Metabolism Made Simple with Sam Miller – Ep. 188

In this episode of the Next Level Human Podcast, Dr. Jade has an interesting conversation on metabolism, different strategies for nutrition, and different approaches to weight loss with Sam Miller. Sam is someone who has been on the show before and provides incredible content online along the same lines as Dr. Jade. Today, he shares his perspective on these topics and on several other ones for those looking to be healthier.

Sam highlights two major issues when it comes to weight loss for most people: a) they use the same strategy that their friend or colleague is using, or the same strategy that they saw online, and are becoming frustrated with the results they’re not getting and b) they can’t be consistent. Either because they are trying to diet down too aggressively or they don’t know how to continue to lose weight once they achieved their goal – which has to do with calorie intake and balancing macronutrients. Tune in to learn more!

Check out the Next Level Human sponsors!

• Visit com/hormones and use code NEXTLEVEL at check out for a discount on your first patient visit with Evolve!

Connect with Sam

Website: www.sammillerscience.com

Instagram: @sammillerscience

Podcast: Sam Miller Science

Connect with Dr. Jade Teta

Website: www.jadeteta.com

Instagram: @jadeteta

TRANSCRIPTION:

Podcast Intro: [00:14] welcome to the Next Level Human Podcast. As a human, you have a job to do. In fact, you have four jobs; to earn and manage money, to attain and maintain health and fitness, to build and sustain personal relationships, to find meaning and make a difference. None of these jobs are taught in school and that is what this podcast is designed to do. To educate us all on living our most fulfilled lives through the mastery of these four jobs. I'm your host, Dr. Jade Teta and I believe we are here living this life for three reasons and three reasons only; to learn, to teach and to love. In this podcast, I will be learning, teaching, and loving right along with you. I'm grateful to have your company; here is to our next level.

Jade 1:18

Welcome to the show everybody, I have a good friend of mine. He's been on the podcast before someone who I've done several different things with he's actually an educator with me in my metabolic female certification, he has certifications of his own as well. And just someone who I consider one of the best in the industry is someone I've talked to a lot in the realm of metabolism. And part of the reason why I wanted him on Sam Miller, who many of you may know, is because he has a new book out and he sent me this book, I haven't got a chance to read it completely yet. But him and I speak roughly the same language, although we do differ in some areas. And I think you know, Sam and I are two people who kind of like when we have those differences, we like to have discussions around things that we might not completely agree with. But I think you'll find we're in alignment on way more than we're not in alignment on. This is the book right here, guys and see your metabolism made simple. We're going to have a discussion about metabolism. But we're going to talk a little bit about this book as well. But Sam, thanks for being here. Congratulations on the book. And welcome back to the show. And good to see you, brother.

Sam  2:28 

Thank you Jade I appreciate it, man. Thanks for having me. I know we kind of linked us up last minute, but I'm excited to share. And you know, I know we do have quite a bit of parallels there. We may use different stories, analogies, different client experiences. And that's one of the things I like about you is I can even think to some of your work remembering, you know, you you're talking about a truck driver, who is you know, struggling to lose weight or manage his insulin resistance. And I think that clinical experience combined with the scientific understanding is pretty rare in our industry, and a lot of people when they do have that understanding, they ultimately just use it to argue with each other and troll in the comment section. And one thing I've always appreciated about you is we're using that understanding to, you know, kind of push forward a level of enlightenment and understanding in the industry and help people think critically about what's going to be best for them versus these different sort of dietary dogmatic approaches. So I was always, you know, I'm always excited to be on the podcast with you and in chat. And I know, we've had some, you know, text conversations recently as we each we're working on our own projects, and I'm excited to be here and share more with the audience.

Jade  3:35 

Yeah, man, let's start there. Because I think this may be something we I have a lot of professionals that listen to this podcast, I also have a lot of lay people that listen to this podcast, and this first part, for those of you who are maybe not professionals, it will be an interesting conversation for you. But I think for the professionals, it's going to touch a lot of people and they'll understand exactly what we're talking about. And to me, You alluded to this right away, Sam, is this idea of people using whatever evidence base they're coming from which you know, when I say evidence base nowadays, I put it in big quotes, right? Because, you know, what is what really do we mean by evidence base, I will define it here in just a second how I see it, but it you mentioned, you know, this idea of fighting among professionals. And you mentioned this in your book, in the opening of your book, you talk a little bit about this idea of, you know, sort of professionals coming at each other rather than really trying to solve the major issue here. Now, when I think of evidence based medicine, and I'll just do this really quickly, and then get you to comment on it and see what you think about the state of the industry. I think of three things primarily right I think of okay, yes, the evidence base in terms of the research that is out there, keeping in mind that especially when it comes to nutrition, it is the most difficult research to draw wide conclusions from because we simply can't Studies and control those studies well enough over long enough times to have a very definitive understanding of nutrition. Add to that the idea that there are so many people who are individuals who don't necessarily show up as averages on studies. But yes, we do need to know the research base and you and I do, then there's our clinical experience, right, where we see people, and they teach us an awful lot. This is where the individualization comes in, he does learn, you know, different rubrics of clients or patients. And so that comes into the mix. And then finally, there is the sort of background intuition. So sort of knowledge base of the practitioner, and it's really these three things when I think of an evidence base, but in the field right now, evidence base usually is referring to someone who just looks at the research, and then they run into someone like, you know, myself, or Sam, who looks at the research has a client base that you know, he works with, and that I work with, and that also has our individual sort of background, and why how we come at this, and this is how we put all this together. Talk to me a little bit about how you see this, this problem, and what actually do you think is going on is it all ego is there really, you know, strong debates to be had in particular areas, and if so, which of those, I just want to get your sort of general take on it, you do cover it sort of in the beginning of your book, but give us a taste of sort of where you're coming at from this. And this problem.

Sam  6:30 

And that was really beautifully stated, I think we can think of this as if we had three overlapping circles and kind of this Venn diagram intersection, where that end of one experience meets the evidence base, as well, as you know, the client's sort of individual lifestyle and circumstances. That intersection point is really the most powerful area where we can drive results and effective change. And so I think Jay did a great job articulating that now, in terms of my experience, what I tend to see is, there's really a few situations. Now there are folks who maybe put out a particular book or program. And you know, more specifically, the books contain maybe a meal plan or a specific dietary approach, or there's some sort of challenge associated that you need to maybe enroll in, upon completion of the book. And now depending on the circumstance, now, there might be someone who maybe needs to follow a particular set of approaches to, you know, achieve the change they're looking for, and it may work for them. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to work for everybody else. And so that can be a problem that we sort of take, you know, individuals, and we're trying to sort of force this round peg in a square hole, if you will, of basically taking taking these people and saying, hey, you need to fit this approach versus fitting the approach to the person. That's kind of the first issue that I see, we also have a lot of issues relating to people following diets and maybe losing weight initially, but we're not able to keep that off. So there's a sustainability issue there as well. Beyond sort of the mismatch, I would say, or lack of congruence. See there, we also have a problem with professionals in the industry, where they will sort of either cherry pick that information or take the research that's available, and largely use it to either argue with each other or drive attention to their platform. Now, this has, you know, is really largely targeted at either driving attention to their platform, or there's some sort of, you know, monetary gain to be had through having those arguments, because it's not always sexy to be in the middle or be in the gray area, or have the moderate approach of saying it depends or applying nuance to nutrition. But I think context is very important. You know, in the early sections of the book I talked about, you know, with any other unit of measurement, whether it's, you know, a mile for example, we would use you know, if Jade, if you were gonna go out, and I said JD, you've got to walk a mile or run a mile, there's a big difference between the sunny day in Kansas or a mile up Mount Everest when it's negative 15 degrees and snowing, and you've got elevation and altitude. Very, very different challenge there. And we don't really articulate that within the fitness and nutrition industry, we use things like calories, but then we don't talk about the context of that unit of measurement. So I think that's a problem as well is we don't define different layers to our terminology in the conversations that we're having. And that leads to a lot of banter back and forth. But it's not always productive conversation. So, from some angles, I think there's a specificity and context issue in the conversation and then other elements of it. I think it's really just people understanding that these are controversial topics that can be leveraged to bring attention to their platform. And ultimately, we live in a digital age where that attention is currency. It may not be necessarily immediate financial monetary gain, but they are using that long term in that polarity serves to essentially fuel their platform. Versus I think, you know, I have peers and friends in this Ace, you know, like Jade, where if you take a little bit more of that modest approach, and you are trying to be truthful and see both sides and take the gray area, it can be hard because it's not always this, you know, rapid sort of infusion of attention to the platform, it's much more of a casual, calm conversation and dialogue. And that's difficult in the digital digital space where people are very distracted. So I think that leads to a lot of problems, though, because people are either hopping between approaches, or they're largely very confused, because they see well, so and so's a doctor. And they say that I need to just do this. And you know, but so and so professional says I should only eat plants. And then this other person says, don't eat vegetables at all. And really, people are just left frustrated and confused. And I think if we spent more time helping the actual people versus arguing amongst professionals, we'd be a lot further as an industry.

Jade  10:52 

Yeah, that's so well said. And let me just repeat a couple of those things, both for the practitioner who's listening and the layperson is listening, if you're a layperson, and you know, and by layperson, I just said to me, you're not a professional in this field, but you are interested in health and fitness. If you're listening to what you know, Sam was essentially saying, you now are getting a sense of why you may be confused at times. There are other things sort of going on here. And this is why I think it's the perfect yearbook actually is the perfect name for what you do, brother, because you do make it simple. And that analogy of, hey, look, you gotta go a mile. But you know, it's a sunny day without rain versus going uphill, you know, in the freezing, you know, snow, you know, trying to climb a mountain is to different miles. And I do think the lay person, those of you listening to this, need to understand that and that goes to, and when you follow Sam, if you're not following Sam, you really need to, and we'll give you his details on where to follow him when we finish this conversation. But you really do need to start to understand that when most practitioners are talking to you, you need to look and say, Are they speaking to individuals? Or are they speaking to, you know, these sort of one size fits all biased approach, like, you know, for example, if they're just a Keto person, that may or may not work for you, if they're just a fasting person, that may or may not work for you versus someone who has a wide range of clinical experience. So that's on the lakefront, on the practitioner front. One of the things that I also know you practitioners also should be following Sam, because one of the things that he does, and that I do is he does sort of walk this middle road in a really nice way. And he is has had a slow but steady trajectory up in terms of people understanding who he is what he's about. And he is finding much success in that area. So those of you who are like I don't know what to say, and what ground to stake, it's another thing to sort of watch here. Now, one of the things I want to talk to you about Sam is so this idea of metabolism Made Simple, right? You obviously felt the need to write this book. And the title says it itself that a lot of people are making this perhaps more complex than it needs to be. Get walk us through sort of your version of metabolism made simple, like how do we as lay persons or professionals? How do we see metabolism in a more simple way to start, you know, sort of understanding it better? What is your sort of take on how we should see metabolism, approach metabolism and deal with metabolism?

Sam  13:22 

Yeah, so metabolism made simple, really, for me, what I was thinking back to is even early conversations in childhood, when you hear you know, other parents or other kids talk about, well, if I eat a lot, and I don't gain weight, then I must have a fast metabolism write little, little tiny anecdotes and stories and labels that people apply to the metabolism rather than thinking of it as this malleable, adaptive thing. And over the course of my career, I think one of the most beneficial areas, spending time, you know, in the science in evidence, but also looking at how things played out from a coaching and clinical perspective, is really that understanding of adaptive physiology, and that, you know, metabolism really is quite malleable, depending on the stimulus and the environment. And so for a person really what we're talking about within fitness and nutrition, we're largely talking about the regulation of energy, which we use, you know, the measurement tool of calories to look at, but other people will use portion, control plate method, et cetera. But we're really just monitoring that energy intake, energy availability, and then subsequently energy expenditure via our movement or exercise, and things of that nature. On the other side, one thing that Jay talks about quite frequently is the idea of stress and the metabolism being the stress barometer, which I really love that analogy. And, you know, we have to think about the different sort of sub components of stress because different people experience different types of stress. I may have stress in my body from an internal inflammatory perspective, if I have really poor glycemic regulation and I don't have very good insulin sensitivity, blood sugar balance, that's going to be a stressor on my body. unit's going to probably influence things related to my energy intake and my caloric consumption as well. So there's really nice, beautiful interplay between energy and stress that we need to understand. But metabolism made simple for me, I really just wanted to make sense of nutrition for folks and unpack this terminology that we seem to have, whether it's from elementary school, you know, junior high, whatever. And we have these conversations and folks who've been dieting for a very long period of time, the way that I view the industry is we have a lot of people who are familiar with a lot of diet styles. They know a lot of different eating styles. They know a lot of different exercise styles, but they do not really understand how to think critically about Nutrition and Metabolism. And that's where metabolism made simple came in, and the subtitle making sense of nutrition to transform metabolic health, the title was almost something along the lines of making sense of metabolism or making sense in nutrition, because I think people do struggle to have a framework to work through or a thought process to follow because, truthfully, Jade, we've seen this over the years as the diet that worked for you, when you're 24 may not work when you're 37, or when you're 52, you may need to evolve your dietary strategy relative to your behaviors relative to your lifestyle. And that's where you know, something may require a bit of evolution for the person. And you know, the evidence base may still be pretty similar, but you may find that your n of one experience is different. And so I wanted to give people those tools and different sort of methods to work through those challenges to understand that they may adopt a different dietary approach as the years go on. And that's really where the different sort of chapters and subtopics within the book, like the five M's and other things can really serve people, but that's where the title came from. As you know, I thought to myself, geez, there's so many people who know how to follow a diet or know what a diet is, or they understand that exercise is important, but they don't really understand Nutrition and Metabolism, there's no nutrition 101 metabolism, one to one, you can just hop on social media and find an influencer of some sort posting about a particular diet. And that's really where I saw the problem. And so one of the first initial sections of the book is kind of decoding that diet dogma, and then moving people towards more of a conceptual framework and understanding of how to approach things going forward.

Jade  17:17 

Yeah, I love that. I mean, so if I'm going to just sum that up, you know, if you're hearing Sam, talk about the idea that, you know, the metabolism is this sort of stress sensing device, it's also a energy management, sort of system. And sort of understanding that helps you understand what may happen with a diet, I want to throw just a couple of maybe quickfire things at you maybe even Yes, or no questions that you can expand on, but because I do think when most people think about this, right, they go, alright, well, here's a question for you. So if I just eat healthy, you know, is that going to help me lose weight?

Sam  17:56 

It depends, right Jade. So eating healthy, or you think of someone who maybe does the whole 30 perhaps in a way making better quality food choices. So where this would fit for me, right, we talked about the M's, this is where we run it through that filter, eating good quality foods that are nutrient dense, maybe single ingredient foods, they're going to provide some micronutrient benefits, and certainly maybe have some anti inflammatory properties that we wouldn't find in the standard American diet or western style of eating that we see which is, you know, a ton of ton of issues there Omega six to Omega three ratio, poor glycemic control poor satiety and hunger management. But the reason that that might be a problem is if we exceed our energy balance, and we're consuming, you know, too much energy or too many calories, we could still ultimately gain weight on that approach. Now, generally speaking, the foods that we may label as healthy foods or nutrient dense foods may have certain properties that help to regulate our appetite and our hunger, which, ultimately, if it is displacing other calories, and serving to manage cravings and things of that nature, I know JD you talk about buffer and trigger foods, which are really like I talked about, you know, satiety from the perspective of not only macro nutrition, but also looking at attentive eating, mindful eating, eating pace. Also, using things like water, protein, preloads, and things of that nature. We have a lot of great research on those topics to help people but that's where healthy food can get you in trouble is because you could follow a quote unquote healthy eating list or certain dietary labels like the whole 30 or paleo, but if you eat a jar of almond butter that still contains energy, and that's where if you only look at the stress component of metabolism, you're in trouble. And if you only look at the energy component of metabolism, you can be in trouble because you can get to a point where maybe your body isn't recovering optimally or you have other issues related to quality of life biofeedback or some of the different more biochemistry related components that Jade and I talk about in terms of health. Then hormonal optimization.

Jade  20:02 

Yeah, I love that. And here's another question for you can stress alone cause people to gain fat or not be able to lose it.

Sam  20:13 

So stress can certainly compound issues like insulin resistance, which certainly lead to problems. But usually what's happening is the stress is leading to either a change in eating style, compromising sleep quality, compromise, compromising insulin sensitivity, and possibly compromising exercise performance and energy output, which then is impacting our energy balance and leading to the accrual of that extra weight. So stress is certainly not going to do us any favors from a fat loss perspective. However, if we were consuming no calories, and you know, we had that going on, I mean, for a period of time, you know, you will maybe see some initial water loss and things of that nature and ultimately lose weight. If you were in a calorie restricted state, but usually we're stressed is playing a role in that weight gain is generally influencing our sleep, influencing our insulin sensitivity, and impacting our meal choices, because we all know when we've had those stressful events, you know, it can certainly compound into okay, what I ate for lunch is different, what I ate for dinner is different, and impact our behaviors as a result of that stress. So stress in itself isn't necessarily calorie containing, but it certainly does impact our choices related to calories and energy availability. And, you know, we've all had that day where it's, it's stressful and impacts our energy output in the gym, hitting those PRs, any type of progressive overload, maybe you don't go for that walk that you usually go to, because you know, you had a rough day or something gets you off track because of work or kids or family relationships. And so we really have to look at that whole entire picture versus just this singular, singular container. So it's a tough question. But usually, the mechanism by which stress is impacting things is cortisol induced insulin resistance, and then certainly playing a role in our diurnal rhythm and circadian health, because sleep is a key mover, when it comes to our overall metabolic.

Jade  22:10 

Yeah. And if you have any doubts about what Sam saying, Now, I oftentimes like to go, I love in sort of this world, and this is just the way my brain works. Anyway, it's sort of this Socratic method of go and look and find examples, right? So I go, Okay, well, let's an example of extreme stress, where calories are really not being taken in, do you find you know, and to me, this is the concentration camps would be the perfect example. You can't find more stress than that people dying all around you, you're being fed very little, you're under the worst stress possible, you will not find a fat person in a concentration camp, nor did you see that. So I like what Sam was essentially saying here, because certainly, then when you go into the real world, where you can you do have stress, and then you can respond and go down the street and get a hamburger or a Starbucks, or whatever it is. It's a different sort of situation. And I do think that these kinds of questions and that's why I asked both of them to kind of blow up a little bit of Miss, hey, can healthy eating, you know, make you think, well, maybe for most people, but you can still over eat healthy foods can is stress alone, the issue with fat gain will know you, it affects you based on how it affects sort of energy. And so these are, these are sort of the conversations that you'll really get good answers from Sam, when you start to think like this, let's, let's do this. And so you know, let's, let's break it down, just so we can have this conversation. So for more the lay person, now, if we, let's say someone comes to you and I are you in particular, because since you know, we're sort of going through your book, and they come to you and they're like, I want to lose weight, and they're leaving it to you. So they're not coming with any sort of, hey, I want to do keto, or, Hey, I want to try intermittent fasting. This is just someone who says, I want to start, and let's say they don't have any proclivities towards any particular way of doing anything. In other words, there's no real bias here. They're not trying to be vegan or vegetarian. They're showing a blank slate saying, Hey, Sam, where should I start? I'm curious for you. And I know, you know, I'm kind of forcing Sam into a box here, because I know he's like me, and he doesn't really like to do a one size fits all thing for people. But I'm just trying to get a sense of this normal person coming. How would you look at this and see if there's any sort of principles that you just go? Yeah, here's one principle I think everyone needs to do. Here's another principle I think everyone needs to do. Tell us how you would you would start what would you start with nutrition wise and maybe fitness wise?

Sam  24:38 

So assuming I have a clean slate to start with someone, I would usually start with some questions in the intake form. And now in the book, this is the self assessment of the transformation frame. And so I usually start with what's called a pulse intake. But you could really replace any sort of intake form in there because I want to understand physical Goals and Objectives Understand their key motivators. I like To know more about your lifestyle who cooks the meals do you go to the grocery store? Are you on the go? You know, so in that truck driver example, that is a very different type of lifestyle than someone who is working from home preparing all of their meals, and has food delivered regularly. Right, that is a lifestyle change that we need to be aware of. S stands for shreds, which is our biofeedback and quality of life indicators, usually reflecting our internal health, and overall biochemistry, hormonal function and things of that nature. And then E is expectations, because depending on the expected rate of loss, expectations of a coaching relationship, I may change my given approach depending on the person, their expectations, their lifestyle, etc. So as we move through those, you'll notice it makes a nice little acronym and list which is pulse, and you'd like to get a pulse of the transformation moving forward. And if someone doesn't have a diet history, you do have a bit of a clean slate there. And this is really where it connects to other elements of the book, which I believe everybody needs to follow essentially, these sort of five key laws or rules to be successful. And that's managing our appetite maximizing our adherence, we need to mitigate metabolic adaptations. So chronic dieting is not going to do us any favors. We need nutritional periodization or seasons to our approach, we do need to maximize absorption because if we have Gi health issues, it's going to lead to micronutrient deficiencies, inflammation, and ultimately compound to a lot of other issues down the road. This is where for listeners if you see folks who struggle with autoimmunity or Hashimoto’s, things of that nature, Gi health is of great importance. Then we have micronutrient status. So micronutrients status, a lot of folks forget that when they reduce calories and macronutrients that we are also reducing micronutrients because we are reducing our portions. But oftentimes, we're eliminating foods or food groups. So knowing that I have to sort of follow those laws to be successful, I would place specific emphasis on protein intake, strength training, step count, and basic activities like stress management and sunlight and circadian rhythm. So as we sort of work through that, if I had someone and I had to start with three to five sort of key behaviors, I view protein as a tool, not only for recovery, but it also displaces other calories, because it helps to manage our appetite, we have to consider my movement overall, because if I'm very sedentary, I don't have the same energy budget, right, I don't have the same allowance to work with, versus someone who's very active, who's resistance training. Resistance training also is kind of the sink for glucose, which is really great from a metabolic perspective, because it improves insulin sensitivity and our carbohydrate allowance, versus someone who's relatively inactive. So I like to start with those basic movement, pillars of strength training and step count are just getting our walking in. Not that other cardio is something that you have to avoid, it's just that for most people, those are the easiest two levers to pull. And then we kind of adjust the dose depending on your lifestyle, your schedule, and what's gonna work best for you. For some people, that's two days a week for other people, they can do four or five. And we'll be able to figure that out. For everybody, though, typically building in their overall dietary intake, starting with protein, and then filling in carbohydrates and fats, depending on activity level and personal preferences, we can really, you know, find the right mix for individuals there. And that's where some people really like, you know, maybe that lower carbohydrate approach, other people prefer the higher carbohydrate intake, you know, I might structure things a little bit differently for a crossfitter than for someone who's very, very sedentary and not doing that glycolytic or very sugar burning activity, like a CrossFit. So understanding if I have that clean slate, I know that I need to manage someone's appetite, I'm gonna use protein and other tools for that, I know that we need a movement or energy expenditure component for achieving energy balance. And I also know that I need to be looking at other things that are going to help to manage stress and make good choices regularly support good sleep, hygiene and other health behaviors. So that's really where those three to five things become, you know, our biggest considerations now, you may freestyle a bit from there, once you have those foundational items in place. But generally speaking, if I can be waking up getting sunlight, getting some steps and movement, getting that energy expenditure, I'm strength training enough to promote metabolic health. And build lean muscle tissue also has a ton of benefits for women and men, but, you know, osteoporosis, overall resiliency reducing, you know, various chronic disease risk through that resistance training. So we're doing it for both health reasons, but also the physique benefits and aesthetic benefits of doing the training as well. And then from a dietary perspective, we can start sort of start with that protein and then look at other tools like fiber, water, volume metrics related to meal size, and we can sort of customize things from there. You know, personally, my threshold for fiber and vegetables is probably not as high as some folks who may Be vegan or vegetarian, and they can do better with a lot of plant foods. For me personally, I would struggle with that from a digestive perspective. And I tend to do well with focusing on protein water. And you know, I certainly get some fruits and some vegetables, but I'm not one of those people who can hit 6070 grams of fiber and live to tell the tale or have anyone around me who wants to live tell the tale. So just some examples of where you might start with those basic pillars, and then kind of freestyle from there either as a coach, or if you're trying to figure it out on your own. From a transformation perspective.

Jade  30:33 

Yeah, there's a couple of lessons from Sam, you know, from for the professionals. And one of the things that I'm very much like this as well. But if you're listening to him talk, and when you read his book, you'll see he has a very clear system by which he approaches things. And it's not a system just to be a system either. It's not just like, oh, this is quote, SAM system, it comes from his clinical understanding. And he has built this off of that. So he can accommodate many different lifestyles, many different physiologies Many different interactions with stress, the part that I really like about this, and actually, I want you to comment on this after I get through with this part, too, because I want to see if you agree with me, Sam, is that one of the things that's really interesting, when you have different practitioners who have noticed this as of late last few years, they might come at it from very different approaches. But when you really start talking to him, you'll start seeing some common themes. And these common themes came up with Sam protein, right, which I want to talk about a little bit here in a minute. But protein is, you know, sort of a big one weight training, and movement, and then stress management, you'll see this sort of across the board. And then there's some other things based on new research that has been, you know, I would say the last five years heavily last 10 years in circadian rhythms and when our body is most primed to eat, perhaps versus when it's meant to be in recovery. But one of the things that I think when you see this repeated again and again, and this is now speaking to the layperson, you can see that these things are important. Lots of differences in the field. But these things come up again, and again. And again, it's pretty clear here. Now I want to get your comment on just sort of how you deal with this in general, for example, protein intake, right, so you spoke a little bit about, you know, the vegan vegetarians, they don't necessarily, maybe they don't focus as much on protein as much as they can. But they have a little bit more fiber and water, sort of focus and maybe moving them away from being starches and starches, Aryans, and actually being vegans and vegetarians. I mean, I know Sam and I both know, people who eat mostly meat who eat more vegetables than a lot of vegetarians. And so there is a difference there that vegetarians should mean, someone who eats mostly vegetable matter, not someone who doesn't eat meat, in my opinion, but what are the numbers, Sam, for you in terms of when you're looking at protein? Give us a little bit of a breakdown here for people who are just like, okay, you know, I've heard this again, and again, this protein thing here Jay is talking about it again, with someone else who's an expert in metabolism. What would you say for people who are not aware of this? How much protein you know, are there what considerations around when they should eat protein? What if they can't digest protein, just give us a couple of things there because it's so important.

Sam  33:20 

Definitely. So relative to your current body composition, generally, the further you are away from your goal, body composition and gold body weights, you may need to titrate this value accordingly. But I think in the industry, our rule of thumb around that gram per pound may be even higher depending on your resistance training your activity level. And also this is where biofeedback comes in. Because if you are resistance training regularly, and we're struggling with progressive overload, or building muscle and other metrics of success, aside from that skill weight, we may need to tweak protein ever so slightly, also looking at hunger hear is very big. I usually like to start around that gram per pound may go a little bit higher or lower. For example, if I have someone who has a lot of weight to lose maybe 50 pounds or more, we may be going closer to targeting the protein off of the goal weight or the lean body mass as opposed to their current body weight. Because generally speaking, if you were to use a calorie equation for someone who has dieted significantly before, and they also are carrying some extra body weight, what you'll notice is their current maintenance calories, if tracked over a seven day food log, there will oftentimes be a discrepancy relative to a predicted TD e equation. What that means if you're a health enthusiast kind of following this home, is you can plug these things in in a calculator, but it will not account for the past depth, duration and frequency of your dieting behavior. So when you're a chronic Dieter, we do experience some metabolic adaptation and sort of downregulation but because you carry that excess body mass, a calculator is going to sort of shoot that calorie target higher as a result of that body mass. Now the problem is if you were to actually try to To eat that you may actually gain weight because it is actually higher than your current maintenance calories as compared to a food journal. And this is where I really like starting with the basics like a food journal. And so the protein that I'm going to base it off of right, we have these calculations, and we have these targets. But generally, what I will do is key a three, five or seven day food log, ideally, it's, it's got weekdays and weekends, and we can see the full picture. And most people because they're under eating protein, we usually just titrate it up, and then we look at overall digestive tolerance of that protein. And I'll usually go higher until we can start to see okay, improved gym recovery, improved appetite management, and we can get up towards that one gram per pound, maybe a little bit higher, depending on the person individually, I may target that number, but more than a gram, we have some good safety data on protein, even going closer to that 1.25 1.5. And I think there's even some studies that are getting closer to two grams per pound now. So you know, depending on the person and their goals, I mean, they push that higher, for example, physique, sports, you are into bodybuilding. Now, there's obviously, other pharmaceutical elements at play there that are going to impact protein utilization, nitrogen retention, muscle protein synthesis, before the average person and average client, the one gram per pound is pretty good. And then if they're carrying some extra body fat or body weight, relative to their goal, body weight, we may titrate, that number down just a little bit. And then for an individual who's already pretty close to their goals, and may be very active and needing to support recovery, I may push that protein a little bit higher than that one gram per pound. But I do feel like that's still a pretty good number. I've seen point eight to 1.2 thrown around. And I do I do like that window. I feel like that's pretty good. Although I do certainly have some folks where it's above that 1.2 Even and they do just fine with that intake. Now with vegans and vegetarians. As Jade mentioned, oftentimes, these folks aren't even close, it's point three, it's point three, five, point 4.5. And we really need to get that up whether it's with food combinations and food pairings are utilizing a protein supplement to get them a bit closer. Because even with fiber and water in there, it can still be hard to manage appetite and just meet our micronutrient needs. So a lot of vegans and vegetarians are deficient in B 12, folate, omega threes, vitamin D iron. So we do need to look at the micronutrient aspect as well, in addition to the overall you know, the protein intake and the macronutrient conversation.

Jade  37:33 

And let's get back to the show. Yeah, yeah, and I'll just I'm gonna say some things here and then just jump in Sam, if you disagree or want to add some points here. One of the things I'm in complete agreement with Sam in terms of one gram per pound. And I think most of the industry has come around to that. Couple things, though with that is that part of part of what I think the people listening need to understand is that many people, in my personal experience when they start to want to eat this much protein, they oftentimes this is the point, by the way, their appetite oftentimes become so suppressed, that they can't even get near that right. And this is actually, from my perspective, and I want to hear what you know, Sam, if you have anything to add to this, this is a good thing. And so people often ask me, Do I need to finish all this protein? And what I say is, if you're going to eat something else, yes, you need to finish the protein first. Right? So get that protein intake in. I'm also not someone who necessarily cares too much about you know how much you're eating at each meal. But you know, normally, the goal might be around 30 to 40 grams per meal spread out over three to four meals, but basically just get that protein in. And from my perspective, there's no real need to over eat protein. And to hit those numbers, if it's doing what it's meant to do, which is keeping mainly if you're looking to lose weight, keeping your appetite in check. It does not necessarily deal with cravings, but it will reduce that to some degree, as well. So that's one of the first things also, Sam sort of alluded to this idea of digestive discomfort. You know, digestive enzymes are often something that I might use. And then certainly availing myself of protein powders, protein shakes, especially when you're getting up to these big numbers. Like for someone like me, I'm 225 pounds. So getting up to 225 grams protein, you know, that's hard for me to do, because I'm not a huge eater unless I'm doing protein replacement shakes. And but one thing I'll say here, and I want to know you and I both have our nose in the research a lot, but this is just something for the professionals and the layperson that might be of interest. I strongly suspect based on animal research, we don't have a whole lot of this in humans, although Sam might have some different information that I have, that that there are certain nutrients that we are especially budgeting and tasting for protein being one of them sodium being a another glucose sort of regulation being another and then fat store sort of being another. So from my perspective, if you're looking at it from a survival advantage, this, you know, protein sparing a hypothesis or this idea that protein is something that the body wants to prioritize and wants to make sure it has certainly we have rat studies that show if you give them a low protein rat Chow, they will continue eating that rat Chow until they get to a certain type of certain amount of protein. I do believe this is happening in humans. And I do think that professionals and individuals should be you know, potentially aware of this idea that protein might be may, you know, this is, you know, needs to continue to be worked out but may be the thing, the chief thing that our body is looking at and saying do I have enough and if I don't have enough I'm going to continue driving hunger until I get enough and so when I hear anything, any comments that you have on that Sam or any day that you've seen if you're in agreement with that if you're not I'm just curious,

Sam  44:51 

I've kind of come full circle here and I think when I initially got into the industry I was very protein centric, but for different reasons right body composition Should muscle building etc. And what I think you know where we started this conversation around protein, we really talked more about weight loss, and you know, your meal spacing, the amount of each meal the total, you know, for the day, we really need to think, Okay, what is the goal, but from a baseline nutritional requirements, I definitely think there's some merit to the thought of, you know, basic protein and essential amino acid needs basic omega three fatty acid needs, micronutrients coming from both animal foods and potentially some that are coming from, from plant foods. And really, as I've started to sort of play around and experiment with, with where I feel my best, it's usually you know, starting with kind of protein as that centerpiece and then filling in some things like fruit around that and maybe garnishing with some vegetables here and there for various sort of antioxidants or micronutrients. And that's also where I think the challenges presented with vegan and vegetarian diets is we do have some things that are sort of nutrient inhibitors in a way. And also things that maybe, even though we are maybe buffering appetite, we're not getting all those essential amino acids in so unless we are including that, we're going to struggle not only from a muscle protein synthesis perspective, but also just our health in general, which is where supplementation becomes important. So if that style is important to you, for spiritual reasons, or personal preferences, I think we need to sort of backfill our nutritional approach to even things out and to kind of round out or smooth out the edges. I think based on the animal studies, it's a great point that that Jade made. And I think when we watch and observe human behavior, we do tend to see this continued eating or foraging for foods, especially when we don't place that emphasis or make protein as as paramount as it should be. And so I do think, from a protein and micro nutrition perspective, as well as some of those essential fatty acids, we may be seeking out and continuing to eat, and bring in foods from kind of our, you know, within our locus of control, and whether that for you that might be foraging in your pantry or your refrigerator or ordering some things, we have that easy access now that we didn't necessarily have before. I think it's tough to study in humans, because we need almost this like, you know, more controlled environment versus the observational study, and ethically speaking, you know, depriving people of certain nutrients for extended periods of time may not be the best thing from a human study perspective. But I do think protein, essential amino acids, and some of these other key nutrients would definitely be in that conversation as far as humans basically continuing to consume until we meet a certain threshold. And then that threshold may vary, depending on someone's size, past eating history. Because I am curious, right? If someone's been very restricted before, how that would impact subsequent choices down the line? Or if there's always been an overabundance of that nutrient? How would that impact choices? And how would that play out in real time? So I'm not really sure. But I do think there's some good points there, and definitely would be curious to see it in humans, I just don't know, when or how we would necessarily have that data in the near future.

Jade  48:09 

Yeah, nor do I, let's get into some of your other points. So you know, this will be perhaps a fast sort of discussion. But I know you and I harp on this a lot, the rest of the industry has been slow to come on board, but it seems to be changing. And this is the idea of movement. So speak to us a little bit about movement versus exercise, this idea of walking, you know, the, the, you know, NEPA or neat, you know, component of this, how important is it for people.

Sam  48:40 

So, I definitely used to be one of those folks where, you know, I was doing outside chores, or mowing the lawn or something, it didn't really count it towards my physical activity. And I learned over time that certain people maybe have a certain bandwidth that we can work with. And if there's other stressors in their life, or let's say they're struggling with their gut health or something, it may not be a wise idea to have them doing very intense high intensity training, you know, five or six days a week, we may need to back that down to three or four, or maybe two sessions, depending on the person. And, you know, I really noticed this from like a GI health perspective, how walking can be very beneficial. We also I've heard Jay, talk about this a lot. I talked about this as well, from a glycemic regulation perspective, post meal walks, I think there was a 2021 study that examined pro kinetic medication and walking, and the walking was actually as beneficial, if not more so than the medication. So walking can be a great tool, not only because it's contributing to energy expenditure, but it's relatively parasympathetic, meaning it's a little bit more calming in nature than something that's very stimulating like high intensity exercise. It gets you outside in nature, which has other stress management, stress reduction benefits as well. Helps with that glycemic control and you get some GI benefits to in terms of that post meal, digestion if you're doing it from motility perspective. So, I've really opened my eyes to both the total quantity of the walking as well as the timing of the walking. And I think Jay did a great job earlier in his career, putting it on the radar for folks, especially in kind of that Peri menopausal age range is really where I heard Jay speak a lot to it. And as I did more research on my own, really where I saw it being beneficial for those younger populations, is the blood sugar regulation, insulin sensitivity and gut health, though, especially for an aging population, it can be a great adjunct to the resistance training, the resistance training, helping on that bone density side and also muscle preservation when dieting, and then the walking is really that tool, where we're getting the extra energy output without some of the additional stressor or stimulation to the system that we would get from maybe heavy lifting or high intensity cardio. And we've certainly seen that we're Jade has mentioned this too, is like people will out eat their exercise efforts if they get very hungry. And so walking is nice, because it doesn't always have that intense stimulation. So really where I've seen it kind of play out as the industry was starting out with conventional cardio, morning fasted cardio, high intensity cardio post workout or lifting, when more people have moved to this step count approach. And I think the step count definitely has some merit and has some value, and we have good research there. But I also want to bring attention to the value of the movement for other health related concerns like blood sugar, like gut health. And we don't always get that from other areas. Now resistance training, certainly going to help your insulin sensitivity. But as far as your digestion, I think some folks who have GI issues who have intestinal permeability, dysbiosis, etc, they continue to train very intensely, intensely, sometimes those gut issues get worse, we need to pull that training back. So as I started working with more complex cases, walking became a really great way to sort of work with that energy budget without necessarily taking away movement or exercise, and also still taking into account their overall sort of stress, you know, their stress, overall bandwidth from a recovery perspective. So definitely a really great tool there for sure. And that's one of the reasons I like it included in the book more sort of more so than conventional cardio.

Jade  52:18 

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, again, I'm just trying to help all of you who are listening to this conversation, definitely get the book, but I'm trying to it really is metabolism made simple. And I just, I'm just going to repeat some of the things. So number one was protein, number two, movement, right? Number three resistance training. And I want to get into something that is, I think, an area of expertise for both Sam and I. And this is this idea of it probably falls in the rubric of stress management slash metabolic dysfunction. The names here are not great, but you know, Sam, and I usually refer to it as metabolic compensation or metabolic adaptation. So you got this protein component, you got this walking component, you got this resistance training component. And then there's sort of this component, this last component that is going to get us into the discussion around sleep, perhaps circadian rhythms, perhaps what happens with compensation? So and then we'll kind of end here, but this is something that you all are really going to want to listen close to walk us through this area, because it's an area that gets a lot of professionals up in arms. It's an area that is very confusing for a lot of the individuals, what exactly do we mean, Sam, by metabolic compensation? What, what is going on here? And in your book, how do you explain it and help us try to mitigate?

Sam  53:44 

For sure. So metabolic adaptation is usually referring to when we have a reduction in food intake. And we are essentially intentionally reducing calories. Now the problem is, is some folks attempt to do this in perpetuity, and they have no seasonality in their approach. And so I refer to this as seasons of nutrition, you know, we're not meant to necessarily attempt to diet forever. So one of the best things you can do for your body is to intentionally move through seasons. If you frequently listened to Jay, you'll hear him refer to this as his toggles and moving through essentially periods of eating more and exercising more, or exercising less and eating less, and then alternating between those to get the progress that you desire. I sort of refer to these as seasons where we are putting a little bit more stress on our bodies and on our metabolism. And we have sort of this bandwidth or budget that we can work with. And we are sort of burning through that now. We're also attempting to burn fat, which is where I call this essentially a burn phase. But sometimes we need to take breaks, whether that be a diet break, whether that be a maintenance phase, whether that's a De load from high exercise and high intensity activity. We have essentially this burn phase break and then sometimes we're going to spend time building whether that's building muscle or reverse dieting and building up our overall calories. intake, there's a level of sort of seasons to the nutrition. And we need to be intentional in our approach because when we're not, and this will sort of define metabolic adaptation for those of you listening, we typically see in research with these energy reductions is a transient change in hormones where we have an upregulation in the HPA axis, which is responsible for cortisol production, we have a decrease in thyroid hormone output, and usually the stress and inflammation that's present, as well as micronutrient deficiencies will lead to a subpar conversion of t 43, which ultimately is your metabolically active thyroid hormone, we see a decrease in sex hormones, but also an increase in hunger and cravings. So, ghrelin is typically going up, as these stress hormones are going up, but we have reduced output of, you know, our thyroid hormone and our reproductive hormones. This is not necessarily the best recipe for quality of life, biofeedback or sex hormone optimization in terms of how you feel your libido, your energy levels and things of that nature, the thyroid aspect is going to impact energy expenditure. And then when you have the cortisol component combined with the increased ghrelin, that's where we start to see issues with appetite management, and the propensity to maybe overeat or a yo yo diet, which creates a pretty substantial problem for a lot of dieters. So metabolic adaptation, typically, the way we alleviate this is having some seasonality in our approach, taking potentially some breaks here and there not always perpetually pursuing that deficit. Because oftentimes, people will become unsuccessful, they think that they're trying to achieve that deficit, or they think they're achieving a deficit. But they've essentially gotten to a place where they're now their new maintenance calories is lower than where their maintenance calories were before, which is problematic, because then you have to eat less to maintain your weights. And you have to eat even less than that to try to lose weight. And that's where things like, you know, temporary seasons of increasing your food intake in your movement can be especially helpful and allows you to increase your sort of caloric budget, if you will. So that's metabolic adaptation and the primary issues associated with it. Now, there are some things we can do to help it and you need to understand that metabolism is still adaptive. So if you're experiencing this right now, it can be very frustrating because you feel as though you are responsible for this current metabolic status quo, or homeostasis. But what's inherently very empowering, is that through changing your behaviors, changing your eating style, changing your lifestyle, you can alleviate some of these things to a degree, a lot of this is transient as a result of our choices. And that's where there's a level of personal responsibility that plays in even with our metabolic health.

Jade  57:39 

Yeah, and when and one thing I'll point out for the professionals who are up on the research, you're one of the things that's kind of an argument in the research is that some people are saying that when so for example, The Biggest Loser study that we're all of us professionals are familiar with some of the metabolic adaptations that resulted in these people up to six years later, one of the things that a couple researchers have found is if you measure these people who have been on long term diets, when they're not in a caloric deficit, these adaptation, this metabolic adaptation, or downregulation, in basal metabolic rate doesn't exist to the same degree. And so now there is an argument to what degree this is happening. Either way, if that is true, it actually speaks even more to what Sam is saying, which essentially says, We need to have periods of time where we allow our body to reset. So this is where he was referring to things like diet breaks, reverse dieting, things that move the metabolism out of one state, sort of into another state. So now we've got, you know, focusing on your protein, we've got walking and moving, we've got, you know, this idea of resistance training, and we have this idea of you can't do perhaps some people may be better than others at doing this. But perhaps we need to be very careful about being in diet, you know, over the long run without taking some seasonality, some switches, and understanding that we need to spend some time in maintenance or watch how we, how this metabolic adaptation is impacting us. And by the way, we do know this is going to be individualized, certainly that shows up some people are going to have more of this than others. But if you listen to the approach to Sam's taking, even the beginning stuff, like those first three things are actually the best things to help mitigate metabolic adaptations. So if you're gonna run into this, make sure you've got your protein on board, make sure you're moving a lot and make sure you're doing some kind of resistance training to maintain there's some indication that this loss and muscle mass may be playing a role. This goes back to the body having this protein stat and measuring the protein coming in and measuring the protein on the body. But this is going to be another sort of important factor. And then the final thing as we finish up this discussion, this is something a little bit new SAM and you and I haven't had this discussion I think together yet But certainly you're going to be aware of it. And I follow you. So I know you've talked a little bit about this. And I think people are going to be hearing more about this. So we would be remiss if we didn't cover it. And I haven't read your whole book. So you can tell if it tell us if it's in there. But the final idea is this idea of circadian function. And this idea of, we're starting to sort of understand there was actually a very recent study now, and we always take studies with a grain of salt. But this is a study that says following on several other studies that found the same thing that basically looked at a very well controlled two groups, dieting, calories, equal all meals sort of track, with one having an early eating sequence, where they're essentially starting their meals at 8am, and ending their meals around 434 or five o'clock, and the other group, you know, starting their meals around noon, and ending their meals at 930 10pm, same exact amount of calories. And we see that one group fared much better in terms of appetite regulation, in terms of weight loss, and other areas they did, there was not much of a difference. So it's just as good based on the studies, or perhaps better. And I'm curious with you, since you and I haven't talked about this yet. Where are you putting this, if at all, at this point in your hierarchy in terms of what people should be aware of? And do you discuss it in the book or not?

Sam  1:01:23 

I do talk about circadian health and diurnal rhythm in the book, I view, time restricted eating or Chrono nutrition as one of our many tools, right? So if we have like our three to five key things, maybe it's falling in the top 10 to 15. But it's not necessarily going to replace some of these other components. What I noticed is some individuals, depending on that meal timing, we need to look at how does it impact sleep? How does it impact training performance, because for some individuals who prioritize athletic performance, who enjoy their exercise activity, we may need to structure pre and post workout nutrition to support that activity. And if the fasting window conflicts with that, we may have some impairments to our training. So for an athlete, it's going to be a different answer, than for someone who's just looking to improve their metabolic health, longevity, insulin sensitivity, I think fasting is a great tool for caloric control, assuming you don't over eat in later meals, right. So if you skip breakfast, but then you have a massive lunch and massive dinner, we didn't really get very many wins out of skipping that breakfast versus if we do that we have some benefits than then fasting can be a helpful tool. I've personally experimented with both as far as skipping that breakfast meal, and then maybe moving that dinner meal earlier, I do think it takes some time for individuals to adjust from both a blood sugar regulation, sleep quality perspective, if you're used to eating immediately before bed, and then going to bed, and then all of a sudden, you're moving it up to where your last meal is five or 6pm, you may have a hard time and a little bit of an adjustment period doing that. So usually what I recommend for folks is starting with like a 1212, where maybe you just start with sleeping and having a little bit of a buffer, you know, in the evenings and potentially a little bit in the morning, you don't have to wake up and immediately eat breakfast necessarily. And then from that 1212 We can work towards, you know, a 1410. And then we can move towards a 16 eight, but I don't know that everybody's necessarily ready, especially if they're, they're on the flip side of things, right? Because there are many, many Americans and folks in the western world where maybe they're sleeping six to eight hours a day, and they're eating 14 to 16 hours a day. So we need to sort of retreat from that frequency of eating and move closer towards what we may have in the research. I think that study that you mentioned, as well as there's a few other interesting studies, one was in regards to carbohydrate and fat restriction and what ultimately impacted in terms of ad libitum eating at a vending machine afterwards, that over overall macronutrients allocation during a diet phase, I think that was very interesting. We also had a food quality study where there was controlled macronutrients, I think there was some slight differences in terms of protein. But essentially, one group had better quality food, arguably from the standpoint that it was more micronutrient dense Whole Foods, relative to what some folks would consider either processed foods, multi ingredient foods or less micronutrient density, and how that would impact your overall diets and blood chemistry indicators and lab values. So I think the circadian hygiene, the time restricted eating the difference, changes in appetite and cravings as a result of macronutrient toy choices during a diet phase. And then also some of the food quality components are three more recent pieces that I've seen come out in 2020 2021 2022 that I think between now and like 2025 2030. Ideally, we get some more funding for additional research in those areas that can then help people make the best decisions because I've seen folks who do very well with a time restricted approach. And then there's other individuals may be under higher stress, or who have training performance related goals, where I don't find it to be as useful. So I view it as one particular tool or toggle that we can implement. And I think it becomes more important if you're less active. So if there's less movement involved, we have to look at other tools for improving metabolic health. I think exercise and walking and cardiovascular activity do help to where if you are doing that, you might be able to get away with perhaps a slightly different eating window than someone who is less active and more metabolically unhealthy. So it's one of the things we can bring to the table if we really need to support the heavy artillery of protein and movement. But I think it's an area that we still need a little bit more exploration to determine like, how much does this really move the needle related to other variables? So it's mentioned in the book and circadian health, diurnal rhythm is a top consideration of mine, but mainly, I also look at those meals and how does it impact sleep? How does it impact training, because if you move your food around, but it leads to decreases in sleep quality, or overall sleep length and training performance goes, goes out the window, then then I don't really know that it's advantageous for that person, because those other two variables are so important. So certainly something you could consider using, but definitely not my, like, top three things at this very moment.

Jade  1:06:25 

Yeah. So well said I agree 100%. And just for you all listening at home, I mean, here's sort of a, I guess an acronym off the off the shelf in terms of how I would see this to me, and you comment on this to Sam, but to me, I go, total amount of food first, you know, so we'll call it the T's total amount of food, probably first, you know, in terms of, if you can reduce your total intake of calories, you know, we're talking weight loss now. But total amounts, probably most important still based on research. And based on my clinical experience, I would call type, you know, type of food, you know, probably next, you know, this will be what you're doing with macronutrients, micronutrients, stuff like that. And then maybe we could say, time and timing, right, where it's like time is, you know, what is the time that you're sort of eating your meals, their circadian rhythms in there, the frequency of eating, etc. And maybe timing, and this is something we didn't talk about, which is there is some indication that sequencing is probably a better way to say that when you eat certain aspects of your meal before others, that also can have an impact on hunger. And this really, to me comes down to what I've always really meant by hormonal weight loss or hormonal approaches, it's just the hormones responsible for hunger. That's really what we're, we're sort of talking about here. So to me, it's, you know, it's type of food, it's our total food type of food, timing of food and sort of sequencing of food in that hierarchical order. And really, the first two, if you could get those right, you're probably not going to have to worry about the other ones that much. And I do think the other ones are a little bit more impacted by the individual. And so I don't know if you would amend that Sam or add something to it, or what

Sam  1:08:08 

I meant, was that an on the fly acronym, or had you already shared that one before? Now,

Jade  1:08:13 

it's kind of on the fly? First time right

Sam  1:08:15 

you've got a lot of them to where I feel like I do a good job keeping track because, you know, I follow you on Instagram and stuff. And we've linked up for a few live events in the past.

Jade  1:08:23 

Yeah, with me, and you will have to tweak that one together. I don't know if you can have time and timing, but you know, total food, what I say total food type of food,

Sam  1:08:31 

total food type of food and timing, I think, because sometimes people do you miss the forest for the trees here. And I think that's one thing you've really tried to do over the years is, is get people to zoom out. And I think we both where we have a lot of parallels is using different stories or frameworks to get people to think about things differently. And, and so you know, and also the thing is, is don't be afraid to try things, right? Maybe that's the fourth t is you got to figure out if it works for you. Because just because your friend does it and you want to try that approach. It may play out differently in your life, maybe you have a newborn at home. And so your schedule is different in terms of eating, maybe your job requires frequent travel and changing time zones or maybe you work night shift, there's going to be different components and variables in your life where you have to control and this is this is almost speaking to other aspects of Jade's next level human and stoicism and things of that nature is part of this too is we need to look through this list and say, what realistically do I have that I that I can control that I can influence? And there are certain things that, you know, I used to be so stressed about my meal timing and bringing things with me and I was probably doing myself more harm than good, versus just relaxing and doing the best and navigating the circumstances. And so that's where I referenced this in the introduction of the book, you know, I would follow these different men's health magazines and I thought that you know, if I didn't care assume that meal of yogurt and walnuts at 10am that that I could never make progress. And unfortunately, that that's just not the case, right. So we need to understand that to some extent, stressing about those things may be more problematic. And if we can understand the big picture, and the primary pillars for decision making will be much better off. And we'll also be able to do it in a much more sustainable fashion. And I think that's, that's really where Jade and I align on a lot of this stuff is you got to figure out the right recipe for you. And then repeat that over time and understand that hey, maybe a decade from now or more, you may revise the approach because it may not work the same as it used to. And that could be because your lifestyle changed. Or maybe we need to go look under the hood and see what's going on from that perspective. So I do I do like the on the fly acronym for sure. And I think a big component to this guys is try it out, right? Just because XYZ influencer said it worked for them doesn't mean it's for you. And there, you may find things that work that take 80% of the strategies, and maybe there's 20%, where for whatever reason, it doesn't fit perfectly for you. And that's, that's also okay, the idea is, let's check the boxes that we can, and then and then figure it out and then maybe stack things on top of that. Right. So that was just kind of the last addition. But I think that's a great way to think about it. Because sometimes I see folks arguing about the nutrition components and time restricted eating and all these other things. And, and they're missing key components of nutrition, like micro nutrition and food quality and protein and or maybe they're not even training and reaping the benefits of exercise, which is, you know, incredibly powerful, you know, on its own.

Jade  1:11:42 

Yeah, that's the dangers of not understanding the full spectrum of what evidence based training really is there evidence based nutrition really is. It's not just the research is the clinical condition, you know, of the person that's in front of you and your sort of knowledge as the practitioner. So as we wrap this up, I want to brag on you a little bit here, Sam. So just in case you guys don't know, you professionals, so Sam has been an educator in my certifications, he also has his own certifications. So if you're listening to this, and you are like, Hey, I love the way this guy thinks I really want to understand his sort of process, he has a whole certification for you professionals, make sure you avail yourself of that he is in my mind. One of the best He's not someone who is ever trolling or ever, you know, out there in the world argument people, he's just trying to provide good quality education for professionals, and lay people check out his certifications. He's at Sam Miller science, right as your handle on Instagram. Where else can they reach you and websites and everything else?

Sam  1:12:42 

Yeah, so my podcast is probably where I spend a good bit of time these days, just because similar to Jay, we share the frustration of the social media sphere right now. So I am similar science on Instagram, I still post there fairly regularly. Instagram as well and similar science.com that program that he referenced is the functional Nutrition and Metabolism specialization. And really that's trying to walk coaches through an understanding of stress and energy, like we talked about today, but also looking at some of the internal health indicators that may lead you to understand that something is awry or needs to be remedied through different nutritional strategies, and taking a very lifestyle nutrition and, you know, sometimes supplementation oriented approach to addressing things. And really, for anyone who is, you know, you work with health enthusiast, but you may have seen some of these less conventional cases. And, you know, you are looking to approach it in a way where you, you realize that, hey, it's more than sets and reps in the gym, it's more than just, you know, obviously, energy balance we've mentioned like 17 Times today so please no one take this out of context and troll Jaden i but, you know, going beyond the calories in calories out. And understanding Well, there comes a point where if someone's been trying to diet since 1987, we need to move them in a different direction for them to make progress. So that's been my main focus. And Jade since you, you're kind of giving me this shout out here. I do want to say guys, like, for those of you who regularly tune into his stuff, and his podcast, and he's been doing this for such a long time, I know as a fellow content creator, you know, it can be it can be challenging at times to continue to provide the value and teach on the platform. And Jay does a great job of continuing to show up for you guys even though I know that that there have been some situations where he doesn't necessarily have to. And I know that he comes from a good place of trying to pay that forward and make sure the industry is in a better place than when he first got here. And I think you know for some of you who are maybe newer to following him maybe don't have the full picture or perspective of how much he's done over the years. So if you do tune in regularly I know as a content creator, it means the world to us when you leave those ratings and reviews when you share the show. I'm sure Jade will occasionally mentioned that but he's very I'm very good about just kind of doing his thing and showing up and stays in his own world at times but please do him a solid and you know, share the show write the show review the show because he does this for you guys and we had a conversation recently and I know as someone who's on these platforms, it can be incredibly frustrating exhausting, tiring at times and he really comes from a good place so please you know, try to support in whatever way you can whether that's the ratings or reviews, his show sponsors, things of that nature and just understand that there are folks who are humans behind the content creation and they're really doing this to help you and I know that he's one of those people and I do appreciate the words about the program as well Jade because you know you're someone that that I've connected with and really respect in the industry as well. And so if I can help you guys whether that's through free content or through one of the programs by all means my doors open.

Jade  1:15:52 

Yeah, I did. Oh, brother, I feel that and Big Bro love to you, as you guys can see, one of my favorite people to talk to and one of the I think the geniuses that we have can avail ourselves of Sam, thanks for being here, my brother. And we'll do this again at some point so appreciate you. Appreciate him.