Brian (1s):
Coming up on the GET, LEAN, Eat, Clean, Podcast.
Anthony (3s):
The more you're consistent and the more years you have on the belt, you start to figure out and dial in the things that really work for you. And those things are slightly different than those that work for me. And I'm gonna say in a couple categories, you're gonna find the type of training your body really responds to and you actually enjoy. So that's great. And understanding that also might change with seasons like when it's cold outside, you might be doing different exercise than when you do in the summer. And so you start to find your rhythm and flow, and that's what life is. It's about going with these rhythms and flows. The second thing is you're gonna find those go-to foods that make your body feel fantastic. And the more I talk to people who are like you and me, Brian, who like have been deep in this game and teach people and work this on a very deep level, is we end up gravitating not from a restrictive standpoint, but to a certain subset of foods that we know are like the really nourishing foods that work well for our bodies.
Anthony (55s):
and we build our nutrition plans around those foods. Not to say some free meals and other stuff doesn't get slotted in there. It does, that's part of the dance. But I know you can refine what works for you. And people who are less consistent, they have more variety and less clarity. This
Brian (1m 12s):
Week I interviewed Dr Anthony Balduzzi. Dr. Anthony is the founder of Fit Father. Project has helped millions of men lose weight, double their energy, create rock solid habits, and build age defying muscle and strength. We discussed Dr. Anthony's nutrition principles, The importance of mindset when it comes to losing weight. Dr. Anthony's morning and evening routine, what to eat for that first meal of the day, how to lose visceral fat around your waist, and much, much more. Really enjoyed my Interview with Dr Anthony. I know you will too. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy the show. Alright, Welcome to the Get Lean Eat Clean podcast. My name is Brian Gryn and I have Dr. Anthony Balian. Welcome to the show.
Anthony (1m 51s):
Thanks for having me. I'm really excited to be here this morning.
Brian (1m 54s):
Yeah, I'm excited to have you on. I've been father fathering, you fa Well, so I've been, I've been following you for quite a while and I, I think I right when I was about to say that. So you, you know, you, you own a Fit Father project, right? Yeah. Mission to help men over 40 with health and wellness and, and I'm, we're in the same niche, so I'm excited to have this conversation.
Anthony (2m 14s):
Yeah, me too. I have a, a deep passion for men's health and fitness and I suppose this is a nice launching off point for me to share a little bit like how I got into that work. you know, I, I honestly, it came from tragedy, you know, growing up I watched my own dad bust his butt to provide for our family. And like many guys, his health routines got put in the back burner. He didn't always eat the healthiest, he had a lot of stress, he missed workouts. And one night he fell outta bed and had a violent seizure and we took him to the hospital and that night he got a terminal brain cancer diagnosis and he died several years later after chemotherapy, radiation surgery. But I basically saw like my superhero, my dad, his health deteriorate and he passed away when he was just 42 years old.
Anthony (2m 58s):
And so that was right before my 10th birthday. So I was ninth at the time. And it really rocked my world. It gave me a sense and appreciation for health at a very young age that I don't think people typically get until the mid part of life. And it did kind of flip a switch in my mind into my heart that I wanted to figure out this health and fitness stuff, you know? And kind of on a primal level I felt like to heal myself and to step up and become, you know, the man to the house. But also I had this idea that if I could get so strong and healthy, cancer wouldn't affect me. And as I began to invest in my health and fitness routines, I would train at night with these dumbbells, I'd keep under my bed. I started to learn about how healthier foods, I started to feel better. And I was like, this is amazing.
Anthony (3m 39s):
Like my life was crumbling maybe like a year ago. And now, as I've been consciously investing in healthier food and movement to like, I'm healing on many deep levels, like physically stronger for sure, but I have more mental clarity and sharpness and motivation. I see purpose in my life. And that's the initial soil that sprouted over time and time to become what the Fit Father Project is today. And then the Fit Mother Project came after that. And I just have a passion for people like my dad, middle aged guys juggling everything, know they want to do better, but it's hard to practically make all this stuff work. And, you know, the stakes are higher where when we're midlife, you know, we have this crossroads where we can have a beautiful back half of life with energy, our wisdom years or what most people are experiencing today, which is like de ability, worsening health.
Anthony (4m 27s):
It's just, it's just terrible. And so I help people establish the lifestyle to, to walk that path, the healthy path.
Brian (4m 33s):
Yeah, I agree. It is a sort of a great niche to be in. Like you said, I think, you know, you're in your forties, even fifties, there's still a lot of time left, right? Like even if you haven't implemented healthy habits from then, from, you know, that point, from that point before that like it's never too late, right. And, what kind of like foundations that like of health would you say that you, you focus on with a lot of clients to sort of help them help them get going down that path?
Anthony (5m 2s):
Well, I, I'd say think I like to, I'm kind of like a systems thinker. I, I think that we need to establish systems to counteract the busyness in all the information barrage. and we need systems around our nutrition. We need systems around our movement. We need systems around our sleep and recovery. And so I help people build systems in those pillars. And I, and I do feel like we can also start to approach it from which systems are the highest leverage and nutrition certainly is the highest leverage system. you know, it's gonna be argued for sleep and recovery too, you know, from a hormonal perspective. But I like to do zone in with nutrition and, and a lot of people struggle because they feel like they need to go out and exercise and work out more. They feel guilt about that, but they're eating foods that are dysregulating their blood sugar, creating inflammation, you know, setting them up into reactive habit patterns.
Anthony (5m 48s):
So I really help people dial in meal timing schedule set up, like what works for you on what days? Figuring out healthy go-to foods and practicing getting into a good routine with that because I, I do feel like that healthy eating plan is like this kind of structure and scaffolding that everything can kind of build around. Because when you're over 40, the converse is, is absolutely not true. You cannot out exercise poor nutrition. You can try to go train for a couple hours, but you're eating inflammatory foods that are messing your gut up and killing your energy. It's just not gonna work. So, and the cool thing is, is as we get older and our recovery capacity from exercise goes down, good nutrition paired with like a couple pulses of training a week is enough of a signal to create a really healthy, strong and fit body.
Anthony (6m 31s):
So I'd say nutrition is where we start, but baked into nutrition, it's not just like the, the nutritional science, it's like the art of nutrition, which inherently involves your motivation, your belief structures, your environment, your habits, behavioral psychology. And this is where nutrition and mindset become these like two sides to this coin that leads to consistency. So, we spend a lot of time with our clients helping them create better neuro associations, get deeper into understanding the psychology of what's driving their motivation to be healthy and, and, and honestly getting in touch with that on a regular basis. Because if we currently have def deficits in nutrition, meaning we have bad habits and patterns, we're not consistent.
Anthony (7m 12s):
It is because we have some kind of belief structure or habit pattern, a neuro neuro pattern, if you will, that is not serving us and we need to rewire that. So it's a deep process. It really is.
Brian (7m 23s):
Yeah. And I think, you know, the one difficulty, like you said is this individual's, you know, as, as a, as opposed to working some with someone in their twenties where they, they haven't been, you know, haven't had life as as long and maybe haven't developed some bad habits for a while obviously. But bad habits can be tough to break, like you said. Yes. you know, it can become just sort of this neuro association that, like I had a client one time who kept referring, you know, in a joking pattern that he, you know, he was this, he was a fat guy. Like, but you know, just like, so he associated himself as that. Yes. And, and like you sort of have to get over that obviously initially, which can't be, is not always that easy Right away
Anthony (8m 2s):
Those identity shifts are necessary to happen over the long haul to be successful. I'm talking in like a 2, 3, 5, 10 year timeframe that has to change because what you do see happen is people follow a plan that's very effective. Maybe they get on a very low carbohydrate diet, they start doing some fasting, they work with a trainer, you can lose a hundred pounds in a year, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you've shifted this deep belief structure. Like a lot of those people, even down a hundred pounds, still feel like they have that inner fat man or fat woman inside and they perceive themselves in that way. And so there are processes that you can do to help to, to repower and rework those identity structures.
Anthony (8m 45s):
And that's really key for sustainability. And ultimately what is health about other than sustainability. It's not like you win the game of health. It's not like a one thing. It's like we wanna show up and continuously invest five years from now, 10 years from now. So it's all about the sustainable lens in my opinion.
Brian (9m 0s):
I agree. And you talk about it in your, in your YouTube videos, you have a great channel, but you've talked about like consistency and the importance of that. I mean, I think people ask me like, I mean I'm 44, like I feel like I've, I'm probably in some of the best shape of my life and, and I just think it's just been being consistent over a long period of time is like the biggest thing. It just like you said, showing up.
Anthony (9m 22s):
Yes. And I'll say too, and I think you can probably reflect this is true in your life, the more you're consistent and the more years you have on the belt, you start to figure out and dial in the things that really work for you. And those things are slightly different than those that work for me. And I'm gonna say in a couple categories, you're gonna find the type of training your body really responds to and you actually enjoy. So that's great. And understanding that also might change with seasons. Like when it's cold outside you might be doing different exercise and when you do in the summer. And so you start to find your rhythm and flow and that's what life is. It's about going with these rhythms and flows. The second thing is you're gonna find those go-to foods that make your body feel fantastic. And the more I talk to people who are like you and me, Brian, who like have been deep in this game and teach people and work this on a very deep level is we end up gravitating not from a restrictive standpoint to, but to a certain subset of foods that we know are like the really nourishing foods that work well for our bodies.
Anthony (10m 19s):
and we build our nutrition plans around those foods. Not to say some free meals and other stuff doesn't get slotted in there. It does, that's part of the dance. But I know you can refine what works for you. And people who are less consistent, they have more variety and less clarity. Like for me, I know like today in like where my body's at right now and like what I know to be true, I know I feel fantastic when I'm eating a lot of high quality eggs when I'm eating avocado, extra virgin olive oil, walnuts, hemp seeds, you know, cold water fatty fish. And I just, and I, and I've had enough consistency over time to deviate from different types of foods and see how my body responds and get that kind of feedback and connection that it, it helps me stay more consistent for a couple reasons.
Anthony (11m 8s):
One, I just have the clarity, but two, I've had enough rounds of feedback to know, oh, I do different things. I feel worse And what we all wanna do. It feels like, you know, sugar tastes great, but feeling fantastic is a much richer experience.
Brian (11m 20s):
Yeah. And I, I think on another note like, you know how it feels to like eat a crappy food and not feel good. Yes. Like I think when you get to the point where like you avoid foods because you know that you're not gonna feel right, I think that's it. That's getting to a good point in your That's it. Yeah. Right.
Anthony (11m 38s):
You nailed it, you nailed it, that's it. Because then, then you're being, yeah, you're being, you're not now I'd say you're being pulled towards your center of goodness versus like being pushed to the good place. I maybe I didn't say that exactly right. But point being is like when you know you're not, not eating something, you're like, I know this wrecks my gut creates inflammation, it's just not worth it for me. Like something like pizza, like I'm an Italian dude, like it tastes so good, but I just don't eat it because it destroys me. And the cool thing is it doesn't destroy everybody. Yeah. Right. Like there's some people that can eat those foods and be okay and that's great to know, like what's your wheelhouse of stuff you can get away with?
Brian (12m 14s):
Yeah, yeah. Like I'm sort of the same way, like pizza don't have it a lot at all, but like if I do, I don't necessarily feel great. But again, having a cheat meal every once in a while and then bouncing right back to your normal routine, I think there's nothing wrong with that.
Anthony (12m 29s):
Me too. and we build that into our programming philosophy and I, I like to call 'em free meals instead of cheat meals. Right. Subtle language difference. But I think it language does encapsulate our relationship to something. Cheat would mean you're doing something bad and it has like a kind of guilty or punitive aspect to it. Free means we're releasing the, the, the framework of what is optimal for us in this moment. And, and then again, you just, you you're proactive with it. You plan it typically on a Friday or Saturday night when you're going out with family or friends or when it fits a social calendar and then you have a protocol for getting back on track the next day. Maybe you fast, you know, for a couple hours, maybe you increase your hydration or have some coffee to get that bowel movement.
Anthony (13m 10s):
Like whatever your protocol is, it's all part of the dance. It's no longer like this erratic, I'm all over the place, I'm on the plan, off the plan. It's just like a little more flowing and you have tools to deploy because I think health long term is about managing momentum too. It's like, it's okay if you didn't exercise and you missed all of your workouts for one week. That really actually would be okay as long as you can completely turn that momentum around, get back on track. But if that drift becomes one month, three months, now you're in a rut. So these kind of small tools on how to get back on track, you didn't have the healthiest meal, what's your morning routine? What's your go-to meal one? How do you reset? Like that's a tool and the most successful people know how to run that play.
Brian (13m 49s):
Yeah, yeah. Well said. I know you talk systems, I'm, you can call 'em systems or routines. I'm a big, I'm a big routine guy and we were talking off a little bit about your morning routine. Maybe, maybe give us a little in depth of, of what a, a typical day like is for you.
Anthony (14m 5s):
Yeah, sure. I'll give you like the, the pair down version of a routine. I'm a lot like you and I've listened to your podcast on, you may have several on morning routines. First thing that I do is before I'm actually totally awake and alert, meaning my brain waves state has gone from that like dreamy transitional state to more alert and focused. Which I mean if we get a little more scientific, we're moving from these deeper, slower waves like theta and maybe alpha waves in the morning towards beta waves, these active alert waves. I think that's a really special time. It's a special time to take advantage of. So before I get out of a bed, well I guess I do, I do, I actually get outta bed, but before I turn the lights on the room I have a little meditation chair and I also have a meditation kind of mat and I'm either laying on the mat or I'm sitting in the chair and it's like, it could be up five minutes But, it could be up to 30 minutes.
Anthony (14m 54s):
And I'm just sitting in that space that really powerful creative dream-like space. And that's a chance to process. It could be a chance to set an intention, but I guess you could call it like a meditation time. And the reason I'm motivated to do that when I struggled to meditate in the past is that I believe that kind of state of consciousness that's not just regular alert, busy, you know, kind of more surface level is significant. Like it's significant because it could be a source of deeper creativity, a source of subconscious processing. In fact, like one of the most prolific inventors, Thomas Edison had a famous practice where he would hold two metal balls in his hands and he would get into a really dreamy state.
Anthony (15m 36s):
Like he was just about to fall asleep. And as he'd fall asleep, his hands would relax and the balls would drop and wake him up and then he would write down whatever he was thinking about. This was like his conscious process for taking his brain into a deeper state. So I was, when I, when I realized this in my own life, I'm like man, I wanna take advantage of that on a daily basis and do a little bit of this deep processing. So that could be five to 30 minutes after that I will get up and I'll do some rehydration. So for me what that looks like is clean water, which in our household is a whole house reverse osmosis, which removes pretty much everything. But then we remineralize So, we get clean water and we put minerals back in. My current thought on minerals is like any way that you can get minerals are good, but I'm more interested in the micro minerals than the macro minerals.
Anthony (16m 20s):
Like right now everyone's talking about these like elements, you know, sodium packs, they have like a thousand milligrams of sodium, maybe a little bit of magnesium, like look that's good for like athletic aspects, but for optimal health we want like these micro minerals like boron, lithium, vanadium. And they're found in a lot of great places. Like a supplement I use is from beam minerals, BEAM. They have these fulvic and humic acids. They're liquid mineral supplements and fulvic and humic acids, if people are not familiar, are basically the decomposition products of plants like plant leaves that kind of decompose plants concentrate minerals from the soil into structure.
Anthony (17m 1s):
And then we're able to eat these and we get all our minerals. I think trace mineral drops are also fine and if you want to be super bare bones and simple with it, even like Celtic sea salt, it has some trace minerals as well with the sodium chloride. But hydration in minerals is what the body needs. Firstly in the morning, like we know from all this experience, personal experience, but also research on fasting, the body can go a long time without food, can maintain blood sugar, can stabilize. And in the morning we have the benefit of that natural rising cortisol anyways that's gonna, you know, rise, raise blood sugar naturally, you know, break down some, some stored glycogen. But what we do need is water and hydration. That's what really gives our, our, our cells the ability to, you know, have proper voltage and, and cellular signaling and energy.
Anthony (17m 44s):
So I'm a big proponent of that. I don't always eat in the morning. I'm a little more flexible with that. And I think it depends on if I had a big workout the next day, am I actually hungry? Do I have a podcast or a recording or a meeting in the morning and maybe I'll just have, you know, some more liquids in the morning and not have my first full meal. So I'm a little variable on that. Like the weekend with my daughter, we might have an actual like proper breakfast so that kind of flexes and flows. But I, I guess I would say that and, and I, and one, one final aspect of my morning routine that I like to do before I put food in my body is I do have a cold plunge that is outside and I live in Arizona so it's sun, sunny. So I'll walk out into the backyard, get some sunshine and hop in the cold plunge for about two minutes, three minutes and then dry off in the sun.
Anthony (18m 29s):
So I'm getting that morning sunshine on my skin in my eyes. And I guess because I have a nice setup at my house, that whole process, let's just say the meditation took 10 minutes, the hydration and the preparing of the liquids took five minutes and then the cold plunge with the warming up in the sun takes 10 minutes. Like that's honestly could be as short as 30 minutes. I typically take my time and maybe it's an hour, but that's all that require is required in my routine for making me feel fantastic. I think the coal plunge kind of gives you this kind of exercise effect because you get this kind of pumping of, of the cardiovascular system and the vessels and then the reheating and the reperfusion and then being outside in the morning sun is, is a mood tonic for sure. Your brain makes more, more serotonin.
Anthony (19m 11s):
So I'm looking at how do I optimize my neurotransmitters, how do I get hydration in my body? And then take advantage of that beautiful morning transitional state of consciousness. So that's where I'm at with those kind of three things.
Brian (19m 22s):
Yeah. Do you typically do your workouts like midday or afternoon?
Anthony (19m 27s):
I, I like to do 'em as like a kind of transition point out of the, you know, either I, I either I slot a shorter workout in midday after I've done work for a few hours or I do 'em before I have dinner meals so that dinner can come, you know, within one to two hours after training. So let's just say that a workout might come at 4:00 PM could be a a common time, but I could also do something small in the afternoon. I tend to workout on, like right now I'm in a very busy season. I have a, you know, a daughter and business and a lot of things I'm getting on. So I will do one big full body strength training session during the week and then another big one on the weekend. And so I'm only getting two full, two full body strength training sessions.
Anthony (20m 11s):
And then during the week it's just more like lighter activities and cardiovascular stuff, riding a bike, walking, you know, bouncing and just like lighter stuff. And the cool thing I can say this is when you've trained for some time and you eat a healthy diet, you don't need a ton of exercise to have a very muscular and fit body pulses of high intensity exercise are what our body respondents to. Well
Brian (20m 33s):
Yeah, I talked to Brooks Komen about a little bit about like, like neat non-exercise activity thermogenesis. Yeah. Like doing, doing those little things throughout the day, moving, walking. Yes. You, you were talking about bouncing those, those over time can make almost just as a big if big if not more of impact than, than a lot of other activities
Anthony (20m 54s):
For sure. Yeah. It's like what is this study? They have like the research on people who are naturally fidgeters and they burn like hundreds of calories extra per day, which could be up to thousands per week and they, they stay leaner. Yeah.
Brian (21m 5s):
And yeah, I love that. I mean I, I actually have a cold plunge back there. Lucky I was blessed to have it and have like a perfect room for it. Yes. I mean I'm in Chicago so it's gotta be, I guess I actually have a friend who has one outside but mine's, mine's inside and I usually typically use the cold plunge on my off days. Actually. I don't pair it around my workouts be, you
Anthony (21m 26s):
Know, pre workouts a good time to explore it pre, pre like, I don't know when you be trained pre you say pre Oh yeah, yeah, yeah
Brian (21m 31s):
For sure I have done that the pre and you, you find you have, you have more stamina.
Anthony (21m 36s):
You do? Yeah. Well 'cause you get all these, you get the rush of all the, you know, well, well certainly you get adrenaline dumped, dopamine gets dumped as well and if you give your time so your body time to warm up, you get that reperfusion of blood, it's, it can be very good. But as you mentioned for those who are interested in doing cold exposure, not the best time after exercise 'cause you want your body to have that adaptive signaling from training. Yeah, right.
Brian (21m 59s):
Yeah, it's, it's a great, it's a fun tool. What about evening? Do you have any sort of tips sort of that to help people wind down and improve quality of sleep?
Anthony (22m 7s):
Yeah, for sure. I, I think like probably the biggest thing that I've learned is optimizing the room itself. Like the sleep environment is probably where your best gains are. Changes I've made blackout curtains, game changer, like having a really, really dark room, a weighted blanket has been a game changer for me as well. Like a really thick, heavy cotton blanket. Like it's breathable so I'm not too hot. I find that my sleep is, and maybe we can approach this from what makes my sleep the worst, what makes my sleep the worst is when I'm too hot at night or if I've eaten too close to when I go to bed. Which also produces thermic effective food. And then body heat is a big aspect there. So one to good sleep, I try not to eat too late so I'm at least, you know, three, four hours before going to bed.
Anthony (22m 52s):
But ideally even longer would be optimal And that room is cooler. So I do have like these ler kind of ChiliPad type things. I don't think they're necessary for people to have. But you gotta find a way to get a cool room and a proper blanket set up. I do have that same kind of routine where I'm transitioning out of the day where I sit in that meditation chair or I lay down in that mat for five, 10 minutes. That is something I, I think is so important for just decompressing processing, closing down the day. Like that's really essential. And I do take, I do occasionally take melatonin. I have it and I am a fan of it, but it's not like it needs to be like an everyday thing.
Anthony (23m 35s):
But it's one of those interesting quote unquote hormones if you will that you know, you don't get a negative feedback loop. Your body is gonna produce melatonin regardless if you take a one milligram melatonin tab. And I, and I, my, the way I kind of modulate, if I take that would be one if I'm feeling like I'm run down or maybe if there's any kind of immune stuff or I feel like I'm a little sick. I think we're realizing now melatonin's is an important molecule for the immune system and it could be helpful for low boost or two if I was working on the computer just like a ton that day. Maybe a little extra support. It's just kind of like my own anecdotal process there. I am huge on maintaining proper light. So all of our screens in our house, even the TVs, you know, that my daughter watches with Apple TV on them.
Anthony (24m 20s):
We cut out the blue light almost constantly. And I'm not against blue light during the day, but we just take it off almost all of our screens 'cause we're getting plenty of it anyways. So all of our technology in the house, phones, iPads, TVs, all has, you know, the blue light pretty much cut out of it and I think that's pretty dang essential for a proper circadian rhythm. And if you want some blue light, like get outside in the sunshine midday, look at the sky, like that's the right time to get that.
Brian (24m 46s):
And the blue light from the screens, you're blocking that out with glasses or you, or you, you
Anthony (24m 51s):
Know, modulators on the screens. I mean if you go to like your iPhone or your, I have glasses and, but like if you go to any, well one of my computer here that I have, I have a little software called Flux I think, or I have a couple different ones that basically just cuts that out. Like at the screen level. I think it's more of a software programmatic thing. If you have an iPhone, you just go to accessibility, brightness, you know Right. Display and you can kind of reduce all that out. You can even do it on your TVs, you know, all of them have settings to cut out the blue light. And at night I do have blue blocking glasses and I have some really, the really red, like the really, really red ones. If you get those red red ones. Yeah. Yeah. That can really help you sleep. And I, I do have a pair of those.
Brian (25m 29s):
Yeah. Yeah, those are, those are good tips and I, yeah, I agree. I mean I think creating that environment is so important. We have blackout shades and we keep our room cool. Like about 66 degrees. Perfect. I tried, we tried with using the, the, the cool the cooling blanket. Oh my God. Oh eight sleep. We tried that mat actually the mattress didn't quite work out, but you know, we're, I'm, I'm curious with the heavy blanket if, if you find so it's not too warm.
Anthony (25m 57s):
No. 'cause it's, it's a woven, it's woven so it like almost stretches and opens. It's, it's been probably the single biggest thing I've done that's helped a ton. So I replaced my comforter with it.
Brian (26m 6s):
What's the brand on that one?
Anthony (26m 8s):
I can look it up. It starts with a B.
Brian (26m 10s):
Okay.
Anthony (26m 10s):
Starts with a B.
Brian (26m 11s):
No problem. As far as nutrition, that first meal of the day, I know you've talked about it on social media a little bit and you talk about standardizing your first meal of the day. What, what, what's, what's your advice around that?
Anthony (26m 22s):
Okay, well I'll, I'll give like advice that I give in the program and then I'll share with what I'm doing right now personally. And they're, they're similar but again, I, I've, I have my own unique flare on what works best for me. I believe that in the morning there's a couple types of meals that work well for people. From a conceptual standpoint, it's a great time to have a good first bolus of protein. It's a great time to have healthy fats. It's a great time to get in a lot of vitamins and minerals and stuff that like you can just get in to give the body, Hey here's micronutrients, here's macronutrients. It's not a good time to radically spike your blood sugar or eat things that are hard to digest and which means just things that are just too heavy require a lot of blood flow in the GI tract and we will slow you down for the day.
Anthony (27m 6s):
I think it's the time to feel light and optimized. So the way people accomplish that in our programs is they're doing some kind of eggs plus fruit or eggs plus avocado style recipe. Like that just works easy eggs, whatever way you like, pair it with an avocado, you have like a low carb, you know, kind of meal. That's wonderful. You can also pair it with any kind of fresh fruit would be a wonderful option as well. I like eggs and I, I mean for those people I, I, not everyone can tolerate them well but if you can, dang are they a super food? I mean you have biovail protein. The egg yolk itself is so rich in nut nutrition. It's like a multivitamin basically and you can get 'em anywhere. So it's actually really easy to have a portable routine whether you're at a hotel or in a different country.
Anthony (27m 48s):
You know, eggs were kind of ubiquitous so I'm a fan on that. Yeah. But like let's say you are vegan plant-based, you could totally do some kind of like steel cut oats with hemp seeds, goji berries, cacao nibs, walnuts, like yeah it's higher carb but that would also be an amazing beautiful meal. And you mix the fats in there and the proteins, you got something wonderful. I'm also a fan of like breakfast shakes and smoothies, like just standardizing it where you throw a bunch of great stuff in there, you get a clean protein powder you like whatever kind of milk you like. I'm more of a on the, I'm more on like, and this is also because I'm sensitive to dairy proteins and lactose intolerant. I'm not one of those people that tolerates dairy.
Anthony (28m 27s):
Well if you tolerate dairy well like go for it. I'd still probably suggest an organic, maybe a two caseine milk, but I'm more of like a nut milk kind of guy. But I would throw some, maybe some or cacao in there, maybe some spring mix, maybe some hemp seeds, chia seeds, you know, maybe some wild blueberries. Like you just make an awesome shake that you know, when you get this in I'm gonna be full. It's easy to digest. I got a lot of micronutrients in my body. And. what I love about this concept of having a, like a great ins slot breakfast is that the rest of the day, like could you could dinner could be like off the rails but at least this first meal is rock solid and sets you up for good energy and productivity. For me personally, you know, when I have my first meal, it's kind of variable on the day I am starting, I am waking up my GI track with a mono fruit meal.
Anthony (29m 16s):
I'm having one type of fruit and I eat it by itself first and I'll wait like 20, 30 minutes after that before I have anything else. Hmm. So in the summer I'm playing around with melons, they're just available and like they work like cantaloupe is something that I'm having quite a bit of and it feels amazing. Like there's, there's a lot of cool, the fruit is a really great tool for people who are insulin sensitive and have established healthy blood sugar in our training regularly. It's great for a couple reasons. One, you get like a lot of powerful hydration that doesn't just come from liquid. It comes in like this. It comes in a almost like a cooler package. 'cause the hydration's coming with natural minerals in there, it's coming in this matrix of fiber that your gut bacteria absolutely love.
Anthony (30m 2s):
It's very fast digesting, you know, these are, these are quote unquote simple sugars but that doesn't necessarily mean they'll throw your blood sugar to a tailspin you, you know? Right. And they'll also give you that early morning bowel movement. And I think that is a good sign of health when your GI tract starts to move early in the morning and a mono fruit meal could be really good on that. And that changes for me seasonally with what kind of fruit is available. So right now, as I said, I've been doing a good amount of melons. Sometimes some coconuts, you know, I'll do more stone fruits like apples and pears, you know, when the wintertime comes. Berries are also also an option. Sometimes a coconut yogurt. So that's what I start. I've been hitting eggs and quite a bit for my first protein source of the day and I have those raw, believe it or not, it's just something that I've kind of gotten in a habit of doing, cracking three four of these beautiful eggs with great orange jokes into a glass and I just kind of shoot those back and I feel great on those.
Anthony (30m 57s):
And I've, and like I'm not saying anyone should do this and this is like my personal thing. I've probably had thousands of raw eggs. I've never had any problems with salmonella or any kind of issues with that. So take that for what it's worth. But raw eggs in the morning feel quite good for me. And I am actually getting a good amount of fat and fat in like some flavonoids and other kind of plant compounds through some good cacao. I have like some ceremonial grade dark chocolate cacao, which is truly a health food. Like people don't give it enough credit, but like you get some real organic cacao, ideally that's heavy metal tested, like that stuff has healthy fat in it. It has compounds that boost your mood like theobromine in it.
Anthony (31m 40s):
It has fiber, it's one of the richest sources of magnesium. So I kind of have like a drink that has some more of these like healthy fats in there with the cacao and that combination of like the eggs and then the fruit and then the cacao with some of those fats is really good. It feels great. I'm getting walnuts in my diet every day. I know that sounds a very specific thing, but I believe that one of the, the healthiest foods possible when it comes to nuts, there's a lot of people who talk against, you know, certain plant-based foods for phytic acid or oxalates, walnuts are like the lowest source of all of those. They're high in omega threes. They're one of the greatest sources of copper, which is a micro mineral that we don't get enough of.
Anthony (32m 22s):
And copper is really implicated in thyroid function, immune function. And a lot of people are deficient because our foods just don't have enough. They're loaded with those. I'm also getting hemp seeds. I'm a, I'm basically, I'm a fan like of trying to get more plant-based proteins into your diet. Even if you have an animal-based diet. Like even if you're having steak or chicken or salmon as a part of your diet. If you can get these like best in slot plant-based protein sources in which I think hemp hemp seeds or hemp hearts are like a wonderful thing to get into your diet at all times. Like try to just pour those in another food. I'm a fan of that I that I put in all my daughter's food and, and mine too is non fortified nutritional yeast.
Anthony (33m 7s):
This is, this is mother nature's B vitamin. It's like it has all these activated B vitamins, not the synthetic B vitamins you find in many supplements, which I think there's more research showing those might not be optimal. But you can throw nutritional yeast on top of a salad, you can mix it into a pasta sauce. You can basically sprinkle it on any dinner. So I know I'm getting my B vitamins through that, through that avenue. I make my own ancient wheat bread, you know. Cool. I can't tolerate much gluten like from like I should should say traditionally prepared bread. But I use, I make iron corn, wheat, iron, corn is the oldest grain that we know of. I soak it, I sprout it and I make my own.
Anthony (33m 46s):
It's like manuka honey, sea salt and like iron corn that's dehydrated. It's not even cooked. And like I, I'll put pesto on that. I use it as a base for a lot of things and it's such a cool experience to actually be eating quote unquote bread. And it's like health enhancing. It makes me feel wonderful. You put, how long is that? How long is that process take? Three days. Okay. And it gives me something to do. I think it's part of like, it keeps me conscious on my nutrition because you know, like this morning before the podcast I got on and I rinsed the ein corn, it's about to start sprouting in about a day or so. And I almost always have a batch of that going. I've also gotten into sprouting. I think sprouts are just like nutrition powerhouse for all these micronutrients. And I've been making broccoli sprouts too.
Anthony (34m 27s):
So I've ein corn wheat going and I've been doing broccoli sprouts, which you know, you can look online, they're so healthy for you. They're full of these compounds called SFU sulforaphane and they protect your DNA, you know, they're just so healthy. And so now that I know I have these, like I'm interested in helping people figure out, there's these little things you can throw on top of what you're actually doing. So imagine if you've got sprouts in the house and you throw that on top of whatever dinner meal you had. Maybe you sprinkle some hemp seeds on, maybe you throw a couple nutritional yeast flakes on top of whatever your family's already having. Like these little additives make a big, big difference because I think for really high level nutrition, it's not just about your macros, it's not just about your protein target, it's not just about how many carbohydrates you're eating.
Anthony (35m 9s):
It's all this like these deeper, you know, micronutrients that you can get in in this way. I, you know, and I ate, I was a competitive bodybuilder for many years, so I ate more chicken breasts than I think I'll ever need to eat for the rest of my life. So Now, I'm trying to do more plant-based protein sources just to like learn and play with those. And one thing that I really do like, it's not the tastiest but I think it's phenomenally healthy, is Tempe, which is fermented, fermented soy. I do not feel good when I eat regular soy, even if it's organic. I can't tell you why I just feel a little bloated. But when I have fermented soy in the form of Tempe, dang do I feel good? It's rich in protein. You can marinate it and make it taste like basically anything.
Anthony (35m 51s):
I cook it with avocado oil on a stove top. And there's a lot of people talking about this longevity supplement, sperm aine. It's found in sperm and it helps with a lot of different pathways associated with longevity. Well the fermented soy Tempe is one of the highest sources of sperm aine. In fact, if you ate one serving of that for dinner, you have as much sperm aine as you might get in a serving of a supplement. So there's something to that. And, and the soy plant itself is called, it's, it's actual like plant name is glycine max. And glycine is a amino acid that's very rich in soy and it's also one that benefits us a lot from like a brain health and cognitive standpoint and nervous system standpoint. So I think there's benefit in getting that in.
Anthony (36m 32s):
And then when I do have, you know, animal products, I'm getting the highest quality sources, grass fed, grass finish, wild caught. I think in today's day and age, you just need to like pay attention to that when you eat higher up on the food chain. 'cause there's a lot of toxicants and bs in the food that's not great. Oh,
Brian (36m 48s):
Lot to take in there. Thanks for Yeah, thanks for sharing that. I like to ask this question to most of the people that come on the podcast. What's like one thing you've changed your mind about in the past 10 years?
Anthony (36m 59s):
It's a great question. I would say, I'll say, I'll say this. I think that we need to have a balance for longevity between anana and catabolism. We need to activate the pathways that build us up, things that stimulate insulin, things that dump amino acids. and we need things that actually allow our bodies to break down. And, and that's, that could be the converse between like eating and feeding after big training sessions. So you lift weights, you stimulate mTOR, your body's like, give me carbohydrates, give me amino acids to heal, grow and repair. And you feed that pathway. And that's a very important pulse for the body for longevity. You want muscle mass, you want anabolic signaling.
Anthony (37m 38s):
You just need to have that a part of your life. But that needs to be cyclically balanced with catabolism where you actually activate the exact opposite pathways. Amp kinase emptying things out, low fasting insulin, high growth hormone through deep fasting. So I, I used to believe that, you know, the goal was just to build, build, build and, and throw and feed calories and anabolism. But we also know that the, the bodybuilders that are taking all the anabolic steroids and the drugs and are basically not activating these ca these catabolic pathways through fasting and, and lack of nutrition and calories. They're, they're dying early of heart disease. They're getting cancers and the body cleans itself and heals itself through catabolism, through autophagy, through deep fasting.
Anthony (38m 20s):
And so that is a, a thing i, I would say be, I would even go as far as to say like, you know, look, doing time restricted daily eating, you know, fasting for 16 hours a day I think is, is beneficial. But this real machinery gets activated on deeper fasts. So, we teach in our program members doing a 24 hour fast once a week. That could be dinner to dinner, breakfast to breakfast. That's a place to start. But you could certainly do more. I think like a, the benefits of doing like a three day fast, once you work up to that, they get more profound for sure. You get into a deeper fast at state and maybe even doing that once a month would be optimal. Like a chance to give this really powerful cleansing signaling. So yeah, I guess I'd say like really the emphasis of the importance of fasting.
Anthony (39m 3s):
I would say the other thing is not appreciating the significance of light as a signal for the hormonal cascade that triggers all these body clock systems. So, we talked a little bit about blue light, but also now the importance of morning sunshine. you know, getting that sunshine in your eyes to set this, the all of our clock genes and get the right neurochemical cascade. Because if you can create the neurochemistry that makes you feel good and motivated on a daily basis, like your likelihood of sticking to health routines is massive. And I'm gonna tell you, your neurochemistry is so deeply tied to light, light in your skin, light in your eyes. So I'm appreciating how important of a signal that is for the body.
Brian (39m 42s):
Yeah, no, it's interesting. I, when I first got into the health game, not right initially, but I was big into fasting. I wrote a journal and I do think it's a tool for sure. And, and I think, like you said, I think it's important to get that balance of, of building up and then breaking down the bol versus catabolic. And also too, I think one way of recovering and getting into that catabolic state is sleeping well. Yes. Like quality, quality sleep. I think that's something maybe as I've gotten older, I've really put an emphasis on like just going to bed consistently at the same time I think is like a big one. I find the days that, or the nights that I, I'm up later, which doesn't happen that often.
Brian (40m 25s):
Even if I get a decent night's sleep, I, it's not the same. you know, I, so I I I think that is like something I agree with you. Yeah. I've become more conscious of as I've gotten older. Is that recovery?
Anthony (40m 35s):
I have another tip that came to my mind. Yeah, I've, I've changed my mind a little bit on creatine. I think, I think creatine is a wonderful supplement that everyone should consider taking. Yeah. It's, it's something I used to think was just an athletic performance supplement for muscle building for the ability to lift more weights or have higher power output. But now I'm appreciating that creatine is basically, you know, it's a driver of a TP of cellular energy. And ultimately when we're eating food at a high level upstream process, we're feeding the body so that we can ultimately produce a TP. And there's many ways to like give more direct cellular energy. And creatine is one of those.
Anthony (41m 16s):
They give creatine to seniors 75 plus who don't strength train. They maintain more muscle mass. Creatine is involved in the pathways that leads to most neurotransmitter conduction production. It le it's, it's involved with pathways that helps myelinate your neurons. It's, it's involved with pathways that produce acetylcholine. So it's really huge for cognitive health. And, and I just think like it also shown that people who have brain fog after a night of poor sleep talked a lot about that if they take creatine three to five grams, they actually mitigate some of that brain fog and cognitive decline, which might show that like the brain just doesn't have enough energy in those kind of scenarios. So I think it's a, it's a powerful tool and I don't see many people who wouldn't have benefit from taking three to five grams of creatine per day as a part of their routine.
Anthony (42m 5s):
Another thing I've changed my mind on a little bit is vitamin D and I guess I, I think it's another thing that's depending on where you live, important to supplement, but I also Now I am looking at trying to get more vitamin D from actual sun exposure. Not to say you, you shouldn't supplement in fact, like you live in Chicago wintertime, it's not like you're gonna get vitamin D from the, you know, the sun during that time. But I think it just shows if you can get out in the midday and get some of that sun on your skin, like that is a really powerful form of that sulfated vitamin D feeding that natural pathway at a high up level. And the cool thing about the sun is we know when we have too much, and it's depends on the amount of melanin we have.
Anthony (42m 44s):
When you start to feel that aversion, like there's too much sun, like it's time for you to get out of the sun. But I do want people to understand that the, the the, the light that produces vitamin D is that midday UVB light. The stuff that we're trying to avoid all the time. It's not the morning sunshine that's good for the infrared light. It's good for, you know, the light in our eyes that signals a past cascade, but that midday UVB is what produces that. So you wanna talk about a great way to be productive. Midday sun breaks, like if you can get outside and take a quick walk and even just, you know, look at the sun, get some sun on your skin, that's great season permitting.
Brian (43m 20s):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean daily walks I'm a big fan of, if, if you could do it specifically after a meal would be great. Yes. I coach golf here and we, our golf season's a short season for the high school And, you know, so I'm eating my meals a little bit later than I'd like to and I'll just, and and then it gets dark. 'cause we're in the fall now, so it gets darker earlier. I'll just, I've been going on like the treadmill after and just walking slowly nice. Like for 15 minutes even just like little things like that I think they add up over time.
Anthony (43m 50s):
Yeah. And that's just to speak into that, like what a like is, you know, I don't always love the term health hacks, but that think, I think that one totally like fits that category that is a health hack that if you walk after a big meal your digestion improves, your blood sugar and glycemic response improves and you just don't feel like that heavy, tired, lethargic feeling you sometimes feel after a meal. So I think it's a wonderful habit and practice and like, and incorporate your family. Right? We're we're talking about fit fathers and fit mothers, like, you know, get your, get your family to be a part of that. Take your dogs out, take a little family stroll. That could be a wonderful thing to do.
Brian (44m 23s):
Yeah, no doubt about it. And, and I know you talk a lot about visceral fat. I think losing visceral fat, especially middle-aged males, it's something that's, this is where we pack it on for the most part. Yeah. you know, I, I know there's probably, there's, you know, obviously there's not a magic pill for this and it's, it's implementing a lot of good habits over time. But are there some certain key things that you think people could implement to help maybe mitigate visceral fat as they age?
Anthony (44m 48s):
Yeah, I think there, I think there is some good evidence that high intensity exercise is a really good tool to help target that. I think you just get, you get this like it's for fat to be burned. It's a multi-stage process of having the fat being released from those fat cells. Meaning there's an energy demand that's causing those lipolytic hormones to be like, okay, we need to release these stored fats into circulation to be burned. So the calorie deficit is important. And also anything that increases energy demand, you also need to get blood flow into that area. Like blood flow needs to get into those areas. And some of this stubborn fat actually just is not as, you know, it, it does not have as much circulation per se, but anything getting deep blood flow into the viscera is gonna help get those fats liberated.
Anthony (45m 32s):
So I guess off the top of my head it would be like the great nutrition that's calorie balanced. I think fasting can be an helpful signal for creating, you know, more of that calorie deficit, high intensity exercise. And I would say that first off, you have like strength training, which is like creating muscular tension. I think that's important and that can be high intensity if you do like strength circuits like we recommend inside of our programs. But also doing like hit like intervals on whatever kind of cardio you like to do is fantastic. I think sauna after exercise is very, very helpful for many, many reasons. If you have the ability to get some more heat, even infrared saunas, those actually penetrate even deeper that can help accelerate that visceral fat loss probably through the, the mediating through like the enhanced circulation.
Anthony (46m 15s):
I think cold plunging probably helps too. You know, increases more of like the genetic expression of the things that lead to more brown fat, that mitochondrial rich fat that can help you burn more fat at rest. And again, anything I think that's getting circulation coming in, in, out from the viscera and out back to the periphery is probably really helpful. But ultimately your body's gonna pull from visceral fat stores as you get more lean. So you could even say good, you want to, you know, you need to lose some weight, measure your waist circumference, maybe get some kind of tool that can measure body fat and then work on losing weight, work on losing weight and building muscle. And those two combination of processes is gonna help. And the latter muscle building, you know, I'd say is even just as important because if you can build and maintain high amount of muscle and you have a higher metabolic engine at rest, right?
Anthony (47m 1s):
And then you eat calorie balance over a long period of time, inevitably your body's gonna be pulling from those deeper visceral fat stores.
Brian (47m 8s):
Yeah, no, those are all great tips. And yeah, I mean, building muscle is like, I think should be the forefront for not, not only aging men, but anyone in general just for general health, bone health and, and also, you know, sort of fighting that visceral fat that tends to build up as we get older. Well, this is great, Anthony. Where's the, where's the best place for people to find you? I know you're all over the place. Place. So
Anthony (47m 30s):
Yeah, so I mean our websites, you can find us@fitfather.com or fit mother.com. And if you're watching this on YouTube, we have our Fit Father Project YouTube channel that has hundreds of videos on a wide range of topics, workouts, nutrition supplementation, mindset, member success stories for inspiration. So you can check out the Fit Father Project, YouTube channel, or Fit Mother Project, YouTube channel. And if you wanna actually see like our methodology taking what we've have as like wide concepts now and actually see what's a plan, then you can go to our websites fit father.com or fit mother.com and we have like a free one week plan. We'll email to you. It gives you nutrition, it gives you a 24 minute workout that's like strength circuit training, and we'll basically give you our philosophy and show you how it works so you can implement it, see if you like it, and if you do like it, we have our full programs and communities that we would love to have you be a part of.
Brian (48m 22s):
Love it. Well, I have to say this, this episode was packed with tons of great tips. So yeah, I appreciate you coming on and sharing all this knowledge,
Anthony (48m 28s):
Anthony. Thanks, Brian. My pleasure. Thanks
Brian (48m 30s):
For listening to the Get, Lean Eat Clean Podcast. I understand there are millions of other podcasts out there, and you've chosen to listen to mine and I appreciate that. Check out the show notes@briangrin.com for everything that was mentioned in this episode. Feel free to subscribe to the podcast and share it with a friend or family member that's looking to get their body back to what it once was. Thanks again and have a great day.
