The Meat Mafia Podcast

Part 1
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[00:00:00] Zane, my man. Welcome to Austin. Appreciate it. I love being here. You're a natural fit. Yeah. You fit right in. I think that you need, uh, might do a family relocation potentially sometime in the future. Well. We gotta get Mrs. Griggs on board.

Second home. I know. She's just really getting set. She's really, you know, I had to move her from California to there many, many couple decades ago. But, um, yeah, it's, I love it down here. I love, I love the community. I love, um, the energy and, um, and the mindset that I just, I have not found in Nashville. It doesn't exist in Nashville.

The outdoor life here with the Colorado river going through the city and everybody's out. It's the warmth. I love the heat. Um, so yeah, it's kind of like, wow, it's kind of weird once you get used to it. Cause then you go to other cities and you realize you're like, Oh, like that. This doesn't really exist anywhere else.

It doesn't. Yeah, it doesn't. No. I mean, there's San Diego kind of used to be that way, what, 80s, 90s, I think was very much a strong health community. I don't know, I haven't been back since the 90s much. Uh, Miami used to be like the fitness capital back in the 90s for a while. I don't know how much the health community is there.

I mean, it's there, but I don't know how connected it is. The connectivity here is insane. It's insane. I just saw the one online with Squatch Fitness and that you guys had out here, uh, uh, last weekend with the outdoor, the cold plunge and the mobile sauna and all these people showing up. And it's just like There's this and then you have the Sapien Center and you guys and I think there's this hub of connectivity with that healthy, um, community that I think is also glued by the outdoors of Colorado River and everybody at the park and Travis Lake and all that kind of stuff.

I think there's, there's a lot of glue, a lot of things that keep it sticky. Yeah. Um, very attractive. Yeah. What Harry and I always say is, uh, You know, if you want to be in finance, you need to be in New York. If you want to be in entertainment, you go to LA. And now if you want to be in the health and wellness space, Austin is really that hub.

And I remember we'd had you on the, we had you on the podcast July of 2022, [00:01:00] but we actually didn't get to meet you in person until KetoCon of last year, which was so April of 2023. And I remember seeing you at KetoCon and the look that you had in your eyes. It was the look that Harry and I had when we first moved out here two years ago.

And it's like, You almost can't believe that it's actually real until you experience it. And like you said, you're like, there really is this amazing city of like minded people. It really is this tribe of people that have these similar nutritional beliefs and other type of beliefs that really resonate with me.

So I saw that look and I was like, I know that look because we had that look two years ago. Yeah. Looking for reasons to come back. Definitely. I might not come back more often. I said that last year, but I'm looking for reasons to come back every time there's something here. Um, yeah, I love it. And we were talking about, because Harry and I met in Costa Rica, as we've talked about before, um, two years ago, like to the month.

And it was that feeling of community where you have the foundation of understanding and, and, and, um, uh, and focus and, and that this is what, this is how you want to live your life. You know, we're all a little different. But there's a baseline of that conversation where you. You, you're not having to explain why you eat this way, why you live this way, or why you wear a ring or why you care about which, when you go to bed or when you eat and um, why you're wearing funny glasses at night, you know, um, to block out, to block out blue lights.

And everybody just was there and it was like, well, what do you do for this? What do you do? What do you do for sleep? And the old guys, especially the guys, anyone over 40 is like, dude, what are you doing for your sleep? And why, how do you, how do you, and it, cause it's just, there's certain things that, that, uh, become issues as you age.

Um, but it's, you're still in the, you have a playing field that's very different than I feel this way. I'm sure many of the people coming in there, you feel a little weird where you live unless you're in Austin. Right. And then of course I've seen who hasn't seen the bumper sticker, keep Austin weird.

Right. Yeah. But the thing, I love it. If it's weird and guess who's the weirdo, because that's what I feel when I'm in Nashville or even talking, you know, if I, we go back home [00:02:00] to California on occasion, I just feel a little odd. It'd be cool. Not in a bad way. Like I don't feel like there's something wrong with me.

I just don't feel connected to anyone else who thinks the same way or you don't know how to have these conversations. I feel like I'm explaining my weirdness all the time. Why do you do that? Why do you do that? And when you can come in with people, a group of people especially, and not have to explain your weirdness, the elevation of the conversation is quick.

Yeah. Right? Yeah, we were talking about that about in Costa Rica like when when I was down there You don't really have to talk about the nuts and bolts in the basics You get right into the deep stuff, which is always I think we're like you can make very quick connections We were only down there for what like five days and I feel like I walked away from there with A handful of really good friends that I stay in touch with.

Mm-Hmm. . And it was an immediate bond. Oh yeah. I just walked into your office. Yeah. Two hours ago. It's like a family reunion. And there was like, you know, there's like five, six people in there I knew. Yeah. And 4 4 3 4 of 'em from Costa Rica. Yeah. Cost from , you know, Postino's retreat. And either from one year or two year.

From one of the two years. Mm. And it's, it's like that's really, I know another one who's flying up for the eclipse here really? And so, uh, who lives in San Jose down there, but, um. No, it was a tremendous eye opening connection, place to make connections. I have relationships with people I'm still talking to and can't wait to meet up with her if they come through Nashville and meet up.

And it's um, you know, it's, it's, it's, you're right. It was maybe four days, five days tops. And the connections, I think because of the like mindedness, they're very solid. Do you think this model of health centered around community? Is something that only a city like Austin can like tap into just because the open mindedness, the nature of Austin is keep Austin weird or like, do you think that like Nashville, for instance, Austin's sister city, like could Nashville ever get there?

I hope, man, I hope. I know it's called Nash, Nashville's a sister city where we're like a good four or five years behind [00:03:00] you guys, generally speaking, Austin, um, there would need to be, I think the asset here, one of the great assets here is the. outdoor life. You guys have much better weather than we do. I know it gets hot in the summer, but it's hot and humid in Nashville too.

And the heat gets better, but there's never been much of an outdoor fitness or outdoor community, uh, life. There are people who are hiking outside of Nashville, but there's anything in Nashville. Now, the land, I think we have a lot more young people moving in downtown. We have a lot, uh, the, the, the, The look of Nashville, especially downtown, has been changing.

I go downtown, I'm like, this is not the Nashville I moved to 26 years ago, whatever it was. Um, it, it looks for the better. I mean, it's just much more eclectic. It looks a little more like California ish people, you know. Um, but they're, they're gonna need to, there needs to be something created where it's much more, uh, of an outdoor connection where people come out of their homes.

Everybody, people are working from home now. They don't even leave their home to go to work anymore. They leave their home just to go to the gym. Right? Hopefully. Yeah. Um. So there's that I think that's an asset of the Colorado River coming through this the city and all the the outdoor connectedness You guys have through that and the outdoor events that would need to be I think Facilitated for there to be real connection because we have to connect in person.

Mm hmm, right? Totally. Community is not done over Zoom. No. We've tried that. Didn't work. Didn't work. Didn't work. Bad experiment. Um, so, so that's an asset. That's something that I think would have to change. Like that's why I used to benefit Miami and San Diego. Those had great, you know, health communities and I'm sure still do because of that outdoor kind of, um, That drive the weather and there's something that drives everybody outdoors to connect in person I'm not sure what you do in Nashville looking I mean the only thing it's up and down Broadway and it's not good.

It starts to smell like New Orleans really quick Yeah, it does Yeah, I mean you can literally go out to a bar any anytime a day Like I remember going [00:04:00] there for a work trip three years ago And it was a Monday night, and it literally, the downtown strip looked like it was Friday night anywhere else. It's packed.

But I think to your point, it's like, Austin definitely has advantages with the outdoor, the weather. But I think a lot about these community centers that have been built. Like where we're recording, Squatch is a great example of that, of like, The owner Jason was in the bar business, had a great weight loss journey, realized like, hey, alcohol is not ultimately what I want to do.

I want to create a community center for fitness. And he's built out this like emporium at Squatch. So it's definitely possible in Nashville. I think it just takes like one or two trailblazers to start to build those gyms or community centers, because we know a lot of people that are very interested in this space that live in Nashville.

We just need to figure out someone has to just build that like connection point where everyone can kind of gather at. I agree. That'd be fantastic. That would be the way to do it. Place like this. I mean the Sapien Center is another great example of it. It's small, social, co working space. Definitely part of the hub here.

I think it's a fantastic idea. And Brian's doing a great job and I think in a serving in a way like out of a passion. You know, and, um, Squatch, uh, I mean, over and over, I see, I see on Instagram, like, man, I'd love to be there right now because it's just so fun. It's so great. It makes you want to get out and connect with people.

So this concept would be amazing in, in Nashville for sure. Um, and would be the, it probably could be a magnet or kind of like the beacon to call those people. To it, you know from from downtown, you know somewhere between Downtown and the and the counties in the in the south where there's a little more of the I think just a there's more of a Health consciousness there.

Yeah but the community aspect would have to be Kind of at the center of it. It's not just come in. Don't talk to anybody do your thing leave I mean that is that is glue. Yeah, and I think you're right. I mean, that'd be um, [00:05:00] that that would be awesome I mean, I definitely want to be a part of that if that was coming that way i'd want to be involved I think about some of these fitness classes that have popped up and really turned into almost cults in some of these major cities and they kind of have like The DNA, like certain aspects of it done correctly, like Barry's bootcamp, Orange Theory, these places where people are coming in a way to connect with people, you know, they do the group class with their friends.

But what we're talking about is, is like two to three layers deeper, where there's like a co working component to it, or like, you know, you're kind of outdoors and you're able to like hang out a bit afterwards and socialize. It's like. There's such a different nature to these places in Austin that make it so much more than just like hey, let's go to a workout class, sweat, not talk to each other, and then afterwards, you know, we'll say what's up and get out of there.

Yeah, the closest I think that's come to that, well, and one of the first that really nailed home the need for community was CrossFit. That's what made CrossFit grow. It was the community aspect. It wasn't because you go and you feel like you've just been beat up afterwards and you know what I mean. Or you want to watch the CrossFit games and then go to the gym.

It was the community aspect and everybody cheering each other on and Really, um, there wasn't, it was healthy competition in that if the last guy he had everyone else cheering for him, you know, the last guy to finish still had everybody cheering for him. Come on, you got, you can do it. It's very much that community.

And I think it's that, that should shown us right then what's sticky about that was the community. And so what he's doing here is brilliant. I mean, like you said, the outdoor stuff on the weekend, the extra, the different, he's going over and above just trying to sell membership, get people to come in and get on the machines, do this and leave, which is the.

Kind of the the makeup or the the almost a business plan of many gyms is so many Memberships you can to people who probably won't show up and get people in and out On and off the machines as quick as you can and and run a tight margin, yeah Where's he's pouring [00:06:00] into the community aspect of it because he has a passion for that for all of it, right and he's connecting people and And yeah, I mean It's, it's not your, it's not your standard business plan you're going to present at the bank.

This is, this is a, this is a, this is a passion. Right as an act of passion like you said he got out of his business And he came in here and want to build something that meant something to him, and that's what it would take Yeah, it would take any city. Yeah, I always think about the field of dreams quote if you build it They will come and you know we're talking about like fitness health and wellness and then Austin is also this hub for the Bitcoin community Yeah, the Bitcoin commons kind of being like the flagship embodiment of that They've got this beautiful like kind of office and events center downtown You And so we're really good friends with Will Cole, who's one of like the original guys that like really spearheaded the Bitcoin Commons and he would tell Harry and I these stories of like when he was in New York and then when he moved to Austin, before it was the Bitcoin Commons, they would just do these monthly Bitcoin meetups, like literally at bars or if someone had an office that had like space available, They just started and they realized really quickly that all these people were just kind of like craving like minded people like you were talking about because if you have these shared values, you can know someone really quickly but they immediately feel like a really close friend because you have so many of the same principles and they went from like meetup to meetup to meetup more frequent and then they put this momentum behind it and ended up spinning up the Bitcoin Commons so It makes me think, you know, is it as simple to say like maybe in Nashville, we just try and do like some monthly meetups or something like that and see what that stems into?

Yes. I would be amazing to be around that. I think a broader, um, a broader set of values. I think the way you said that it's not just because I eat, A certain diet. Mm-Hmm. . Right. Because those kind of meetups happen where you have a meetup, you know, it's like a oh, a carnivore meetup or now based, or a keto or a, and it, it needs to be so far beyond the diet wars that it's, it's much more where those things don't even matter.

Mm-Hmm. [00:07:00] a community around lifestyle of that where community is, is, is a, is the fourth pillar of diet, exercise, sleep. Community is like part of that. Uh, and maybe at the center, um, where all aspects of your lifestyle are, um, nurtured. Yeah. Um, with those values, like you said, you know, and we are, we are pack creatures as much as we want to think of ourselves as being independent and we want to be sovereign from our government.

We want to be sovereign to make our own choices, but we do better when we're independent. when we're connected. We all live better and we all make better choices when we're connected. And we grow and we're challenged. We allow ourselves to be challenged in those connections so that we don't get stuck in our own little You know, little, little isolated ideas that don't get, you know, that have no input.

Right. And so I think that's, that's a place for growth. Mm. Um, it's an opportunity for growth, I should say. To have that community where you have those open conversations that aren't about arguing your point, but about learning and discussing and, and being open minded with the people, because you know you all have the same values, you want to move the same direction, and you mean each other well.

Thank you. Definitely. You know, it's not about debates. Let's have two people debate. They're both arguing, neither is going to agree. What's the comment? What are we doing? We're just, might as well have a football game. Yeah. Right? There's like this white knuckled counter argument that the other side has the perfect push back to the other person's canned response and they're just going to keep, there's going to continue to be this chasm there.

Create a divide. Yeah. Yeah. And that's why we create these little, these little cult followings with ideologies instead of. conversations. You're hitting on a really important point that goes so far beyond just like, you know, health and wellness. It's, I mean, it is health and wellness at the end of the day.

I think it all kind of funnels back to that, but it's really like the nature of the culture right now, which is [00:08:00] people are isolated, divided. And really, I think that plays into just like how people are feeling during like the current times. Anxiety, doubt, like, afraid of other people, almost? Defensive. Yeah, defensive.

It's um, yeah, this, this idea, and you said nurtured, which I think is the perfect word for it. It's like, You get nourished through community, through encouraging people, through hearing other people's stories, through realizing that whoa We all actually all have a ton in common. We're dealing with the same problems and whatever ideological flag you want to fly The the basis is is all basically the same We're talking about a lot of the same things here.

Yeah, the journey it may be just different parts of their journey. Mm hmm And it's a really Wow, because I've been through a gamut of, of my health journey from, from one end to the next and I just, sometimes I hear people talk and it's like, He's here on the journey. You're here and you're on the same journey.

You're just at different places in it. Mm hmm. And maybe he's probably found some things over here that you found some, but for the most part you're on the same journey. You're just in different points in time or progress in that journey. Mm hmm. And you're arguing about who's right and you're, at some point you're both just working out your own, um, your own strategy, your own journey, and it changes as you, as you age.

That should change as you understand more. That should change. Your body is not, homeostasis isn't like locked in. You know, you were, it's, it's where you are now, but it's not necessarily where you're going to be 10 years from now. Right. Yeah. You know, I think that's one of the things that, What Harry and I both really respect a lot about you as a friend too, is your willingness to continue to evolve, evolve, tinker, iterate, where you see so many people, especially when they hit their, I was going to say forties, but even thirties, that just kind of gets stuck in their ways.

And I feel like that's true for you from a nutrition and a general health perspective where like, you've been doing this for a long time, it's like, [00:09:00] you've probably done every diet under the sun, every different type of training plan, et cetera. You've been through it all. You're continuing to evolve and tinker there.

On the aspect of community, that mindset applies to you, too. I remember I was listening to a Chris Williamson podcast and I don't remember the exact statistic, but apparently the number of males in their 50s that have like one close friend is like abysmally low. So even from a community perspective, it's like you're still trying to seek out those like minded individuals, those friends, those, those relationships, like that's what it's all about right there.

Yeah, and I try to keep, uh, consciously connected with people who are significantly younger than me as well, um, because of that innovative spirit that the, the, the hunger is still there. The passion is still there and it helps fuel that. So, because you do, you get in your fifties, you're like. There's times when you just want to let off the gas, you just want to coast in there.

And I'm, I'm, I'm still pretty hungry in a sense of like, I haven't done what I wanted to do yet. I haven't, I'm not done. I'm not even close. And so, um, and I don't want to be. I do, I do not want to. let myself get comfortable to where I'm letting off. Yeah, I want to get, I want to go to another level to keep, to keep iterating and to keep reaching, um, you know, whatever new understanding I get, but then, and share that.

But, um, that there's, there's, it's great business advice. There's a business coach, Dan Sullivan, who has got to be in his, he's pushing 80 now, and that's some of his best advice for his business, his business, his students, you know, for, for entrepreneurs and, and, you know, business owners that are, he said, keep people around you, business owners, people, entrepreneurs who are like 20, 30 years younger than you to keep, keep you moving, keep you feeding that fuel and ideas because, you know, you can share wisdom.

You can share experience with, They're more creative and more, um, uh, they're not as [00:10:00] risk averse, and so it, it, they, they feed each other. I think we, I think we need, um, that mixing of decades of generations to, to keep, to keep things moving forward. Definitely. Yeah, that's, I think. Brett and I have tapped into this a bit down here where we're able to pour into younger guys early in their 20s.

We've kind of just graduated from that phase, able to give a few pieces of advice, don't have all the answers, but able to just like pour into guys who are very enthusiastic, have a ton of ambition, don't really know what they want to do, but they're, they're all in. They want to go do something and find their purpose.

And just being able to give like one or two points and give them some advice and then also receiving the energy and just like the passion. It's like, okay, like just, I want to go do that. Doing what you got. Yeah, like we need to do more. So it's really cool just being able to work, you know, both upwards, like receive advice and then also give it, give it down and pass it down.

I think it's a really valuable thing in mentorship and just being able to. Like, bring other people along for the ride and, you know, help somebody out on their journey. Like, it's so powerful. Yeah, it feeds you. As much as it feeds them. It really does. It just, it re, it re, it kind of puts a little fire, a little more fire in you.

Yeah. Um, yeah, I've, I've gone through, even the last few years, uh, had to reevaluate how I was approaching my own health and diet. Everything I was doing, I was, I started running myself down, actually. So, about, um, four years ago, I realized, um, Well, so basically I've been eating low carb for years, been preaching low carb since probably 2002.

Started intermittent fasting in 2010, playing with that, recommending to my clients. 2015, I was doing probably 24 hour fasts once a week, 15, 18 hour fasts. The other days with fasted workouts, high intensity, it's like all these wonderful tools, um, these hormetic stressors that, [00:11:00] um, are in and of themselves used properly for the right goal.

They're very useful great tools. I was pulling all the levers and I was pretty lean Very active my insulin fasting. This was probably three. So I'm very metabolically healthy I didn't need to be pulling all the stress. It was too much. And so I was feeling run down My sleep was not good. I was feeling like the muscle burn anyone wasn't working out my blood work showed elevated TSH, which is the thyroid stimulating hormone.

It's the hormone that stimulates your pituitary to put out more T4 and T3. So that means it was stressed. My sex hormone binding globulin was very high, um, which means that cortisol high. So cortisol and epinephrine were cranking. Um, that can, with that sex hormone protein, it does binds to free testosterone in your system.

So you could have your normal total testosterone at normal levels, but your free gets tied up by elevated SHBG. Not good either. So stressed out thyroid, um, free T being tied up from the stress and the high cortisol, not sleeping well, looked good. Didn't feel good and couldn't grow couldn't recover very well.

Endurance was taxed and I'm like what? Okay, what am I doing wrong? So I'll talk with a friend of mine who's an MD who? He doesn't do all those he's he understands those things was the weight loss space But he's like I said, I just need some way to bounce off of He said you're doing everything you're doing too much.

It's like back off feed yourself, you know, and Okay, all right You're probably right and so I had to, you know, back off on working out as often, put in a few more carbs, less fasting, started feeling better. Um, so slowly started moving in that direction to the point where like, like nine months ago. I really said, like, I need to start tracking my [00:12:00] food.

Like I'd never, like, like where I got a food scale and I got my fitness pal out and I'm consistently every day. I'm weighing the meat. I mean, I'm weighing the potato or whatever it is and I'm logging in there. I was like, well, how much am I eating? Like how much protein am I really getting? How many carbs am I eating?

How do I feel after I do that? So getting nitty gritty with it, like getting a little, little sciencey with it, rather than just shooting from the hip way, how I felt. Right. And realized. Um, it just, it finally hit me over the last year or so, I've been eating like a dieter instead of an athlete, but I, but I had the metabolism and, uh, and the activity level of someone who's fairly athletic.

Yeah. So, um, and, and I was getting older. I mean, this hit me at 49. And I'm like, okay, you can't sustain this. So I'm thinking, okay, given up the age, thinking back, it wasn't smart at any age. It was too much. Right. Um, so now I'm at a much more, I guess you would say a balanced diet, eating very clean, whole food.

Uh, my carbs are like potatoes, fruit, sweet potatoes, occasional rice, especially when someone tells me to go get it at KG Barbecue. Cashew pomegranate rice from KG, change your life. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's life changing. And the lamb, it's amazing. Um, but, uh, yeah, you know, anywhere from 250, I mean before I was maybe floating, even after I corrected it the last couple of years, floating around, you know, 150, 200 grams of carbs a day.

And I'm like, I'm doing all right. All right. Really started thinking, you know, getting a little more science y with them. I hit my protein target at 200, all beat. Fat is up there because I eat fatty meat. I'm not, I'm not living on chicken breast and canned tuna, right? I'm eating good, hearty, fatty meats, you know, real, real meat.

Um, and then filling in the gap. I want to, even when I ate that way, I'm still 1200 calories short of my basic, of my total calorie consumption, just to just hit baseline for basal metabolic rate and my, uh, active calories. Right. So for maintenance calories, was it 2, 900? [00:13:00] And I'm coming in at 1, 700, maybe with the, with just the protein and the fat.

Okay. Well, I'm working out three or four times a week with weights. Plus do another cardio stuff, sprinting. It's like, I need carbs. This is basic, basic exercise science fueling. So I just filled in that gap up to maintenance calories with about 300 grams of carbs worked out 1200 calories. Oh my gosh. Just felt so much better, recovering better, getting stronger, sleeping better.

Um, stop the fasting. I mean, cause I'm like getting older too. I, I just didn't need it. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm working to hang on to muscle mass. And it was much harder to simulate protein as we, as we get older. So here I'm 53, 52, 53 at the time. And, and just, it's like, I need to start thinking about hanging on to as much muscle muscle as possible.

Um, cause 60 is going to be here before I know it. Right. It's just kind of like fly on me 60. Dude, you could pass this 35. That's an emotional moment. 60, that's a milestone. 50 was like, whoa. 60 is like, you're on the downward slide. You know what I mean? I can say 50, oh yeah, 50 more years to go. I'm going to 100.

60, your summers are numbered.

So, and that's your family, things you want to do, time with your spouse. Your summers are numbered. What do I want that to look like? How long do I want to stay healthy? Because living long is not about being healthy. Living a long time with disease or with a health problem. Living long is about extending your health span, staying in a healthy state.

Right? You know one lives long with heart disease, diabetes, or, or if you're just overtaxing, through the roof, and you're, you're a stress case, right? Because you can't sleep.

So I had to set my I mean, over the course of that whole time, it's like, these are mantras. These are dogma. These are things that [00:14:00] I told everybody to do. These are good things. And I was overdoing it and I was hurting myself. And I was like, I had to really check my ego, check my, um, you know, it's like, I've been telling people to do this for years.

Why am I, I'm going to turn around and do something else. What will someone say? And just like, it makes you realize that none of that mattered. And this was a journey. That's what I would tell to somebody else. It's a journey. Keep learning. Keep moving forward. Look at where you are at this point in your life with understanding and with what your body's telling you, what your blood work's telling you.

Uh, huge improvement in just performance and sleep. It's like, well, I really can't argue with that. And it's not like I'm getting chubby, you know, 300 grams of potatoes, fruit, and the food that we've, As a, as a species of an eating since, as long as we have history, right? We, we eat some level of plant if we can find it, right.

And still, and still do along with meat. So it's like not fearing a, a natural food, unless it tells me to, unless it, unless I have a reaction that says, no, you shouldn't eat that. Okay. I listened to it and maybe different than somebody else. That's okay. But they, these foods didn't bother me before. I was just experimenting with different.

Stressors. So why would they bother me now? And it's been, it's like, I was leaving, so to speak, muscle on the table, so to speak. I was leaving health on the table. I was leaving, um, In my experimenting, and really taking things to an extreme, it was, it was, um, it was unhealthy. So you had this moment where you recognized, hey, I don't feel as good as I should feel.

You went under the hood, you got the blood work done, you made the changes, you felt great from a nutritional perspective. What you're talking about, it reminds me a lot of Jason Karp's story, the founder of Hugh Chocolate. I don't know if you've ever heard him speak before, but um, prior to building Hugh Chocolate, he was actually in the hedge fund space.

And so in his twenties, he was in New York City. Went to [00:15:00] Penn, like, overachiever on steroids would be the perfect way to describe him. So he was like the youngest partner in his hedge fund's history. And every day his mindset was like, not how do I be a good person, it was like how do I just like juice the lemon out of every day and be as productive as possible.

And so when he was in his mid twenties, he started having trouble reading the computer screen. And he went to a doctor, the doctor told him you have this incredibly rare autoimmune neurodegenerative eye disease. And by the way, you will be blind by the time you're 30, and there's no cure for it. This is in like the early 2000s, so probably right around the same time that you were experimenting with low carb back in 2002.

She starts reading all these books, basically goes on like a paleo ish type diet, so he gets his nutrition dialed in. He also went to a therapist, and the therapist said, From, it can't just be your nutrition, you have to change things from a lifestyle perspective. So I actually want you to, I'm gonna force you to do something for two hours a day that's literally not productive at all.

It can't be reading, it can't be taking a course, it can't be doing work. He goes, I guess Sex and the City was, was big at that time. He was like, I literally want you to watch two hours of Sex and the City every single day. Yikes. So he starts like fixing his mental health, then his nutrition, And lo and behold, he literally reversed this neurodegenerative eye disease that he was told was going to be irreversible.

Wow. So it makes me think about you, where like, Nutritionally, you changed things, but I also know you have coaching business, you're working with a ton of clients, you're putting out content, you're a dad, you're a husband. Was there anything else that you needed to tweak for maybe like a lifestyle perspective as well that you kind of paired with the nutrition to get you feeling the way that you're feeling now?

You know, that was, that was a big part. I mean, I definitely, my business shift that helped was part of helping me shift my business. I think too, as I went through, I mentioned going through the pandemic and that shift towards being more authentic with myself and not worrying so much about, um, One way that people thought to speaking to like me in a in a in a different career So that the person with the same interest or [00:16:00] same desire To be healthy as we age to be able to keep just keep killing it, you know and that's who my clients are more so now than ever before but to keep because they they're driven by what they want to Achieve whether it's a passion or a business or whatever.

It is. They want the game You And so they want, and they keep kicking it at a high level. Um, as they age, there's no reason to, they certainly don't want to, cause they can look around and see guys falling left and right, it's like, how many meds, procedures, overweight. That's much more common than not now with guys who are 50.

And uh, you know, that's always been my passion. I mean, I was, I was into, I was, I was looking at longevity, like how do I improve my longevity in my twenties? Don't ask me why. I just wanted to avoid disease. But. Um, I think really looking for people, rather than trying to please everyone or try to speak to everyone, speaking to people who are more like me, who, who had the same level of interest at this point in my life, that early in my career, that wouldn't have made sense so much.

I was helping with weight loss. That's, that's who was available. That's what I had to learn. But at this point, it's like, take all these lessons I've learned the hard way and help Um, other people who are in, at this point in their life, avoid those mistakes and really optimize their health the way I optimize mine and continue to, to learn and stay hungry.

And so, um, the community aspect, like we've been talking about is something that for the first trip to Costa Rica with Paul Saladino let me know I needed community. It let me know I, I missed it. Um, so staying connected, even if it's most of the time it's online. But to come to events like when I'm here for the, with the biohackers thing and go to hack your health back here in Austin again, [00:17:00] and whatever else I can go to, to, to connect the people in person who are like minded, that feeds it, like what we've been talking about already, that was another aspect to it that I was missing and I needed, so I didn't feel so isolated and it keeps me, as we're talking about, It keeps me fresh.

It keeps me tinkering and, and moving forward and hearing new ideas. So that, you know, that was, that was a missing element. It may have been, may have been a very key part that kicked this off. It kicked this forward. I mean, I was already moving that direction because that was two years before. I met you.

Mm-Hmm. . Um, year before I'd gone to take Paul, see Paul down there the first time, and, and had very, he had found similar issues with his free tea and his and SHPG being high with, with being purely carnivore. And, um, and so I just felt it's that, it's that it exchange of those stories with someone else, other people who wanna be, as we said, not locked into a dogma but move forward, tinkering.

Listening to their bodies, looking at blood work, looking at our tracking apps that we're all connected to and really is assessing Well, can I where am I missing? Where's my blind spots? Hmm, and sometimes we can't see our blind spots without help from somebody else Yeah And I think that's that's that's part like with my doc friend who I had to run stuff past and and and listening to Paul It's it's It's, it's that affirmation of like, you know what, I'm feeling the same thing, feeling something, but I thought it was maybe just quirkier me or maybe I'm I'm off because this is not what I Because, because it's, it's uh, it confronts your ideas.

It confronts your ideologies that you've had for X number of times, you know? And, and, uh, And so reassessing those and, and that's, that's part of that energy I'm talking about that I, I realized I was missing, um, so that, you know, I mean, it really feeds me, you know, [00:18:00] uh, uh, emotionally and mentally and, and, and just, and, and it feeds that, that, that drive to keep, to keep going.

Getting better. Hmm. Yeah, I Was thinking about just like the level of awareness that it took to kind of pull yourself out of this Like situation that you were kind of in where you're helping other people coaching them giving them advice But also feeling a certain way and then actually acting on that do you have any like steps that you would recommend to other people just to kind of do an audit and check in because I I know a lot of people who are kind of have always kind of been at cruising altitude with their health and it's usually a pretty low level cruising altitude and so They don't really realize the different extremes that they could be experiencing whether it's like really amazing health or really poor health They're just kind of in that middle place So was there anything that you would recommend to people just in terms of tapping in?

Really reassessing kind of these basic foundational principles. Mmm. Wow, that would really, I mean, of course, it's sort of individualized being where they're coming from and what they're, but I mean, blood work is, is really revealing. It can help you, um, reassess what you're feeling or thinking about what you're feeling.

If you know what you're looking for, like looking at fasting and or, um, getting, um, you know, assessing your sleep, getting an or ring. Which from your sleep, um, you realize. You know, that's a step. What you do during the day affects how you sleep at night, right? Um, so I would, I don't know if there's one way you would need, you would need help.

You would need another person. You would need a coach who's been there and can say, Oh no, these are, these are things. What are you feeling? You know, this is, this tells me this, how are you feeling about this? And because it isn't so cut and dry, it's very, the, the, like a marker on blood work could, could mean, um, Could lead you to one or two things, three things.

You know, we don't know what the source is until you start asking questions and digging in. Right. Um, so I don't know that I'm answering your question very well. [00:19:00] Other than get a coach who's been through it, who has open minded, and who, who seem, who, who continues to evolve their theories and isn't too married to them.

Who isn't too romantic with their ideas. Um, if, if you, If, if you think the same way, if you believe in the same way about your approach to your lifestyle and your health, as you did five years ago, you're missing something. If you're, if you're, if your message or your, your perspective and your understanding of it hasn't changed in five years, you're, you have blind spots.

Because you should have learned more about yourself in five years and what's more individual to you But also our knowledge our understanding of these things if we're listening to the leaders and who are ones who are being open That continues to change about fasting the more we've learned more about fasting in the last three or four years from being Like the end all be all to well, maybe not everybody should do it or it kind of affects women a little differently or people over 60 They might have an issue.

It's like there's nuance It's not that the things are bad or the tools are bad or they should be used. They just have a proper Usage for those tools for the right goal for the right person a certain time in their journey There's nuance and if you don't have nuance to your ideology You you have a religion and you can point fingers at vegans all you want But you know, you've you've created you just create a different version of it

So I would humbly Say because I've walked through it Yeah, if you if you haven't changed your your your perspective on these things in the last five years You need to take an assessment To answer your question, find someone who's been through that and have them help you because we all need help. We need that.

It comes back to the community. It comes back to [00:20:00] having someone who, who can look, help you find blind spots. That's a really good answer. That's powerful. I like that. If you're talking to someone whose beliefs have stayed the same over the last five years, they're probably not doing something right.

Absolutely. And that. Mindset applies to way more than just nutrition. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And you'd normally find that, not to babble on about it, but there's a difference between a practitioner, coach, a physician who sees patients, and someone who, who, who just puts out, you know, ideology, but doesn't actually coach people through things.

I'm not saying those people are bad or something wrong with them. That's, that's a great place they're at in their life and their career. But when you have worked with individual, when you're a practitioner that works with other patients or clients, you learn to respect nuance because what you try with this person doesn't work the same as it does with this person or, and this person over here needs something else.

And so you learn to respect the nuance that this one size does not fit all. That's really what it comes down to. One size does not one there's principles, but then when you come down to the that we can say hey generally This is a good direction for all of us to move in or use this a certain way But when it comes down to the individual having issues, it's all nuance.

Mm hmm. Yeah, it's all it's all nuance Didn't mean to interrupt you, but no, no, you're no That was great I just noticed a difference between like someone who coaches or has coached a lot of people and someone who is just kind of like Talks. Yeah