Episode 402: Liron Kayvan: The Truth about Plant-Based Diets + Is Creatine Crucial for Aging?

Speaker 1 Hi, guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle, Greg.

Speaker 2 Hey, friends, you're listening to Fitness Friday on the Habits and Hustle podcast, where myself and my friends share quick and very actionable advice for you becoming your healthiest self.

Speaker 2 So stay tuned and let me know how you leveled up.

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Speaker 2 Welcome to Fitness Friday. We have my friend Liron with us.
Hello. Another fitness trainer slash enthusiast slash soccer player.

Speaker 1 Slash gym owner. We just opened a brand new gym on Westwood.

Speaker 2 Slash gym owner. Congrats.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I love that. What's it called? Beyond Fitness LA.
I love it. We might rebrand at some point, but for now it's Beyond Fitness LA.

Speaker 2 Beyond Fitness LA. Okay, we're going to talk about creatine.
Creatine's all the rage now. This is the supplement that everyone talks about.

Speaker 2 Do you think there is a way to supplement creatine that's better than others? And how much should people actually take?

Speaker 1 Okay, so I'm going to give a very nuanced and boring answer. No, it's not boring, but it's nuanced.
Okay, there's a pro and con.

Speaker 1 The pro is: I think creatine is the most scientifically studied supplement ever. Genuinely, I think you can fact-check me on this, but I'm pretty sure that's accurate.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm going to say that again: creatine is the most scienced, backed, most studied supplement, I think, on the market right now.

Speaker 1 By far, I think

Speaker 1 of all time, and

Speaker 1 it's not just studied by like companies trying to sell it to the masses. This is like very deep medical practices.

Speaker 1 And if a woman needs to get the birth weight of their baby up, if they're like, you know, dangerously low birth weight, they'll take creatine. I know people take it for all sorts of brain.

Speaker 2 This is what I want to talk about. So let's just back it up a second, okay? Because creatine scares me.
I'm a woman. I'm scared of creatine, even though I know that it's the most studied supplement.

Speaker 2 I know that it helps build build muscle. I know that there's amazing research that proves that's great for your cognitive abilities, your brain health.

Speaker 2 However, I'm not alone when I feel, and I don't know if it's just like this like psychological thing that creatine will make me gain weight. I feel like that to me because I've seen in my life.

Speaker 2 Well, listen, I've seen in my life because it's, it's been predominantly used by men. Okay.
And up until very recently, right? It's really been like a man supplement.

Speaker 2 every guy I know would take like a scoop of creatine and put it in his shake, right? To get like, you know, to get super mass and get like jacked.

Speaker 1 Protein used to be like that, but now we realize protein is for everyone and everyone needs more protein, essentially.

Speaker 2 True, true. But how do women get over the psychological hump that creatine will make them fat?

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 a couple of things. As I was saying before, it's the most scientifically studied supplement ever.
And it was studied not for like aesthetic muscular fitness goals. It was studied for medical things.

Speaker 1 So, this is safe, and they wouldn't

Speaker 1 give it to women if it made you unhealthy. So, that's the first thing you need to say about it.
Second, it won't make you fat because it doesn't touch your fat cells, it only touches,

Speaker 1 it only pulls in water, like hydrogen ions, water into your lean body mass because fat is hydro,

Speaker 1 whatever, hydrophobic. Doesn't like water.
Fat and water separate. So basically, it's a water-based supplement.
It pulls water into your cells, primarily your muscle cells.

Speaker 1 So it gives volume to your muscle. If you're worried that you're going to swell up, so you definitely won't get fat.
That's just something you don't have to worry about at all.

Speaker 1 If you think you're going to swell up and start looking like Arna Schwarzenegger, realize like that type of muscularity is... near impossible for a natural woman.

Speaker 1 Women who look overly muscular have either been training for 10, 15, 20 years, or they're taking steroids, which a lot of women do.

Speaker 1 So a lot of these fitness people you see at the gym or on social media, the females are taking low doses of male androgenic anabolic steroids. So you have to realize the smoke and mirrors there.

Speaker 1 Creatine is a supplement that will not touch your fat cells at all. So you don't have to worry about getting fat at all.
It will volumize your lean.

Speaker 1 body mass which is basically every part of your body that's not fat based so that's everything so it's your eyeballs, it's your muscles.

Speaker 2 Okay, but I believe that it does. You just said yourself, you can retain water

Speaker 1 in your lean body.

Speaker 2 Okay, but still, if you're retaining water and that will make you bloated, and not one girl I know, not one girl I know wants to get take that risk of feeling bloated. It's just it's human nature.

Speaker 2 I don't care what you say, it's just human nature. So, how can we take creatine and lower our chances of getting bloated?

Speaker 1 So the second point going on from that, the fact that it's safe and it won't make you fat, is it's also natural. So creatine is a natural part of red meat, which is what we are.
We are red meat.

Speaker 1 It's part of every muscle fiber in nature. Okay.
So it would be abundant. It's abundant in the meats that we eat, or at least red meat.

Speaker 1 It's naturally there and it's part of every, all the energy systems of our body use creatine creatine phosphorus.

Speaker 1 Again, I haven't done any of this AMP stuff for years, so I'm probably butchering it, but it's essentially part of a natural fundamental part of our energy system.

Speaker 1 So the idea that you shouldn't have creatine in your body is another complete myth. You need creatine in your body.
We just have it naturally.

Speaker 2 Okay, so okay, we have it naturally. What are some of the ways that we can naturally increase our creatine without taking a creatine?

Speaker 1 That's the other side. So I said this was nuanced.

Speaker 1 these are the positives for creatine you didn't give me anything you just kind of talked a lot so the positives creatine let me sum it up okay no be much more succinct so positives creatine are it's natural it's safe it boosts your muscle capability and it boosts your health the negatives for taking creatine is you don't need to all you need to do is eat red meat and eat enough red meat in nature we've evolved to eat red meat i'm sure you've had plant-based people on here don't care we've evolved to eat red meat that's how we've evolved it's part of our evolution You can look at our digestive tract.

Speaker 1 You can look at our teeth. You can look at our brains.
You can look at the size of our cola. We can look at anything.
You can look at archaeological records. It all adds up.

Speaker 1 Anyone who tells you that we are not meat-based, meaning a sizable amount of our calories in nature, should come and we would thrive on a meat-based diet is talking out of their art.

Speaker 2 So you think people who are on a plant-based diet, they should be taking creatine? Absolutely.

Speaker 1 I would imagine.

Speaker 1 I would imagine that creatine, along with a whole host of other supplements would need to be taken by a plant-based person because it's an unnatural diet, essentially.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying you shouldn't do it. I'm just saying it's an unnatural diet and it's not the optimal.

Speaker 2 It's crazy that you have to have all these precursors now to talk about people who are plant-based versus animal-based because you'd be a bit more.

Speaker 1 It's a little bit woke, though, isn't it? You might get cancelled.

Speaker 1 It's part of the whole woke.

Speaker 2 No, like you'll literally offend somebody if you say you have to eat meat.

Speaker 2 Like right when you said, oh my God, we've been like evolved, we've evolved to be somebody who eats, who eats, yeah, who eats red meat, whatever.

Speaker 2 I literally in my head, in my head, while you were saying it, I was like, oh, my God, he's going to get in trouble. But to me, that is so.

Speaker 1 It's politicized. It's socialized.
But it shouldn't be.

Speaker 2 It should be like, this is your opinion. That's what you think.
By the way, I'm a person that needs to have animal protein as well, or else I feel starving.

Speaker 2 I have a friend actually, Darren Olean, who's one of my best friends, who is plant-based.

Speaker 2 i have best friends who are plant-based okay vegan and it works for him like he looks amazing because he tlements maybe a couple he takes like true niogen nad he takes i'm sure he takes a bunch of other things i don't know about but the reason why i'm bringing him up is like he has a lot of lean muscle mass he looks good but he's probably one of the only people i know who are vegan who look that good and who feel to me like that he's super healthy i could be totally wrong he is probably really, really healthy, really dedicated, and has all his ducks in a row and would probably be five or 10% better if he ate meat.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, listen, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 I listen, you and me both.

Speaker 2 I believe that like most, I would say everybody's different, but I will say the majority of people in my world or I've meet, because I meet a lot of people, that they saw a significant difference in their health, in their energy, the way they feel when they incorporated animal protein back into their diet when they were.

Speaker 1 Especially women, which is another thing. We talk about women.
Women, if anything, need, I wouldn't say they need more, but we know like women lose their period. I know, I know girls, I

Speaker 1 know a lot. They lose their periods when they go plant-based.
You even have to take iron supplements.

Speaker 1 What is the most like.

Speaker 2 This is the problem with that, I think.

Speaker 1 Well, it's no way, but it's ironic, right?

Speaker 2 I find this to be really interesting because the problem is, unless you know how to do food combinations really well as a vegan, you're going to be missing out.

Speaker 1 You're going to be on math. Yeah.

Speaker 2 You're going to be, no, you're going to be missing out on fundamental nutrients because you don't like, you have to like know that bees plus a rice equals a protein.

Speaker 2 But if you have to be doing, like, if you are a bad math student or you don't understand how combinations work, please add.

Speaker 2 animal protein to your diet and make it simple for yourself and call it a day.

Speaker 1 Yeah, if you don't know, then just like stick to just moderation and you don't have to take my word for it.

Speaker 2 just eat at least a little bit of animal protein well i i find that you become you can look very emaciated and unhealthy in gray like there's a red there's a place in la oh my god gray or great gray gray like the color gray like

Speaker 1 very

Speaker 2 yeah not great jaundice there's a place i used to go all the time as a big it was so hilarious it was called the co-op it was like this grocery store in santa monica it's probably still there some like hippie thing i would go yes very hippie dippy and i would take my mom would come visit me from canada and i would, we would go there to get like, you know, after the gym.

Speaker 2 And I would take her there. And my mother was so perplexed because she looked around.
It's supposed to be like a health food store.

Speaker 2 And she's like, why does everyone here look like they were like jaundiced out of the hospital? They were like, they all looked very like weak and either too thin or like just unhealthy.

Speaker 2 And like the irony is that like, that's like a health food store. That's supposed to be, it was supposed to be like for all the, you know, where all the healthy people looked.

Speaker 2 But yet like Ralph's down the street had way more of a healthy, like a healthy person looking. Yeah, I just find a lot of this stuff to be so absurd, right?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I don't know, I just found that to be funny.

Speaker 1 I did 10 parts on my podcast about this, about that whole just the

Speaker 2 plug your podcast on my podcast.

Speaker 1 Doesn't everyone do that? Literally, everyone did that. First of all, yeah, that's what I'm supposed to do.
Second of all, no, genuinely, I've done, I've just done this to death.

Speaker 1 Like, I've I've done 10 parts on this, and I, I, I explain, and I, I kind of meander away from the actual kind of lie itself that meat is bad for you.

Speaker 1 And you kind of trace the roots of it and you start to see like big pharma and the big food companies and like people are benefiting from this. And again, we were talking about business.

Speaker 1 We're talking about like capitalism business and like there are people profiting off of this idea that you shouldn't eat meat, you know, and they're also people profiting off the idea that you should be sick.

Speaker 2 Like being sick is very profitable in America, america hugely profitable it's very profitable but at the same time if you say that just to play devil's advocate then there should be people profiting on the meat side saying that you should eat meat because yeah i mean you have the meat industry and you have people on both sides who profit i'm talking from actual personal experience yeah like neither of us are going i'm not i'm not going to make a cent off of people eating meat.

Speaker 2 No, but what I'm saying is like, I know when I'm not eating protein, like like animal protein, i have less energy i can't work out as hard i don't look as good like how do you build lean muscle without eating more like animal protein i it's very difficult very difficult like you need i mean i reckon if you're on steroids you probably don't need as much so my theory and this is like maybe wild and whatever but like i think a lot of the plant-based athletes were probably either built their muscle when they weren't plant-based.

Speaker 1 So for example, Arna Schwarzenegger, like Arna Schwarzenegger spent 70 years eating three steaks a day, and then he goes, Oh, you know, you don't need so much meat, like you can go live meatless Mondays or whatever.

Speaker 1 That's a horrible impression. But actually, a good one, but it's too like, it's like, okay, well, it's all well and good.

Speaker 1 You being 70 years old and having dominated like Hollywood and the bodybuilding industry, eating three steaks a day and being on steroids. But now you're now you can say go meatless Mondays.

Speaker 1 Like, it's too late. If you did that in your prime, fine.

Speaker 1 So, I think one is they either built the muscle with the meat, and then once they were just maintaining it, they weren't plant-based, and so that was okay. Two is they're on storage, yeah.

Speaker 2 I think that's a good point. Okay, by the way, I think that's a great impression.
I also think

Speaker 2 go meatless. I think having the idea of meatless Mondays is a fine thing because I do it sometimes on Saturdays.

Speaker 1 I actually do meatless days.

Speaker 2 See, I have no problem with that because it's like one day or two days a week.

Speaker 2 But as like a general rule, where you're just you're like excluding meat from your diet completely is crazy because this is the bottom line muscle is the answer and the i guess the secret sauce to overall longevity and to aging well

Speaker 1 mental health yeah yes it's an organ no

Speaker 2 especially as you're aging especially in middle age you need to have muscle on your leading cause of death is lack of muscle right well in in elderly yes but let me finish what i was going to say i was going to say that if muscle is the main driver for longevity and for aging well, right?

Speaker 2 And you need to keep muscle on.

Speaker 1 And as you get older, it's harder and harder and harder.

Speaker 2 You're depleting and you're losing so much muscle. How much is it a year just by

Speaker 1 overall age, right?

Speaker 2 So the problem is, how do you keep it on? What's the easiest way to keep it on?

Speaker 2 Besides heavy weightlifting,

Speaker 2 you got to lift weights heavy and you got to eat a lot of protein.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 2 A fuck ton of protein.

Speaker 1 So, how I'm going to be, I am. Creatine is very good for aging too.

Speaker 1 Just to pull it back to creatine, but I think what I was going to say about the downside of taking creatine is you don't actually need it. It's present in red meat.

Speaker 1 The reason why it's so studied and the reason why it's so pumped by the sports industry, by the, you know, the muscle building industry, by even the medical industry, is because in nature, we would have it just as part of our body, our makeup, because we would eat, you know, a healthy society would eat a good amount of red meat.

Speaker 1 We would hunt and eat a good amount of red meat. We would be getting in all the creatine we need naturally.

Speaker 1 But in modern society where we're divorced from red meat, where most people maybe eat red meat once a week or something like that, then we need to supplement.

Speaker 1 The only reason why we need to supplement is because we're divorced from our natural habitat and our natural diet. That's the only reason.

Speaker 1 And the reason why creatine is good for your hair and good for your muscles and good for your pregnancy and good for your, when you're old and you have Parkinson's or whatever, right?

Speaker 1 I'm throwing things out. The reason why it's good for everything is because it's such a fundamental part of how we are, it's a building block of everything.

Speaker 1 So it's gonna have all these benefits aside from just muscle gain, right? Muscle gain is interesting, but it's just one thing.

Speaker 2 Okay, how much do you take? Like, okay, because for a woman.

Speaker 1 You eat nothing, but yes, how much should someone take?

Speaker 2 Oh my God. So you, after all that big yelling and screaming about creatine, you're not taking it.

Speaker 1 But I eat meat.

Speaker 2 Yeah. But so you don't take creatine as a a supplement because you're getting it from your red meat.
Yes. Okay.
So let's say this.

Speaker 2 For someone who's not eating red meat, maybe they're just eating chicken and turkey, let's just say, or salmon or whatever, then they should be taking a creatine supplement.

Speaker 1 Definitely. Five grams for men, three grams for women.
Okay.

Speaker 2 And for people who are regularly eating red meat, who regularly eat animal protein, to take the creatine supplement is not as necessary.

Speaker 1 Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Exactly what I'm saying.
Okay, good. Thank you.

Speaker 2 All right, guys.

Speaker 2 That is the end. Okay.
So, by the way, should we do this shot of Magic Mind before we leave? Yeah. Speaking of what, have you ever done this before?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I should have done this before. I'm going to go build my gym right now.
I need some Magic Mind.

Speaker 2 Oh, I should get you some. They're delicious.
They're my favorite shots because it's A, good for great energy and great for focus. We should have done it before the podcast, but I shouldn't have.

Speaker 1 Yeah. A lot of good stuff in there.
A lot of great stuff. Rhodiola.
I love Rhodiola.

Speaker 2 Huge fan of rhodiola.

Speaker 2 You know what Rhodiola is, by the way rhodiola is the natural herb for like what people use for like for adhd like it's like a natural what do you call it it's a natural adder all that's what i heard really yeah it helps you like really with like your focus and your attention i've been i've been actually um i've been on the rhodiola tip for a while i love it i've always loved it well why do you take it then i think initially it was for stress uh adaptation but now i take it as a tea just

Speaker 1 I like it. But it's got a disgener, I think, yeah, mostly it's like stress adaptation, but it's got this general feeling.
Like you feel it pretty quick.

Speaker 1 Like you can, like I can drink a tea of rhodiola and I can feel it within half an hour.

Speaker 2 But what are you feeling?

Speaker 1 Like I just sort of, I know you don't like this word, but balance.

Speaker 2 Like I just feel like I'm just drinking, just drink your shot so we can finish this podcast.

Speaker 1 You're not gonna do it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I'm gonna do, I did like two already today. I forgot.
I can't take more than two.

Speaker 1 Down the hatch. We live, by the way.
We're just rambling. No, go.
Go ahead. Cheers.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 And by the way, guys, before we say goodbye, I should say this at the beginning of the podcast, but if you're still here listening, always, if you guys can leave me a review, subscribe if you haven't.

Speaker 2 It really helps with the podcast. So I always am remiss in saying that to people.
So I'm going to, even though I said at the end of the podcast, I'm not sure. Yet, like and versus like and subscribe.

Speaker 2 Yes. Thank you.
Bye. Bye.