The Meat Mafia Podcast

Part 2

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[00:00:00] Should we hit it? Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

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I laugh at the constant battles over the perfect diet

it's comical to me because everyone's different.

The key point here is genetics dictate your response.

if you ask me, what's the single biggest culprit for low T, it's toxins in our environment.

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One of the things you touched on earlier was TRT.

How necessary is it?

How can you increase your testosterone until you rely on TRT?

Yeah so great question.

three part answer to you, I'll try to keep it brief.

You've mentioned gut health a few times. What's your protocol for really addressing gut health issues that people are having or just kind of getting in a state where your gut is like homeostasis and kind of back to normal? I imagine a lot of people actually have gut issues, whether it's bloating or some micro inflammation or, and they don't even really realize it.

You know, it's crazy. Back in my urology days, um, [00:01:00] we had no appreciation for the gut whatsoever. We just thought you do colonoscopy, no cancer, you're good, whatever. Now I, I'm so aware of how the gut controls everything. It controls hormone production, neurotransmitter production in the brain, it controls mood, it controls metabolism, immune function, like freaking everything is in one way or another controlled by the gut.

It's fascinating. Um, and so to answer your question protocol, there's some, some general recommendations and then some nuance personalized from a general perspective. Um, it's nutrition. And I know you guys talk a lot about this on your podcast, and I've listened to a ton of your great content out there.

You know, gluten is, I don't want to say poison, but it's like poisons of the gut for most people. I don't care if you're a celiac or not, we're talking about just the general commerce. Um, in general, gluten is very inflammatory. Um, a lot of the processed refined sugars. Um, you know, our diet, our standard American diet is very low in fiber and fiber is underappreciated how much it feeds the good microbiome, the good, I don't [00:02:00] want to say good bugs, but the healthy, um, commensal bacteria in our gut that you need.

So let me show you how this all kind of ties, it ties together. So one of the key, keystone bacteria in our gut that we care about, Akkermansia, Akkermansia we have learned is a critical bug in the gut. And what does Akkermansia do? Well, among other things, it. It regulates blood sugar by activating the L cell.

The L cell is a type of cell in our gut that produces a hormone called GLP 1. Okay? GLP 1 is what actually helps you maintain optimal blood sugar levels. It helps the pancreas produce more insulin. It tells the brain to quit eating. It tells the stomach you're full. And in fact, You've heard of semaglutide will go V ozempic.

That is a GLP one agonist. That is a drug that mimics that hormone. Wow. Whereas if you just had healthy optimal Akkermansia levels, it's going to tell your L cell in the gut [00:03:00] to make more GLP one. It's like the natural healthy version of semaglutide, if you will. And so maintaining that healthy bacteria is so important.

And so getting rid of the. Um, the refined sugars getting rid of pro inflammatory, you know, the seed oils we can I know you've had other episodes on seed oil so I don't want to belabor that point but Um, it's getting rid of all the pro inflammatory foods focusing on increasing fiber focusing on increasing intake of clean real food Um, that's what everyone should be doing And then we do testing, you know, again, it goes back to data.

And so we'll do a GI testing. And there are a couple of different tests out there, the GI effects, the GI map, where you can actually look at markers of inflammation in the gut. You can look at markers of digestive function. You look at markers of, um, of your detoxification system. And you can look at the balance of the good bugs and the bad bugs, so to speak.

I hate that terminology, but for the lay person, I think that makes it easy to understand. [00:04:00] Um, you want a good, broad diversity of, of, of your microbiome and nutrition is the first way to do that. Yeah. I really appreciate the nuance that you have around fiber because you know, obviously you're on the meat mafia podcast.

We've talked a lot about carnivore diets, animal based diets. It seems like the health space in general is so polarizing that it's actually difficult for the average person off the street that's trying to make sustainable change to figure out what they want to do because you have one camp of people that are meat based that are saying, Oh, you don't need fiber fibers overrated.

There's people that are saying that fiber is necessary. So it's good to just get that nuanced take that it actually is necessary. And you should be incorporating it into your diet. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And, and, you know, to your point, I, I, I laugh I'm on Twitter a lot and I laugh at the constant battles over the perfect diet, you know, the carnivores versus the paleos versus the vegans versus the plant based versus the omnivores versus pescatarian.

Like it's, it's comical to me because everyone's different. [00:05:00] And based on your genetics, based on your environment, based on, um, on so many factors you're, what the optimal diet is for you can vary. And I think sometimes it's not necessarily what you're eating, but more so what you're not eating. And that's what they actually all have in common, right?

All these people who are battling, we can all agree on, get rid of the refined sugars, get rid of the processed packaged crap, get rid of the inflammatory seed oils. Yeah. Yeah. And focusing on eating real foods, and then you realize we don't have much differences. Yeah, we have a lot more similarities than people realize too.

That's right. Yeah. What's an ideal day of eating look like for you? What kind of foods are you gravitating towards that make you feel really good? I know obviously gluten, seed oils, processed sugars you're staying away from. But, yeah, what does a day of eating look like for you? Yeah, so it varies. I, I'll fast typically about three days a week or so.

Um, but when I do break my fast, I, I'm, I'm obsessed with protein and, and for most guys out there, um, [00:06:00] your biggest flaw is not eating enough protein. And so a, a really good target for you is your ideal body weight in grams of protein. So for me, I weigh about 162 right now. And so my target is 160 grams of protein a day.

And for most guys that's freaking hard. You have to work at it, right? And so typically my first meal of the day will be a whey protein shake. And um, I'll use coconut water. I'll put berries, typically four or five strawberries. I'll use maybe like a quarter or a third of banana, just add a little bit of sweetness to it.

Um, I'll use a scoop and a half of whey protein. So I'm getting probably 35, 40 grams of protein right there. And some ice purely clean. There's no garbage in there. There's no other nonsense. Um, I don't like the greens in there. I've tried the spinach and kale and all that shit. I just, I can't do it. My wife does that.

Um, but that's my first meal. What's that? I said I'll shit myself if I do that. There you go. Um, and so I'll start with that. I typically will add Greek yogurt specifically to get the [00:07:00] protein. I'll add a little cottage cheese as well. And by now I've eaten like 50, 60 grams of protein with just what I just mentioned right there.

Um, my lunch tends to be pretty light, typically like a salad with grilled chicken, something like that. Um, I like tuna, so sometimes I'll make tuna as well. Um, and then dinner, we're super clean. Um, we will sometimes eat bison. Um, I will eat chicken. We'll eat fish. Um, I try to incorporate veggies. Um, we don't eat much from a package, you know, products like that.

We tend to cook as much as we can. When I do go out, this is important for the listener. When you do go out, you need to be sure that you're asking that they don't cook with oils. So any restaurant, any restaurant you go, um, if they're cooking your food, they're using the, the, um, the Omega six oils, the cottonseed oil, the soybean oil, shit like that.

that is added inflammation for no reason. And so try to get them to cook with no oil, light oil at least. Um, but the best way to avoid that is just eat at home. Tracy, do you have [00:08:00] a perspective on fattier cuts of meat or red meat? And the reason why I'm saying that is you mentioned APOB, our CFO of our business, really lean guy, really good athlete.

He probably walks around at like 150 pounds. And he was doing a really red meat heavy diet and his APOB got really jacked up. So he's been switching to leaner cuts of meat and, you know, maybe for him, but also just the listener in general. Do you have a perspective on, you know, red meat, fatty cuts of meat?

Sure. Yeah. And this is an interesting time in society with the whole LMHR battles going on right now as well. Even the lean mass, lean mass hyper responders for those. you know, who are listening, what that basically means is people, guys who are on, you know, keto high saturated fat diet, they're finding massive increases in their APOB or LDL particle number.

And, and the real question is, well, does it matter? What does that mean? What's the long term outcome of that? And we don't know, honestly, it's too soon to honestly know, but in general, to answer your question, um, I try and for my clients, I recommend to try to keep your saturated fat intake to under 10 percent of your daily caloric intake.

So the general rule of [00:09:00] thumb is your, and you could track your macros to find these numbers. In general, I recommend saturated fat. I'm okay with to a point, and I generally recommend keep it under 10 percent if you can for most guys. Um, and that's for a week. So if you have more one meal versus another, that's okay.

We're talking on a week long basis. So you can spread that out obviously. Um, and so for that reason, I do tend to lean towards fillet. I do like the leaner cuts, just personally myself, I, I like it. Um, I think that the key point here is genetics dictate your response. And so what I mean by that is there are several genes that regulate how your body processes saturated fat.

Um, the most common one most people hear about, talk about is the ApoE gene, um, PPAR Gamma is another one. Um, uh, these genes all. Um, speak to how does your body metabolize saturated fats? I am an ApoE 3. 3. An ApoE 3. 3 means that it doesn't affect me nearly as much as other people. Other [00:10:00] people, my wife is a 3.

4, other people may be an ApoE 4. 4. Now if you have a 4, an allele, either one or two of those copies of the ApoE 4 variant, what that means is that you are in general at an increased risk of developing cognitive decline, cognitive impairment, and even Alzheimer's disease and early cardiovascular disease.

But that risk can be eliminated completely by simply reducing your sugar intake and reducing your saturated fat intake. And so for those people, people who have an APOE 3 4 or especially a 4 4, you need to be limiting your saturated fat to 5 percent or less. Doesn't mean you can't eat red meat, but now it's going to be much more on the filet version, obviously.

Um, and so that's where the, those new ones that comes into play. Some people can do fine with it, obviously. Um, I think the key again, though, still comes back to what are you not eating? And I think that when it comes to cardiovascular disease, cardiovascular risk, you know, you can look at, [00:11:00] at LDL particle number, you can look at LpA, you can look at ApoB and all these other numbers.

Sometimes the blood sugar regulation numbers may be even more important. And the insulin sensitivity markers and, you know, the, the, uh, HDL triglyceride ratio, which is more indicative of blood sugar regulation, may be more impactful than the LDL numbers. And that's where the big battle is right now in, in social is, is understanding who's right, who's wrong, and we just don't know.

It's so interesting following along with, um, Dave Feldman's work and we had them on the podcast a while ago and they've just been doing such good work on understanding the lipid, um, our understanding of lipids and it's really cool seeing what they're doing like the Oreos versus statins thing was, uh, Yeah, Twitter's a fire again today.

Here we are today, February 7th, and Twitter's going crazy over this battle with Datespring in the middle of all this. And it's, it's crazy. And, and, you know, so if you think about the [00:12:00] process of atherosclerosis, you need lipid particles. to get under the surface of the endothelium of the blood vessel to create a plaque.

But that's not enough. You actually need oxidation as well. And you need an inflammatory response for anything to happen. Otherwise, the LDL particle brings it under the surface of the blood vessel, the HDL particle brings it back out. No harm, no foul, nothing done. And so, the point that Feldman and others make, which is very valid, is that LDL alone doesn't tell the whole story.

Because the metabolic health issues, blood sugar regulation, oxidation, immune function all come into play as well. That's where we just don't know yet, but I believe that it can't be all just LDL alone. So interesting. You guys, um, you guys talking about kind of your ideal day of eating or what you eat in a day got me thinking about just habit formation.

And the importance of [00:13:00] actually being able to communicate how to do some of this stuff, because the way I look at it is there's information out there all across the board, but most people generally like no good versus bad, like getting more sleep first, getting less sleep, like which one's better for you.

And I just think it's very hard to actually implement some of these things. So I'm curious how you approach the actual habit formation side of things and really try to help your, your patients. Make some of these things permanent. Love the question. So I'm obsessed with BJ Fogg's book, 20 Habits. First of all, everyone should read this book, 20 Habits.

It's so amazing for whether it's, it's for your business, whether it's personally, how do you establish consistent daily habits? Um, and, um, Atomic Habits is great as well, like them both, but Tony Habits is really, um, what has impacted me the most. For me, this kind of stuff is easy because I've been doing it for so long now, I've been eating clean foods like this forever, that it's really just refining, finding new recipes to use the same ingredients in different [00:14:00] ways, and so, that's never really been a huge challenge for me.

Around the holidays, I can say, everybody probably gets tempted a lot. When you look at how to create a habit. It cannot be motivation alone. Willpower alone cannot get you there. It'll get you there for a few days, kind of like, like going to the gym, you know, New Year's, the first week of January, everyone's going to the gym.

And suddenly by now, this time in February, they've already stopped. You think about how do you create that habit? Well, there's motivation, which is your Y axis. There's ability, which is your X axis. And anything you could think of can be plotted on that graph, if you will, of how easy is it to get that food and how motivated am I to eat it, right?

So if you have no healthy food in the house, I don't care how motivated you are on the y axis, you're very far to the left on the x axis because you don't have the food. You don't have the ability to make those foods because you have to go to the [00:15:00] grocery, you don't know what to get, etc. There's an action curve that, that BJ Fogg talks about a curve that the plot of that graph that, that, that, that habit has to be far enough to the right on that graph above that action curve for that habit to stick.

So, the way to think about it is just how do I move that habit further on the ability axis on the x axis. Yeah, you're motivated to eat the right foods, but now if I can stuff your fridge full of all these great healthy foods, now it's right there for you. And you've moved over on the X axis. Now you're above that action curve that that habit is likely going to happen.

And then you need the third part. You get a prompt. He talks about behavior equals MAP, behavior, motivation, ability, and prompt. Now you need a prompt as well. And so the key is, is you give guys a shopping list. Joe, first of all, you know, when I work with a guy, the first health assessment I do, the intake is what foods do you like to eat?

[00:16:00] Just tell me what you like to eat. Tell me everything. And we have a full massive list of, of meats, vegetables, fruits, spices. And now from that, we can say, go to the grocery store and just buy a bunch of this stuff. That we know is good for you. And now, it comes down to prepping that food. So it's right there in the fr You open the door and you have no choice but to eat these healthy foods because they're right there freaking in front of you.

Because you've improved, you've increased the ability to establish that healthy habit. And so, long answer to your question of It's a combination of motivation, ability, and a prompt. And, um, BJ Fogg's book is amazing at helping you kind of put that in motion. Um, typically the biggest driver of that is to increase ability.

And when it comes to food, it's the matter of not having the bad food, bad choices in your kitchen, loading it with the good choices, and that's going to make that habit so much easier to implement. So like in the morning, for example, when I'm getting ready for [00:17:00] work, I open the fridge. My Greek yogurt is right there.

My cottage cheese is right there. I have an apple for a snack late in the day. It's there. My strawberries and blueberries are there for my smoothie. They're right. Like it's all ready to go. Boom, boom, boom. There's no crap in there. There's no other stuff. That's going to even remotely tempt me to eat the wrong foods.

Cause they're just not even available. That's how you create habit change and, and, and people try willpower. Willpower does not last. It's not sustainable. It's not sustainable. It's such a good honest answer. And you know, even for me as like an informed consumer, I probably know as much as you could possibly know about what foods are good for me versus what foods are bad for me.

But if I keep Siete chips or, you know, the, the fringe snacks in my apartment, I know I'm just going to crush those things if I get home versus like, you know, or if I'm in the office and I don't prep or have anything here, I know I'm so much more likely to go out and probably eat a lunch that's not ultimately good for [00:18:00] me.

So it's like, There's these little hacks that can just stack up over time. That seems so intuitive, but they're super impactful. So like. If you love chicken thighs and you're going to make chicken thighs for dinner, just make two portions. So you can then pack it in a glass Tupperware container, bring it in for lunch, or even what we do is we just have a little ninja air fryer at the office.

So if I don't have time to cook, I can just get a steak from the grocery store, bring it in. You have like an amazing steak ready to go in 10 minutes. Yeah, that's perfect. Yeah. One of the things you touched on earlier was TRT. And I really appreciated your perspective on that because we've had a lot of guests that are on TRT and Harry and I have kind of had that perspective in the back of our minds are, should this.

How necessary is it? Should it be more of a last resort type of thing? You know, what kind, how can you increase your testosterone, um, until you, until you rely on TRT? So for you as a doctor, is TRT like the last resort for a patient? Will you ever put a guy on TRT? Um, I just, your perspective on that. Yeah, so, so great question.

The three part answer to you, I'll try to keep it brief. The first part is how do [00:19:00] you increase testosterone naturally? Strength training, resistance training, heavy weights. We're talking like quads, hamstrings, core, back, abs. Those big belly muscles are the ones that you want to be working. Um, that's been shown to increase testosterone levels.

Improving sleep quality, not just sleep, you know, Time quantity, but quality, that means deep sleep and REM sleep are really important for testosterone levels as well. Sometimes you catch 22 though, because low testosterone crushes sleep and it becomes a battle. Sunlight has been shown to help testosterone and in fact, sunlight on the scrotum has been shown to increase testosterone production as well.

So all you got is go out there in the morning first, especially first thing in the morning. Go out and get some for 15 minutes and go out in your backyard and do it naked because some of the balls has been shown to increase testosterone. Not a lot, not much, but it definitely can help. You might be the first doctor that I've ever heard that's telling you.[00:20:00]

There you go. I come loaded. I come loaded for you. Micronutrients are important, you know, zinc, magnesium, B vitamins are certainly important when it comes to testosterone production as well. People talk about eating cholesterol, typically dietary cholesterol doesn't convert to body, but you have enough cholesterol in your body.

So that's not really a big issue. Um, stress, you know, mitigating or reducing stress. We know that chronic cortisol elevation crushes testosterone. We know the chronic blood sugar imbalance, you know, insulin resistance can affect testosterone. So working on that kind of stuff as well, all that can directly impact testosterone.

That's the first part. The second part, how much does it actually do? Like, how much can I move the needle? And I've heard all these anecdotes online. I'll tell you the reality is in my practice of, you know, 25 years doing urology, doing men's health, seeing labs, guys come in and, and the number we care about is free testosterone, right?

Free testosterone is a bioavailable active form of testosterone. And we want that to [00:21:00] be typically around 20 or so. Okay. 20 is a good target. Now, some lab scale, it may be a different scale where it's a factor of 10, so it'd be 200, but give her, but nonetheless, 20 is our target or 200. Depending on the lab, a lot of guys will come in.

I'm talking like a healthy 35 year old dude has no symptoms. He just wants to get checked. And his free tea is six. Swear to God, happens all the time. Somewhere between six, eight, nine consistently, I'll see these guys with no symptoms, or maybe a little bit of cognitive stuff, 35 years old, healthy six. And so if you were to do all the stuff I just talked about, the natural approaches consistently for three months to six months, what I have found is that'll get you maybe nine, 10, 11, 12, maybe.

So it helps. Yes. And you have a long way to go still. This is what I find. And the problem is most guys are not going to be vigilant enough to do all those things anyway. So I talked earlier about, you know, lack of momentum. If a guy is fatigued, tired, [00:22:00] doesn't have the drive in a bad mood, all because of low T getting him to do all these natural things he needs to do is so tough because he's just not motivated.

He just doesn't give a shit. Right. And so it becomes a catch 22 there where the natural stuff sounds great, but in reality, it never quite gets you to 20 where you need to be. Um, I am on T myself. Okay, just to show you that I practice what I preach and my levels were eight and I'm on Testosterone therapy myself now as well so I can share with my clients, you know personal story as well So that's the second part of the story.

The third question is well if I'm on TRT like when can I get off of it? How long does it need to last? You know, that's like, you know, can I stop it? And I'd like to turn that question around a little bit. So why are you on TRT? You're on TRT because your level is six. And you know why? We can talk about toxins in our environment.

We talk about epigenetics from your parents passing down generations. We can talk about your [00:23:00] stress, talk about your shitty diet, your lack of sleep, all these bad things that have caused it, right? A lot of that you can fix, a lot of it you cannot fix. And so one way or the other, your testosterone level's in the tank and I got to get it to where it needs to be.

When I get it to where it needs to be, what's going to happen is you're going to feel like a transformation. You're going to feel like a new guy. You're going to feel like a man again. You're going to have the energy. You're going to have the mood. You're going to have the motivation to drive. You're going to have um, the metabolism.

You're going to be able to train and build muscle and burn fat again. You're going to have sex again. And all these great things that guys want, you're going to be able to have again. My question then becomes, why on earth would you ever want to stop that? And that's what guys say. Guys are like, you're not going to stop this, are you?

Like once they get on it, they don't want to ever stop. And so that question The guys who asked that question are the guys who are not on TRT, because once you're on TRT, you're like, you're never freaking stopping this. Yeah. That's the real answer. Did you just feel too good? Yeah, it, it, it fixes the problem and now you're driven to do all the right things you need to [00:24:00] do, you know, a lot of it, there's some great science, um, some published literature around the transgenerational epigenetic effect of toxins in our environment, a lot of big fancy words there for the listener.

What that means is the stuff that your grandparents were exposed to affected their sperm permanently, which got passed down to your father. He got toxins in the environment affecting his sperm. The thing got passed down to you. So you're, you're coming in behind the eight ball the day you're born where you already have the, the, the environmental effects of your ancestors that are, that's affecting your testosterone production to begin with.

So you, you can do all the right things and that's probably why you can't ever get up to that 20 level I'm talking about because the damage is already kind of done before you ever had a chance. Pretty scary. When you think about this on the systemic level, how do you think about us actually reversing course here?

Because I don't, it's probably not reasonable to think that [00:25:00] everyone gets on testosterone and fixes this chicken and the egg situation where like, you gotta be doing these things. To in order to see the change and have your testosterone, uh, increase to begin with. Yeah. Great point. It's like, I don't know.

It just seems like it seems like the food and all the other factors that you're talking about are at such a place where it's really going to be challenging to see this actually change. Yeah. And a lot of it, I would, you know, if you ask me, what's the single biggest culprit for low T, like what's the, the, the factor that that's most responsible it's toxins in our environment.

I believe truly is endocrine disruptors, which are chemicals, toxins in our environment that are clearly crushing hormone function and production. And so the biggest thing that we can do is limit exposure to those toxins and optimize our human operating system, if you will, to better handle and overcome exposure to those toxins as well.

And that's the biggest thing that [00:26:00] we can do. And listen, I'm all for small government, stay the hell out of my way. I don't want regulation, but sometimes there needs to be some regulation of the chemicals that are being sprayed on our food that we're eating. The chemicals that the animals we're eating are getting exposed to.

And so that, you know, our drinking water is laden with women's birth control with synthetic estrogen. And so these are real problems where there needs to be some sort of oversight regulation solution because I think those are a big part of the problem. Do you, are you optimistic that we can pull back from the brink?

Um, some days, yes. Ask me tomorrow, no. It's such a tough question. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, it's um, it's a battle put it that way. I, I hope that, um, I hope that something changes soon. Um, but I feel like the problem is still getting [00:27:00] worse, not better. Yeah. Well, I think what's encouraging are just more conversations like this, where it's like, it's about like, I think a lot of what you've said today is controlling what you can control.

So you have, you have a very small sphere of influence, but you do have control of the foods that you put into your body and the lifestyle habits that you choose to form. Yeah. And by doing some of these things, like you can fundamentally transform who you are as a man, as a human being. And I would think that alone has to be encouraging for a lot of people.

Absolutely. Yeah. At the individual level, there's a lot you can do at a society level is where things just aren't really moving. You're exactly right. Dr. Tracy, I feel like we could talk to you all day about this. And honestly, we've gotten to a point where, like we're getting to the Black Belt part of the conversation where it's a little sad.

So, um, I think you've given people a ton of information to actually put into use and practical knowledge for people to. apply, whether it's habit formation or just general information in terms of raising [00:28:00] testosterone. So just wanted to thank you and appreciate all the work that you're doing. Where, uh, where's the best people to send or where's the best place to send people to find more about what you're doing?

I appreciate it. And I appreciate the work that you guys are doing as well. You know, you're creating great content and it's all about educating. the public and getting them aware of what they can do and the changes they can make and, you know, incorporating behavior change. So, um, appreciate that. Um, so, um, my website is drtracygappin.

com. My center is gappininstitute. com. Um, I do have a gift I'll share with your listener. I have a high performance health handbook, which includes 15 strategies and tactics that every guy can start to incorporate into their daily life starting today. Super easy and it's free. Um, and I Um, you can just text the word health H E A L T H to the number 26786 and um, you'll get a free copy of my High Performance Health Handbook.

You'll also get a free copy of my best selling book, Male 2. 0, where I talk a lot about um, how do we overcome this testosterone epidemic. Amazing. [00:29:00] That's amazing. What, um, what was that habits book that you recommended earlier too? We'll link to that in the show notes. Yeah. BJ fog F O G G is his last name.

And the book is called tiny habits. Awesome. Well, Tracy, we're so appreciative of this, man. We, uh, we're going to have to come out to Florida to hang out with you in person. Cause I feel like mistakes and get some sauna. It'd be good. That'd be perfect. Awesome, man. Well, thank you so much. We appreciate it.

Thank you guys. All right.