation.

Ted, so do you have a few more minutes?

I know we're over.

Okay, so I want to hit you with like like a a little rapid fire section maybe spend you know two three minutes on each one of these go you know because i think we could probably do entire episodes on each one of these things that i want to hit um and i'm going to jump around a little bit so um the first one i want to talk about is can i say one more thing before we go on yeah yeah i know i said something controversial so here here's what i want you to do if you're like nah this guy's full of it he doesn't know what he's talking about i there's an influencer on tick tock that said something different and so here's what i want you to do.

You can either do a couple things, actually.

There's something called, now I don't endorse these, but just as an experiment for a few days.

There's something called the potato hack, where you eat nothing but potatoes.

And potatoes, you know, people demonize carbs

and say they make you fat.

Potatoes actually score very high on

in satiety.

In other words, it's hard to eat a lot of them unless they're doctored up or embellished with cheese and sour cream, etc.

So do the potato hack.

Look at what it is.

It's basically eating potatoes, right?

Boiled potatoes.

You will lose weight because you're not going to want to eat a bunch of potatoes, right?

You just naturally start bringing your calories low and eating less.

So do it for three days and you'll lose fat.

If you want to test the sugar thing,

Do a juice cleanse.

A juice, it's not really a cleanse.

You're just losing body fat and you're drinking nothing but but juice, which is sugar.

And I don't love fruit juice generally, except for maybe pomegranate juice.

Story for another time, but

you will lose weight in three days of doing that.

Now you'll gain it back as soon as you go back to your old diet, but you can prove to yourself that sugar does not cause you to gain weight.

It can cause you to lose it and improve your if you did uh you know i wouldn't recommend going and have your blood i'm gonna put you on nephew all right um welcome to McDonald's.

Can I take your order?

Miss, I've been hitting up McDonald's for years.

Now it's back.

We need snack wraps.

What's a snack wrap?

It's the return of something great.

Snack wrap is back.

Done before and after, but you could do it.

And you're because of the low calories.

You know, because you on a juice cleanse, you're having something in the neighborhood of 1,000 or 1,200 calories per day in juice.

It's really hard to drink that much juice.

And you can see.

Sorry,

this is what I'm struggling.

I don't mean to interrupt you.

The reason that I've been struggling is my children convinced me to get a kitten, and the kitten won't leave me alone.

I apologize to everyone at home.

The last like two minutes, he has been messing with me, and I had to just get him out of the screen.

I apologize, Ted.

Cats listen to no one, right?

They march to their own room.

I'm such a sucker to allow my children to talk me into getting this kitten.

And, you know, it's whatever.

It's all good.

I apologize.

So anyway, you can try that experiment.

And that's what I suggest that you do.

Try these experiments experiments because to be honest people don't have the knowledge or experience to really even know like maybe I come across hopefully I come across this knowledgeable and confident in what I do because I am but but you don't know me so I might be just you know just another person test these things and you will see

that you can improve metabolic health and lose weight doing things that you wouldn't think were even possible.

Again, I don't condone those as ways of living or, you know, but just as an experiment.

Yeah.

And I think what I love about that is, is exactly what you said, the experiment part, right?

Like my, I'd say my fitness journey being not an expert, you know, armchair, you know, just hacking my own body, it's just been experiments, right?

Everything's been an experiment.

Does does does lifting weights or does boxing or does running or does yo, you know, what is, and then, and then once you find the things that seem to work for you, what's the cadence?

What's the rhythm?

How often, right?

Like, I was seven days a week lifting weights for a while.

I realized that was too much, right?

Then it was a lot of it, some of the stuff that I do too, just so everyone's clear.

And listeners know this about me, sometimes it's just mental health stuff, right?

So it's not even like I'm going to the gym to lift weights because I'm trying to get jacked or think that's even the right thing to do.

Your body needs a chance to respond, your muscles need a chance to regrow and

all that.

But it was more like mental.

But I realized I wasn't at a certain point, at a certain number of months of that, right?

I stopped feeling as good.

I stopped getting gains.

And I said, okay, I got to dial it back.

And now like two heavy lifts, maybe three a week has become a good rhythm.

But it, and you've said this over and over in different ways.

And I think it's just a core point here is we have to, one, we have to be intentional with this stuff, right?

Two,

there is absolute value in data and knowledge.

So your actual stats, as you've mentioned, working with someone who knows how to interpret those stats and apply them to you and what your goals are, et cetera.

And if you do that and think of these things as tests, like the potato hack or a juice cleanse, whatever, right?

All they're really doing is helping you get better in tuned, right?

If I'm taking what you said,

these little tests help you get in tune with what works and what doesn't, which then allows you to eventually come up with the routine that puts you in the best place.

I mean, that's what we're trying to get to.

And I think thinking of these things as tests or experiments is absolutely the right way, guys.

And too often, too often we just get caught up on like, like you said, I'm going to do keto, right?

And then it's, and keto is hard as hell.

And there's, you know, and it's very difficult, especially for the aid, this, this 35 to 50 range that we're talking about, because you have kids, you have a spouse or a partner.

Your job is probably the most stressful it has ever been at that point, right?

Because you're either growing it, if you're an owner or a founder or you're trying to raise up your career and advance to the next level so you have all this reality right that isn't just i'm gonna wake up every day and spend every minute that i'm awake thinking about my physical and mental health right so it's about finding that cadence and and to that extent you know i wanted to hit you with three over-the-counter uh now over-the-counter in most places um

uh we'll call them chemical compounds and and their impact on our body.

And the first is nicotine, right?

Tucker Carlson as Alps.

Joe Rogan's putting in Zins.

Talk to me a little bit about nicotine.

I just saw Dave Aspury was on a buddy of mine's show, the Mick Unplug show, which I highly recommend everyone listen to if you're into business stuff.

And he was talking about, you know, five milligrams a day of nicotine is great for mental health and, you know, fighting off dementia and all this shit.

And like, like, where.

One, is nicotine used positive at all?

Because some people will tell you, just in general, it's terrible.

Don't listen to anybody.

Two, is there an amount or range that feels like it does have some positive benefits?

And, you know, kind of walk us through nicotine real quick.

Oh, that's that's that's a random one, but I'll tell you, uh, I might smoke a cigar every once in a while, but I respond very poorly to nicotine.

We know that it's similar to caffeine in that it can, um, you know, enhance cognitive function, but it's more addictive.

It can cause issue cardiovascular issues.

The best thing that you can do to improve cognitive function is to get lean, make sure your VO2 max is high.

In other words, spend time doing cardio, things like zone two and HIIT training, and

lose fat, sleep well.

And caffeine

is a preferred.

I wouldn't mess around with nicotine, especially if you have an addictive tendency towards addiction.

Yeah, and I'll double into just

So I do, I use

Target Carlson's apps, Elp brand, mostly because they have a three milligram that seems to work very well.

I do one, maybe two a day.

I do have an addictive personality.

And what I found is because

of I have pretty hardcore hyperactivity.

And I found that one, it does help me focus a little.

And when I first started using these,

because of the focus enhancements, which were very positive for me,

at a low dose,

you know, if I kept dosing myself during the day, I felt awful in the evening, awful.

So I have to be very careful.

One, two, three milligram a day tops.

If I go to a third or a fourth, I immediately, and, you know, if you're, you, if you're not hydrated enough, the cardiovascular stuff, you can start to feel some heart palpitations, license of head.

So I would agree.

This isn't my favorite thing.

I have found that a small dose has a positive effect.

But if I go past the small dose, I see rapid negative impact.

So I would agree.

Stay away from it, guys, if you can.

If you do, go way lower than like they're selling sixes, nines,

in stores.

A 13-milligram pouch of Zinn, which I think Zin is the only brand in the States right now that sells like anything over 10.

That's going to put you on your ass.

Like there is no reason to have that much nicotine in your body, in my opinion.

Okay.

The next one I want to talk about is weed, right?

New York State, it's legal now.

It's legal a lot of places.

It's become commonplace.

If you drive down the road in most states that it's legalized, you're like driving by cars.

You could smell it everywhere.

You know, it has become very normalized in our life now.

What should you be thinking about with weed?

Is this, is it, is it,

is there, are there any positives to it outside of the recreational kind of take you away from yourself?

Or is this just pure recreation and if you're going to use the substance understand why you're using it don't try to convince yourself of anything else and you know just understand there's negatives to it yeah look i i i that was my drug of choice right and every once in a while i still might might do it depending on the circumstances but um

But yeah, there's nothing healthy about weed, right?

If you have cancer and if it helps stimulate your appetite

in that situation, it's like, do what you need to do.

But if you're trying to optimize health and you're overall, you know, I don't want to say healthy because it's a rare thing in today's society, but let's say you're focused on health and you have no major chronic illnesses, it's not going to help you, right?

It messes up with your brain chemistry, makes you more likely to have anxiety.

Again, I think that the

poison is in the dose.

And certainly, aside from the

cannabinoids that are in marijuana,

combustion, breathing in smoke, or now we know vapes, like oof, vapes are in particular,

we're starting to learn that's pretty bad for your lungs.

And so inhaling smoke is not good for you.

It doesn't matter where the smoke is from.

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, good.

So, so I

you know, I'd say in the second half of my adult life,

I've tried to replace when, in the, in the days when I'm running the excuse play of I need to land the ship, you know what I mean?

When I'm running that excuse play for my own mental,

you know, I've trans, I tried to, I've transitioned a little away from alcohol and I don't drink as much

or substantially less.

But what I found was,

and I liked it for that reason, right?

At first, but I found that Continued use over time, even once or twice a week,

I lost my snappiness.

You know, I wasn't like, I've always prided myself on for better or for worse, I could, I could index things in my brain fairly quickly.

And I felt like it, it just throttled that ability.

And I really didn't like it.

And I've, I've substantially in the last six months or so, kind of downshifted on that because, again, if it doesn't have a positive impact and

you know, you're not just using it for recreation, for recreational purposes, which is okay.

You know, I mean, no judgment on anyone who decides to do that.

But the idea that you can smoke or, you know, take edibles every night before bed,

you're just harming yourself.

You know, there's no, that's not a, that's not a victimless crime, I guess, if your brain would be the victim at that stamp.

Yeah, we, we know it affects sleep architecture.

I believe it, it suppresses REM sleep in particular, if I remember correctly.

It's not, not really that necessary to kind of, it's like, it's not good for you.

Alcohol, too, not good for you, right?

Past two drinks a week, we know that there's risks are happening, right?

No amount of alcohol is good for you.

And listen, I drink, I'm not saying that with any sort of moral judgment, just sort of like, just own your decisions.

We all live and we die, and we have to decide how, you know, what experiences we want along the way.

And I think it's okay.

I'm in Brazil right now.

I drink wine here.

I like caiperinhas, which are sugar

with fruit and just a liquor called cachaça shaken up.

Like that's, that's, I don't like other types of drinks.

I like that one, you know?

And so, yeah, I'll do it every once in a while.

But just, I don't,

I just, I don't make any excuses about it or try to

try to, what do you call it?

Just use any euphemism

it's not good for me.

It can be fun.

um and i think i think there is some benefit to that because i do believe that health goes beyond just the the physical it has to do with social has to do with um

psychological and some people would argue spiritual right so um i think there can be an argument made for it but again if you're you don't want to justify chronic use with uh like you shouldn't be doing anything every week even drinking every week if you're going through a period where you're

going out and meeting with clients, okay, but you need to rein it in.

You shouldn't be doing any of that every week.

Yeah, there's definitely some mental catharsis in sitting around with your bros, having a couple cocktails, talking shit for a couple hours.

There's

100%

in that, right?

So, no, I think that's phenomenal.

And, you know,

join Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.

Yeah, that's what everybody says.

That's what everybody says.

They'll stimulate.

I've been doing it for 20 years, man.

It just, the amount of complexity,

it's not as probably a,

like, it's, you know, doing like the birdman suits or squirrel suits, whatever they're called, right?

It's not as crazy as that, but it's super stimulating.

You never get to the top.

It's just spiraling levels of complexity and challenge for your brain.

And you make a lot of friends too.

There's a great social aspect because it calms guys down with their attitude because everybody gets their butt kicked in there, right?

Yeah.

Or,

you know, got their butt kicked along the way.

Some people are really good.

I trained with this one guy, four-time world champion.

You know, yeah, I don't think he gets his butt kicked very often, but

yeah, but anyway, so

it doing, finding, I believe too, just modern life is so easy.

I know it's hard.

It's stressful.

It's weird.

Like I'm going through, we're running ads right now and trying to, you know, figure out like what the right combination of ads to scale our business you know and it's it's super frustrating but on the other hand it's life has never been easier you're not suffering from like the shimani tribe in bolivia for example they're kind of untouched by processed food they um you know 70 years old and they have no No cardiovascular disease, no plaque in their arteries at 70.

Like they have unheard of cardiovascular health.

But guess what?

They're dying from infectious diseases.

They get a, you know what I mean?

Like, like we're living such a good life it gets a little boring so we have to especially if we're high performers business we come home after a hard day at work solving problems and complex issues and being creative and then you're home you're like man i'm watching tv and i don't this series is boring let me let me have some popcorn and a little bit of wine or maybe a few caramels you know um

and and we're kind of suffering from life being too good yeah there's too much availability there's there's not enough challenge to get to the resources to make them scarce enough that we consider them.

We just go to the store, buy another bag of whatever, and pop it in our face.

All right, I want to wrap up.

I appreciate your time.

This has been amazing.

We've gone so many different directions and talked about so much stuff.

And I really appreciate your opinion.

The last thing that I just want to ask you and take, you know, we don't have to spend a lot of time here, but

I mentioned that I used to wear whoop.

I know there's aura rings.

I get a lot of questions from people.

And again, not an expert.

So this is why I have guys like you on because I want to know, Like,

one, do you think wearing these devices adds real value?

Like, I, I love the stats as like a high-performance kind of crazy person, but I, I don't always know, like, like, what I find is I go in cycles, I'll wear the whoop for like three months.

I'll kind of figure out how to calibrate myself and what the impact is.

And guys, I can tell you point blank,

weed and alcohol absolutely impact your sleep.

If you've ever worn a whoop or an aura ring, 100%, you can see the difference.

Number one, number one thing that helps me sleep is sex before bed like good sex before bed so really interesting

you know and that's not that's not I'm not uh I'm not throwing that line out there ladies just just letting you know

what the results came back for me too like or any type of light exercise or you know somewhat vigorous exercise depending on the mood but my my guess my question is like if I'm starting a journey right so we've talked about this person I'm is it worth investing in an aura ring or a whoop to help us stay on track, to have metrics to kind of watch trends, et cetera?

Are these devices worth the investment?

I know they're not terribly expensive, but it's a couple hundred bucks and maybe there's a monthly fee or whatever to some of them, depending on what you get.

Is it worth investing in these items to help us along?

Like, is the juice worth the squeeze?

I guess is what I'm asking.

So I'm wearing an aura ring right now.

Okay.

Right.

I got the gen 4.

For me, it's worth it.

But here's the thing.

I don't pay attention attention to most of what Aura talks about.

The readiness score, I throw that out, right?

A lot of because what they do, they try to gamify it to

one, make it more proprietary.

Also, look, people are super, their attention sucks, so they like get bored with the same stats.

So, you can tell, like, over the, the, I've been using an aura ring since I think 20, 2019, and you can tell, like, auras evolve.

Like, I'm like, man, just tell me what I want to know.

Like, this other stuff, some of it's interesting, but a lot of it's doesn't replace solid testing like what I talked about earlier.

But what is solid about it is it can track your action.

Just I don't like the WOOP.

Our ring has studies comparing it to poly somnography, which is the gold standard of measuring sleep architecture or sleep quality.

WOOOOP doesn't to my knowledge.

Maybe they've done something more recently, but so or is the gold standard in that it's still not as good as going and getting a sleep study though if you need one, but it can help you change your behavior.

Like I have fragmented sleep.

I wake up,

you know, so it helps me to dial in my bedtime.

So the things that matter are like what time are you going to bed?

Because if you're going to bed at different times,

even if you're sleeping eight hours,

you're going to feel the effects of that, the circadian disruption.

Your sleep efficiency, how long out of the time you're in bed, how long were you actually asleep, right?

How long you were asleep, how much movement.

Like as far as the different phases, because people were like writing articles about like, here's how to optimize your RAM sleep.

There's even arguments about

from

sleep doctors who use polysomnic somnography about what phase starts when and how many phases.

So I don't think Aura is quite at the level so you have to know what to pay attention to generally speaking though if you buy it and and just kind of mess around because you're you're not at quite at the point where you want to hire someone to help you

Try it if it does get you because the thing is people buy supplements and it motivates them even though they don't know what their blood work is they just read something or someone on Instagram.

So they buy it and it kind of, you know, it's like this health, a small win for their health and it gets them motivated.

The big thing is, does it help you behaviorally?

You know, and if it does improve because you can quantify your steps or your sleep,

I'd say it's worth it.

You know,

yeah, I'd say in general, it's worth it, but it's good to be intentional and know like some of the things like I don't I don't give a shit about your readiness score.

That doesn't like I've woke, I've had some of my best workouts

with a bad sleep and a bad readiness score, right?

Or if you had sex right before bed and your heart rate's elevated, right?

And then you fall asleep, or we'll say, Hey, your heart rate was elevated last night, but you actually slept well.

It was not elevated because you know, you're thinking about, you know,

like some of my clients.

I have a client who's just being made CEO because there was this big issue with the CEO and his son and some craziness happening.

And so, like, it's not because of mental stress.

It's because you did a little bit of exercise before bed.

So

you have to have some knowledge if you really want to understand like what to pay attention to and whatnot.

But if it generally give it a try if you're struggling with your health and a little bit of quantification and gamification can help, you know, get you more active, then go for it.

Yeah.

Ted, I appreciate it, man.

This has been phenomenal.

I appreciate you taking, you know, following around, you know, kind of going all different directions.

But this has really been a masterclass, man.

And I think we've given people,

you know, some great things to dig into.

If they want to go deeper into your world, right?

Get to know you better, follow your work, and maybe even ultimately work with you.

Where's the best place for them to go?

Yeah, you can find my podcast on Apple or where iTunes, wherever you listen to podcasts, Legendary Life, Ted Rice.

My last name spelled R-Y-C-E.

So watch out for that.

But if you want to learn more about like the metabolic reset sequence that I do, you can go watch a free masterclass that I've put together.

It's about 30 minutes long.

And you go to legendarylifepodcast.com slash free.

Awesome.

Guys, I'll have the links too.

So whether you're watching on YouTube or you're listening, wherever you listen, just scroll down into the description or the show notes and I'll have links to all this stuff.

Ted, I appreciate the hell out of you, man.

I'd love to have you back sometime because there's like, I got a million more questions that we didn't even get to.

Let's do it.

But love it, dude.

This has been fantastic.

I appreciate all the extra time and I wish you nothing but the best.

Thanks, Ryan.

Really appreciate it.

It was my pleasure.

I'm going to put you on, nephew.

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