0 (1s): Coming up on the, get lean, eat clean 1 (2s): Podcast at the end of the day, like, you know, you gotta have protein, but you don't want to under consume fans and a ketogenic diet. If you're trying to optimize from a ketogenic standpoint, you need to make sure you're consuming enough dietary fat. Even if you have stored fat to lose, that's just going to be awkward from a fat adaptation standpoint. So I've, I've tried to kind of speak out against that, but it's been, it's been interesting to see this massive push away from fat in ketogenic circles, because it's just like that. I mean, there's, there's so many sub sub-units of what keto is now. There's all these definitions now. There's, there's a lot of confusion. And once I feel is kind of bastardizing what the ketogenic diet is and always has been. 1 (45s): So that's been a little frustrating to see unfold. 0 (49s): Hello, and welcome to the get lean, eat clean podcast. I'm Brian grin, and I'm here to give you actionable tips to get your body back to what it once was five, 10, even 15 years ago each week. I'll give you an in-depth interview with a health expert from around the world to cut through the fluff and get you long-term sustainable results. This week I interviewed CEO of KIDO Savage Robert sites. We discussed how he started his keto brick company, how much protein is optimal, the key to creating a great sleep environment, how to get fat adapted and is one tip to get your body back to what it once was. This was my second time around with Robert and we pretty much touched on all things keto. 0 (1m 31s): So I really know you're going to enjoy this one I did too. And thanks so much for listening. All right. Welcome to the, get lean eat clean podcast. My name is Brian grin and I have a returning guest, Robert Sikes on CEO of a keto brick. Right? All things keto. Probably pretty much, right. 1 (1m 53s): Yeah, man. I appreciate the opportunity to be back on a second time around. I was scoping at your website and you've totally revamped your website since the last time I've seen it. It all looks really good, man. You're, you're killing it right now. Oh. 0 (2m 4s): And actually I was scoping your website out and it looks like you revamped everything as well. 1 (2m 10s): Yeah. We've I think I did that this early this year at the end to try and make it all a little bit more, a little bit more professional, local, a bit more of a resource as opposed to just a landing page. So yesterday 0 (2m 21s): Yeah. I noticed you have like some guided workouts. You also offer coaching and then there's a kitchen aspect with recipes, right? 1 (2m 32s): Yup, yup. Yeah. I basically want to be like a one-stop shop for anybody that needs anything Quito, especially as it relates to bodybuilding body recomposition so yeah, definitely. 0 (2m 43s): Yeah. I love it. And well, before we dive into a bunch of different topics, I actually, I think I found out about you through your keto brick and I know you have, that's been a, a great journey for you. Maybe tell the listener a little bit about how that came about. Yeah, 1 (2m 60s): So the bricks were, they were never meant to be a product that I sold. It was something that I made kind of out of my own necessity back in 2017, when I was going through my first ketogenic competition prep for a bodybuilding show and I just needed a, this was banged as a 17. So it was before there was any products on the market. I just needed a really good and high quality nutrient dense macro bar that fit the ketogenic macro distribution that was ideally shelf stable and wouldn't cause any bloat or GI discomfort on stage. So I've kind of set out to craft my own products because there wasn't anything out there. And lo and behold, the keto brick came to be, and it just kind of took off. There's a lot of popularity and excitement around it and there's been a demand for it ever since. 1 (3m 43s): So we just rolled up our sleeves and started production and we've been making them ever since. 0 (3m 48s): That's awesome. And for that to come about just through your own, self-experimentation what are some of the things that you've learned? Cause I know that space is not an easy space. The health bar, if you want to call it the health bar space, what are some of the things that you've learned over the last, what like four years? 1 (4m 5s): Yeah. Well, one thing that we've done different compared to most health bars is that we've kept on the production in house. Like most companies will outsource to a manufacturer, a co-packer because it's less overhead expense, less headache for them. And they can mostly just focus on the marketing and the promotion for us, since there's nothing else on the market. Like it, I didn't want to outsource this because then you run the risk of the co-packer, you know, decrease in the quality of the ingredients and trying to improve their margins. And the only way to really maintain a hundred percent integrity in the ingredients was to do it ourselves. So we basically just bottled their kitchen equipment. We were, we started making these things in our house and we started leasing a commercial kitchen space by the hour. 1 (4m 48s): Then we started leasing three separate commercial buildings. And now we just purchased this massive building that we've just recently moved into here in Northwest Arkansas. We we've kept all the production under our own roof. From the very beginning, I have a hundred percent oversight of everything that goes into the bricks and we just make sure that it's a hundred percent every single time. 0 (5m 8s): Yeah, that's great. Now you have a bunch of different flavors and I like to use them strategically. How, how do you recommend using the Quito bricks for individuals that are just getting started with it? 1 (5m 20s): Yeah, so I mean, it all just depends on what everyone's, you know, unique calories and macro distribution looks like. I typically do a little bit higher fat distribution and I'm taking in quite a few calories. Like my maintenance. It takes probably around 3000 calories a day. So I'm anywhere between 3030 500. So I'll typically eat one whole BRCA name in I'll do two meals. So I'll typically have half a break with my first meal around lunchtime and my other half with dinner. And that's pretty much how I get my fat macros in and that combined with a good quality meat source protein source. And I pretty well hit my, my goal intake for the day. 0 (5m 55s): And on that note, how did you come about with I'm curious, you know, cause I, actually, one of the topics I wanted to talk about was calories and counting calories and is it important? And it's something that I don't really do. I, I sorta just feel it out during the day, as far as how much I should eat and you know, how satiated I am. How do you, how did you come about for yourself? You know, you said 3000 to 3,500 and I'm sure it varies depending on if you're training for something, but how did you come about that number? 1 (6m 23s): Yeah. So mostly just trial and error, self experimentation. Like if you are happy with how you look, if you're healthy and you're following a healthy well-formulated ketogenic diet, you can be fairly intuitive with your intake. You can just listen to your body's hunger and satiety signals stop eating when you're falling, eat when you're hungry. And that works really, really well for, for many, many people. I can do that when I'm in more of a maintenance phase. But when I have a very specific goal in mind, whether that's leaning down for a competition or trying to ensure that I'm in a surplus for a building phase, all typically track my intake to get things dialed in, especially when I'm going to cut. Because when you're, when you're trying to get to sub 5% body fat, you can't really do that intuitively because you're going to intuitively just be hungry and want to eat more. 1 (7m 8s): If you knew that you're not going to get to that, that level of leanness. So I'll track very, very strategically when I'm, when I have that specific goal at hand. But yeah, otherwise, I mean, just to establish my 3030 500 maintenance intake is I'll just gradually titrate calories up until I start to notice adverse effects, you know, more fat gain relative to lean mass gain. And that's where I'll kind of know that I've exceeded my, my maintenance and take basically. 0 (7m 33s): Gotcha. And are you doing for your managing your body composition? Are you doing like a DEXA scan or something like that? 1 (7m 40s): Yeah. DEXA scan. InBody scan caliper test. Plus I just, I've done this so long now. I'm really in tune with my body and I know based off of how I look in the mirror, you know, what my body fat percentage is at any given point usually. And then I'll, you know, that'll put me within about two percentage points, then I can do a DEXA scan to hone in and even more. 0 (7m 57s): Okay. So obviously you're a note, a weight gaining mode right now you're putting on, 1 (8m 3s): I'll be in a building phase until probably November of next year and then I'll start cutting down for the next competitive season. 0 (8m 11s): Gotcha. Okay. So a whole year of weight of, of putting on how many, how much, how many pounds do you plan on putting on 1 (8m 19s): It's going to be different for everybody once you've been lifting for quite some time, it's harder to put on just sheer mass year after year because you have that muscle maturity, you've got your body's so used to that stimuli of training. You don't want to get, you know, get those new big gains indefinitely. So I'm happy if I put on a couple pounds of muscle, a solid muscle a year and that's like legitimate lean muscle tissue, not, you know, fluctuations in waterway, that's going to show higher lean mass. But yeah, if I, if I put on a couple pounds of muscle a year, I'm happy. 0 (8m 48s): Okay. So, and so you're doing this and then w when is your next competition? 1 (8m 55s): Probably like April of 20, 23. I think I've got a show lined up then, and I'll probably try and have a few shows pretty close together so that I can just capitalize on that cutting phase. Cause it takes, you know, four to six months worth of time to get to that level of 0 (9m 10s): Conditioning and then I'll stay there for a very finite period of time and I'll start reversing, backup to a healthy maintenance and then eventually a surplus. So yeah, I'll probably start dialing down in November of next year and then compete probably April of 2023. Now, when you're doing your building phases, your, you mentioned you have two meals a day, do sometimes increase the amount of meals you have per day to, to put on the weight as well. 1 (9m 33s): Yeah. If I'm, if I'm doing, if I'm kind of a more aggressive building phase and you know, 3,500 calories or better, then I'll typically break that into three meals a day because you know, getting pretty tough on a calories in two meals is just a lot of food in one sitting. Yeah. 0 (9m 46s): That's what I notice I usually have on, you know, for maintenance. I'm not, I'm not training for anything like you, but I usually do two, two meals a day for me is good. Occasionally one, but I find with one that like, like you mentioned, it's tough to get the, the right amount of protein that you want for the, for the day, especially if it's, if you, you know, if it's a workout day, obviously as well, 1 (10m 8s): <inaudible> now contrast that with a cutting phase and I'll typically do like an OMAD approach one meal a day. Oftentimes when my calories get much lower and to me that's more sustainable and more enjoyable than having just multiple tiny meals throughout the day. 0 (10m 22s): Yeah. Oh for sure. I find, yeah, I'm, I'm more productive when I, when I, when I'm not eating during the day, I feel like I could do other things and, you know, I like to do all, if I, if I do put, add carbs into my meals, I'll do them on the back end of the day. How do you, how do you, what type of carbs do you add into your meals? If any, 1 (10m 43s): Not really any, I mean, I'll probably take in, you know, 12 to 15 grams of total carbs a day just from trace sources there, some in the keto bricks, there's some in like the vegetables that I eat, but I don't really consume anything with the intention of eating it for the carbohydrates it contains. 0 (10m 59s): Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. I remember that from last time. I I've, I've become, yeah. I, I feel like once you've gone low carb going back the other way it's I don't know. I, I don't feel like it's necessarily a thing. I mean, you're seeing this with some, and this is maybe another topic, but you're seeing this with some of the individuals who are like carnivores and, you know, like Paul settle, Dino and people who are starting to add in some carbs, maybe they had some effects, maybe their thyroid or whatever. Is there sometimes, do you add in like honey or anything like that or have you kept it pretty low carved the whole time 1 (11m 35s): In local the whole time I haven't had a carbohydrate meal in probably seven years or better. And I think a lot of these, these issues that you see people arguing in favor of introducing carbs, like fruit and honey from a hormonal standpoint, often stems from them chronically under eating to begin with the people are consuming adequate calories and have a building phase. That's the, they have to be a bodybuilder by any means, but just simply consuming at a surplus for a time that usually does wonders to regulate their hormones and their metabolism. And they don't really have the need. There's no need for that, the inherent increase in carbohydrates to improve them. 0 (12m 9s): Gotcha. Yeah. That makes sense. And is there a certain protein amount that you, that you target every day? Cause that's always something that I hear. I mean, obviously high, high, high protein is becoming a, I keep hearing it more and more as a favorable thing. Obviously I always taught a lot of my clients to prioritize that for each meal. Is there a certain protein amount that you'd like to target? 1 (12m 33s): So a good rule of thumb is just be consuming at one gram of protein per pound of lean mass, kind of as a baseline and then go from there based off of what your goals are, if you're training heavily and things of that nature. There's occasionally times where all dip below that there's only for a very, very, very finite period of time during the last few weeks or month. My competition prep in which I'm just taking calories very, very low, but then I keep my dietary fat relatively high, you know, all things considering so that my, my body's not really catabolic from a muscle wasting standpoint. So I can tolerate that lower protein for that very short period of time without any adverse effects. 0 (13m 8s): So one gram of protein per lean mass, correct? 1 (13m 12s): Yeah. Now I'll typically go quite a bit north of that, like right now in my building phase, I weigh about 175 pounds. I'm typically eating at least 200 grams of protein a day, you know, with, with the building phase that I'm in. But yeah, I don't see any benefit in people consuming under one gram of protein per pound of lean mass, unless it's for a very strategic, you know, short-term thing like, you know, in the context of that competition prep protocol, but just for a day to day sustainability standpoint and just maintenance, there's no need to go beneath them. 0 (13m 40s): Okay. And then, yeah, one per one gram of lean mass. So if you wait, let's just hit one 70. You're not going to be one 70 of lean mass. Obviously you're going to maybe be, let's just say one 40 of lean mass and that would be a target. Exactly. Okay. And, and you get some of that protein, obviously from your keto bricks, which, you know, the nice thing about the keto breaks, you know exactly what you're getting. Right. And then you probably add in a steak or something like that to get the rest of, 1 (14m 8s): Yeah. You don't want to have a lot of red meats, a lot of ground beef, a lot of steak, a lot of eggs, some fish, but yeah, I pretty much get a pretty varied varied source of protein, but I'm definitely a fan of the ruminants, you know, like the red meat, the deer, I do a lot of hunting, so wild game 0 (14m 23s): Also. So you notice the tail pretty much. 1 (14m 27s): Yeah. For the most part, I mean, I, I certainly try to, to consume everything, especially if I harvest it, if I'm, if I killed your ad, I'm taking everything. I can offer that and I'll eat a lot of arguments. I like Oregon meats though. 0 (14m 38s): Yeah, I do. I actually, recently I just had my, my wife made a liver onions. I thought it was really good. I mean, you make it the right way. I mean, I know, you know, obviously you don't want to over cook any of this stuff because it takes some of the nutrients out of it, but it was, I would have it every week. 1 (14m 57s): Yeah. Liver's really good. I've been doing a lot of like beef tongue is actually pretty good and tastes like when you shred that up, but it tastes really, really good, but yeah, liver, liver's a pretty good recipe. The main thing is just not to overcook it, like you said, I mean, a lot of that, especially liver is fairly lean. So if you overcook, it just becomes very chewy, not near as desirable. Very tough. 0 (15m 19s): Yes. And you're the second person to say that they've enjoyed Tung I'm on my podcast. Actually. I had a, a guest on James Berry. Have you heard of the company called pluck? 1 (15m 29s): Have you heard? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I had him in my podcast as well. And look, seasoning is amazing by the way. 0 (15m 35s): Yeah. You know what? It's great. It is great. I've been putting on my eggs and it does well, it does well on fish too. 1 (15m 43s): Yeah. It's really good scans. He calls it the umami flavor, I guess is how you say it, but yeah, it's got a very, very deep flavor profile. 0 (15m 51s): Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's, it's a nice product. And just like yours, which was first to market. No one really had anything like it is. I've never seen anything, you know, like an Oregon based seasoning. I don't think I've seen that in the market at all. 1 (16m 4s): Yeah, no. And what he's doing is good. I mean, I hope it hope he keeps killing it and there continues to be a demand for it. Yeah. 0 (16m 10s): And I'm okay. And then on another note we were talking a little bit before. What is your, what are your thoughts obviously? And you mentioned like the low fat Quito movement. That's going out a little bit now tell me a little bit about what's what's what differing opinions are regarding fat. 1 (16m 28s): Yeah. So it's been interesting to see this unfold because, you know, I get into the kiosk space a long time ago. It was like seven years ago or so. And there wasn't really much content around keto when I started putting out content. There's a few, few people, but there wasn't that much. So I've kind of seen the evolution of the ketogenic diet and community unfold over the past six, seven years. And you know, when I first got into it, it was all about, you know, kind of more of a therapeutic ketogenic approach. So very, very high fat, lower protein and relatively low carbs, but still quite a lot of, you know, vegetation, fibrous, vegetables. And for awhile there, people were scared of protein. They were scared of the word gluconeogenesis and they would underconsume protein, which obviously isn't optimal. 1 (17m 9s): And I kind of fought against that. And now the pendulum has swung so far the other direction that people are starting to become fearful of fat. And they're giving protein a halo and consuming protein in excess and not enough that term fat. And I tried to fight against that as well at the end of the day, like, you know, you got to have protein, but you don't want to under consume fans and a ketogenic diet. If you're trying to optimize from a ketogenic standpoint, you need to make sure you're consuming enough dietary fat. Even if you have stored fat to lose, that's just going to be awkward from a fat adaptation standpoint. So I've, I've tried to kind of speak out against that, but it's been, it's been interesting to see this massive push away from fat in ketogenic circles because it's just like, that's, I mean, there's, there's, there's so many sub sub-units of what keto is now. 1 (17m 57s): There's all these definitions now. There's, there's a lot of confusion, which I feel is kind of bastardizing what the ketogenic diet is and always has been. So that's been a little frustrating to see unfold. 0 (18m 8s): Yeah. And I wonder why that's coming about, maybe it's just another way for people to make money, to sell different products, right? Like it's cause obviously when the whole keto craze came and it's still there, all these products that probably aren't the best things to have, you know, are hit the market and people thought, oh, well that's healthy. It says keto on it. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's healthy. Right? 1 (18m 33s): Yeah. I feel like a lot of people that were, you know, the coaches, the influencers, they, the people on the, on the tip of the spear in the health and nutrition circles were very much so the bro dieters and the flexible Niners and the people that did traditional high protein carbs still in very low fat. And then keto came and made all this commotion and gain all this momentum. And a lot of these people either, you know, not talk to Haggins Kito very, very hard, or they started to adopt a ketogenic approach, but then kind of had their own traditional bro split on it. And now that they've kind of gained some traction by leveraging a ketogenic approach, I feel like they're starting to kind of return to their roots of more of a higher protein, lower fat, you know, baseline. 1 (19m 17s): And I feel like, again, that's nothing wrong with that. I mean, you can, you can lean out, you can lose body fat, you can get healthy with a variety of diets, but I feel like blurring the definition so much so that nobody really knows what's what anymore what's up. And what's down is just confusing the general public and not really doing anybody any favors. 0 (19m 37s): Right. Because when you're confused, you never really do anything. You know, what would be your arguments for having a higher fat diet and higher saturated fat and healthy fat diet, as opposed to, you know, w what's happening maybe a little bit in the keto space where people are going away from that? 1 (19m 54s): Yes, I'm in protein is like I said, incredibly important, but protein is not a great substrate for energy. You can get your energy through carbohydrates. You can get your energy through fence. If you're keto adapted and you can get your energy through protein, through gluconeogenesis, but it's not an efficient process. So your body's ability to generate energy from glucose ranges from protein is never going to be optimal from an energy substrate standpoint. So if people are trying to eat carbs, then it would stand a reason that they would need less dietary fat enough to function properly, but less so than if they were taking a fan adapted approach. And again, if people want to go the carbohydrate direction and they're not insulin resistant and they, they function great, then more power to them. 1 (20m 35s): But if you're trying to optimize from a fan adapted or ketogenic standpoint, you obviously don't want to have a whole bunch of carbohydrates in there kind of diluting things, but you don't want to have so little natural fat that your body's inefficiently using protein as the primary fuel substrate. So it's been, I mean, for me, I've always encouraged people to eat ample calories so they can fuel their body properly. There's been this massive push for just incredibly low caloric intake and chronic under eating. And, you know, you see this a lot with the protein sparing modified fast crowd who recommends sub 1000 calories on a regular basis. And that's just not enough food to really function optimally with. So if you're eating ample calories and you're eating enough protein, then it makes sense to make up the remaining calorie balance with quality dietary fats. 0 (21m 21s): Yeah. And if you're not, let's say an individual not having a keto brick, where can they get those fats? Obviously you can get them from having, you know, a ribeye obviously has healthy fats in it and things like that, but where else could they get their fats from? 1 (21m 35s): Yeah. All kinds of sources. Like avocado is a really popular one. Any of the mono unsaturated fats, olive oil, avocado oil. I do a lot of, you know, animal fats like, like duck fat is really good. Poor Clark's really good beef beef tallow 0 (21m 49s): Is really good. You'll cook in that obviously. 1 (21m 52s): Yeah. And then just, I, I choose fender cuts of meat. And if you're sourcing the animals from a good quality place that it's consuming a good, you know, meal plan, like if they're getting their grain grass fed grass finished, and they're going to have a more favorable fatty acid profile in the actual animal fat as well. So it all kind of gets upregulated. 0 (22m 13s): What is your opinion around them? Like chicken? Is that something that you have? Cause I would put red meat ahead of chicken all day just from a nutrient profile. And you know, just, I think a lot of times with chicken, you can have, you know, a high omega six profile as well. Is that, what are your thoughts around chicken? And is that something you have in your diet? 1 (22m 37s): Yeah. So chicken and pork both are, are both mana gastric animals kind of like us humans. So basically they're kind of more of a, they are what they eat kind of scenario. So if they're eating poor quality food and that's going to be trans, you know, carried over into the, their, their food, like their, their muscle tissue, which we're then eating, whereas like a ruminant, like a cow or a deer, they're gonna be able to eat a little bit lower quality food and kind of up-regulate the nutrition as opposed to BHS, they are where they eat scenario. So I always try and make sure that if I'm eating a lot of chicken or pork, it's coming from a good quality source that is, you know, free range chicken. Eventually we're going to start raising our own chickens. So I'll know for sure where my food's coming from, but yeah. 1 (23m 18s): Sourcing of, of the food that we eat and knowing what, what they eat is definitely important. 0 (23m 24s): How do you cook your eggs? 1 (23m 26s): I like simple fried eggs. I'll put some cast iron, I'll cook with a cast, iron skillet, put some olive oil down and just frame up. 0 (23m 34s): Okay. Cause that, cause that's another thing, you know, you hear like scrambled eggs or omelets and things. When you break up the yolk, you tend to lose a lot of the nutrient profile of it. And I was looking into maybe poaching them or doing something different with them. 1 (23m 48s): Yeah. Poaching has been, I just prefer scrambled eggs. I did like an over-easy so a are not scrambled eggs, but Friday. So I'll do an over-easy and then I'll put that over top of a plate of ground beef or something of that nature. And then that yolk just helps flavor all the, all the rest of it, 0 (24m 4s): All this food talk and yeah, maybe we'll switch topics cause I'm still fat right now. Let's actually touch on what's your opinion of about micro workouts? This is something that I've adapted into my workout routine. And I'm curious, you know, obviously you've been in bodybuilding for a long time cause I was actually just did a little trip with my wife cause we just got married last year and we went on like a, a delayed honeymoon in California. So I didn't, I've been using head of my, my podcast a few times the <inaudible> and, and for the last year and a half for the quarantine I've been using that and just doing quick, hard workouts with that. And it's been great actually, but it was sort of nice to get back to like a traditional gym and doing some of the traditional lifts that I used to do and I worked out longer cause I was, you know, sort of on vacation had more time, but I'm just curious, how do you go about your workouts and, and, and your beliefs sort of in these, you know, micro workouts? 1 (25m 3s): I think micro work has a great, I think any movement and stress and stimulus towards the muscle is better than no stress stem of sort of the muscle. So if you're cramped for time, you, you don't have the space, you don't have a gym and simply getting something in with a micro workout is, is most definitely better than getting nothing in. I prefer like a, you know, traditional bodybuilding style work and in which I'm training for an hour, hour and a half, sometimes two hours, usually not quite two hours, usually I can get to work at it in a solid hour and 15 minutes. And I'll typically do a body part split in which I've got a targeted muscle group that I'm really focusing on that day, that workout. 1 (25m 44s): And I'll try and have a mix of, you know, more of a hypertrophy style training where I've got a little bit lighter weight with a little bit more repetitions and then also throw in some heavy compound primary movements in there with a little bit less repetition, but heavier weight just to kind of stimulate those deep muscle tissue fibers more so than I would if I was doing a lighter weight. So kind of pretty traditional when it comes from a training standpoint. 0 (26m 5s): Yeah. That's what I figured you would say. And, and that's how I lifted it for a long time and I think it's good to mix it up. And like you said, any movement is better than no movement. And I'm curious when you say, how many reps are you doing for a purchase fee? Are you doing like eight to 12 or 12 to 15 in that range? 1 (26m 25s): Yeah. Like when I've got, when I'm doing, you know, more of a hyper focus, I'll try and do between about 10 and 15 reps. And then when I'm doing like a, like a heavy deadlifts set, for instance, I'll typically cap it at about a six or eight reps. 0 (26m 39s): Gotcha. Okay. Makes sense. And as far as sets, are you doing around three to four sets in that range? 1 (26m 46s): Yeah, normally 4 cents. If I'm doing, if I'm doing lighter repetitions or fewer repetitions and heavier weight, I'll oftentimes do more sense as like deadlift squats I'll go as high. As you know, I sometimes do like 10, 12 cents total, just progressively getting heavier and heavier. Got it. 0 (27m 2s): Okay. And then thoughts around like blood work people should get, maybe if they're starting out, you know, a lot of my clients I'll do a DEXA scan and other certain, is there a certain recommended blood work that you, that you do for yourself or for your clients? 1 (27m 19s): Yeah. I recommend them. If people have the means to get in like a, a full comprehensive panel done every six months is a really good practice get into any kind of technical advice on that. It's been a while since I've gotten my last hormone panel liquid panel, but yeah, a fully comprehensive hormone panel and lipid panel is always good. A C-reactive protein tests would be good. The A1C is a good test, but yeah, I think that I've been, I've been trying to find a good way of doing this, that I can, you know, scale and kind of keep track of. And I think Dave Feldman just came out with his own testing blood test panel company. So I'm gonna look into that, but here lately, what I've been doing, I'll just go to direct labs.com purchase, you know, whatever, whatever panels I want to get. 1 (28m 4s): And then I'll get those tests drawn at like a quest diagnostic center. And then I'll keep track of all that with a software called heads. 0 (28m 12s): Yeah. I was just looking at that. I was going to bring that up. Do like that heads up health. I was, it keeps it all in one spot, one spot, right? 1 (28m 19s): Yeah. I like that a lot. And it's, it goes beyond just the, the blood panel. So you can actually sync a lot of your wearables, like how you can sink your or ring or, you know, your macro tracker. And the beauty of that is that you can kind of chart all these things that are normally not sinking and talking with one another, but you can chart out those over a graph to see, you know, what's correlated or not. So like I can use my or ring and then track that with my macro tracker. And I can see that if, Hey, my calendars are down pretty low, like in a cut and my sleep starts to wane sleep quality. They're probably correlated there. 0 (28m 52s): Yeah. Really cool. That's neat. So it sort of syncs all your devices into one. Exactly. We have so many wearables now. You don't know what the keep track of. I I've I've I've gone. I have mixed feelings on the wearables. I, I think, I think there there's, it's good to get a baseline to see where you're at, but it's like the only person that knows best is probably how you feel, right? Like on a day-to-day basis. 1 (29m 16s): Yeah. There's there's I totally agree with you. There's, there's a certain demographic of people that they'll put for faith in these wearables. And if the wearable says, Hey, look, you should take it easy today. Don't train, don't do anything, you know, exhaustive. Then they take that as the word of God, they don't lose finger. And that to me is a little bit, let's put in too much power in this device, you know, like I try and always focus first and foremost on how I feel. And then if that happens to align with what my wearable says, then, then great. 0 (29m 46s): And you're using the aura ring. Is that right? 1 (29m 49s): Yeah. I've got the ordering of I've contemplated getting the Garmin watch more. So from like a GPS coordinate standpoint for like when I'm out hunting, but I have not used the garment watch. 0 (30m 0s): Okay. Yeah. The only one I've used, do you use CGM? 1 (30m 6s): Yeah. Yeah. I played around with the, the neutral sense CGM and I've done several, two weeks defensive of using it to kind of see how things affect the numbers. And that's pretty cool. I like that. 0 (30m 15s): Yeah. And that's a continuous glucose monitor. I did the same thing. I did it for a couple of weeks and I was like, okay, this is cool. Like, I don't know if I need this on me all the time. You know? It's like, once you get a feel for it, cause I don't know about you, but like I'm a pretty ate the same stuff, you know, I'm pretty boring. Right. So it's like how much feedback do I need if I meet the same thing every day? 1 (30m 35s): Yeah. It's not the same with me. I mean, my dad doesn't change too much on a day-to-day basis. I could see there being a benefit to the CGM when I'm doing a competition prep around I'm strategically manipulating one variable of my nutrition and for people that don't really know what foods affect them, I think that would be an incredibly viable tool. But once you kind of have that figured out and you're able to be a little bit more intuitive, probably don't get near as much value from it. 0 (30m 58s): Yeah, no, I, I agree. And I use the, the woop and I, I, the whoop is nice, you know, I think it's good to track sleep, but again, how do you feel? Like how do you go about getting optimal sleep? Cause I obviously it's like everyone that I have on my podcast is like, okay, what's what should we do to change our health? Well, let's, I'd ride Wolf, Rob we'll find, we talked a lot about sleep. What are some of the things that you do to get optimal sleep? 1 (31m 26s): And so my S my sweet spots about seven hours a night, and I wake up usually around three or four in the morning. So I typically go to bed. Yes. I wake up pretty early. So I typically go to bed around 8:00 PM, which is, you know, pretty early by most people's standards. But I wind down by 8:00 PM. That kind of works out pretty well from a circadian rhythm and natural sunrise sunset standpoint as well, at least as far as my bedtime is concerned. 0 (31m 51s): Yeah. Yes. Your son is rising three in the morning. Where are you living? 1 (31m 55s): Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I'll do that. And then one thing that I've found to be a couple of just quick fixes for sleep is I'll turn my thermostat way down to like 63, 64 degrees. It's total darkness. It's completely blacked out in my bedroom and I'll, I'll use the mouth tapes while I use micropore tape and just tape over my mouth, which forces me to, to breathe nasally throughout the night and as opposed to breathing through my mouth. And that that's been pretty, pretty helpful. 0 (32m 22s): Interesting. Let's see there Z, you, here's something new. I mean, I've heard of, so you, you put mouth tape on. 1 (32m 30s): Yeah, basically I was, you know, I learned this through my muscle, basically what happens is when you, when you don't have that mouth tape, or if you're prone to opening your mouth, while you sleep, your tongue moves and partially blocks your, your airway, which is going to cause you to pretty much subconsciously arise from a deep sleep. So cause you, you kind of moving and shifting, try to open up that airway. So your tongue is moving. It's just not optimal from a deep sleep. Whereas if your mouth is taped and you're breathing through your nose throughout the entire night, and then that airway has never blocked and you're able to fall into a deeper sleep and stay there a little bit longer. 0 (33m 8s): Wow. Okay. Yeah. I've heard of that even for like walking and stuff. Right. I mean, like, you want to really focus on breathing through your, through your nose. 1 (33m 18s): Yeah. I don't take my mouth when I'm just walking around, but I do, I 0 (33m 21s): Use that for my wife, 1 (33m 24s): But yeah, I do definitely try to breathe through my nose whenever possible. I've tried to go through entire training sessions and only which is, 0 (33m 31s): Yeah, I've tried that and it's like, after awhile, I'm like, okay, I don't, you know, I need that. Yeah. It's tough. Maybe the more you do it, you get used to it. 1 (33m 40s): Yeah. That's the case for 0 (33m 41s): Sure. Yeah. Yeah. And, and I do agree on creating a sleep environment. Like you mentioned dark cold, you know, now that it's getting colder in Chicago here, I don't even need to do that. As far as creating much of an environment, it gets pretty cold and where we live because we have sort of higher ceilings. So the heat all goes up and yeah, it's definitely makes sleeping a lot easier. That's a good hack 1 (34m 5s): Found about investing in one of those Chile pants or are one of the eight sleep beds that has the temperature Thermo regulation. I just haven't been able to pull the trigger on one of those yet. I haven't, haven't able to justify. 0 (34m 18s): Yeah. I mean, we moved into this into a new, a new place, not that long ago. And I looked into that mattress. I never got it, but, but I do like our mattress. It is cool. It's not like a cooling mattress, but all in all, it's been good. I think keeping a dark cool, cool environment is so it's so key. What about morning routines? I mean, you're up 3 34 and I'm obviously a big routine guy. I think we may have even touched on the last time we talked, but I'd love to hear what your morning routine is like. 1 (34m 46s): Yeah. So right now I pretty much, I wake up, I read a little bit, and then after I read for 30, 40 minutes, I start writing. So I know that my, my creative writing work in the morning, I'm writing a book right now. So I'll allocate like an hour or so to work on that. So if I'm not writing, I do a lot of my client work in the morning, so I'll do that. But, but normally I'll do that until about six o'clock or so, which is when the sun starts to peak out over the horizon. I'll have coffee with my wife on the front porch, watch the sun come up and just kind of plan the day. And then we, from there head to the compound here and start, we have a morning meeting with all of our employees and we just start, 0 (35m 26s): Start making those bricks. 1 (35m 28s): Exactly. 0 (35m 31s): Yeah. That's great. I get up, I take my dogs for a walk and then I come back and usually do some reading. What type of books? What's what book are you reading right now? 1 (35m 41s): So I'm reading a couple I'm reading tools of Titans by Tim Ferris. And then I'm also reading, I just finished Jordan. Peterson's 12 more rules for life. That was a good one. And then I'm reading Steven Rinella is American Buffalo book currently. 0 (35m 58s): So we've got a few going on. Yup. 1 (35m 60s): Yup. 0 (36m 2s): I know you mentioned a little bit. I watched, I saw one of your blogs about that. Did you have the Sam apple on your podcast? 1 (36m 10s): Yeah. Yeah. That was a really good conversation. He's the one that wrote a ravenous and that was a, I mean, that book was, was a very good book. So I wanted to get him on the show and just kind of talk about the motivation behind him writing him. 0 (36m 20s): And that was regarding the start date, starvation diet in the, in the Holocaust camp concentration camps. Right. Was that what 1 (36m 30s): It wasn't so much the starvation diet so much as it was, you know, it was all about Otto Warburg and the Warburg effect and how that all came to be from, you know, how cancer, metabolizes, sugar, and glucose basically. So very, very interesting read. 0 (36m 46s): Interesting. Okay, awesome. And what would you say to someone starting out maybe wanting to get into Quito and get into even, you know, working out and, you know, we're getting now to the new year, you know, people are going to start setting goals and wanting to sort of change the way perhaps they they've done things over the last year. What would you say? Good first steps of, you know, just first and foremost, maybe getting into sort of a keto style diet. 1 (37m 13s): I mean, honestly just prioritizing nutrient dense, wholesome single ingredient foods is going to be first and foremost people that are first now. I mean, right now coming into keto, they're going to be incredibly confused by all the information out there and just the conflicting information out there. So I think really just kind of buckling down on what is sustainable for them. Like if, if they have, you know, an, an addictive personality and they have trouble moderating their carbohydrate and process food intake, then they probably would be better off eliminating those foods and not having it as an option if they don't do well with certain foods, just taking that out of the equation altogether, but always prioritizing, you know, just good quality, wholesome single ingredient, natural foods is going to be the best bet for anybody. 1 (37m 57s): If they're trying to go a ketogenic approach and they're not yet fat-adapted even if have quite a bit of fat to lose, then making sure to make up that void in calories after the Riddick restriction of carbohydrates with dietary fat in the context of also eating enough, protein is going to be very important as well. 0 (38m 14s): Yeah. And you talk about getting fat adapted press. We can touch a little bit on that. How long do you think it usually takes someone to get fat adapted? And do you certain like wearables and things like this, like a ketone meter or things like this to sort of track that 1 (38m 31s): You don't really have to track it per se, it's kind of nice to track because it, you, something tangible to look at notes you're on the right direction. I'm on the right course. So, you know, testing your blood sugar, testing your blood ketones would be good for people that just don't know what the is doing with them with that food. Yet, as far as the length of time is concerned, you're gonna start producing ketones within about 24 to 48 hours after you stop eating carbohydrates, but simply producing ketones and having a lower blood glucose doesn't necessarily mean you're fat adapted. Usually I would recommend people spend, you know, at least four weeks or better before they start deviating from that, if they are ever going to deviate from that, what I have found is that the length of adaptation just keeps getting, I mean, you just keep getting more and more adapted the longer you're doing accusing that. 1 (39m 18s): I mean, I've been in this for six or seven years now in my level of adaptation now is significantly better than it was after doing it for six weeks, which was not as good as it was after dinner for six months. It just keeps getting better. 0 (39m 29s): Yeah. And one of the things I find with being fat adapted is energy, energy levels, right? Like that's the one thing I noticed in myself is, I mean, I'm, I'm big into fasting, intermittent fasting, and I sort of vary it depending on the day, but like, I think I hit, we, we had some type of family event and I just felt like I should have something to eat there and I didn't eat anything that I didn't like. I had like a bagel, but like, you know, I had, I think I had some tuna salad, some maybe some lox and some things like that, things that, you know, nothing, you know, nothing that processed, but I felt it after that, like, it's amazing once you get, you know, fat adapted and you get into some fasting, like just how much energy that you can have throughout the day. 0 (40m 15s): And if I, for me, I like to save my bigger, you know, my meals towards the end of the day, not too close to when I sleep, but I think that just goes a long way with just being productive. 1 (40m 25s): Yeah. I think, you know, once, once, you know, what, what feeling good is like you're much more in tune with what feeling poorly is. Like a lot of people just don't allow themselves to feel really good, so they don't have that perspective on that context. But once you do, it's like, wow, I don't ever want to deviate from this because I could feel and function much, much better. 0 (40m 44s): Yeah. You just find like, you're, you're so sensitive to like any little change that you have in your diet. That's not the mean, like we were just in California for 10 days and you know, we're used to cooking every meal. That was definitely like, we had great meals, don't get me wrong. And it was great. It was just like towards the end. I'm like, you know, I wouldn't mind that just make a plain simple steak and, you know, cause even if you're going to a nice restaurant, it's like, you know, for the most part they're using a lot of vegetable oils in cooking your food. There were a few times where I did ask if they could cook it in butter and that's something that everyone could do is, you know, you can, it doesn't ever hurts to ask, but even these high end restaurants, there are definitely, I would say majority of them were using cheap vegetable oils to cook it. 1 (41m 30s): Yeah, for sure. I mean, think, you know, you may, you may come across a bit more annoying or so to the server, but I think simply just taking control of your own health and not leaning on excuses and just asking. And then if there, if it's possible to manipulate a few things in the bank in the kitchen, so that it's more in line with your nutritional goals and healthier your lifestyle, then it's totally worth your time and effort. 0 (41m 52s): Yeah. I mean, I don't, yeah. I think nowadays you won't sound annoying because I feel like there's so many restrictions just regarding like allergies and things like that. I'm sure the last thing the restaurant wants is, is something that go wrong. You know, if you're allergic to something, you know, whether it's not or whatever, but I usually just tell them, I said, you know, I just can't have those oils. I have a bad reaction. And you know, maybe then they'll, they'll change the way they, what they cook in. 1 (42m 20s): Absolutely. I feel like the, the oils a minute, that's something that's gotten a lot more in the limelight here lately, which is good, you know, cause people just assume that all fats are created equal, but really focusing on the types of those fans, which is more inflammatory than others and kind of drilling down in, in prioritizing the ones that are healthier, I think is, is time well spent for sure. 0 (42m 39s): Yeah. No, I mean, you can go a long way just for, I always say, just cook for yourself and just know what your what's in your food and you know, the people I know I have some clients and they're eating out all the time and it's like, you know, can you reach optimal health if you're eating out all the time? I don't know. It's probably, it's a good question. You could, you could, you could improve. But I think the really get to maximal health cooking for yourself as the best way to go. 1 (43m 4s): Yeah. A hundred percent agree. And there's a lot more to cooking for yourself than meets the nit. I mean, you just, it kind of completes the whole circle of life much more. So in my opinion, I'm probably gonna get a little poetic with my hunting background, but I feel like knowing where your food comes from knowing how to prepare that food and just appreciating that entire transition. And then that's, that's, that's valuable information. 0 (43m 25s): Yeah. And I probably asked you this last time, this is normally what I asked most by my guests is if you were going to give a tip to individual who wanted to get their body back to what it once was, what w what one tip would you give that, that individual? 1 (43m 44s): I think trying to really understand why they want the money they had before in the first place. You know, I've kind of taken more of a mindset approach. A lot of people have goals, but they're not able to execute on those goals because they're not, they don't have enough weight or significance or importance in their mind, but really kind of fixating on, on the why, and then visualizing the process that takes to get there more so than just simply having a goal. That way you can execute on it on a day to day basis, once motivations don't exist. I mean, there's, there's gonna be times where you're just simply not motivated to eat properly or motivated to, to go to the gym, but having the discipline to execute on those, because you have an, a deeper, underlying reason as to why you wanted to reach that goal in the first place it's gonna be. 0 (44m 25s): Yeah. Yeah. That's so true. I mean, we always talk about all the, how tos, but you know, the, is that, that's what really drives you. And unfortunately, people wait until a lot of times, you know, they have a health scare until they actually take action, which, you know, at that point, it's probably a little bit too late at night, not to say that's not too late, but you should be thinking about it a lot earlier than that. If 1 (44m 47s): Yeah, totally. 0 (44m 50s): All right, Robert, well, this was fun. 1 (44m 53s): Yeah, man. Always a pleasure to chat with you. Yeah. Thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity. 0 (44m 57s): Yeah. And where's the best place for people to find out what you're doing and what's going on in your life. 1 (45m 3s): So any, and all things, keto Savage. So keto savage.com for the website keto sandwich on social keto, brick.com for the Brexit. They're interested in those, but yeah. Accuracy. 0 (45m 13s): Alright. Keno sandwich. There is Robert. Thanks for coming on. I appreciate it. 1 (45m 17s): I appreciate it, Brian. I was a pleasure, man. All 0 (45m 19s): Right. Hey, get lean equally nation. Are you a man between the ages of 40 and 60 years old looking to lose inches around your waist have significantly more energy throughout the day and gain muscle all while minimizing the risk of injuries? Well, I'm looking for three to five people to work one-on-one with in my fat burner blueprint signature program, which I've developed by utilizing my 15 years experience in the health and fitness space. This program is designed specifically for those committed, to making serious progress towards our health goals. Over the next six months, we will focus on sleep, stress, nutrition, meal, timing, and building lean muscle. 0 (46m 1s): If this sounds like a fit for you, email me@brianatbriangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. That's brian@briangrin.com with the subject line blueprint. Thanks 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 wants. It was. Thanks again, and have a great day.
