Well, hello there ladies and gents Robert Sykes keto
Savage.com. And today I have special guest,
dr. Shaun Baker on, for take to
we've recorded shoot. It was a long time ago, probably
two and a half three years ago and we see each other
conferences were always communicating.
It's like shoot. Let's do another follow-up
podcast. So that's what we did.
We talked about his training, he's doing like higher fat
protocol now. We so we dive into that.
We talked about the fact that he's been strict, Carnival for
the past three and a half years without needing to introduce
any, you know, vegetation area. That that.
So we talked about metabolic flexibility, we talked about all
kinds of things. I thoroughly enjoyed the
conversation. I trust, you will as well, sit
back, relax, and enjoy and we'll add duct Schambach.
How are you sir? I am doing well.
Robert, thanks for having me, you bet, man.
You bet, the last time I had you on was shoot long time ago, I
think If I had to have years ago or so maybe three years ago,
yeah it was a while back. I think I had you on the week
after you were on Rogan's and that was I think probably the
highest my podcast downloads ever spiked in a that window
because you're just on Rogan's and everybody heard about this
crazy carnivore dinosaur arms and they were just I guess
Googling for your name then you popped up on mine.
But yeah man a lots happened since then yeah it's been.
It's been a fun. Couple years.
Yes. And there's definitely been a
lot to a lot of growth in this. Little creep because you will
Community. Yeah, I really want to dive into
that because I feel like most good.
Yeah. Yeah, I want I want to dive into
that because I feel like there's just so much that's, you know,
transcended since then so much you've learned because you've
been strict carnivore that entire time that, right?
Three and a half years. Yeah, three and a half years, it
would sell yell like trying to say I'd 2016.
And a 2016 was when I started. So I'm you know, closer to I
guess I'm actually getting close to four years and three and a
half. So yeah, it's been a while.
What do you cause you're doing? You're doing kind of a higher
fat protocol right now, right? Right.
Now you have this, got off of a wiener, a very a relatively
clean version of it and I'm not playing with iPad.
I'm just, you know, playing around.
I've been doing it for so long. It's kind of fun to experiment a
little bit. So I'm trying to get 80% of my
calories from fat, but that's pretty hard to do.
Got to be honest with you. I mean, it's, you know,
particularly, you know, when your limit limit what to use for
fats and I have successfully managed.
To do about 70 percent for sure. And and many days I'm hitting 80
percent which is a pretty decent amount of fat in particularly,
when you're eating a decent amount of protein, as well.
It kind of gets to where you're really up there to get the not
fat. Yeah, I feel like, if you're
just doing, like a pretty strict straightforward carnivore, you
can hit 70 percent, pretty effortlessly.
But when you start going beyond that, that's when you kind of
have to flirt the line of do, you allow fatty coffees, do you
allow stuff like that? The to bump up that number
little? Yep, that's right.
Yeah. So what I'm doing like I said
I'm doing a lot of eggs you know what I find eggs to be a pretty
good lever, you know, for being able to cause like you know, I
can I can steer towards more egg yolks which obviously were the
fat is you can kind of change that ratio pretty easily and
then I kind of make a little egg dish.
I mix it with. I was mixing with Tallow and you
know kind of blending it up. Like I took some boiled eggs
throat with a bunch of Tallow and you can dial it as much fat
as you want that way and then I'll put some little bit of
flavor in there. It's usually like a cinnamon and
a little vanilla. It's kind of turns into a little
pudding which actually sounds disgusting, but it's actually
pretty decent. It's actually not bad at all.
Yeah, the egg. I mean eggs are freaking
versatile, man. You can make just about anything
with eggs. Yep.
You getting just incredibly lean over the past and it seems like,
like, past couple months. I noticed you just getting
continually leaner and leaner. What are you doing there?
Well, I mean, what I did initially to get lean is I went
and ate leaner cuts of meat and and that I've that cycle
basically, what I was doing was You know, anywhere between three
to five days of pretty lean cuts of meat and then I would throw
in a relatively fat-filled a on, you know, in between one day of
that and I find it, you know, going any longer than that lane
you can you just it's just miserable.
So I mean I got to where I was like, you know, I found like I
found a pretty good mix. I get to where we just got a
little uncomfortable and I throw the fat back in and that, that
seemed to help. I mean, clearly fat is important
and it's important for society's important for functions.
For, you know, making sure you don't crash your know, you crash
your metabolism. So to speak, you know, when you
go, when you go to what I wasn't, really low calorie.
At any time, I was still probably 3,000 plus calories a
day at the minimum. You know what?
I'm still there. And so now that I got to this
lean point, I'm trying to maintain a reasonably lean with,
with a higher fat approach in higher fat approaches, so much
more pleasant. I'll totally say it's like, you
can just kind of eat to satiety and you're not hungry at all.
All the other, you know, with the lean stuff I was you know I
was hungry and thinking about food, try to make things that
would you know, like I was eating a lot of ice, you know,
flavored ice just kind of fill out that, you know, trying to
try these satiety. Accessed, you know, fill my
belly up with volume so I didn't, you know, didn't feel
like I was hungry and, you know, we see that particularly in the
evening, when grilling tends to Peak, you know, our satiety
hormone ghrelin tends to go up and so, you know, try to get
those evening hours, you know, and not.
Not be hungry. It was a little bit of challenge
but now I managed to do that and I didn't really see any
difference in performance. I mean I mean as far as my
ability to train I was able to train hard train.
Well, it was just just being a little bit more hungry and you
know as most of us don't like to be hungry.
But like to be, you know, satiated and I have to say with
the high-fat approach I think I can get by with potentially the
same or even less calories, you know, just because I feel a
little better say, Dated so are you, are you tracking calorie
tracking these macro you just doing it kind of more based off
of, you know, intuitive eating well.
I mean, I am. I am intentionally at this
point. Yeah.
Cuz I'm not bodybuilding. I don't really have any real
sort of, you know, discrete goals.
I got to hit, I'm, you know, I'm to making a conscious effort to,
you know, up the fat but not not counting things.
I mean, well, I would say that I'm in the back online, making
sure I get enough protein so I can Ball.
I'm not down to the ground because you know, even if I was
at still be off him, can't be on a person, a critique of the
can't, you know, every kind of meats can have a different
amount and what's printed on the label.
And so, I mean, I generally know how much I'm eating relative to
what I was eating before, I think I'd do it kind of a rough
way, but I'm not sitting away in food and, you know, plugging in
things in a calculator, I'm just like, you know, I make relative
changes. I mean, my dad doesn't really
change much ate the same damn thing almost every single Day at
the same time. So per easy to make a change,
just like okay well I just you know I'll just cut back a little
bit of this tomorrow and and then see how things go.
So when you notice the an increase in society with the
fattier cuts, do you think you were equating calories?
Do you think are just consuming more calories overall with the
fattier cuts and that's probably what led to your Society.
I think it's I think it's the fat itself quite honestly, I
think I think with leaner and leaner Meats, I can eat more and
you my appetite has is higher and as we know, the protein does
have a little bit of a thermic effect.
So you can kind of get away with a little more protein, you know,
any little bit more calories, I think, you know, because the
energy, you know, I got to get energy from somewhere.
And, you know, once you get down to a certain level of body fat,
you don't have that much on your body to to run the system.
I think, I mean, you know, obviously you Never run out of
fat or you die. I mean, there's even a even at,
you know, 78 percent body fat, you still have fat on your body
that you can consume, but I think it's just a little more
challenging and so you have to you know, provide a dietary fat,
is it just it just does seem to have that say shading with it.
I mean I sit here right now, you know, having had a rib eye and
what I have nine eggs and Rib, I actually had 15 eggs in a row by
just a little bit of while ago, which is, you know, it's a
decent. Out of calories, you know?
That's, you know, that's probably we're looking at.
Is what is that? Oh, I'm some extra fats.
I probably had that. That's probably a those probably
a 2000 calorie meal for me, which is not not a big meal.
I mean, that's so my routine to do that.
May be my only major meal that I might have one more snack later
today. So I'll probably come in at, you
know, 3,000 calories today, maybe 2600 calories today and be
completely satisfied satiated. Whereas on the Higher protein
version. I was probably routine, leading
35, to 44 thousand calories, that way.
So, we look like 4 pounds of meat a day, maybe a little more.
Have you noticed any change like in just cognitive function
mental Clarity, like, with the higher proteins, for me?
Personally, you know, I get a protein, I don't Advocate low
protein, but if I'm doing just an excessive amount of protein,
I feel like less mentally sharp. I just feel I'm in my blood
glucose Trends her. I just don't feel as, you know,
on On top of things. Yeah, I mean, I think that's
fair to say II. Don't, it wasn't like, dramatic
wasn't like, I was a dummy walking around with high protein
and saying, but I mean, I do feel, I think calmer and more
stable. You know what, I do agree with
you with the protein trending upward Lee, you know, with
really high levels of protein. I think, you know, turbo
gluconeogenesis are some really interesting literature on that
where it's kind of debatable as to how much of that protein we
turn into glucose, I think it A little bit on person and, you
know, the situation and I think the difference is gone with
people that have kind of diabetic pathophysiology versus
healthy people. So there's some interesting
stuff with regard to that. Totally it's cool for me to see
you do this. Because I mean I've always kind
of advocated, you know, a higher fat ratio protocol of ketogenic
diet in in regards to losing body fat and kind of getting
dialed in and I've always just been crucified for like people
come after After me and saying, hey, you gotta eat, less dietary
fat, if you want to tap into your stored body fat and lose
weight. And I've routinely been able to
get, you know, sub five percent while maintaining north of a 75
or 80% fat ratio. So it's cool to see other
people, you know, like yourself doing the same thing and you
know excelling at it. Yeah.
I think Rob, I think the key is still going to be caloric
intake. I mean, I think, you know, if
you can still you can eat in a deficit on a high fat approach.
And I think that's the, that's the whole point of that.
And I think, And it's going to interesting because some people,
you know, obviously as a bodybuilder, you got to have a
certain amount of depth discipline, but I think just
eating higher fat doesn't necessarily mean, you're going
to gain team, but game game body fat.
You know what if eating high fat allows for high level of satiety
and you in allows you to eat in the deficit, then certainly you
can lean on and provide as you have enough protein in there.
And you know, we kind of talk about what's enough protein.
You know, you doing a training, you're going to maintain that
muscle mass. And you're going to just silly
like that. Yeah, but eating fat nor is he
said, it's only when you did easily success, excessive cork
assesses, whether it's fats or carbs.
Is, when you start to put on body fat and when you see all
these sort of negative things, I mean, you can do it.
You can come, you can eat over you protein.
You can read any macronutrient. But I mean, certainly fat carbs.
Your needs your wants to do a proteins, a little harder.
But yeah, absolutely. I think that's, and that's fun
during these experiments. I mean, clearly immuno,
everybody bill on the planet goes, low, low calorie.
I mean low fat low. I mean, they basically low carb
and low fat. And higher protein and that's
been a traditional method. But I think you, you know, like
I said, from a satiety and hormonal standpoint.
I mean, when you're my assumption is, when you get
pretty lean, you know, you're not as miserable as it guys.
Are getting pretty lean on a low, low fat approach. 100%
agree. I mean like we need, I mean,
people have been getting lean with high protein and carbs and
very minimal fat for years and years years.
I've never argue that that's possible.
It's been proven but it's all about how you feeling.
ERM in that deficit, and I've always argued that, if you're
deeply key to adapt, then you have a higher fat ratio, your
hormones. You can be more stable, your
moods going to be more stable and it just makes it much more
sustainable and enjoyable, because in the grand scheme of
things, you're not really in that deep of a deficit for very
long. So the more you can optimize how
you feeling performed during that deficit, it's just going to
be better for in a long run. Yeah, I mean no words, no one
wants to feel miserable. You know, you hear all these
Horror Stories of the bodybuilders are just like
they're on stage and there. They litigate about collapsing,
as they come off, and they have some of that has to do with
dehydration. And obviously, there's a lot of,
you know, depending on which organizations a lot of drug
usage, in diuretic usage, and all that sort of stuff.
And you know again I'm not a bodybuilder.
I've never been but I've been around enough lifting stuff for
years to know what generally goes on.
I'm sure you're more tuned into that.
Even I am. But, you know, I'm just You
know, I'm just I guess protein is a one thing that I wandering
where you find you know you know what your protein intake needs
to be you know, throughout your training Cycles.
Yeah. Protein is tricky because it's a
little different for everyone. I don't I don't ever recommend a
set you know protein a lot of people say take your lean mass
and you know do like one gram of protein per pound of lean mass
or something like that. There's all kinds of equations
on the internet and just keep that constant and Then either
manipulate Pro or carbs or fat, depending on what you're doing,
but I've had the most luck with, you know, kind of titrating
protein up initially, and taking advantage of that higher,
thermic, effect of food figuring out what your body responds best
to. And then as you figure out what
that threshold is gradually taking that down still within,
you know reasonable level you don't have one just a
chronically low in protein but they're at the very end.
I go pretty low because it ramps up my love.
I mean it ramps up my Ketone production.
So Tones are very anti catabolic so I can be in a more anti
catabolic state, right there, the tail end of my prep, but
then as soon as that preps over and I'm going into reverse diet,
I go ahead and bump it up back to at least, you know, 121 of
lean mass ratio. Yeah, I think that's probably
pretty reasonable strategy, you know?
Because you decide, oh, you did a quote-unquote kind of a
contest prep and then the crep got, I mean, the contest got
kibosh, because The coronavirus and so you're now reverse
dieting, are you, you know what, how low of calories did you get,
you know, when you got down there and then in your backup
around, I think I saw 4,000 calories a day now.
Yeah, so I got as low as about 1850 but then I was doing
refeeds at that point and, you know, keto refeed.
So I was averaging about 2,100 calories at the lowest and then
now I just finished my reverse. that I'm 12 weeks in my reverse
that and I'm averaging about 4,500 to four thousand seven
hundred calories a day now, Yeah, it's a decent amount of
food. I mean No One's Gonna complain
about that and you know I assume you're still race or maintain a
reasonable level of body fat. Yeah.
I mean my offseason weights are
my offseason body fat percentage is probably around around 10% to
12%. The high-end you know, between
10 and 12 percent. I thought that's a super
sustainable healthy body fat. I'm not, you know, I can still
see abs and Feathering in my quads, but I'm not so lean.
And in a deficit, I can't really optimized for building muscle,
but I'm also not so heavy. That I have no cardiovascular
strength. Yeah yeah.
But shoot man, you getting pretty shredded anyhow.
Also Instagram pictures either day and you may have to rethink
this whole body building, think probably step on stage, and do
some damage. No, I mean, I got I got such a
funky physique. I mean, I got my got 39 inch
sleeves, I got Monkey Grill arms and I don't have any symmetry
proportion, you know? I just don't have that.
It's have never been never been built for bodybuilding but we
you look damn good man. How do you know?
Oh, so it's okay being. Yeah.
It's kind of fun being I'm 53. So I mean it's you know it's you
know I mean for my age I think I'm doing pretty well, you know,
it's kind of funny. It's funny.
All the it's kind of like it's kind of funny because I get all
these people accusing me of you know, testosterone and rid other
steroids and stuff like that. I've never, you know, I've just
never done that stuff my whole life and so it's kind of you
know, the assumption is you know, you can't be you know a
certain age and have it halfway decent physique.
I mean it's like you can't do without drugs.
I'm like you know, I'm here to say absolutely you can You know
what I think eating or eating a good diet and you know, I know
you know whether it's keto or carnivore, you know?
My my opinion getting high-quality protein animal
Source protein. I know you certainly don't
disagree with where you protein comes from, you know, I mean,
it's, you know, meat is a big part of that.
I think it makes it pretty much. Makes it a lot easier.
That's for sure. 100%. I get so I mean, I compete in
the natural federation's, so I'm constantly butting heads.
Of people that are advocating for, you know, trt and just all
the drugs. So it's refreshing to hear
someone that's advocating for just optimizing your nutrition
first and foremost because I truly do think you get your
nutrition diet in you train, intensely?
Then I mean, that's that's the Fountain of Youth, right there
and you're proving that point day and down.
Well, I know it absolutely is and this is a thing, you know,
people, they're so used to taking the shortcut in the easy
way out that they're just You know, they don't, they can't
believe that you can do it without the, without the dress.
But we've kind of, you know, I mean, people forget what
happened, you know, 50, 50, 60, 70 years ago when guys were
strong and, you know, that that doing the stuff, you know, and
it's definitely achievable have you ever gotten like, just a,
like Baseline hormone panels done?
Just see where you're at. Now, not resend.
I did, we know I didn't want to know this, and this is a thing I
did one test. Right?
After training real hard, my testosterone to actually test it
out low and you know, So people are like well you know you're
whatever you're like a grandma here, like an old grandma
because you have low testosterone and I'm like, look,
I've got no clinical evidence of that whatsoever, you know, it's
like I'm obviously Wayne strong, you know, you know and
everything, sexual function works just perfectly fine, I'll
tell you so II, but I don't really not been really
interested in that because I'm like, what am I going to do
about it? It, you know and again I think
you need to have Clinic clinical reason to pursue that you know
and it's like if I were, you know, couldn't lose body fat and
was tired all the time and sluggish and mentally slow.
And you know, some of the things that are clinically relevant to
low testosterone, then I would be more interested but I'm not.
So there's not a real exciting reason for me to for me to do
that and just to chase to chase lab numbers just for the sake of
chasing lab numbers. Without any Any clinical
difference is, I mean, to me, it's kind of a pointless to ask
those people say, well, you'd be a lot bigger if you're on
steroids testosterone, I said, yeah, it's probably true.
But, I mean, I'm already, you know, you know, if I look at
other 53 year olds, I'm relatively doing quite well,
compared to those guys. So, I'm not really concerned
about, yeah. I'd say you're doing something
right? For sure.
I, I got my Baseline tested before I did my prep and then at
the end, it just to see how much going through a prep and, you
know, having that strain of the body would do.
And I think I think I dropped like 300 points, total
testosterone. But then, as soon as you start
bringing the calories, back up that recovers as well, it's just
kind of nature of the Beast with the sport of bodybuilding going
into a deficit. But if you do it naturally, I
mean you can maintain pretty healthy levels throughout.
Yeah. I mean it's it's something that,
you know, I mean, people that don't really know.
I mean, there's obviously there's a lot of nuance and of
these numbers and it's, you know, it's how much is free and
I'm just bound and it's time of day, it changes and it and, you
know, training can Fact, if you had a hard workout, you can
knock down, you know, if you have a poor night's sleep, you
can knock it down. So so many variables that go
into that. And so I'm like, you know, what
does it even mean? Like I said I, you know, it's I
really look at clinical function and I think one of the problems
we have is so many people are metabolically unhealthy and
sick, you know, they've got this metabolic syndrome, they have,
this would be City, and they feel like garbage and it's due
to that. And then, you know, the doctor
might Screening for low testosterone, they put them on
testosterone but really they should be doing is just fixing
their health and our lifestyle and spending a year, you know,
really aggressively pursuing that but no one does that.
I mean, it's easier just to write a prescription.
Send them out the door and the people are happy.
And then there's people that go in there and, you know, they
intentionally tank their testosterone, you know, they
just so they can pass a test so I can get on the stuff and say,
it's prescribed and it's well, you know, in the bodybuilding
Community. It's People say I'm just on
testosterone and it's probably a drug.
I'm like, no BS. It is a drug.
Yeah. And you know, you know, you're
taking it, you know, like these guys are, you know, obviously
stronger than 99.9% of the population.
You know, they're more muscular saying they were there, they
needed to maintain their their strength and it's not.
I mean, it just call it for what it is.
It's a drug and it's helping me achieve things I couldn't on my
own, but to say that. It's some disease is wrong.
Yeah, totally agree. It's that's a It's a sensitive
subject for a lot of people, a lot of people, you know, are not
honest with their using of it and abusing of it.
And I've always just said, you know, teach their own do
whatever you want to do, but I take pride in the fact that I
haven't gone that route to look for the shortcuts because I mean
you're cutting yourself short in a lot of areas that people don't
realize at the onset. Like it sounds really sexy on
the front on the front end but they have no they pay no
attention to the long term you know implications and then
honestly just like what it do does to your mentality.
Like I can I can take pride in the fact that I'm, I'm not
taking a shortcut and you start taking a shortcut with one thing
in life and it just, it just starts bleeding into other
aspects of your life and that's just something I don't want to
start, you know. Yeah.
I mean I'm so mad. I mean I'm you know, like I said
I've done this, I've competed in gosh, you know, strongman
competitions powerlifting rugby, you know, track and feel
Highland Games, you know, rowing all these Sports and I maintain
a high level of work capacity, I've been healthy.
Ever been injured, you know, to any significant degree.
You know, I've never had like big ups and downs as far as
strength and fitness goes. And I maintain it.
I mean, it's like, you know, I don't, I'm not dependent on some
drugs to maintain my muscle mass.
And I think that is, you know, nice thing, you know, having
done this for. I mean, I've been training and
out for 40. Yeah. 40 years now and it's like
I said, I'm still going strong and still doing fine.
Yeah, that's the main thing I want, I want to pick your brain
about About this. It's funny because you know you
and I both been the key to community for a long enough.
Now that we kind of see these Ebbs and flows and we see these
new you know hot ticket items pop up and you know carnivore
keto all these buzzwords. I feel like right now it's
metabolic flexible. That's what's in the sunshine
right now is it's given the Halo and it's kind of had this weird
effect them in that people feel their performance is
automatically going to be you know, massive The improved if
they can have this dual fuel between carbs and fat and you
and I have both have maintained this pretty regimented strict.
Like, we don't need the carbs. We just perform really well with
what we're doing. So I'm curious to kind of, get
your take on that what you've noticed.
And not really what you experiment with because you
haven't really had the cars but you've clearly had.
No. No adverse effects from not
having the carbs? Yeah.
I mean I think you know, as you and I both know that we still
living still make look Cos we still have glucose in our system
saw like we have non, we still have glycogen, and it's not like
we have none. And so this belief that you only
burn fat on a ketogenic diet is obviously, are you only utilized
fat on the ketogenic diet is obviously not grounded in
science. I mean, there's people say I'm a
fat burner, well, you're still a, you're still using glucose
and even if you're on a low carb ingesting that you're still
using fat for some, some, some amount of things.
And it's just a relative amount of the fuel you're using, you
know, some you're always And some sort of blend between
ketones free fatty acids and glucose for your energy needs.
And, you know, those requirements can be up and down
regulated by like pretending my particular cell types.
But it doesn't mean you can't like when you hit Top Gear
training wise when you're in a glycolytic and you know, a
glycolytic producing or requiring exercise, you can
still do that. Particularly if you've been
long-term adapted to this stuff and I didn't I never had any
issues Issue. You know, I mean when I was
breaking World Records on that concept to which was clearly a
glycolytic activity, I had no issues whatsoever, you know?
I mean able to literally able to break the world record and so
clearly without carbohydrates and then you know recently I
started playing with some of the distance work and I'm able to
put in, you know, an hour long session, you know I can row 12
miles, you know, on a rowing machine, you know, an hour and
20 With, with no carbohydrates. And so, I mean, I mean, you know
it, what point do you say, you know, this is required.
I mean, we just, I just interviewed a guy dance Sorenson
who's in, who's an NFL Super Bowl champ, he's on a car, we're
not doing great. So the performance has never
been better, so he's doing it without carbs.
You know, we just, you know, another professional athlete a
guy from the WWE, Eric guess he's a viking like And the same
thing, all these ads come out and saying, hey look I feel
wonderful without the carbohydrate midnight and my
performance is not suffered at all.
Still there. Yeah, I lost you there for a
second. Okay, sorry, sorry, yeah, no
that's why I totally agree. I feel like, you know, there's
there's so many instances that have people that are just
keeping it super strict and they're not seeing any decline
of performance whatsoever, I do think so much of it hinges on
one's level of adaptation. I feel like a lot of people they
have this skewed perception of what actual adaptation is.
They don't give it enough time or they're constantly eating
more Trace carbs. They recognize.
So they never really tap into their full potential with it and
then they just assume that it's not for them and they're seeing
a decline in performance. They automatically go to what
they are familiar with but I feel like if you actually get it
dialed in an optimized there's there's zero zero drop in
performance if anything your you know your information goes down
your recoveries better so you can train more frequently.
I mean I've only noticed an uptick personally.
Yeah, it's the same experience I had and I think that's the point
here is, you know, and I played with, you know, over the years,
I was on the ketogenic diet first for, you know, three
years. I'm arguably on it now with we
within the context of carnivore, but I played with targeted
ketogenic diets and played with, you know, cyclic ketogenic diet,
where you bring a cards in. And I really never noticed an
improvement and only the only thing I saw it may be a function
my age. You know I just saw I just
didn't feel it's good. I mean I got aches and pains I
had Inflammation, when I added the chorus backhanded so it was
just for me when I was like, going out to train if my knee
was sore, I didn't really want to squat that much.
But now when I trained, you know, I don't have those
soreness and you know, pains in my recovery is just tremendous,
which I think is, you know, allows me to train hard.
Every single time I walk into the gym and often every single
day, without needing to take really any time off.
Which is something that you know you here is, you know, always
you get older, you need more. Every time you need to train
less frequently and I've not found that to be true.
For me, I can train hard every single day and I someone who
enjoys try me. I really look forward to
training. I mean, I think about it, you
know, the night before. A lot of what?
I, what I'm doing right now, I'm doing because I'm not competing
anything currently. So it's mostly just fun and kind
of intuitive stuff and kind of making sure I check certain
amount of boxes every week, and I just feel so good.
All the time that my training in, Ultimately performance is a
reflection on that. Yes, picking a training.
Where do you train a? See these stories on your
Instagram and looks like you're in horse stalls or something.
Get the 70s rock and roll blaring.
You're in a horse taller. What's going on there?
Yeah. So the house we bought last year
was on a kind of an equestrian property across your
neighborhood. So the people for us, well I
mean I guess two owners ago, had some horse horse stalls and a
little horse turnout which looks like a like called the Derp it,
because it's like a little enclosed area around circle
area. It's just dirt.
And so for me, I'm just like old school.
I don't mind the dirt and the grime, and the hard work.
And so I just kind of run around and do stuff out there and get
out in the sunshine and then my power rack and some of the other
stuff, you know, like it is in the in what used to be the horse
stall on. So I'm kind of a big animal
anyway so it works. I love it man.
I love it. I've got to it's kind of crazy
because this whole covid thing. Shut all the gyms down,
everybody's just Been running around not having a clue what to
do. And I feel super fortunate
because I've got the compound here, the keto Brick Warehouse,
and I got my own Little Gym set up, but it's all just the basics
like dumbbells, barbells, I mean, pretty rudimentary stuff.
And I feel like when you just double down on that, you don't
need all this fancy equipment that people are always, you
know, striving to learn how to use.
Yeah. I mean yeah.
I mean again outside of you know it depends on what your sport
is. You know, if I was running the
100-meter hurdles it would be hard to do that here but I mean
are 110 hurdles, I guess whatever that is.
But I you know, for me, I mean I spent, you know, a decade
putting together a gym and fine equipment and you know, all that
stuff over the years. And so I've got a really good
variety of stuff so I can train, you know, a lot of things, you
know. And sometimes you have to be a
little bit creative but you can get 95% what you want done and
then sometimes you know, like I you know you if you got
bodybuilding specific things you can you might find a gym, has a
few items that you can't replicate at home or it'd be
very difficult to do. But having a nice facility at
home is definitely a blessing because it's you know it's also
a Time Saver because instead of having me jump in the car drive
2015, 20 minutes, you know, go to the gym and then some of the
equipment may or may not be available because somebody else
is using it and you know you know so it home You know, the
hours are great. And, you know, the crowds are
honest. It's hard to be.
Does my girlfriend is in their training?
Yeah, so it's pretty good. The only thing is, you know, you
know, you missed a little bit of a social side in the motivation,
says sometimes the young people around will motivate you a
little much. But I've been, I'm, I'm pretty
internally driven. I think most people have been
Lifting for a long time. Don't really need that external
feedback. Most of us have kind of, it's in
our mind. And you know, it's just it's
part of who we are and, you know, and I imagine, you know,
in 30 years from now I'll still be training as an 80
something-year-old and This will be training is a I don't know,
60 something-year-old or 50-something year-old.
You just keep going and never goes away.
Yeah. And it becomes just part of the
day for the routine. So what about like fasting and
anything like that? Like you ever do any, you need
extended fasting with Carnival, or are you keeping that pretty
much just consistently in every single day?
Yeah, I mean, I really, I mean, I do a fair bit of, you know, I
guess you call intermittent fasting or you know, within a 24
hours. But again, that's mostly not
really. By Design, it's just, I'm not
hungry and so I just eat. You know, I lot of days, I'll
train fast in the morning. I might do to day workouts.
Like today I'll do it today. So I often you know we'll have a
maybe 14 to 16 hours you know between dinner and my first meal
of the day pretty almost every day.
That's pretty pretty common for me to do.
You know, sometimes I'll do a one meal, a day type of thing.
I didn't one 48 hours. Last one time, just out of
curiosity and I didn't really find any great, you know, great
reason to do that. For me, I mean, I think it's, I
think there are reasons for people to want to do that,
particularly people, that have a lot of weight to lose, or are
working on some kind of metabolic issues.
There's probably more utility. I think for, athletes,
particularly strength athletes, and people wanting to build and
maintain muscle a lot of extended passing may not be the
best thing. I mean, I know there's people
that talk about growth, Hormone, you know, increasing.
But I mean it's the same time, you know, you need an mtor
stimulation to for particular, one of the, you know, and this
is one of the controversy around protein with mtor, stimulating
protein, particularly leucine and to a lesser extent Arginine,
people are worried about that. But again that's in the kind of
fits in the context of weight training, that's completely
appropriate because you want to maintain your muscle mass and so
getting an adequate amount of protein on a generally on a
daily basis. I think Pretty important.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think, you know, I'm not
really a huge advocate, for fasting for the sake of fasting.
I'm actually starting a fast today but I haven't passed it in
over a year. I feel like it can be
advantageous to do it. You no longer fast.
Every so often just kind of wipe, the Slate clean and start
fresh so to speak. But I see so many people just
constantly jumping to, you know, a fast to lose a few pounds of
water weight. Only to regain it after they
start eating again. And I feel like it kind of just
creates this negative connotation around it.
It can be again, it's a tool and like any tool that can be used
inappropriately, you know, to use a hammer to screw in a
screw. It's not going to work and so
it's like anything diet exercise are all tools in there that, you
know, you can use them wisely and, you know, in a strategic
and in a targeted and a tactical fashion, but the same time
there's a lot of people would do it, you know, kind of an
appropriately 100%. So would you be in strict
carnivore now, 43. Half years for years.
What is something that you have found to be true?
Now, that wasn't necessary in line with your way of thinking.
When you first started, like, what have you learned to be like
the biggest most profound advancement in your corner of
our journey? So to speak because you're
pretty much on The Cutting Edge of it.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, like I said, I think for most
people, it seems to work pretty well.
I think, for most people, you know, most of the advice that
I've seen and kind of promoted has been generally pretty,
pretty effective, but I do see people.
Where you can, you definitely, it's not an all-you-can-eat
buffet, it's not a unlimited, you know, you're it's, you know,
I've seen people gain weight, get fat, I've eaten more than I
probably should have at times, you know?
Just because, you know, some of its kind of ego and some of its,
you know, not really eating Beyond satiety is is definitely
doable. And, you know, you can get the -
I mean, just like any other die. And if you eat too much, you're
going to, you're going to get maintain.
Gain body fat and have some of the metabolic consequences of
overeating. And so I think that's still
possible do it's harder to do than some other diets.
Although he has kind of interesting.
There was a study, I guess it was a full study or Pilot was
preprint Kevin Hall. Came out showing a plant-based
diet versus a quote-unquote animal-based, ketogenic diet.
And so that the people on the, you know, the satiety was better
from a caloric standpoint, I fight Robert Plant Big Tits
again that probably has to do with perhaps the you know not
very good palatability and not having other options available
and you know being locked in a metabolic Ward.
I mean those all things are potential reasons why that was
occurring but I definitely think you can.
You can overeat and I do think you can ovary fat.
I mean, this is the other thing, you know, people think that you
know, just because you're eating a high fat percentage doesn't
mean there's a there's no upper limit.
To the amount of fat you can eat.
It's and also, you know, things like Dairy fats.
I find to be problematic for many people that is to say it's
harder for me to overindulge in, you know, sort of fat that comes
on meet, you know, fatty meat versus you know, Dairy you know
when they when you take Dairy and I'm you know, I particularly
if you add a sweetener to it, you know, if you start making a,
you know, a heavy cream with some Stevia in it or something
like that, you know, you can just over Consume calories that
way. So I think that's clear.
Yeah, it's interesting because I mean like you said earlier,
there's no way to know with 100% degree of certainty, how many
calories or how many macros are in any given thing you eat.
But it's so blatantly obvious that the amount of calories you
consume is going to have a pretty profound impact on your
composition, whether that be for better or worse.
It's just, it's just funny because I feel like Carnival was
given a Halo initially saying that, You cannot overeat me,
you'll never gain fat, which just does not make any sense
whatsoever. But it's nice to see people,
maintain a strict, carnivore, diet, and gain fat to prove
those people wrong. So that people just more aware
of how important calories are. Yeah, I mean, I've never been in
the calories on matter cam. I think, I think and I do think
that there's, you know, it's not only carries either.
I mean, I think, you know, everybody talks about, everybody
talks about calories. You know, the people that are
it's all about calories will. Concede the protein, you know,
protein has a different Metabolic Effect, instead of
you're going to make that concession, then you have to
say, wait a minute, you know, there's a thermic effect.
There's you know, there's adaptive thermogenesis, there's
heat production that are dependent on a macro nutrient
composition and then maybe even some degree to the micro
nutrient composition. And so we have different
absorption rates of food. You know, we have, you know, a
whole bunch of things that go into.
Just behind what's on your plate and what actually gets absorbed
and what actually gets done to it in the body.
And so, but at the end of the day, you know, if we look at the
big picture, sure. You know, you can't overeat
calories on any diet doesn't matter, you know, Nikita did
genic diet on a car, were diet on any, any diet there is and so
I, you know, I said that all on from beginning, I will say it's
harder to eat more. Eat to the point where you're
gaining body fat on some diets versus another other diets.
And then, you know, there's, you know, there's, you know, outside
of gain weight, there's a health component.
And, you know, just eating a diet of, you know, If It Fits
your Macros junk food is not a healthy diet.
And there's, you know, there's people that's for some somehow
misled to believe that. I mean, I don't think the major
proponents of the, If It Fits your Macros or telling people to
go out and eat and eat, you know, junk.
But there's put some people interpret that way.
I can eat whatever I want. Just you know maybe I'm anyway,
protein. Twinkies.
Yeah you know and and you know they're going to they're going
to somehow think they're going to have a good health and good
body composition which I think is you know maybe one of those
youkai mean you might be able to you might be still able to have
decent body composition, but you're not going to have a
long-term. Good health with that, 100%
agree, I mean it all matters like calories hormones, you
know, metabolic function I mean it all it all adds to the end
result and I do think that there is kind of an upper calor
threshold. So like calories, not created
equal. If you're doing a predominantly
carbohydrate-based, you know, food versus predominantly high
quality nutrient, dense protein animal sources.
I feel like you can probably get away with a little bit more
calories without the adverse effects, you know, like a
predominantly carnivore. Keto approach.
That's just what I've personally found.
You know, having eaten a bunch of carbs in the past versus what
I'm doing now, but it definitely all has an effect on the whole,
it's interesting. It's interesting.
What about you know kind of seeing how things have
progressed over the years and as more information and scientific
literature has come out about the efficacy of carnivore.
Have you noticed any less pushback from the vegan
Community or is that just gone rampant?
I don't think there's been any. Well, it's a loaded question is
pretty constant, just they just kind of It kind of, you know,
they just wrote. There's like, there's like The
champion is going to complain. There's a new ones to complain
about it. And I think the interesting
thing is, you know, with the vegans, a lot of them to stop
being, but you can since someone's been vocal for a year,
they a lot of them end up following me and say thank you,
he changed my mind. And the hell no longer be
considered but they're always replaced by somebody new.
It's going to come out there and proselytize and try to save the
planet with their with their misinformation or misguided
notice. I do think, you know, more and
more people in general are starting to recognize that, you
know, meat is not evil and I meet State can be can be very
beneficial Health, including many Physicians.
You know, we have this metarex platform.
We've got almost 150 Physicians on that platform that are all
proponents or you know, at least accepting of meat based diets
potentially helpful. So we are making, you know,
we're definitely making a change particularly within the low-carb
space. You know, we're, you know,
people have already sort of sort of already signed off on the I
don't necessarily line up with the mainstream or the perv Like
prevailing nutritional Dogma. So we've already made huge,
inroads, and that community. And so it continues to evolve as
we're seeing like I said, you know, guys like Joe Rogan doing
it and saying, hey, I felt really good and that that opens
people's eyes and now we got more and more, you know,
high-level professional athletes that are doing it.
So I think we're just going to continue to see further and
further acceptance for some people.
Some people you know people are ideologically opposed to eating
meat or never going to you know, accept it as a As an option,
they're going to fight tooth and nail for that because it's
against what they believe is their kind of almost with a
little religious like forever. But you know what I mean?
You know, we've got a study coming out and Harvard
University. That's setting 3,000-plus
carnivore. Dieters will come out later this
year. I'm assuming and that's going to
have an impact. So I, you know I think we're
here to stay and I think it's going to be a tool that you
know, many people utilize for their health.
And this is, you know again This is not anything new.
This has been doing it at this is every 20 years or so.
It's come out, you know, these carnivore type diets.
You know, in my book I talk about the people that came
before me, that promoted basically the same thing and
they all had the same results, everybody got healthier, or many
people got healthier. And so, I think, you know, with
the internet with social media, the exposure potential is this
extremely high and that's going to be a, I think, I think that's
really the France between now and you know, 50 years ago.
When Blake Donelson wrote his book, you know, strong medicine
or what you do when Adkins came out in the 70s or some of these
other things and you know, even the keto and obviously carnivore
fits nicely within the keto Community.
A lot of people use Keo as a kind of a transition point, to
go to carnivore and some people go carnivore.
And then they go back to you know kind of meat based keto or
Meto or keto carnivore. Carnivore keto or whatever.
There's a little hybrid thing going on there but I think m
just in general been more accepted in the certainly in the
low carb Community as a vital role.
And so now we have people that are kind of helping to defend it
because it's obviously under attack.
Yeah. And I think a lot of, you know,
the social media and Jeanette as a whole has kind of made this
you know, push towards regenerative agriculture and and
all the more sustainable, you know, positive ways to produce
meat at scale as has grown in popularity to so people can look
at Consuming meat in a in a better light than just imagining
a bunch of feedlot cattle sitting there, you know, just
ready to be butchered. I mean, I think that is
definitely a step in the right direction to because people can
just see that, you know, it doesn't have to be this black
and white. There's, there's there's
positive. There's right ways to do this
and this can be a good thing for the environment and the animals
that are involved with them. Yeah, I mean, that's wonderful
point, you know, and the thing is, you know, when we listen to
the folks, Or plant-based Advocates, they'll say, you
know, well, you know, even if regenerative agriculture is
good, we can't do it, we can't feed people.
It's not sustainable, there's not enough land.
Well, that's turning out to be not the case is turning out that
yes, there is enough land and yes, it is scalable.
And yes, we can feed everybody as more and more people do it
and they demonstrate that and they show that their land is,
you know, three hundred percent five hundred percent eight
hundred percent more productive than it was using standard, you
know, commercial, Industry, you know, ranching techniques, you
know, as they get into these, you know, adaptive multi Paddock
grazing operation. It was stacked Enterprise with
multiple animals in the same same acreage.
They can produce a heck of a lot more food with the with, without
using the pesticides without using the herbicides without
without using significant additional water inputs, you
know? And, and, and not only that,
they're they're sequestering. Carmen there and that's net.
Carbon think they're improving the quality of the land are
increasing, biodiversity. I mean that is where I think we
have to go if we're going to if we're going to have a
sustainable food system over the next several decades, as we see
an increase in population, if that happens, you know, as
opposed to what we have now which is just a you know, a
hugely degradation of agricultural system, where we
have You know, crop monocrop cultures that destroy the soil,
deplete the soil, you know and that's you know where our food
is coming from largely and it's not really sustainable, its
fossil fuel intensive, it's pesticide intensive.
It's herbicide it's an intensive and most things all have a
negative consequences to the environment.
So You Know the Way Forward really is a regenerative We're
coming regen of animal and plant agricultural hybrid technique
and that requires animals. There's no way not to utilize
those guys. Yeah, totally hundred percent
agree. And I mean, if you just start
diving deeper into that, you know, that that becomes more and
more clear, it just takes a little bit of legwork.
I mean, it's it's becoming more known, but he just has to dive a
little deeper than what mainstream media wants to throw
out at you at first glance, you know?
So hopefully people keep learning in the Right direction
there. So I want to know a little bit
more about this meet our X platforms.
I've heard you talk about it for.
I've checked it out. Just kind of spend this last
little bit here. Talking about that and promoting
yourself here, I want to spread the word.
Yeah, so metarex, you know my someone Pro so my partner her
name's Maseratis to me is a she is an entrepreneur, a data
scientist in Silicon Valley and so she approached me and she's
been on a convert out now for For quite a while and she
approached me is kind of wanted to partner up with me and helped
me develop a platform. And so we kind of came up with
this sort of idea and we're still evolving.
We've got a long ways to go. And so what we want to
eventually accomplished, we've got our sights set on some other
big, big stuff. But what it is currently is it's
a platform, you know, first of all, it's a huge resource for
anybody that wants to learn about or Implement a car word
out. We have largest resources in the
world, I mean, we've got, you know, literally hundreds of
Hundreds of success stories, people look at, we have research
article, we've got an eight thousand plus research, library
of articles that support, you know, various aspects of what
we're doing. So all the science and world,
you can want, we've got all kinds of Articles and
Publications. You can utilize all compiled in
one area we have, you know, multiple multiple daily meetings
through Zoom which were all video conferences that, you
know, hundreds of people can join at one time. you know, of
all kinds of support meetings, you know, whether it's diabetes,
you know, it's whether it's addiction, whether it's Eating
Disorders, whether it's weight loss, or mental health issues,
or, you know, any of those topics and I have a meeting
every single morning with the members anywhere between, you
know, 40 to 100 people will show up at that every day we have,
you know, you know coaching, you know for people that need
support, not everybody needs support, you know, you know, You
tell people just eat a bunch of meat and drink some water and
you're fine. Some people run with that and
they do fine and other people really struggle with trying to
implement it and they need support.
So we have a coaching platform. We've got, you know, a hundred
plus coaches. Now that have been certified
that, you know, people can sign up for really, really, I want to
keep this because it has such a profound impact on people's
lives and improving their health.
I want to keep it affordable and accessible to many people as
possible. So we made the, you know, the
the coaching sessions are, you know, they're 18 bucks for half
an hour. I mean, they're just incredibly
cheap, you know, we just, you know, we have people in that
people are doing it because they love it.
They're passionate about its change their life and they want
to help other people and quite, honestly, they're doing it
anyway. They're they're talking about it
all the time because they can't stop.
So we're like, you know, we're going to get you guys trained
and you're going to. You can do this and help people.
And you don't make a little bit of money, kind of as a part-time
type of situation, kind of like an Uber driver might do.
So we're building that up, you know.
Got a fasting platform, we've got will probably end up with
the keto platform. So, we're trying to retry to
give people an alternative to the standard way, people treat
lifestyle, lifestyle, issues, and chronic disease.
So, if you can go there and get your, you know, your health,
your nutrition, your Fitness, your sleep, in an order.
That's going to have a far bigger impact and if you go to
the physician and you get 15 minutes.
So being shuffled through an appointment, I'm getting totally
green head. It a pill.
So we're trying to give people an option for that.
So it's going to be kind of a alternative for people that it's
want to want to obtain health and not go through, you know,
Medical Care, you know, and I think there's a difference
between that I love it. I love it.
It's grown like crazy since. When did you launch that?
So we launched in November. So we're you know right around a
little over six months and yeah, we've grown to, you know, we've
got, you know, several thousand members.
Now, I think we're up into a thick, Rope A Dope. 4,000
members right now and growing every single day.
We pick up 20, 30 40, 50 people a day typically so you know it's
growing pretty rapidly and you know, it's and people are
enjoying it. I mean, they really like to
support, you know, we've got with social media, things like
Facebook, the platform's one or Limited, in their interaction,
to their kind of, you know, we're seeing more and more
Direction in these platforms. Letting people talk to, you
know, they're kind of directing what people are allowed to talk
about, you know, there's some little bit Of censorship going
on which, you know, you know, I don't know where it's going to
go, but we're already seeing, you know, it may be that in two
years from now, eating meat will be considered a you know, are
promoting a meat may be considered a sensible offense,
you know, or something like that and be sin x, you know.
Yeah. That is going to be that's going
to be said. So we're kind of pushing back
and we have a little bit of a, you know, a little bit of, I
guess a political aspiration in the fact that we want to
influence policy when it comes to nutrition and health.
So we have people like mine and are doing that.
You know. And so that is where we're going
in. And like I said we've got a lot
of, you know, technical plans Beyond this to expand into other
other avenues and becoming and make this more powerful.
And I think we're going to get there over the next few years.
And I think, I mean whether they're keto or low carb, or a
carnivore or whatever. That, maybe it's definitely all
the step in the right direction. So just simply getting that that
message out there. There and amplifying in the mean
shoot at the good fight right there so there's anything I
could do just let me know. Well yeah I mean I appreciate
it. Like I said I'm you know will
maybe get you in on the in one of our meetings to talk to our
crowd, that'd be great. So kind of percent and what's
the the website link case people in check that out.
So it's just meet our xor X like the prescription sign, so meet
our x.com. So that's that's where you can
go there and then you know obviously I'm well my social
media, Instagram is shown Sha WN Baker, 1967 on Instagram,
Twitter. Oh man.
S Baker MD. And then I've got a little
YouTube channel which I you know I put up a video pretty much
every day. So I mean I'm you know my my my
social media is slowly moving along.
I've got about three hundred thousand, you know, people in my
social media followers you know kind of making progress there
and you know, it's been, it's been fun.
It's been entertaining someone a little bit controversial.
Hey, will you get it anything in life worth?
It wasn't going for. Or is going to end up a little
bit of controversy, but that's when, you know, you're on the
right track because you're making something happen.
In the yep. I'll shoot Sean.
Keep doing what you're doing. Let's say let's regroup,
sometime. I'll come trained.
The horse stalls with you. That sounds good man.
All right, thank you. Having shit.