107. Mario Lopez: Daily Routine for Success in Hollywood and Health

Can a person really live comfortably to like 110, 115?

120 to 140, no question. Yes.
Are you serious? 80 is about to be the new 40. We know now so much about cellular physiology, human biology, that within the next five years, it will be our choice whether or not we want to live to age 120 or 140 or we want to take the opposite route.
Wow, that's amazing. As I've gotten older, one of the things I always say is that I always train for sanity not so much vanity and the activities that i'm involved in jujitsu and boxing however the body doesn't respond the way it used to or the way i like it to being in chronic pain it's an awful awful feeling chronic pain will wear down the strongest of human beings that's the thing it's relentless What's incredibly powerful is the big data is starting to show that things like exercise are more powerful than SSRIs.

Talk a little bit about what is your routine do for your mental health? I think the real answer,

not to be corny or anything, but... anything but.
Welcome back to the Ultimate Human podcast. Today, we are joined by a true icon in the entertainment world who's graced our screens for decades.
But beyond his incredible career as an actor, host, and producer, he's a dedicated advocate for health and wellness. We're going to talk about a little scare that he had very, very early in life and how that may have impacted his current fitness journey.
Mario Lopez has truly made wellness a priority in his life. And today, he's here to share with us some of his insights on how to stay fit, healthy, and mentally strong while balancing a thriving career and family life.
Mario, welcome to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Thank you, Brecca.
You're so serious. I love it.
That was so serious. That was your 60 Minutes voice right there.
I know. I do have a radio voice.
You know what it is? It's the microphones and the studio. It creates an intimacy.
I feel a need to just lower my voice and talk right into the mic. How are you doing, brother? I'm doing well.
Nice to see you again too man you and i have had a great journey together man we have i love how we initially met through our mutual friend uh dana white and who as you know speaks incredibly high of you and and um was uh anxious for us to meet he was uh because like you said in your intro uh health and fitness is a top priority, uh, in my life.

I always say, if you don't take care of your health without that, nothing else really matters.

And you think a lot of other stuff is important until something happens health wise.

And then you realize what really is important.

Yeah.

I mean, even, even since we started our journey, you know, um, you had a little bit of a health scare, um, on our journey.

I mean, you and I were going to shoot an episode of access Hollywood. Oh, with my neck.
That's right. I was like, what health scares you talking about? We're just going to throw it out there.
I did. That's it.
Well, yeah, that's an injury, but, uh, you FaceTime me in a neck brace and I was like, bro, what's up? Yeah, that's, well, that's the thing too. And, um, I mean, I could turn this into a therapy hour, but you know, as I, as I've gotten older, and I think we've talked about this before, one of the things I always say is that I always train, um, and work out for sanity, not so much vanity.
It's like a de-stressor. You get rid of any sort of anxiety.
I like to get it out of the way in the first thing in the morning. So the rest of my day is sort of easy.
And it just allows me to kind of just be alone in my thoughts.

And you just feel good.

You get the endorphins going.

You just feel good right off the bat, right?

And the activities that I'm involved in, usually are that of a much younger man, you know, which is.

You're like trying to get me to talk you out.

I know.

She's quietly like, can you talk some sense?

The rest of everyone in my world.

But like jujitsu and boxing and, you know very physical violent uh activities even though i liken it to like physical chess it takes a toll on your body um and i really do it it's i'm sparring out there and i'm not just kind of hitting pads and so i and i like it and i and i love it one again it's like physical chess you You're constantly problem solving. But two, it makes me feel alive.

And you're problem solving under stress, which I think is a metaphor for life. Exactly.
And exactly. And it makes me feel alive and it makes me feel young.
However, the flip side of that is that the body doesn't respond the way it used to or the way I like it to. Right.
So I've had to make adjustments on how i approach it and how um i go about my physical activities or else i won't last and i'll start i'll start falling apart remember the movie the blues brothers yeah oh yeah i'm dating myself now remember how that car hit the car that they were driving uh was in the best chase like the one of the greatest car chases of all time and then when it finally parked it just boom yeah it collapsed that's like my body like in this last year i've been going a thousand miles an hour and then one year after another i tore my rotator cuff i tore my achilles i tore my biceps wow all in jiu-jitsu my hand boxing um and then in jiu-jitsu my first serious injury from what what you're full circle to what you were talking about i had a pinched nerve which doesn't sound bad but when it was right under the neck and the disc it was the most excruciating pain and it shot down my arm and i had like this tingling and it made this finger and pinky go numb it's about 95 gone but still a little you know a little bit a little bit but it's about 95 but because I still do the activities. Right.
And so it wasn't something you just work on through massage and what have you. We started to treat it and do some stuff.
Then I had to start getting shots and all that. And you do have to lay off, which is hard for me, but the best know when to rest.
So you, you, you gotta do that. So it's more, and that did a number on me kind of psychologically too.
So I remember, man, I remember when you told me and you called me and you told me you had to cancel the show you were supposed to be in orlando i was coming up there to meet you to to do the show i mean being in pain and chronic pain and for and it just doesn't let up it's an awful awful feeling chronic pain your mind just oh yeah it will wear down the strongest of of human beings i mean i i've watched it break family members of mine i I mean, low back pain, neck pain and neck pain and low back pain, especially because you just can't get away from it. Right.
It's relentless. That's the thing.
It's relentless. And you were getting the cortisone injections.
And I remember I sent you some turmeric and I sent you the hydrogen bath. Right.
Yeah. I was like, dude, I'm going to overnight you some stuff to, to, to try to accelerate this healing process as much as we could.
We, we use some pept BPC-157, which is a body protection compound 157. It's technically a gastric peptide, but it's really, really good for wound healing.
And you eventually were able to walk your way out of it. I mean, and you say you're 95% now.
Yeah, I'm back. You still do feel it though, huh? Thank God.
I mean, if I'm being very meticulous, yeah, just a little bit. And maybe because of the same movements and the wear and tear, I'm very cognizant now of the positions that put me in because I'm a grappler.
And so it was a lot of the shooting and messing with these big guys. And the thing about jujitsu is the size is really supposed to be sort of irrelevant when it comes to the technique.
But size does matter. And that's why there's weight classes.
So I manage the expectations with the way I approach. And I had to change my game a little bit.
But it's okay. And so just like in life you have to evolve you have to adapt and that's what i've been doing but it's sort of hard to get your mind uh around it um and listen i'm gonna be 51 in a couple weeks i can't believe that dude look i like i should be i'm 54 i turned 54 on saturday oh happy birthday but you look 25 and i mean i might look 48 you know i mean no i feel lucky man people ask me i mean there's no i know you came up to me at the ufc and you were like i really would love to work with you i'm like dude i want to know what you're doing well people ask me i just you know i usually just kind of answer with you know i drink a lot of tequila it's like embalming fluid but i think that i mean i think the real answer we're gonna cut that from the uh official record i think the real answer, um, not to be corny or anything, but I mean, I, I really am like a genuinely like, I think happy person.
And I feel, I know I'm very blessed and I don't take it for granted. And I've got my mom and dad still with me who are very much still together.
I got a great wife and kids and you really do. I'm happy.
Um, and I think being happy has a lot kind of do with it and obviously i'm not look i like to have a good time but i'm not partying with crazy you know extracurricular yeah you're in the party capital of the world out here in la yeah so you have plenty of occasion to do that so you know i'm not uh i'm not uh burning the candle to both ends and um in that sense but you know i do like to have a good time i do like my tequila i do like to have a good cigar here and there. And I think it's, you know, it's the 80, 20 rule.
It talks to my, my daughter talks about it all the time. You know, she's 26 years old and she spends 80% of her time, like really, really taking care of herself.
And 20% of her time, she acts like a 26 year old should act. You got to have balance.
Yeah. You got to have balance.
I think when the pendulum swings too far in one direction, you know, then then you end up quitting. And, you know, that's a lot of the clients that I work with.
I'm like, look, the secret here is not that you go hardcore dogmatic in one direction. It's not like keto, paleo, carnivore, you know, pescatarian, vegan, vegetarian.
It's, you know, start with a whole food diet. And you cannot supplement your way around a poor diet.
If you're not eating whole foods, if you're, if you're if you're eating like you know a highly processed diet you're eating a lot of high glycemic sugars you know if you're eating a lot of food dyes pesticides herbicides insecticides preservatives glyphosates you know eventually you're just bathing your cellular biology in a toxic soup it's sort of irrelevant you can't outwork a bad diet right and what are your thoughts on intermittent fasting? So I'm a big fan of intermittent fasting.

Sort of right um for the right profile right it's again intermittent fasting is one of those things that can be a complete life-changing game changer or it can be a worse nightmare and when i say it's a worse nightmare especially for early menstruating females um we're sort of flipping the here now, now I'm on your podcast, but that's okay. Um, I'm sorry.
I was interviewing you, but no, but no, but I asked because I, it seems like I, did I try it for a day for, I just think as active as I am, I was concerned about the energy level. Well, so, so in your case, you actually have the polar opposite issue that most people have.
You actually have very good blood sugar regulation, right? So, so when you have, when you are highly insulin sensitive, not insulin resistant, when you're insulin sensitive, it means that your body actually reacts very well and controls your blood sugar very well. You measure this with something called hemoglobin A1C.
It's the three month average of your blood sugar. And you look at that compared to your insulin levels.
You know, if you're in the low single digits for insulin, um, then this means that your insulin is, is, is reacting very quickly. So in other words, um, when you go prolonged periods without eating, IE intermittent fasting, you get hypoglycemic, you get low blood sugar, which actually robs you of your energy and your pituitary, which is sort of the master puppeteer.
It's regulating all of our mom, you know, and women, it regulates their menstrual cycle and men, you know, it regulates the amount of testosterone that we secrete amongst a ton of other things, growth hormone, our sleep cycle or circadian rhythms, our body temperature, our metabolic rate. But the pituitary is there to save your life.
It really doesn't care how fat or skinny you are, how pretty or ugly you are. It doesn't care about your hair, your skin and nails.
It cares about survival. And so what happens is when you go prolonged periods with really, really low blood sugar, the pituitary perceives this as starvation and it begins to throttle back your metabolism.
It has the opposite effect of what you want. It starts to actually slow you down in an effort to save your life.
If you think ancestrally, if we went prolonged periods without food, then energy conservation was a priority. Right.
I mean, if there was if food was in abundance, well, then we wouldn't be so worried about energy conservation. But we we didn't evolve with a cabinet of crackers three feet off of our elbow.
Right. I mean, we didn't eat 24 hours a day, even have access to food 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
We regulate everything now, our body temperature, our lighting, you know, the amount of food that we eat. So most of us, most Americans are eating 17, 11 to 17 hours a day.
And it's hard to imagine, but most people, the first thing they do when I get out of bed is, you know, coffee, something goes in their mouth and right before they go to bed, something else goes in their mouth. And so that's, I'm sorry to interrupt, but so that's okay to have something go in your mouth right before you can go to bed because the old ad used to be that try not to eat right before you go to bed, but that's a fallacy.
Well, um, I would say try not to eat a big meal within two hours of going of going to bed you know i would take something like a perfect amino a non-caloric um full spectrum yeah full spectrum amino acid um the last thing you want to do is stuff yourself and go to sleep right it feels good though you know when you stuff yourself you're just laying down and then you fall asleep like it feels so good yeah but then when you look at your sleep no i know i know i know it's like it's like the two glasses or four glasses of wine before bed. Damn, four? Who's counted a bottle? Everyone listens to this podcast.
Really? Pounded a bottle? Wow. Everybody that says they have a glass of wine before they go to bed is absolutely lying.
Right. Having a bottle of wine before they go to bed.
Funny that you mention wine. So my ADD keeps kicking in.
So my wife and I recently, we... Yeah, I don't think we finished the topic so far.
Did we finish the topic? I got like six open ones in the back of my mind. We both are ADD.
People listening to this are like, will you guys just seriously complete a coherent thought? I think we are. I think we are.
It's like the conversation. It's like two politicians just avoiding our own questions.
The thing about wine, like I enjoy wine. Why is it? And I don't assume it's really cheap wine because it doesn't seem to be but why is it i'll have a couple and i still wake up a little sort of groggy as opposed to if i have some nice tequila or something i'm fine it helps me go to bed i so now i'm always it's almost i'm deterred to to have it unless i know i can sleep in yeah so three things with you know alcohol and then i'll be specific to red wine.
But I mean, you know, alcohol, it's not really the alcohol.

It's what the alcohol becomes, right?

Alcohol becomes something called acetyl aldehyde. So the liver converts it into this compound called acetyl aldehyde, which is a very acidic compound, highly acidic compound.
So it actually lowers, slightly lowers the pH of the blood. Now, the pH range of the blood is very narrow, right? It's about half of a point.
and so as we get more acidic, lower in pH, this is what gives us headaches. It interrupts our cellular metabolism, doesn't allow us to get into deep sleep or even REM sleep for that matter.
And so what happens is in deep sleep, like, first of all, let's just put sleep on the proper platform. It is the human superpower.
It really is. I always say it's incredibly underrated, right? These people that I always say, well, our friend always, our Dana, as a matter of fact, because I was just having a conversation with him the other day, he tells me only seems like three, four hours a night.
I go, how do you do that, bro? And still train and everything. Trying to push him to five, six hours a night.
But one thing about Dana is if you look at his sleep routine, like he lays down and in three to five minutes, he's boom, he is in, he is in deep sleep. And, um, he, you know, he was on a CPAP machine when I first started to work with him.
He's not on the CPAP machine any longer. Um, and his, and his sleep scores are actually pretty good, but you know, sleep is the human superpower, but people don't realize, you know, why is sleep our human superpower? I understand that I'm resting and I'm, you know, I'm calm and, uh, you know, my mind is relaxed, but, but what's physiologically going on during sleep? Well, during deep sleep, something really, really special starts to happen.
The, there's a, there's a waste elimination system in the brain called the glymphatic system. We know our lymph system, right? Our lymph nodes, our lymphatic system, you know, your lymph nodes get swollen in your neck or they get swollen in your upper axillary region when you get sick.
Our lymph nodes in our lymph system detoxifies and eliminates waste from the body. By waste, I don't mean stool and urine.
I mean cellular waste. The glymphatic system is in the brain.
When the brain is eliminating waste, repairing, detoxifying, regenerating, this happens during deep sleep. When deep sleep occurs, it activates the glymphatic system.
So your brain flushes toxins. Well, if you don't get into deep sleep, you never flush those toxins.
You never actually use that glymphatic drainage system. So people wake up foggy, drowsy, groggy.
The other thing it's doing, aside from lowering the pH of your blood, is it's actually causing your blood sugar to rise. So you think about what does wine become? Two, three glasses of wine become after it gets metabolized.
It becomes sugar. So now it helps you fall asleep.
Alcohol is initially a stimulant, then a suppressant. But it helps you fall asleep.
And then as you're sleeping, your blood sugar is starting to rise. As your blood sugar is starting to rise, your pH of your blood is dropping.
As the pH of your blood is dropping, you're not going of your blood is dropping you're not going into deep sleep because you're not going into deep sleep you're not eliminating waste repairing detoxifying that makes perfect sense may i ask a question you may how are your what are your thoughts on uh on naps i'm a big fan huge fan of naps but does it does it suffice for like let's say you get six hours sleep but you take maybe an hour nap during the day. It's still not as good as seven hours.
It's not as good, but the research on napping, believe it or not, is really starting to validate that, you know, no less than 20 minutes, no more than 90 minutes, right? No more than, okay. That's a good rule.
No less than 20, no more than 90. No less than 20, no more than 90.
There's something that, uh that they call sleep inertia, right? So after 90 minutes, sleep has now taken over and is the priority. It's like a two-two train going down the track.
I mean, a parked locomotive can be stopped by putting a quarter under the tire. A locomotive going 40 miles an hour cannot be stopped by a dump truck.
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Transform your nights and elevate your sleep. Now let's get back to the ultimate human podcast, right? So sleep inertia is very similar.
You know, what happens is as you get further and further into the sleep cycle, it gets harder and harder to pull you out. So you don't want that sleep inertia to start carrying you into the REM and the deep.
So just enough to, okay. 20 minutes minimum, 90 minutes maximum, absolute game changer.
I don't want to quote the statistics, but there is a significant high double digit reduction in allcause mortality in people that regularly nap. Wow.
So an active individual for myself, I mean, I should strive for eight at least, correct? You should strive for eight, but you know what's really interesting is, you know, now that we're really, really getting data on sleep, not everybody needs eight hours of sleep. So it really is based on the individual.
It is really is based on the individual. And, and what you should do is, is begin to develop a, um, measure your sleep or a whoop, you know, Fitbit, uh, eight sleep mattress, find a way to measure and track your sleep because the things that are really affecting your sleep are probably not the things that you think.
Really? Yes. Cause now no problem um falling asleep and i'll go to sleep the thing is staying there do you have to get up to go to the restaurant i'm actually just trying to face the camera i realized that no no no i meant do you have to get up to go to the restroom at all when you're not right now right now because like i can't full disclosure i can't make a whole night now.
I'm fidgety, so I thought I had to. No, no, not like that now.
I just have ADHD, and I don't have to piss. No, I meant I can't make it through a whole night now.
I have to at least get up once. Is that just an age thing? Getting up once is perfectly normal.
Okay, that's okay. Getting up three to five times, which a lot of people do.
Ripping it away. People get up three to five times? Oh, my God.
There's so many people listening. Get out of here.
You get up three to five. How do you have a sleep?

You get out of here three to five times.

They don't sleep because they're pissing all night.

Wait, is it the fluid intake or is it just?

It's the food and fluid intake, right?

I mean, you're eating and drinking right up until the time that you go to bed.

Yeah.

Right?

So all that metabolism.

I'm a one-timer.

That's fine.

That's okay.

I'm a one-timer.

Perfectly normal.

And I got it master tour.

I barely opened my eyes like Yoda.

And I just kind of like go and put my hand in there.

You know, go do what I got to do.

And then go back.

And so then I'm good to go.

That's fine then.

I do the same thing.

And then I always deny like being on the seat. And then my wife is like, no, it was you.
And then lately I've been taking this methylene blue, which is a, it's actually a blue fabric dye, but there's a lot of science around methylene blue. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole, but it actually turns your urine blue.
So now every time I dribble on the seat, there's no way for me to like get away with it. Cause my wife doesn't take it.
She's like, well, what are the blue drops on the seat? And I'm like, I don't know. That's a coincidence.
Wow. That's weird.
They weren't there when I went to sleep. That's a cool party trick.
You want to see me pee blue? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Methylene blue, by the way, amazing, um, you know, amazing compound.
I mean, it's, it's, it's, I mean, the implications for this in, in health and longevity are just tremendous. It's probably one of the least expensive, if not the least expensive supplement I've ever encountered.

I'm going to jot that down.

Yeah.

Methylene blue.

Methylene blue.

Okay.

What it does, you know, without getting too deep down the science rabbit hole, is it actually changes the state of iron inside the cell from a ferric state to a ferrous state and pulls oxygen out of the blood into the red blood cell where it's bioavailable for our mitochondria to use as energy. And remember, if the mitochondria of the powerhouse of the cell gets oxygen, it's 16 times more efficient.
It creates 16 times more energy for every revolution of this little cycle called the krebs cycle so if you really want to stimulate your cellular biology you got to get oxygen into the cell and into the mitochondria and methylene blue helps do that so last question about sleep yeah is it me or does it seem like as you get older you need less of it it? This is true. As you get older, you need less of it.
I mean, it's, it's interesting. I was talking to, um, uh, some folks on RFK's team and some, some of my other, um, he's in great shape by the way.
He's in great shape. He's in great shape.
Yeah. And, and, and I love his philosophy on the food supply and, and, you know, the, the research going into our, you know, nutritional research.
And, you know, I just, I I just I'm really on message with him about what he wants to do at a governmental level, you know, to improve our food supply and to fix the pandemic chronic illness, not just in this country, in the adult population, but also in the population. Children, we have we have the sickest generation of young children we've ever had in this country.
Again, total other topic, but you know, we're, we're covering a lot of guys with ADHD. So I want to circle back to your health.
This is about Mario Lopez. Your question, but I, but I want to talk about for, for you.
Cause you know, um, I, I, I'd love to kind of back my listeners into a corner and say, you know, what's your excuse? Cause clearly you have a very busy schedule, um, and you don't dictate your schedule and you don't have, you know, you have to be certain places at certain times. Access Hollywood.
Exactly right. Um, so what, what's a typical day for Mario Lopez look like? Like walk me through, you know, you wake up in the morning, you take the supplements that I've got you on.
Yeah, no, I wake up, you know, around six, sometimes earlier if I need to.

And get the kids all ready, kiss them off to go to school.

And then I go to train to get it out of the way.

Like I said, it's either boxing or jujitsu, which I do two, three times a week, each one.

And then one day.

Straight down the street from your house?

Either in the neighborhood on the way to work.

And another one, again, not too far from work. So it it's pretty geographically convenient so i'll do something like that then usually on the wednesday i'll take a break i'll do that monday tuesday wednesday i'll take a break and do a little um not rehab but just kind of i'll go i'll make myself go see my pt guy sometime right and uh stretch and kind of get something worked on because i'm usually banged up then on the weekend um depending on my body i'll listen to my body how it feels and i'll train either a little bit harder and then uh one other day i'll go do a spin class with the wife or something right just just to kind of mix it up but i do try to do something every day to be honest unless i'm traveling when i'm traveling i take the time off but again i do it just to feel awake i don't feel like i I woke up unless I did something and to kind of clear my head.
And, you know, there's a lot of stress going on with the stuff I'm juggling. So it just kind of helps me check out for a second.
So I get up at six. I get that out of the way.
Then after that, I'll come get something to eat. I'm making calls on the way.
I'll come do my radio show. I have a nationally syndicated radio show called I'm Mario.
We're in the room right now. We're in the room right now.
We're in the room right now with Mario Lopez. There we go.
Um, so that's a lot of fun. Uh, so we do that.
Uh, so I go, so I come and I'll do that. Then from there, I'll go down the Hill cause it's all here.
Universal studios and I do access Hollywood, the first show, which is the nighttime show. Right.
Uh, immediately after that, I got about a half hour break to kind of get prepped and prepare for the daytime show access daily, which you've been a guest on a lot now. Um, and that's sort of our reaches and Kelly type show and lifestyle, pop culture and all that.
And we have guests. And so then that takes me through the afternoon.
Then after that, I usually either have, if it's not another gig, cause at some point I was either doing another tv show or i squeezed in a holiday movie or i was doing something else squeezed in a holiday just throwing that out there so you know i'll do i do a podcast i do once a week called the three knockdown rule of fight podcast or i'll have meetings um or different stuff uh in in my um that i've got on deck to uh producing and what have you yeah so it's pretty much 100 miles and running from the time i get up to when i'm wrapping it up which could be about from four to six but then after that i'm dad for a little bit i'll either got a jujitsu or wrestling practice or my sister my daughter's cheer and then i'm home in time for jiu-jitsu and wrestling yeah my boys My boys are too. Yeah.
That's awesome. So we got, no, I got them, you know, and, um, want them to learn.
And again, I think just builds a lot of character and, and, um, uh, it helps her confidence and a lot of attributes for, uh, for, you know, as he, as a, as a young man growing up. So then after that I'll have dinner with them, um, unless I have a dinner meeting and then maybe watch TV.

I try to at least watch TV for about an hour.

Yeah. Just to calm the mind.
Just to calm the mind. And then I go to sleep, do it all over again.
Yeah. No, that's great, man.
And, you know, there's a pandemic of what I think is improperly phrased as mental illness in this country right now. What's incredibly powerful is the big data is starting to show that things like exercise are more powerful than SSRIs, than the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, than the actual chemicals and the synthetics and pharmaceuticals that we use to quote unquote improve our mental health.
28% or 38% reduction in all-cause mortality by you know, exercising on a regular basis, 28% reduction in cardiovascular risk. But talk a little bit about what, what is your routine do for your mental health? It makes all the difference in the world.
That's, that's why I try to do it in the morning and get it out of the way. Because again, any stress or any sort of issue I'm dealing with or things I'm juggling or worried about schedule and all that helps me kind of clear my head and I have to focus on whatever it is I'm doing and the activities that I'm doing, I'm either going to get choked out or knocked out.
So I got to really get a real physical risk. Yeah.
So I got to really focus and allows me to kind of escape. And then after that, after you've been choked out your days,, nothing, nothing's going to get harder than that.
Yeah. You know what I mean? So you're a purple bell, right? A purple bell.
I won't strip away from a Brown. And I always tell them I want to take the hard road.
I don't want any sort of gimmies. And I'm proud to say that, you know, I feel pretty confident that, uh, they've been hard on me and, uh, you know, I've earned it.
Yeah. So, uh, but it does, it, uh, it helps me with anything that I don't really get bothered by anything after that.
You know, I, I'm, I'm a huge fan of jujitsu. I don't practice it myself, but I, I work with a lot of fighters and I find some of the most composed people that I've ever met are people that regularly and intensely either practice yoga or jujitsu.
And I think it's going back to that, um, you know, being calm under stress, right. Having, having to actually have to actually think under stress, right.
Because exactly. There is always that thought in your mind that you could get hurt.
You're exactly, you have to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Yes.
And I think that is such a metaphor for life, you know, like when you're holding certain really intense yoga poses and you're trying to just focus on your breath when your thighs feel like they're going to peel off the bone. And for you, that's a serious yoga class.
You got a dude. You ever do a candlestick pose and try to hold that while you're breathing? Yeah, I'm done.
Stick with the little. I haven't had the skin feeling off the bone move, though.
That's next level. You don't have a good yoga.
You walk in and I'm like, all these chicks are in the candle pose. And I'm like, you guys look actually comfortable in this thing.
And I squat down and I'm like, you're intense. Like me, you go all the way.
I go, I do. I go all the way, man.
Nothing makes me sweat like, like yoga does, but I'm just such a fan of, of, of jujitsu and the martial arts, because I think people think of it as just teaching you to be violent, but it actually teaches you the polar opposite. Exactly.
You know, and I remember seeing an interview with Dana White one time. I forget who he's being interviewed by, but he said, if you could just pick one word on what makes the difference between a good fighter and a great fighter, what would it be? And he said, composure.
And that's exactly what you're getting out of the Brazilian jujitsu.

Absolutely.

Is learning to be composed.

You're exactly right.

And I think it complements every aspect of my life.

When I have to give a speech,

if I'm hosting something,

if I don't get nervous,

like I just,

just,

well,

maybe I've been doing this a long time too, but at the same time, I think that does help being growing up wrestling, boxing and doing jujitsu and all that. I think it does.
It doesn't those, that atmosphere and being in those sort of, you're completely vulnerable there, right? In the sense that there's no team, it's all you, you have to rely on yourself and you got to figure it out. And I think once you start getting comfortable and being able to do that, the rest of life is sort of easy in what, in what's thrown at you.
So I don't really get too excited about too many things. I go, I, I, I'm in my attitudes, like I'll figure it out.
Yeah, no, that's great, man. I mean, where do you find like the daily motivation to keep doing it? Because I think that so many um, with careers that are maybe not as demanding as yours, um, will gravitate towards, um, their career and they, and they don't take that time for self-care.
I mean, and just talk about like what, what motivates you to do it every single day? Well, I make it a priority. And like, I, I think I started off, um, our discussion, you got to make health your top priority and i stress that with people that i care about my family uh my mom and dad you know and as hard as like my old man is who drinks and smokes every day you know what i mean i know i'm not going to change this we butted head so many times i know i'm not going to change who he is right i'm like dad can you at least do let's do it let's be a little physical and this is pardon me as far as exercise because he's very physical he's always working he's always doing something we couldn't just hang out at my house and watch tv if i did for a little bit then i wasn't allowed to do it the next day because he would put me to work he would just sounds like my dad captain john brecca yeah you can't you just he did not like laziness he just didn't want to see anybody just sort of hang out but But my, my point is I make it a priority.
I, those that I care about, I always stress and tell them you gotta, you gotta get your body moving, a body in action or in emotion stays in motion. Um, and more mentally what it helps me in back when we talked about how it helps me, uh, just kind of mentally and with stress and what have you, I feel it's, um, it's been's been a big advantage and now i just it's addicting and how you've just you just feel good and you know as i got as i get older i i i'm even i've made it even more of a priority that's why i was lucky enough to hook up with you and um and to get educated on all these i mean obviously i'm learning so much from you but but it's sort of never ending because as you get older your body's changing you're evolving changing, you're evolving.
You got to adapt with it. Yeah.
Yeah. I mean, I, you know, you and I have an amazing journey with the gene test.
We did some blood work. You know, it was really, it was really cool was how, how really you have this childlike fascination with it, which I, I have the same with, you know, modern medicine and science.
And I have this very childlike curiosity. You know what I'm going to die? Do you know what I'm going to die? Do you want me to tell you right now?

Do you really know?

Because I knew that was your deal for a while.

I've been meaning to ask you.

I'm like,

I wonder if Brecca knows when I'm going to die.

You know,

that's got so out of hand because that was,

I don't want to know by the way,

don't tell me.

No,

I wrote,

I wrote it right here.

And is it true?

Is it true that we can now,

if we take care of ourselves,

if I'm taking this,

like for example,

this Gary Brecca route, can a person really live comfortably to like 110, 115? 120 to 140. Come on.
Yes. Come on.
Get out of here. Are you serious? 80 is about to be the new 40.
I'm not kidding. How good is that? Isn't that awesome? Yeah.
This is the best news ever. It's going to be the new 40.
And I sincerely mean that if you are alive and five years from today. Yeah.
It will be your choice whether you decide to live to 120 or 140 years old. The data is there.
Absolutely. Wow.
I mean, we understand cellular human biology and the communities and the ecosystem of the human body better today than we ever have in modern history. The challenge is that, you know, the modern medicine and the regulatory environment can't keep up.
I mean, we have the convergence for the first time of big data, artificial intelligence and early detection. And so we can take trillions of independent variables and create an actionable result.
That's what we did with your gene test. When you did that cheek swab, it wasn't like two or three variables that went into deciding how you were gonna supplement.

It was trillions of variables

because of the infinite possibility of combinations

of your genes.

And now we know how to supplement for deficiency,

not just the sake of supplementing.

And a lot of this has to do with us

just getting back to the basics. So we were talking before the podcast, this is my third city in three days.
So I woke up day before yesterday in Las Vegas, you know, after the fights, um, UFC 306. Um, and then I, I woke up, um, I went to bed in New York.
Um, then I had a day of meeting. I was only on the ground for 21 hours in New York.
Um, and then, uh, I up in new york city and went to bed last night in la and woke up this morning in la and here here we are look at that and your energy through the roof still dude through the roof i'm having a hard time sitting here sorry i feel like i really i really am and i mean part of it is like i'm just again i have this like childlike fashion i really feel like i live um, you know, as I just am so enthralled with what I do and get to meet great people like you and do these podcasts and talk about what I love. But the truth is that, um, you know, we know now, um, so much about cellular physiology and human biology that, um, within the next five years, it will be our choice whether or not we want to live to age one or 140 or we want to take the opposite route.
Wow. No, I want to go 140.
I do too, brother. Let's do it.
Wow. That's crazy.
Let's do a podcast in 50 years. I'm not a middle-aged guy then.
If I'm going to go by that, but I don't know. No, no, no.
You're young. First of all, you look 25.
Yeah, yeah. You are.
You are a baby. I know you never get tired of hearing that.

I love this.

140.

Dang, I was way off.

Cutting myself short. 120 to 140 easy.
You know, it's because, you know, we have, we've always focused, in my opinion, on the macros. You know, how do we look? How do we feel? but we never really, you know, the good anti-aging science, you know, is not only inside the cell, it's gone through the cell into the mitochondria, and we realize that aging is a mitochondrial disease, is a shift in the metabolism, the mitochondria, and to the extent that we can stop this or slow it down or prolong its decline, you are extending life.
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Now let's get back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. Going back to exercising, being healthy for your mental health, your well-being, I would imagine then stress and anxiety does take a lot of toll, is a toll and can will age you, become debilitating at some point.
Is that true? Who am I? yeah it's so true you know there there are stresses that are good for the body you know not all stress is bad oh no question you know i think i think we take a very myopic view of stress um i mean if you think about certain stresses and how the body responds so there's a there's a response in the body called hormesis right where we're a hormetic stress where you stress the body and it strengthens in response. If you don't load a bone, it doesn't strengthen.
If you don't tear a muscle, it doesn't grow. If you don't challenge the immune system, it weakens, right? Coming out of the pandemic, you saw the effects of the global weakening of the immune system.
I don't care what side of the aisle you're on. The worst thing that we ever did for humanity, social distancing, residential quarantining, and masking.
And there is no question. And the reason for that is that we actually took human beings out of contact with other human beings.
We didn't come in contact with the normal pathogens and and things that actually cause our immune system to fight and to strengthen. That used to be the approach before.
I don't know why it changed or why did it? You know, I don't want to get into like sinister motives for it, but, you know, the truth is, I think most people right now are of the mindset that maybe the governmental elites don't necessarily have our best interest at heart. Not that they have a sinister interest or a sinister outcome for us, but maybe they don't have our best interest at heart.
There's a lot going on behind the scenes that influences public policy, things like that. Um, and so what we should do are things like what you're doing, just take health into our own hands.
I mean, you know, people ask that, you know, how do you wake up with so much energy every day? Well, I do the same routine every day, every day. If you look at my Instagram this morning, you know, I took all the kids, everybody that's off camera back here, my son, my daughter, um um my cameraman my wife um and and we have this airbnb in la it was a big patch of grass outside so we went outside barefoot sat on the ground we did around a family breath work we we actually let the sun hit our skin gazed in the direction of the sun love that um hydrated took some amino acids took some mineral salts mineralized the body we feel freaking amazing you feel great you're exactly right i've done that as well when you've told me and it's such an easy thing inexpensive obviously you just got to go outside find a patch of grass and you do you feel you feel uh so much better in the sun i know it gets a bad wraps we get sunscreen beautiful backyards oh thank you thank you it's not done i wish it's done but yeah the sun kind of gets a bad rap in the sense that there does have some benefits.
Like you said, I do feel better when I'm, I know what the people are saying with the skin, skin cancer and this and that, but do it just like anything, not as long as it's not too much. Look at the trajectory of skin cancer.
You know, we had the highest rise in skin cancers after the advent of, of sunscreens. No question.
I mean, if you look at the number of the rate or the incidence of skin cancer, and you were to chart that year over year, starting, let's say, in the mid to late 80s, and you were to see this parabolic rise in skin cancer, and it's concomitant with the launch of sunscreens. And so you would think if sunscreens are preventing sun damage, we would have a reduction in skin cancer, but we haven't, there's significantly more skin cancer now than it was even in the forties before we had sunscreen.
That's why. And I think, you know, the truth is most of us are not getting enough sun.
It's not that we're getting too much sun. I think there were 23 brands of sunscreen since 2018 or two, sorry, since 2008, um, um, that had been pulled from the market for directly causing skin cancer.
Wow. Sunscreen.
Wow. I mean, especially the aerosol versions.
So every time we try to step in the way of mother nature, so I should avoid the aerosol versions just as a general. Yeah.
I mean, did you, I mean, unless you're spending a prolonged amount of time in the sun, I mean, especially when you're at the beach and what have you, but no, not really, but but okay deep tallow and uh beef tallow and zinc probably the best sunscreen that you can use okay isbf no uh no no no jamming forever chemicals and and um you know hormone disruptors in in in these natural compounds okay lots of sunscreens are made naturally um my favorite is the combination of beef tallow and zinc um because those not only leave your skin not feeling oily, but, you know, they block the skin and they do a lot for you. But you're all complected, man.
You're meant to have sun. In fact, about half the population is clinically deficient in vitamin D3.
The darker your pigment of your skin, the more deficient you likely are. This is why, you know, when the pandemic happened, they go, well, it disproportionately affected minorities.
Well, that was true, but it had nothing to do with the fact that they were a minority. It had to do with the pigment of the skin.
Right. So, so African-American, Latino, dark inflected populations, um, have lower levels of vitamin D3 and that's what we need to build an immune system.
Right. Second leading cause of morbidity in COVID was clinical deficiency of vitamin D3, you know, and that's and and and this is why I wanted to get the message from you is, you know, because you're you're living a fast paced life.
You're in the public eye. You you don't control a lot of your schedule.
I mean, you have times and places that you have to be. You you you have a career, you have contracts, you have responsibilities that you don't get to just shift around.
You can't just call access and say, I'm not feeling it today. You know, I'm not showing up.
You have to produce. And so, you know, the point that I wanted to drill into with you, because you look great, you're in great physical condition, you're still dominating your career.
I know that you still have aspirations for your career. I want to talk about some of those.
Um, but it's because you've, you've made health and wellness a foundation of, of this journey. And, um, and I, and I deeply respect you for that.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
You know, to that point, you know, what is on the horizon for Mario Lopez? I mean, well, I, I, you know, acting, dancing, I mean, kind of all the above. I feel, um, very blessed to be as busy as I am, especially at this stage in my life.
And I don't take any of that for granted. I love doing my radio show.
I love I love doing Access Daily, Access Hollywood. I love being able to do a holiday movie a year, sometimes one more.
You got a holiday movie coming up this year? I do. With my new relationship with the Great American Family,

which will simultaneously be played on Hulu.

My grown-up Christmas wish.

And my wife's in it.

My son's in it.

That's awesome.

It's a family affair.

A bit of a musical.

We're singing and dancing in it.

And shot it outside of Chicago.

And happy with the way it turned out. It's done?

It's done.

It's done.

It'll be airing the first weekend um after thanksgiving and is it a feel

good oh yeah holiday feel good romantic yeah romantic and uh yeah and like i said it's got musical elements so that you know so that's a lot of fun so uh well you know i mean i like keeping busy yeah um what's your preference though i mean you you do like the access hollywood segments um you do a radio show, you do movies, you know, where do you find the most joy in that giant sphere of let's put it just under the sphere of acting? Well, I, I love the entertainment business as a whole. I really do.
I'm a fan first. And I think that helps when I'm interviewing and hosting because I do, I love TV, I love movies, I love music.
And I think, and I'm just fascinated by it. And I like being around these incredibly talented people.
I love learning about them. I love, I love hearing there's, there's backstories and I'm just kind of genuinely inquisitive person.
I always want to hear, well, how'd you get here? What, what, what was your route? I want to hear your journey. And so, and I get fascinated by that and that I haven't, um, I haven't lost that.
That's I've been, I'm doing it like now 15 years, the show and the radio show, I think it's like 10, maybe 12, 12 years. So yeah.
So 12 years. So, and I still, God just came in.
Yeah. Yeah.
And, uh, and I still have a great time and I love it. And I still have a great time.
And I look forward to talking to the guests. And I genuinely enjoy what I do.
And I don't want to stop doing it. I'll do it as long as I can do it.
So I continue to want to do that. I would love to, as far as on the horizon and goals, I want to continue to produce more things.
I've got some really cool docs coming up. So going behind the camera.
Behind the camera. And creating the content.
There you go. And creating some more content so i think if anything i'd probably start um uh focusing a little bit more on that and then you know you get to the point where kids start getting a little older you got to start figuring out what they're going to do and uh probably be hitting you up for advice on that but uh but yeah so but i don't take it for granted i know that everything's just sort of a temp job and it can be gone like that.
And so, um, I try to attack it every day with, uh, you know, some, you know, I've been, I've been so blessed with just really, really great kids. And it's, uh, you know, I, I think it'd be fair to say that I'm inspiring to them, but they're actually more inspiring to me than, than, than I am to them.
Yeah. They, they, they create incentive and motivation.
They create motivation, like watching them pursue any kind of dream or have any kind of success is like, you know, multiples more of an impact on me than any, you know, the milestones that I set for myself. So I agree.
It's really, it's really interesting you to live through their eyes. I mean, you get to act in a movie with your son.
That's gotta be a, an absolute milestone. Oh yeah.
Yeah. With, with him, my wife, and the last movie I had my daughter.
and so those are just like kind of priceless moments that are they giving you crap off set though like no because if they didn't want to do this kids the kids they look did they take direction from you or no they're pretty you know they're pretty i make sure that they're they're dialed in they're well prepared uh they know it's not like some game that we're playing and and um uh they've made me proud've made me proud so far. What, what, so for you, cause you, you, you've, you've been in this entertainment business for so long, you've seen good actors, average actors, great actors.
Um, what makes the difference in your opinion between a good actor and a great actor? And I'll give you a little preference. You know, I, I, I have a, um, very well-known, very, very famous, you know, DJ friend of mine.
Um, asked him one day, I was like, what makes the difference between a good DJ and a great DJ? And and he gave a one word answer that I thought was really profound. He said the transition, right? The transition between songs like you should never feel this.
You should never feel an abrupt stop, start, stop, start. Because, you know, it's a good DJ takes it to crowd.
I agree. I agree that reads the crowd, knows crowd knows when to stand on them knows when to back off them and he went down this whole cycle of how um he's it was steve aoki but how he really oh he's been here yeah he's yeah he's he's he's amazing yeah um great guy a great human talk about somebody who's on a wellness journey too i mean the guy doesn't drink doesn't have any extra activities he likes what he does like to throw cake and i'm like is that a sugar-free cake right but what in your opinion is you observe this industry and you see greatness all right because i think there's a large pool of good actors right but then you have these iconic great entertainers some of them been on top of their game for decades i will i'll say this because a lot of them most of them are really really uh talented and it's either god given or they put in a lot of work but i think the ones that stick around that are here for decades and that have been um mega, mega stars.
I really feel it's, they're nice people and they know how to communicate and they get the game. Either they're really good at that, but they're acting outside of the script and, but they know how to treat people.
They know how to communicate. They know how to sort of galvanize and make everyone and sort kind of feel good about them and i think that goes a long way it seems like the the people that i've interviewed the the tom cruises uh jamie fox the uh caprio sure the cabris of the world these are guys that they're nice guys it seems like the bigger the stars they're nice they're they're good people and they get it and they um don't i i feel at least they don't necessarily take it for granted and and uh they're they're there i think they've they've been blessed for a reason so it's the ones that uh maybe you have those middle those those those reality stars are trying to you know that you think they're kind of hot then those kind of you know you can see kind of the attitudes I see many an actor come and go and their windows.

That's what I mean.

But I feel like the ones,

they're actually nice people.

And I think good things do happen to good people.

So,

so if you,

if you were going to give advice to a young,

aspiring up and coming actor about how,

how do I have a career that stands the test of time in Hollywood?

Cause Hollywood is a nasty place. I mean, it's a tough place.
Absolutely. I think nasty was right.
The first time it really is. It's cutthroat.
And look, this is the, I would, I'll say this, this is the best time ever in the, in the history of television cinema ever just in life that one can get into the entertainment industry why because now you can create your own platforms create your own content get your own buzz and you have control of something before growing up i didn't have there was no internet there was no youtube there was no any sort of social media or now they're with their i just rather doing like four or five pilots you know these television shows you test to see if they're going to become tv series off of someone's social media account because they were witty they were telling personal stories they created this content where it created buzz and attention so now you're sort of in control of your own destiny if you want it to be as much energy and work as you want to put into it where that wasn't the case before if i grew up right now i'd be hustling i'd be be one of those YouTube kids with like hustling with like these millions. I would have been, I'd be damned if I didn't have like millions of followers.
What would you be doing? You'd just be doing stupid shit over here. I mean, I'm not a kid, so I don't know what I'd be.
You know what I mean? But I'd be probably, I don't know what it would be. Like I see my kids watch these like kids open toys and play.
It's like nonsense that there's like, I know I'm a lot more personable than that. Yeah.
Because I'd figure out whatever was resonating out there and I'd start to hit it hard.

But right now, especially if you're a young person, there's no better time than to get into this business.

If you really want to and you really want to bust your ass like a little savage, then create your own content.

Be consistent with it.

Be disciplined.

And that's all that's all you need.

You can use auditions over Zoom now. You know, my mom used to drive me two and a half, three hours every day or every other day, whatever, when I would have auditions for a five minute auditions and then drive me right back down to San Diego.
Now you could do like five or six a day in a zoom. That wasn't the case.
So now it's better than ever to get in there as far as opportunity, as far as you, you, um, making something for yourself and not having any sort of any sort of excuse. That's so awesome.
And a lot of people are worried about AI and the AI impact on, on the industry. And I see both sides of the coin, but it's not going to be a big deal or it's actually going to, you know, eliminate all of acting and they're just going to produce, you know, movies on AI and people won't even be behind a camera anymore.
What's your thought on? I, I, I too see both sides of, uh, of that equation. I think we're long ways away.
It's exciting and scary kind of at the same time, right? It is, it is, it's, it's, it's, it's exciting and scary, but I think we're a long way away from replacing actors. I think so too.
I don't think you ever yeah. Emotion in that human component, I think are irreplaceable, but that's again, that's our take right now, but I still think it's going to take a minute before, get even.
So what would be your takeaway health advice to people that have busy schedule schedule to have kids that, you know, that have careers and a marriage and a schedule that they've got to keep up? What would be your takeaway health advice? What would what would you want them to know? Stop making excuses. Everyone's busy.
Everyone's got a lot on their plate. Everyone says, I don't have time.
Yeah. And so they try to justify it that way.
You got to make the time. You make a priority.
You make it a priority. You'll make the time.
Just like when you're in love, you'll make the time to meet that girl. Yeah.
Nothing's going to get in your way. You're going to find that time.
You're going to make that time. Well, that's how you got to look at it.
You've got it. You've got to make that time, whether that's shaving an hour off of your sleep, um, maybe not going out that night as late as you wanted to, but you really have to look at it as part of your everyday routine and start being consistent with it.
And it's all about discipline. At the end of the day, life is about discipline and the choices you make.
Yeah. And I think the best choice that an individual can make for themselves is making their health a top priority.
So quit making excuses and just do it to paraphrase Nike. I love that, man.
You know, I, I wind down every, every one of my podcasts by asking all my guests the same question. So there's no right or wrong answer to this question.
And what does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? What's it mean to me to be the ultimate human? What does it mean to you to be an ultimate human? Well, I think try to be the best version of yourself and grow in the right direction every day, physically, spiritually, emotionally, and being a human means we're going to make mistakes. But as long as you learn from those mistakes and keep moving forward, not veer off track, I think you'll be the best human you could be.
Hence ultimate human. Yeah.
Love it, brother, man. I love chopping it up with you.
i can talk to you like i talk to you all day i can't believe it's all i know all i know is i'm gonna live to 140 we are gonna do a podcast in 50 years guys so stay tuned that's right yeah um right here in this studio that's right 50 years from from today 2075 oh my god we'll be back for the follow-up episode i love

you brother that's a great journey with you and i look forward to being on the show this afternoon

and as always guys that's just science