The Meat Mafia Podcast

Part_1_C&D
===

Speaker 8: [00:00:00] Gents pleasure to have you in Austin

Speaker 9: man stoked to be here. It's been a it's been a long time coming

Speaker 8: Yeah,

Speaker 9: what was it like? The fall when we first met? The fall. Saw you a bunch on social media. And then just the power of networking and being in the same, you know, community brought us together through the likes of Matt Choi.

Shout out, Choi. Um, brought us to collective and I saw you over there working out. I was like, dude, that's, that's Harry from Meat Mafia. And he's like, yeah, you want to meet him? I was like, a hundred percent. And then that's, that's how we met. That's the origin

Speaker 8: story. Dude, Troy is such a good connector in that way.

Cause, I mean, he literally knows everyone. Everyone. And he's just such an easy person to get along with that, like, I feel like everyone's just only has good things to say and he's always facilitating good events. Yep. Yep. Just energy. I mean, that guy's an

Speaker 9: energizer

Speaker 8: bunny that is contagious. Yeah. And then my bro was there.

We were talking about a little Iron Man stuff in the sauna and that was, uh, that was the birth of the friendship. It was the birth of the friendship. I'm pumped to have you both on and now meeting Dylan today. Yep. Um.

Speaker 11: Yep. Got to meet you through CJ.

Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah. Two good, two good athletes. So I'm pumped. I think we'll have a lot to talk about.

We've already [00:01:00] talked about a bunch. I wish we were recording a little earlier, but you know, it's all good.

Speaker 9: We press play now. So let's get into it.

Speaker 8: Yeah. Well, I would love to learn a little bit more about your guys relationship as we start just to give a little bit of context. Just like how you guys know each other.

What's the, what's the background there?

Speaker 11: Yep. You wanna go? Yeah, I do. This is a good story. So I, uh, met, uh, Our friend Dominic trollio shout out dom. He's getting married on saturday. Oh, um At a mission trip in tijuana a couple years We went with the church from our hometown and then we finally wanted to hang out.

He lived like 45 minutes away Um, and then he got busy. He was like racing go karts or dirt bikes or something when I was driving He's like i'm not gonna i'm gonna be there late Sends me this guy's address. He's like, this is my boy I was like, you want me to just pull up to this random dude's house and just knock on the door?

He's like, yeah, he's cool. He's cool. I was like, okay, so I get there. I walk up knock on the door

Speaker 9: I think this guy walks out. I was like, you're Dylan, right? [00:02:00] He goes, yeah, you're Christian, right? And I was like, yeah, and then from there we just clearly became best friends.

Speaker 11: Yeah now now we're kind of like really close Push each other a lot.

I learned a lot from this guy. He kind of It's kind of out of control, but I like it

Speaker 8: It's funny like rugby player and golfer probably couldn't be more different in terms of style of sport Absolutely not because if

Speaker 9: you see me on the golf course He can't he can't move his body and I can't be hit so just all driver It did I have no rotation in my back.

So this guy tries to correct my swing I'm, like I can't like my body is built for rugby. It's not built for this sport But then if you were to put them on a rugby field I mean, I hate to say it, but it would be like

Speaker 11: a car crash. Um, but one of the things that's cool, like Christian's obviously extremely specialized in his sport.

And my body's kind of more built for golf. It's like, um, just like the two directions we took being different so long ago, and then the way our bodies develop to kind of fit what, what the need is from it. Super interesting. [00:03:00] Like I'm probably. Twice as flexible as him in every way and then he's just like a brick wall walking around so

Speaker 8: yeah I think the contrast is actually really interesting because you before we hit record we were talking about all the Commonalities in terms of the different things you guys are doing from a health perspective To perform but then like obviously the performance aspect of it in terms of golf and rugby couldn't be more different But you guys, you know, both eat animal based diets.

Both are kind of tinkering with we're talking about light therapy and things like that It's like all these little tweaks that you can make to perform better So there is just like this underlying theme of just like mastering the craft Absolutely, but the building blocks to do that are the same in a lot of ways and then it branches off obviously when you get more special I

Speaker 9: think when like if you step away from the rugby field or the golf course or You step away from the gym, the approach is pretty similar in regards to lifestyle, routine, how we're eating, you know, prioritizing recovery, um, our relationships, our, our faith, our, our, our mindfulness and our mindset.

But when [00:04:00] we get to the gym or the training course, like it is literally polar opposites of, yeah, if I go to the gym, I'm thinking about, okay. Is today a power day or a speed day or maybe a hypertrophy day? Whereas for dylan, it's probably going to be rooted in some sort of mobility. Um, like you see

Speaker 11: my workouts What is this guy doing over there?

Touch your toes and then we link back up for biceps at the end. So For the beach Absolutely.

Speaker 8: So let's talk about the commonalities because I feel like I mean that's where I also have a lot of overlap Which is just like putting the right foods in your body Getting the right amount of sleep doing all the things just The basics of good health.

Yeah, like I feel like So, you know, even if you're not an athlete, you should treat yourself like one which I think is, you know, a powerful Message, but you guys are athletes. So i'm curious like what what's the overlap look like in terms of what you guys are doing?

Speaker 9: I mean, I think at the end of the day We just made everything about our life like a lifestyle and it doesn't matter if we're an athlete or if you're not an athlete like We try to treat our our mind and our body the [00:05:00] same way We think everybody else should treat it in a very like healthy way.

Um, really prioritizing recovery I mean i've seen dylan's whoop whoop scores when he's golfing, you know, 18 or 36 holes a day and they're through the roof They're even higher than what I would, you know produce in a rugby game. So for us, it's really really big emphasis on recovery So that's eating the right foods.

That's trying to get eight to nine hours of sleep every night Um We're big cold plungers, um, huge on the sauna, um, active recovery in the forms of what? Pickleball, just hitting the beach, volleyball, whatever it may be, um, but then there are stark differences in how we have to approach our training, uh, for our respected sports.

Speaker 8: That's one of the things I'm trying to get better at is the active recovery and just like actually having a work component to recovering. Like, I do sauna, I do ice bath, but there's so much more that can, like, just going and getting sunlight and chilling out is actually a positive for your health when you're doing all the other right things.

Speaker 9: Yeah. For sure. I just think, like And I [00:06:00] learned it from Matt Frazier. I mean, absolute legend in the CrossFit world, but like his form of recovery was getting into zone two, being on the bike for an hour and 90 minutes, just flushing lactic acid out, just getting in that zone tune, steady state cardio, where you're not taxing your central nervous system, where you're just allowing your body to flush out, get more blood flow, get more oxygen to your muscles and red blood cells.

And so that's something I really took away. So before. My recovery sessions would be like, I'm going to get on the foam roller. I'm going to do some passive stretching. And then I'd started to tweak it to know I'm going to get on the bike. I'm actually going to get my heart rate up a little, I'm going to get a sweat.

I'm going to try to flush out some of that lactic acid and that soreness that I've accumulated from a game. And the more I start moving and it's not like high demand movements or, or it's not taxing my body. I've started to notice huge improvements in my recovery just from being more active, and it can literally be as simple as.

Getting up in the morning, going to walk and getting some direct sunlight or walking in the evening, um, and starting to, you know, unwind the day. So just getting some movement in, I think is super beneficial [00:07:00]

Speaker 8: for sure. I feel like a lot of people, this is something that I've talked to a lot of my friends about, but Ned and I were just talking about it, but it's like, what's the minimum.

You should be doing or could be doing each day like minimum viable dose to set you set yourself up for success And for me, it's been like 10 to 15 minutes of actually like pretty light conditioning and on the days where I have it I'll maybe spend the last five minutes just Emptying the tank a little bit, but like, if that's my every day, I was just doing like some simple math.

I'm like, all right, that that'll be like an extra two days worth of calories. Like I don't really track calories, but I'm like, from an output perspective, that'll keep me feeling fresh. And then every day I'm getting like 10 to 15 minutes of something that's light, not demanding on the body, but still getting like the lactic acid out, even from a mental standpoint, just like clearing out some of those thoughts.

So. I do feel like, you know, mixing in or just like having that as a staple, honestly, is such a key component to being able to perform in anything. Like for me right now, it's like [00:08:00] perform a business, but you know. For you guys, it's you guys actually are taking care of your body so you can not get injured and actually be elite

Speaker 9: 100 percent I think the biggest thing is number one just listening to your body But number two, I think a lot of people go to the gym or they'll go through a training session And they'll try to push themselves to the absolute max every single day because they think if they're not Gassed or if they're not on their hands and knees after a workout then that workout doesn't matter It wasn't good enough But if you do that a couple days in a row The following three or four days, your body's so taxed.

Your central nervous system is on overdrive. You're not going to be able to put out quality effort and quality workouts for the days remaining. So it's like finding the balance between going hard when you're feeling good. And then maybe taking a step down when you're not feeling so good. So. The average is still good output rather than trying to go hard hard hard But then you're gonna hit a lull and then at that point it's like, okay Is what i'm doing really working?

Am I seeing progress or am I plateauing because i'm not giving my body ample time to recover? So then I can go hit the next workout feeling good and refreshed and [00:09:00] then pushing the limits there So it's a tough thing because at the end day it comes down to your mindset and just like being okay Not having the hardest workout ever But at the end of the day, that's going to get you further than trying to push, push, push.

And some

Speaker 11: of the, the fitness tracker, like the whoop, just makes it so easy to know where you are at and kind of give you a, like a good level of what to base your workout on for that day. Like you were saying, like if you wake up and you're gassed, it's going to be a active recovery day, like pickleball.

Maybe walk nine holes something like that something light and fun hit the bike Yep, but if you if you're ready to go then floor it and get better.

Speaker 8: Yeah, it's so interesting I feel like a lot of people focus on the ceiling when they're working out and not on the raising the floor Yep, and you you actually get better over time by raising the floor.

Yep. Yep. So Dylan you introduced Christian to an animal based diet

Speaker 11: So, I would love to take the credit for it, but it was actually my brother.

Speaker 8: Okay.

Speaker 11: Um, my brother kind of started, like, [00:10:00] thinking about it. I think he just kind of came across it on social media. Um, and then he started giving it a try, like, and he went really hardcore, like, eating liver fillets, which I, I still can't get to, like, I'm a low dose liver guy.

Yeah. I love the, uh, Like, anything that has, um, organs, like, liver, heart, kidney mixed in, like, the ground beef with it mixed in is great, but anyways, um, so Tyler kind of put me on it, I was, I'd wake up some days just feeling super tired, super groggy, dealing with brain fog, especially in college when it's like, the nutrition was not, not good for me in college.

Just so busy. But, um, so yeah, my brother Tyler put me on it and then we started trying to get Chris on it because obviously he's, uh, We call him an operator. He just does everything to the maximum level of like discipline and he just, if he's gonna do something, he's gonna do [00:11:00] it all. Can I, I'm gonna throw this part in.

Tyler was like, yeah, I don't eat, I, I kind of stay away from veggies, like I'm just freaking hardcore animal based. And Christian's like, well dude, if someone told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it? And Tyler's like, you'll see. You'll see in a couple months later, he's all in. You jumped off the bridge.

I jumped off the bridge. He doesn't even have plates anymore. He's all straight wood cutting boards. Aesthetically and I feel with coconut oil. Just eat with your hands. Exactly.

Speaker 9: But no, I mean, I would, my nutrition probably two years ago was I'm going to eat as many salads a day as I can. My steaks were going to be the leanest cuts of meat ever.

I'd stay away from chicken thighs. I'll have chicken breasts because there's less fat. And I was, I mean, as we know in America, like, especially the government and all these big, you know, corporations are saying, stop eating red meat, stop eating animal fats, go the plant based route, like that's what's causing cancer and, and all of these chronic diseases.

And I fully bought into that, but on the flip side, I wasn't recovering well, I had a lot of brain fog. I was waking up with headaches all the time. My [00:12:00] testosterone was really low for someone 21, 22 years old, who's a high performing individual. It should be really, really high. So I started to ask questions, I'm like, why do, why am I eating the right way, or at least the way that I think I should be eating, training my butt off, um, doing all the recovery, every modality that you can think of, but I'm still not feeling good.

So I was like, alright, maybe, maybe I need to at least try something, um, and that's what I'm huge on now is, I'm gonna try something and if I feel like it works, I'm gonna stick with it, and if it doesn't, well, I've got concrete evidence from myself that that wasn't for me. So, I put away the veggies for about a year, um, I really, really focused on quality grass fed cuts of beef, um, a lot of pasture raised eggs, I'd incorporate some beef liver, some beef heart, um, raw cheeses, raw milks, and within the first probably two or three weeks, like, the biggest thing I noticed was energy and mental clarity, I just felt really, really good, and it's not like a jittery energy like you get from high dosage of caffeine, but it's like, [00:13:00] This natural feeling of, I just want to get stuff done.

I want to be active. I want to be, I want to be moving throughout my day and I just feel good. And I was like, Whoa, okay. I think we're onto something here. So I went about six months and I use blokes. I don't know if you, okay. So they're awesome. Yeah. Josh Whelan has absolutely killed it in the game and I started working with them.

And so we got my testosterone. I want to say it was in December, um, and my, my test was probably in the 420, 440 ranges. Six, seven months later, it was up to about 950. And they asked me, they're like, dude, what'd you take? And I was like, I promise you, I haven't taken anything. And I mean, I get tested by WADA, USADA, um, all the drug testing companies that you can think of.

Um, and I can really attribute it just from putting in the raw materials that my body really needs and not being afraid of cholesterol and saturated fat and. It, it worked wonders for me. And so tweaked a little bit, you know, from where I started to where I'm at today, but I'm still a huge proponent of focusing your diet on.

Quality cuts of [00:14:00] animal, you know animal products

Speaker 8: Especially for high performing athletes like both you guys It's crazy crazy to me to think that there's fear around cholesterol But the fear in food is so wild that they've just basically psyops people into thinking that green is help immediately. It's

Speaker 11: it's Unbelievable.

Have

Speaker 8: you guys had success convincing your friends to get on board? I got

Speaker 9: my brother fully on board Okay, this kid is he's a beast Cooking in his dorm room at Cal Poly with a blackstone hanging out of his window So the smoke doesn't cause a smoke alarm to go off. I Wait and eggs all of his roommates. I mean, they're hooked.

I've got a lot of people I think changing the way they look at food Maybe they're not full on animal based But they're they're starting to have a better relationship with fats and red meat and higher higher like I guess amounts of fats because a lot of people You I think fat's the enemy, um, I think it's one of our best friends in, in the right dosages, but um,

Speaker 11: I think I'm someone who kinda doesn't like to be [00:15:00] like, you need to be doing this, do this, you're dumb if you're not.

Because I don't like when people do that to me. So I kinda just try to like, show my friends, I guess? Um, the way I eat, and then if they ask me questions, obviously I would love to help them understand it. Uh, but I don't really push it on people. I think that the way, like, just by a lot of friends being like, What, so you eat ground beef every single night for dinner?

They'll kind of start, like, trying it, and they have. And a lot of, a lot of my friends have, like, become a lot more interested in it throughout the last year or two, like, Christian. Um, But yeah, it's, I think, I mean, I don't want to go back anytime soon.

Speaker 8: Yeah. Have you noticed anything? Cause I feel like I played baseball, you play golf a lot of times people will be like, well, you don't need to be that fit or like care too much about your health in either of those sports.

But I think it's like a huge misnomer. Like the best athletes in both, both of those sports are freaks. Yeah. So I'm curious, like, Have you seen that [00:16:00] actually come through in the performance, just dialing in the nutrition?

Speaker 11: Yeah, I have. Um, When I was in college, I kind of just like would wake up, eat cereal. I mean, you're going to frickin 530 AM lift and then you got class from What?

8 to 11 30. Then you drive straight from class to the golf course, 45 minutes away. And then you play 18 for qualifying and then you go home. So like the nutrition, it was just like, you have to be really disciplined to get it in. And I didn't have a great understanding of what it, what it was. So pretty much on like.

Between hole seven and hole 12 of every swing, single qualifying round in my college career, I'd have a gnarly stomach ache. And it's because I would eat like some, just like go to a sandwich shop after class on the way to the course. And then have pretty much my on course diet would just be like. And I was like, why am I getting such bad stomach aches?

Like gnarly stomach aches. Cause I, my stomach's empty and then I'm just [00:17:00] putting almonds in it and I'm burning 4, 000 calories after working out and going to class and not eating pretty much enough for what you should be. Right. Um, but now I've, I literally just eat, uh, beef jerky or like some type of, like the chomps sticks are great.

Any type of high quality like just beef and salt basically in a dried dried meat stick basically And then applesauce packs like the go go squeeze or like the store brand. Yeah, I am massive on those I I feel great the entire round. I'll start eating applesauce on like whole three And then beef jerky on like at the turn and then applesauce on like 14 and I feel great the whole round So it's been very beneficial for me.

I didn't know they had packs of applesauce like squeeze packs That's actually the best pre workout the best on course snack It's it's really it's I mean, it's really good because in a golf tournament you're fighting so many ways you're fighting It's you're competing [00:18:00] against yourself the golf course the weather and then when when you got a stomachache on top It's

Speaker 8: just

Speaker 11: gnarly.

Speaker 8: Well, it's such a mental game too where if you're like stomach is messed up you're not going to be able to be fully there when you're making that and it sounds like a

Speaker 11: small thing like to If you've never played in the golf tournament, but Golf tournament versus playing around a golf with your friends is a completely different sport.

Speaker 8: Yeah Yeah, the in the gut and the brain are connected. So if you're dealing with gut issues, it's just like yep You're you're dragging that whole round. It's funny too. I feel like You know, it's so easy to ignore nutrition for a sport like golf and baseball. So easy. But then you're just not dealing with any of the downsides of having a terrible diet, which is massive.

Speaker 9: Yep. I want to hear your perspective because your principles are what? Eat locally.

Speaker 8: Yeah, eat locally.

Speaker 9: Eat real foods, buy locally, and cook meals at home.

Speaker 8: And cook your meals. So

Speaker 9: your journey to get in there. Because I want to know what the diet was for you prior to all of this, prior to you building your brand, starting your journey in the health and [00:19:00] wellness space, building Noble, building the Meat Mafia, like when that transition happened and why the transition occurred.

Speaker 8: Yeah, I was always pretty aware of food. I was, um, in college, I was the kid who ate the paleo diet on the base. I was one of two kids on the baseball team who actually were eating like something different. So I would still go to the food hall. So it wasn't like the highest quality food, but I would, I was eating like a paleo diet and everyone knew, they're like, You know, he is taking care of himself.

It's very clear that like he's operating physically on a different level Whether or not that translates to the actual sport Like, you know, we'll wait and see, but like I was taking care of myself, um, before that had run into like some health issues. Like I had pretty bad acne in high school and it was all diet related.

Like I, um, I would eat really well at home. And then at school I was just, I was playing football, baseball, like training like crazy. I could eat anything. So I still remember just like going to the cafe and getting nachos and every sandwich they had and chips. And chocolate milk and [00:20:00] just like all these processed foods that were not serving me at the time.

Yep and so I I was like struggling with that the acne because it's like It's a terrible thing to have as a high schooler. I'm like, okay, something's off here I ended up taking medication for that But then I had really started to make some shifts around diet through working out at this gym that I had gone to they were buying from Amish farmers and Getting really locally sourced food food sources like as close as you could get and these guys were like CrossFit guys who were training a bunch Of high school athletes, so I was always picking their brain and they were just super dialed in with nutrition So that's where the flip was Uh, the Switch Flip for me.

And, um, I I needed I knew I knew I needed to prioritize that in college. And then, after that, I was You know, working at a corporate job right after school, working in finance and just saw those patterns of like eating the nachos and eating sandwiches started to creep back in. And like three years after being an athlete, I look at myself.

I'm like, dude, [00:21:00] you are, you're a shell of who you used to be. And so that was a moment for me where I was like, I need to start tinkering again, start seeing what's working. What's not. So I tried a keto diet. Same thing as you immediate effects with cognition, energy, just through natural foods and getting a little bit more sleep.

Like I was a totally different person. And so, you know, I didn't have any blood work done back then, but I imagined there was similar effect to you, or it was just massive positive increases. And then at that point I was just, I was on, I was floating down the river. I was like, what else, what's next? So I started to try the carnivore diet and Brett was trying it at the same time.

So we kind of linked up that way where we were both experimenting. His was more so out of necessity. And mine was just like, I feel like a fat corporate employee right now, which I really wasn't, but it was. It was very clear to me that I was not operating the way I could be. So, um, just like through those small struggles, I just got really tapped in and kept going down that path of being like, okay, what's next?

Got diet locked in, let's focus on sleep. I got the [00:22:00] whoop and started tracking my sleep. And that's been a huge area for me recently, where it's like, you know, trying to balance running the podcast and two other businesses that are just in their infancy. It's like, I, I can't show up tired, you know, so getting sleep dialed in, um, really getting my blood work done too.

It's been recently the past two years, something I've done consistently and you know, there haven't been any like massive groundbreaking shifts that I've pulled from that blood work just yet. Like my blood work has been good, not great. My testosterone was, was high, but there were some signs of, um, like. I noticed that my uptake, um, or like my free testosterone was lower because my estrogen was higher.

So I was like, okay, how can I dial that in so that I'm lowering that estrogen down and then that free testosterone will go up. So little things like that, that you're like diving those extra layers deeper have been really profound [00:23:00] in just actually making this a lifestyle and not just making it something that's like, okay, maybe I'll try this diet for like two weeks and then switch off.

It's like, no, you, you want to be a high operator. You got to do this stuff every single day. Um, so it's been a really fun path. I feel like one of the things Brett and I are really trying to do is just make being healthy, cool, like your brother hanging outside of the dorm room is such an awesome thing because most college kids are just like, they're in their degenerate phase, they don't really care about nutrition and you know, yeah, you should, you should have some fun, but don't forget that, like you only have one body, you got to take care of that.

And if you are the kid who's taking care of your body in college. You could 10x what all your peers are doing simply by, you know, being a little bit more dialed in in a few areas.

Speaker 9: Yep. And I think today, and you mentioned it, you didn't feel your best. Like a lot of people are stuck in their normal ways of feeling, and that's both mentally and physically, but they don't really know what feeling optimal is like, and I was stuck in that.

I mean, professional athlete, I'm playing for the [00:24:00] USA, working out seven, eight times a week. If you looked at me, you would be like, oh. That guy has it all figured out. I mean, he's in great shape. He's super strong. He's fit. He's playing high level sport. But on the inside, I just wasn't feeling great. Yeah, and I was like, okay, I got to fix this.

And then I think at the end day, you got to figure out what really works for you. Animal based diet works great for me, works great for Dylan. That doesn't mean it's going to work for Joe on the other side of the street. And it's like, his needs as a golfer are so different than my needs as a rugby player.

I mean, the majority of my work is high anaerobic output, sprinting really fast for short durations of time, rest, go again, whereas Dylan is in this steady state. Of an elevated heart rate. So he's got to find the nutrition approach approach and the fueling approach that works for his sport. Just like you got to figure out the right approach that works for you and your lifestyle and what you're trying to accomplish.

So it's like, I think just having a little bit of like, naiveness of like trying new things and not being scared of the repercussions, because if something doesn't work for you and just say the first month, it's like, all right, that [00:25:00] didn't work for me, maybe let's try a different path and that may work for me.

So it's just having that curiosity of like finding the right answer. Because it's so individualized. And

Speaker 11: just to go back to what you were saying, like, Christian was playing the best rugby of his life on world tours and stuff. And he's calling me, like, every morning being like, dude, I can't sleep, I have the worst headache of my entire life.

I'm going to the doctor, we're doing frickin MRIs and stuff, and I was like, that's just unbelievable. And it's crazy to me how many, like, chronic issues where you could think, like, there's no way that what I had for lunch yesterday is affecting this. It affects it all, like, I mean, you were talking about acne, go ahead with

Speaker 9: the headaches.

Well, I was getting headaches every day, and when I first told our PT at Houston, she immediately thought, oh, concussions, you know, you need to go get an MRI. So I got an MRI, doctor was like, your brain's completely healthy, you have no gray matter, there's no repercussions of past, or there's no implications of past concussions being the cause of headaches.

And I was like, all right, well, what's [00:26:00] something that I'm doing every day? And you get even more worried because you're like, okay,

Speaker 11: well then, like, it's almost what's going on. And like my

Speaker 9: blood work for the most part was great other than, I mean, inflammation was high, but given the fact that I make tackles for a living, it makes sense.

Um, testosterone was a little low, so maybe that could have an impact on, on my energy and my headaches. But I was like. What's something I'm doing every day that could have an effect that I'm not even thinking about. And it's like, I eat 35 meals a week, right? Maybe five on average or four on average a day.

It's like, I'm doing that and I'm drinking water throughout the day. Maybe those two things could have a huge impact on, on my health. Cause two years ago I wasn't thinking about putting Celtic sea salt or drinking an element packet. Like, I thought salt was bad, as everybody's saying now you can't have too much salt.

It's amazing how good salt is. So just these, yeah, these little changes in my lifestyle have actually made huge, huge impacts on how I feel. And that's physically, mentally, that's how I recover, that's how I sleep, that's how I think. Um,

Speaker 11: yeah,

Speaker 9: it's been life

Speaker 11: changing. It's all the little things that add up, like having salt in your water in the morning, taking your shoes off, standing in grass.[00:27:00]

Like, for me, I'm really lucky I live right next to the ocean. I try to get in the ocean every single day. I, it's, that's my favorite thing on earth. Yeah. It is ridiculous how healing the

Speaker 8: ocean can be. We had a insane episode with this, this guy, the Grounded Athlete, and he talks, he just actually released a book, but he talks a lot about grounding and, Most people think this is like witchcraft or like some crazy science, but I think

Speaker 11: all this stuff that we're talking about is That causes heart disease.

Speaker 8: Yeah, it's it's so funny Once you're kind of like behind the curtain and understand it from a personal perspective You have a relationship with what it feels like to ground get good sleep eat the right foods He was he was saying, you know The Earth is this magnetic thing, and standing on it without, without, you know, rubber soles allows the Earth to pull negative ions out of your body and lower your stress state.

I'm like Just that sentence just

Speaker 10: seems ridiculous. Yeah,

Speaker 8: but then you do it. Yeah, and you do it consistently. You're [00:28:00] aware of it The hard part is there's nothing to measure which is like what we're going up against which is there's nothing to necessarily measure on a large Scale to show people who want scientific proof for every little thing So, you know, I feel like we're fighting up against like it's like David versus Goliath But but the way I

Speaker 11: combat that sorry to cut you off like Don't do it then.

Speaker 8: Yeah. Yeah, I do it. Yeah, definitely. That's literally

Speaker 11: what it is.

Speaker 8: And that was um, It's a really interesting point too because I feel like at the end of the day there's just going to be this group of healthy people who are doing all these weird things and people are just going to wake up one day and be like Oh wow, we just like totally missed this.

We lost the plot. We were eating the green smoothies and Not listening to the grounding advice and getting the right natural light and things like that till it's just basic stuff

Speaker 9: What are the little things you're doing every day now that you think are moving the ticker just one percent?

Speaker 8: I think My lifestyle is pretty dialed in at this point.

I would say I went through a pretty, um, [00:29:00] interesting season these past two months, just in terms of a move and trying to balance the business stuff. So I was definitely getting less sleep and less quality, like the environment set up that I had, that I had pretty much gotten fully dialed in. It wasn't the same with the move.

And it was a temporary move. So I was in a, like an Airbnb. It wasn't like I was like in my element. So I really had to focus on just like managing through that. But when I'm at my best, it's like sleep is fully dialed in getting, just like getting to bed and getting up at the same time is such a basic thing.

But if that, if your clock is just in order every single day, you're going to bed at 10 o'clock and you're waking up at 6, that in itself will have such massive downstream effects versus the guy who's 7 days a week or 5 days a week, he's going to bed at 11 o'clock and waking up at 5. Or one night he goes out and he's up until 2 [00:30:00] a.

m. and waking up at 10, like that can throw you off completely. So, I just think trying to focus on the things that have the most downstream effect for me is just always how I try to think about things, like think about it from a first principles. So, I'll just be really simple with my diet, like, I knew I was going through change, so I was like, I'm just going to simplify my diet.

I know that, like, my lifestyle and sleep is going to be interrupted during these last two months, so I was getting way less sleep than I normally was.

Speaker 9: Yeah, but what can I control?

Speaker 8: What can I control here? So I was like, I'm just going to get really dialed in with food. I'm going to start implementing and prioritizing just like the simplest meals, which for me is just like ground beef.

Um, or I would get like smoothie from Sunlife. Like I really wasn't in a place where I was able to cook, which is like our core thing is like cook all of our meals. I wasn't really able to control that as much, um, just cause our setup. So I was finding that I would go get smoothies and that was just like what I had to do to get through that period.

I think the, the little things for me that worked the best is. Making sure I get [00:31:00] enough sunlight during the day. Um, especially now, I'm spending a little bit more time than I would like to inside. So just being mindful of sunlight and getting a good walk in, like that's foundational. And, like, my goals are different than, like, you guys, but that principle still applies.

Like, I'm trying to focus on this business stuff and be able to perform the best I can there, but I still need to feel really good doing that. And, like, I'm not going to let my health slip just because I have stuff going on in my life, you know?

Speaker 9: I mean, I think D. Y. and I are at a point where if you were to take golf out of his life and you take rugby out of my life, our lifestyle is going to be the same.

Like, we're going to approach it in a very similar manner. Even though you took away the sport, I mean, we're going to wake up same time. We're going to train, we're going to be active. We're going to prioritize our health, our mentality, our friendships. Um, what we put into our body, even though we're not like our career is different.

I think that's the most important piece of this is like building the lifestyle that has nothing to do with your career. Um, cause it doesn't [00:32:00] matter, but a lot of times people associate their career with their lifestyle. And it's like, because I do this, I need to be like this. And it. It couldn't be further from the truth.

I also

Speaker 11: think that a lot of people maybe feel like Doing some of the stuff we're talking about like just working out eating Not strict, but like a certain diet Um going to sleep at the same time is like extremely grueling And like for christian like oh, it's such a grind. He must be so he's he's got to be like getting tired of it But I feel like if you do it and implement it And you can start to like enjoy it kind of a little bit and enjoy the way That you feel while doing it.

Whereas it's not something that you're going to like be tired of. And then when you retire from rugby, you'd be like, Oh, cool. I'm going to eat potato chips and fricking stay up till 3am every night, watching movies. Like, I feel like that I don't see that happening for either. It's going to serve

Speaker 8: you guys really well.

Like a hundred percent, you know, no matter what happens, like you guys are going to still be able to operate at a really high level, [00:33:00]

Speaker 9: but people from my experiences, people's relationship with being active and food is completely backwards because they look at it in the light of. If I work out this many times a week and if I eat this amount of calories and I'm on this diet, then the number on the scale is going to change and I'm going to look different in the mirror where, for us, all I care about is I want to feel my best.

Speaker 8: Yeah.

Speaker 9: I don't really care about the number on the scale. I, obviously, I want to be in the right range for my sport and my body. Um, but I just, I'm obsessed with the energy I have, the mental clarity, how I feel, am I happy? Um, do I feel like I'm actually living life, not just getting through it?

Speaker 8: Yeah, you guys are hitting on the exact thing that most people are missing.

Like, we're focusing on the wrong metrics of success when it comes to health. And most people, it is the Like number on the scale like okay, you could you could be the exact weight you want to be and you're probably And you you muscled your way there through some crazy diet How do you feel but and most times when you get there some

Speaker 11: ozempic in there?

Yeah [00:34:00] Yeah,

Speaker 9: but like say you get to that weight. Are you happy?

Speaker 8: Yeah,

Speaker 9: does that mean you're successful?

Speaker 8: Yeah,

Speaker 9: um, there's so many other variables It's like you got to start thinking about the right things because at the end of the day when we're on our deathbed I don't care how much I weigh. I don't care what I look like in the, in the mirror.

I want to be happy with my life, proud of the things I did. I want to build an amazing family, have amazing relationships, and amazing memories.

Speaker 11: Yeah, it's simple. I think it, you can go really deep, like, people who are caring about the number on the scale, they're kind of just, I don't know, I think that I'm my happiest when I'm less worried about the way I look, like, the way people think about me.

Um, and just kind of be like, well, I have the, I have these people in my life who I know love me no matter what, I could be 300 pounds, they still love me, I'm just gonna try to feel my best and be, like, the best person I can be and then I'll kind of let everything, like, take care of itself from there, cause if I feel good, then I'll probably be more willing to do things like work out, [00:35:00] which will make me look better, blah, blah, blah, become a better person, so, I think it's crazy, like, just, When my brother started talking about the animal based diet, you just take the step to get to ground beef, and it opens up all these crazy doors, bro.

I talk about it all the time with my friends, like, it starts with ground beef. Yeah, and then you start to question, though.

Speaker 9: I mean, this is a topic I really wanted to talk about you is, with you is, you start feeling better, and you start eating things that, say, people say you shouldn't be eating.

Speaker 11: Why are they lying to us about ground beef?

Speaker 9: You eat ground beef every day? Oh, no. Well Rutger said frosted flakes are a better alternative. Then you get to the FDA

Speaker 11: food pyramid. Like what they're saying, like a Hershey's bar is healthier than, uh, fried egg and butter. Yeah. Yeah, okay.

Speaker 8: You eat the Hershey's bar though. Have you guys seen the graph from the TUF study?

Yeah, it's like ground beef, cheese, and eggs are in the red at the bottom. Yes. That's the study. Yeah, that's the one we're [00:36:00] talking about. And Cheerios above it. Like good luck. I could survive on those bottom three and actually thrive. That's the only three you should eat. This is actually what I eat. Mix in a strawberry,

Speaker 10: you're good.

Maybe a little honey here and there.

Speaker 9: Oh, I'm big on honey. Big. It's crazy. I mean, I've eaten New York strips the day of the game and people are like, what the heck are you doing? I'm like, dude, until I start performing poorly, Keep your mouth shut.

Speaker 8: Yeah, yeah. And you're, it's like, you're, even if your performance stayed the same, and you just feel better eating this one way, like, it's, it's all the proof, the proof is in the pudding.

Speaker 9: Yeah, but I mean, I don't want listeners to get. We do eat carbohydrates and I got to eat a lot of them to fuel my performance So it's not just meat eggs butter.

Speaker 8: Definitely. Yeah, I think carbs is one of those things too. That's been you know I've I've fallen into that trap as well where like the keto diet worked really well for me So I was like, uh, you know card I'm gonna bucket carbs into this thing That's like, you know a bad food, but if it's coming from the right [00:37:00] source, yep like and you're a performance based athlete like if I was just to be like All I'm gonna do is just like go to work and maybe get like 10 minutes of exercise in each day.

I could be like completely low carb and just thrive on red meat. But at a certain point, like if I'm mixing my, my like hardcore workouts, I'm gonna want some sort of like carb source around that. But even, even me, like I get my carbs from raw milk, honey, some fruit. And I'm like, I'm a little careful about some, some of the fruit just cause like I like to eat locally.

Like I think that. There's something to that and just knowing like what's being sprayed on this stuff I try not to get neurotic about it, but it's it's just one of those things. Now you're cognizant. Yeah. Yeah, I

Speaker 11: think that's a slight different between me and Christian's diet because he's he I probably need a little bit more carbs because just because he's bigger and Probably has a slightly slower metabolism.

Would you say than mine? [00:38:00] I have an extremely fast extremely fast metabolism Um, so I'll mix in jasmine rice, um, sweet potatoes, normal potatoes. I don't do it in the first half of the day, but when I'm done with the day, I will, uh, throw some mashed potatoes for dinner, rice, um, pasta, but it's on, um,

Speaker 8: rare occasions.

Yeah. Yeah. I like the beef is a gateway drug because if you can just eliminate. Eliminate everything from your diet for five days and just try just try to eat only red meat ground beef You'll that was for me the light bulb like that That's when it all went off where I was like, man, I feel so much better and then i'll start to reintroduce things just to To, you know, see how they affect me and then you actually have the information for yourself as opposed to somebody being like hey You should eat this way because it's better for you I'm like, all right, like you don't know where that information is coming from who they're testing who [00:39:00] they're studying on It's funny.

I was reading something the other day Japan only allows studies to be released within Japan that are on Japanese, the Japanese population, which makes total sense, like controlled study. Yeah. And the, the population is the same as, you know, the people that are getting that information. So it's a way to control, um, some of the, the outsized noise that might come in.

When you have someone who's, you know, from an entirely different area, um, you know, coming in and maybe getting tested and studied the same way they could sway the, the data. Yeah. I

Speaker 9: mean, it all comes down to eat single ingredient foods. And I promise the people listening it will have a bigger impact on on your health your your vitality than people think

Speaker 8: yeah Yeah, it's funny, too I think like implementing change is really hard for people but as an athlete I feel like you guys obviously like Resonate with like the maybe not back against the wall, but it's like I want to be the best that I can be So i'm gonna be willing to make some of these [00:40:00] changes Um, whereas like if you're just like the person on the couch It's very easy to kind of sit into that baseline and not really Know what it feels like to as you're saying before like get to that optimal level.

It is really

Speaker 11: interesting I've noticed that over the last couple months where Like, I don't, I'll throw my dad under the bus here. Like, let's say we're playing golf and he's like, Why am I chipping like this? And I'm like, you need to change the way you're chipping. You need to eat ground beef. Right. I'm like, you need to chip this way.

And he like, is hesitant to do it because he's like, Ah, I'll just, I'll just make the way I do it work. But whereas, I feel like, With christian or like I don't know and myself i'm i'm always tinkering with my golf swing anyways Yeah, and i'm like, okay Well, if it doesn't work then I know I can go back to what I was doing And then i'll try something else because you're like as an athlete I feel like you're always trying to find the next little tiny Shift to get just a tiny bit better.

And so like for me i'll try anything because I know I have a baseline of what [00:41:00] works and then I'm gonna throw in this and if it's better then cool I'll stick to it. Like Christian was saying with the diet like I feel like I'm very willing to tinker Mm hmm, because I know I can either go back or go more in one direction Yeah

Speaker 9: it's crazy because I went to UC Berkeley and arguably one of the best public universities in the US and in the world and High level training staff expert nutritionists and like the meal plans.

They would provide me If you saw them today, you'd be like, what the heck, like, I was eating those Gatorade bars with 65 ingredients in them, twice a day. Couple muscle milks in them with all the artificial dyes, colorings, added sugar, you know, ingredients 70 grams of sugar. Yeah, ingredients that you can't even comprehend or even pronounce.

Um, high, high amounts of gluten, which, I don't think gluten is necessarily bad, but I do think it leads to inflammation. And a lot of people in America with how much glyphosate they spray on all of [00:42:00] our wheat and grains in America, that's where the trouble lies. Yeah. Um, so it's all these highly inflammatory foods.

And I would love to know if high level universities with high level athletes could change the way that they approach their nutrition. Would they have profound effects in weight room, recovery, um, injury rates, performance on the field because they are subtle changes that in my life, Dylan's life, in your life, have had massive impacts.

Speaker 8: I would, I would say a hundred percent. Like, you look at the guys who are elite, they all take this stuff incredibly seriously. So It's so crazy to me though. It's at every level like we've taught the experts how to think and now those experts are prescribing things that just aren't necessarily optimal like even in farming like we've now taught every school that like if you were to go and get educated on farming and go to Texas A& M they would teach you how to use certain chemicals on your cropland as [00:43:00] opposed to Like raising a biodynamic farm where you have multiple species and no chemicals.

It's a totally different thing. We're talking about the focus being on two entirely different things. And I think it's very easy to see how we're changing as a society because we're changing our focus on like industrializing everything, making sure that all the doctors learn the same thing about, you know, prioritize the right macros instead of looking deeper and being like, no, you actually need to focus on the micronutrients in your food.

It's really interesting. I think that Like it's, it's systemic and like for people in order for people to make the change and understand why you should be doing this, you need to go layers deeper.

Speaker 9: Absolutely. And I had a functional doc on, on my podcast a couple of weeks ago. And when I asked her about her approach to nutrition, it came down to just nutrient density.

I want to put the foods in my body that have the most bioavailable nutrients are rich in minerals. Um, trace minerals. I'm getting protein in every single meal. That's something that she really, really focused on. [00:44:00] And at the end of the day, it is something that you got to think about. And a lot of people have, they're on information overload and they have so much going on in their lives.

So their choices when it comes to what they put in their body aren't even going through their head. They're just, I guess, Byproducts of habit in their life. Yeah, but I think just those little little changes and thinking about okay This has high amounts of quality animal protein I'm gonna get a lot of the trace minerals and a lot of the micro nutrients from that meal Just that small meal is probably gonna do me better than having three or four other meals that are depleted and all those other You know nutrients and macronutrients But the food in America is depleted in a lot of those new, those nutrients.

Speaker 8: Yeah, I think people also run into the issue of feeling like they eat for pleasure. And when I'm starting to eat this keto diet, the food that I was eating was incredible. Like, I felt amazing. And then started going even further with the carnivore diet. I'm like, alright, this food also [00:45:00] tastes amazing.

Getting rid of all the processed food, that is tricking me to think that this stuff is actually nutritious. Um, Once you get over that, then you realize that your whole palate is driving a lot of the negative health outcomes. Like, if your tongue is, like, flavor is this thing that is supposed to be telling us what we should and shouldn't be eating.

So if we're being manipulated by, like, Doritos, Oreos, all the processed foods that taste good, like, we can all agree. Well, those, they're, all those

Speaker 11: companies hire scientists that get paid millions of dollars to find To create synthetic food that our body would crave and want and get addicted to like totally all the candies are Based off of fruit.

Yeah, the colors colors the the textures like the Doritos the the little Like what the powder on the Doritos is like not there for flavor It's there for texture and like cravings and all the stuff. Yeah, it's all crazy. There's I [00:46:00] mean, they're, like, getting into our brains, figuring out what's the most addictive food, Oreos, the textures, like, it's all crazy, the science behind processed foods is scary.

I feel

Speaker 9: bad for a lot of people because They just don't know. Well, first of all, they don't know,

Speaker 11: but at

Speaker 9: the end of the day, they'll go to the supermarket. They'll see something that says organic or fortified or whatever. It's really tough. And in their mind, and I give them credit, they're trying to make the right choice.

So fair play to them. But then you flip over the box, you look at the ingredients, it's like, Oh, geez. Like they're, they're just, they're asking me to be stuck on these foods and they don't know what feeling optimal looks like and they're just stuck in this trap. So yeah, it's a, it's a, it's a nightmare.

Speaker 11: And they're, they're just trust what.

The FDA says you should eat. The food pyramid, whatever. Well, okay, they said the Cheerios are good for me. So, why would they lie? Why would they lie? I don't know. I'll stay away from ground beef, eggs, and butter. I'll eat Cheerios [00:47:00] and frickin whatever it

Speaker 10: is. Hershey's bars. It's not cause Hershey's gave them a hundred mil, but.

Speaker 8: It's a recipe for disaster.