Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, Keto savage.com
and today we've got special guest Neil Geit on the line.
I met him at, I believe at Keto Con conference a few years back
and we got to talking and had him on the podcast shorter
thereafter. And he just completed a massive
undertaking. So I wanted to get him back on
the podcast to go over that in detail.
He just got done swimming alongside his brother for a 22
mile span in a cold lake in Scotland, hitting complete swim
fasted in a fat adapted state. So truly, truly an awesome,
awesome, impressive feat. I wanted to bring him on the
podcast, talk about what he learned, talk about his training
through that process, talk about his blood markers.
He tracked everything, his glucose, his ketones, his
testosterone, everything. So really wanted to just do a
deep dive on that and his experience.
I've got no doubt that he will take something from this so that
further delay, sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Neil
and we are live. Neil, how are you, man?
Back again. Yes, back again, doing very
well. Thank you.
Great to be back to speak to you post swim at least for that
shows that I survived the swim. So that's a good start.
You are in fact alive. That must feel good.
So when was the the last, the first podcast we did was that
what about two, maybe three months ago now?
Yeah, that was probably about 2 1/2 months ago.
So I think that was about maybe a month ahead of the swim, which
was the 19th of September. So yeah, almost almost two
months ago the swim Crazy how how time flies.
It is crazy and for anybody that hasn't listened to that one,
definitely go listen to that episode.
But on that you alluded we talked about Agulose, we talked
we're gonna have another podcast coming up about Agulose, but we
talked about the swim you and your brother had looming and you
are now back from that. So anybody that has not heard
that podcast, can you give us a quick little overview as to to
what that goal was to begin with?
Yeah, of course. So the swim challenge was a 22
mile swim in a pretty cold lake in Scotland.
And for reference those it's, it's actually the length of Lake
Tahoe or it's longer than the English Channel.
So 22 mile swim and the goal was to do that 0 calories, so just
consuming water and electrolytes to demonstrate the amazing
metabolic flexibility of the body to utilize fat as a fuel
source. So that was the plan. 22 mile
swim in a cold lake. That sounds like pretty
intensive. Pretty intensive undertaking
man. I feel like that would
definitely cause a lot of people grief.
Yes, yeah, it was. So thankfully we did a fair bit
of swimming when we were, we were younger at a pretty decent
level. So if you have the swim kind of
technique dialed in, that certainly helps because for
those who aren't swimmers, it would be a, you know, an
insanely difficult challenge. So thankfully we had that.
But still, yeah, 22 miles took us just under 12 hours.
It's still, it's a big long swim.
It was a long day, let's let's say that, but a but a good day.
It's funny, man, I've, I've not, I would not consider myself a
runner, but I decided to own a whim run a marathon like 0
training, bought a pair of running shoes, boom, ran a
marathon and I didn't, you know, set any land speed records or
anything, but I finished it and I felt good about it.
But doing a swim like to me, you know, not a natural born swimmer
by any means. I feel like that like if you
mess up on that, like you the the likelihood of you dying is
probably much higher than if you're just going to run a
marathon on a whim. So potentially, yeah, it can be
a little bit more dangerous. Thankfully both of us have done
a fair bit of open water swimming, so we were very
familiar with that. We also had a safety crew, a
boat with us at all time. So safety of course was
paramount, especially when you're doing something this, you
know, extreme in terms of 0 calories.
So, but at the same time, it was actually an interesting one for
me because I've done previous ultra endurance stuff, Iron
Man's and so forth, but that you predominantly use your legs for
those. You don't really use your upper
bodies. So actually a lot of my training
for this was strength and upper body work because your upper
body does, you know, pretty 90% of the work.
You know, when you're swimming, your legs are kind of there for
core stability and balance, but they're not a huge amount of the
power equation. So it was actually a pretty
interesting, you know, build for me just to be prepared to do the
swim and especially given it ended up being in a pretty cold
Scottish lake or Loch as as the Scots call it.
So it was about 12°, which is about 54 Fahrenheit.
So we were wearing wet suits and and gear.
But trying to train for that. Living in Texas where you know,
it's through the middle of the summer were also added an
interesting kind of aspect to the prep for it.
So a lot of my swimming prep was done in the pool, which is
different from swimming outdoors.
So yeah, it was a pretty interesting challenge actually
for me purely from, you know, just the actual challenge
endurance side of the things. And then obviously adding the,
you know the 0 calorie doing it totally fasted added a different
dimension. Yeah, and I, I know we touched
on it on that first podcast, but your, your brother had some, you
know, personal motivation behind it.
You had some as well. What was the, the, the main
primary driver for y'all wanting to, to set out and accomplish
this to prove it to yourselves and to others?
Like what was the main driving force there?
So there were two driving forces.
We both had a word say slightly different.
My brother about five years ago was struggling with depression,
mental health challenges and he found that outdoor swimming was
a really great tool that he could utilize, I think mixture
of the nature, cold water and just exercise.
And so he got into outdoor swimming and the first decent
length swim he did was in Loch Lomond.
It was a 10 kilometre swim in Loch Lomond and as he did that,
it kind of set in motion in him. So this was probably 4 1/2 years
ago that he wanted to swim the whole length of Loch Lomond.
So that kind of became a dream swim to him.
So he decided to do the swim 1st and he then asked me to join
because I've done ultra endurance stuff in in the past.
And right at this time, I was in the process of pivoting out of
my 20 years in tech and into my new mission to help a billion
plus people become metabolically healthy as I realized how
important our mitochondria and metabolic health are for
preventing and reversing the majority of the chronic diseases
out there. And so, you know, realizing all
of that, I then decided to add the additional twist onto it of
doing it 0 calorie really to demonstrate that sugar and
carbohydrates are not needed for athletic endeavour.
And therefore the translation of that into everyday life to help
people to do something that people thought, you know,
couldn't necessarily be done. And to hopefully make people
think twice before they grab a granola bar or take, you know,
an energy gel before they go to a gym for a 3045 minute workout.
Because the current paradigm around any exercise has to be
fueled with, you know, sugar, glucose and carbohydrates is
driving a huge amount of the chronic disease.
So we combine both of those things together to really raise
awareness for metabolic health and metabolic therapy because
it's being shown to help all of these chronic diseases, mental
health and depression included. So raise awareness.
We also raised some great money for a bunch of different
charities and are still fundraising.
Actually, if any listeners listen to this and think
actually those crazy guys did something crazy, if you go to
our website, 0-2-lowman.com, we're still raising money for a
bunch of great metabolic therapy charities.
I love it man, I love it now. Does your brother do it also?
0 calorie. Great question.
So he ended up not doing it 0 calorie in the end.
So as we were agreeing to do the swim, the first most important
was especially for him, given it truly was kind of his, his dream
swim that he wanted to do was completing the swim was the most
important thing as he was doing his training, he's got two young
kids, family commitments and so forth.
He was, he was just struggling with, with the training and the
combination of the distance and the 0 calorie.
And so as he got a few weeks out, he wasn't confident that he
could complete the swim. So he just wanted to eliminate
and remove some variables of which kind of nutrition was 1.
So he still completed the swim, but yeah, he did not do it 0
calorie. And so, yeah, I, I did though.
So it was, yeah, it was actually a good example of still you have
your art, you know, set on something, but at the same time,
you've got to see how you're progressing along the way and if
and if it's not aligning to what your true goal is then.
And I appreciate that he actually, you know, deviated and
made sure that he completed the swim because the last thing I
would have wanted is to add this additional craziness on for him
then not to complete the swim. Totally, totally.
So talking about the training man, like what I'm assuming you
probably lost some weight in the the process.
What what was your like stats in the beginning and when did you
start training and and your brother too?
Like what was the the journey like from the very moment of
preparation? Yeah, good question.
So I probably, I probably spent I would say four months in kind
of serious training for it. I probably I would have done
longer. But as we touched on the 1st
podcast, I was also recovering from pretty chronic, chronic low
testosterone levels. So back in March, for slightly
different reasons, which we got into a little bit on the 1st
podcast, my testosterone was yeah, levels were around 100,
which is pretty low. So I was trying to balance my
training and you know, trying to recover my testosterone back
naturally without you obviously, you know, taking any medication
or so forth. So I would say I started leaning
into it pretty slowly. I was doing a lot more strength
and weight work to really bulk up.
So I actually put on a significant amount of weight 1.
I put on a lot more muscle, especially upper body.
Secondly, I think just because of that testosterone imbalance,
one of the things that I found that I was just constantly
hungry, which makes sense because generally you need to be
in a calorie or being in a calorie surplus certainly helps
with testosterone. So I kind of just listened to my
body and let my body tell me when it was hungry, tell me when
it was full. But yeah, I probably put on
maybe 1015 kilograms, a mixture of I would say muscle and fat
from being a very lean, you know, kind of marathon, pretty
serious marathon time runner before.
In terms of the, the in terms of, I would say training in
general, I would do probably 3 strength sessions a week.
I really doubled down on strength one to help the
testosterone. Secondly, because I I needed to
develop, I would say more of a body strength to help with 12
hours of your arms just propelling you through the
water. So 3 strength sessions a week.
I would probably then do 4, about four swims a week.
I would do 1 long swim at the weekend.
And that would vary anywhere from, I would say kind of 7
kilometers up to the Max I did was 30 kilometers about a month
ahead. And the majority of that was in
the pool. But when we did go on summer
vacation up to Wisconsin, I managed to get some open water
swimming, which was which was really nice.
And then I would mix in with that probably three other swim
sessions a week where I'd do a mixture of, you know, some speed
work, some paddle work to really help with the upper body
strength and, you know, just kind of staple, you know, I
would say between one and two hour swims.
The other thing I would say, just to add on the training
front, so I actually did less fasted training than I thought I
would or that people would assume as well.
I think that was partly because I was conscious of recovering
testosterone levels and I didn't want to put too much fasting
strain on the body because that can impact testosterone.
The other part of it was because my body, I wasn't, you know,
it's not an idea. I wasn't building on a really
firm foundation, which I would never recommend for anyone doing
something this extreme, given I was trying to rebalance my
testosterone levels. At the same time, we'd already
agreed and committed to the date and it was kind of penciled in
the diary. So I was really trying to
optimize around that and so I would generally do most sessions
at least start fasted for, you know, 1-2, sometimes 3 hours up
until I really felt my body saying no, I, I feel like I, I
need something. But then I would fuel, I would
fuel with, you know, healthy fats.
So thank you for your incredible generosity and your amazing keto
brake products because they were an absolute just saviour for
ease as part of training, especially, you know, when
travelling and trying to train at the same time.
And so I did. That's generally how I
approached it, but I did make sure about a month ahead.
I always try to do 80% of the target goal of whatever an ultra
endurance kind of is about a month ahead.
And so a month ahead of the actual swim, I managed to do a
30 kilometer or was probably about a 16 mile.
I was 17 mile pool swim. So literally I spent 12 hours
just what is about 10 1/2 hours down at the pool.
And I did that totally fasted just because I wasn't planning
to. But as I grew into that swim, my
body just felt better and better and stronger and stronger.
So that was a really great sign that my body was starting to get
into balance and homeostasis. Because I think when your body
feels totally comfortable and you're push pushing the adaptive
stress, then I really actually didn't feel hungry throughout
that whole swim and I just felt I got stronger throughout the
swim. So yeah, sorry, a little bit of
a long answer, but that was kind of how I approached the
training. And I would say how the training
then evolved over the kind of the weeks and months in the
build up to the event. No, it totally makes sense, man.
Did you train alongside your brother much?
Like were you kind of holding each other accountable or were
you all separate a lot of that time?
Yeah, good question. I think we were a little bit
separate. So we did, we did keep in touch
a fair bit. Obviously he he lives in
Scotland, I live in Houston. So we would keep in touch as we
were doing it, but it wasn't maybe as close as maybe it maybe
it should have been. And I think certainly speaking
to him afterwards and Dave reflecting on his training, I
think he already felt that he was pretty well fat adapted.
And so it would be a simple transition into being, I would
say, you know, truly fat adapted.
And I think he found that process a lot more challenging
than than he thought that it would be.
They also had a bunch of different trips and holidays and
things. And I know it's it's difficult
to fit this in around family life as well.
But I also reflected a little bit myself and I'd be interested
to know your thoughts here. But I think to be truly fat
adapted, sometimes I think you need to maybe take one or two
steps backwards to then go 3 forwards as your muscles and
your body truly adapts to utilizing, you know, fat ketones
as, as the fuel source. And so I think maybe he just
struggled a little bit there and being in a bit closer contact
throughout the training build up maybe would have been better.
Yeah, it's, it's tricky, man. Like people often times like
athletes that I work with that are, you know, considering a
ketogenic approach, they oftentimes don't want to take
the time to take those few steps backwards in order to take
multiple steps forwards. And it is true, like if you're
from a performance athlete standpoint, if you totally
change your fuel substrate, you will see a decline in
performance initially. And a lot of people aren't
willing to deal with that decline when they can't time it
properly with their offseasons or whatever the case may be.
But, you know, it it takes that time to, you know, fully get fed
that a lot of people make the mistake of thinking, oh, I just,
you know, eat, you know, lower carbs.
But if you just eat lower carbs, you're kind of just in purgatory
because then you're not really making the most of the carbs and
you're not really fully fat at that.
But you're kind of like in this limbo land.
And that's just not really great from a performance standpoint.
I wholeheartedly agree and I think and it is that 2 steps
back to take three or even even 4 forwards because I always look
back to that the training swim and that was such an amazing
swim because once you get in the metabolic straight state of
being truly fat adapted, I literally felt like I was
getting stronger and stronger throughout that swim and I could
go through the gears and you your brain.
I also find my brain just operates on a different level
when it's running on ketones. And so I actually just found
that 30K pool swim 10 hours was actually one of, although it was
10 hours, you know, just spent face down in a pool.
It was actually one of the, I would say the highlights of my
year doing that because I wasn't sure how it was going to go.
But when you get into that metabolic state and you're fully
adapted, you've just, you feel like you're, you know, an
electric car, you're like a Tesla car, but you've got
unlimited range and you can just keep going and keep going and
keep going. And you're just, you have this
access to this clean, incredible energy source that gives both
your muscles and your brain, yeah, just much cleaner, purer
fuel. It's a it's a really great
feeling and state to be in. Yeah, and from like a swimming
standpoint, again, I'm not a swimmer, but just I'm, I'm being
speculative here. But like with with running for
instance, you're constantly impacting the pavement.
With swimming, there's no hard impact necessarily because
you're in the water. But if you're in a deeply fat
adapted state, especially if you're fasting, your body's
ability to shunt inflammation is going to be exponentially higher
than if you want a carb dependent, you know, glucose
derived state. And if you're not pounding
yourself on the pavement and you're in the water, the primary
inflammation is going to be right there in your shoulders
and you know, your traps and everything as you're swimming.
And if you can minimize that by simply being fat adapted, I
would imagine your range is, you know, significantly lengthened.
Yeah, totally agree. And that's certainly the actual
challenge Day was a little bit different, which is actually
very interesting from a metabolic perspective as well.
So we can dig into that a little bit.
But certainly when I finished that swim, yeah, you know, my
shoulders, you know, were were of course tired after swimming
for 10 hours. But honestly, I woke up the next
morning and I wasn't actually even that sore.
I think I even did a did an easy swim the following day, maybe
just an hour or something. And to your, to your point, you
know, previously and obviously it would be interesting to do
the same thing IA carb to see the difference between the two.
But I certainly, yeah, I certainly ascribe to everything
that you've said Once you're if if you can kind of get into that
kind of homeostasis, slightly adaptive stress, then I think
that's exactly how the body works.
Now, on the last podcast, you know, we had talked about the
main goal being both you all to complete it, which it sounds
like both you all did. And then I was kind of, you
know, jabbing a little bit saying, OK, y'all are brothers,
I've got a brother. We're all a little competitive
in nature. Who's actually going to cross
the finish line first. So who?
Who is the winner there? Good question.
So we got to the the finish line together, but I would say that
if there was a Sprint finish at the end, I think my brother Dave
actually would have would have won the Sprint finish.
I, I had only one gear on challenge day and we can, and
this is not me making a brotherly excuse.
So maybe it is, you know, either or it doesn't matter.
But but my, my experience on challenge day, whilst it was
still great and I loved it was a bit different from my training
swim and it was interesting. I did a bunch of blood tests,
you know, a couple of weeks before, the day of the day after
and a couple of weeks afterwards.
I also wore a continuous glucose monitor and did a bunch of
ketone testing. And so I got some really
interesting insights into kind of what was happening during the
swim and around the swim. But I think some of that
actually explained I only had one gear on challenge day.
And so I unlike my practice swim, yeah, I wasn't able to
ramp through the gears and so I had to grind out a little bit
more. But there's an interesting back
story, which I think is that maybe equally important for
listeners, for everybody else to realize, yeah, just how
important other factors are aside from, you know, fuel and
exercise in terms of metabolic health.
Yeah, yeah, we'll talk talk about that.
What was the, I totally understand the the one year
approach like on challenges, like the more variables you can
control for the variables. So if you're able to, the
better. So if you're able to just, you
know, dial in for one speed that you know your body performs well
at 4 distance, I feel like that would make the most sense for
sure. Yeah, so it's actually it was
more that my body put a kind of almost put a rate limiter on me.
So, you know, normally, certainly with the longer
practice swims I'd have gone through, especially when I was
in a, in that kind of, you know, homeostasis, I could go up
through the gears 2nd, 3rd, 4th, you know, as I needed and I
could kind of finish stronger. But on challenge day it was
almost like I was, my body was rate limiting me, which I
actually think it was. So the interesting insight
around the swim was, and this was confirmed by my bloods as
well as my CGM data was obviously I live in Houston, it
was in Scotland. So I, I flew about 6 days before
and I flew overnight and so obviously got no sleep when I
flew overnight. And then the five days I was in
the Uki just had just absolutely awful sleep.
A mixture of just being in a different bed every night.
It was actually pretty warm actually the 3-4 days leading up
to the swim and the places we were staying, you know, didn't
have air conditioning and, and, and things like that.
So I just had five nights of horrible sleep and whilst I
wasn't tracking anything at the time because I prefer to just do
challenges and Tafinzi body, when I looked retrospectively,
you know, my average sleep score on my Garmin was I think like 45
or something pretty horrific like that.
But when you look at my bloods, my fasting insulin 6 days ahead
of the swim when I was in the US was down at 2:00 and that
increased to 6.5 the morning of the swim and up to 8.6 the day
after the swim. That was also backed by my
average glucose levels from my CGM, which were around 90 prior
to the swim. The day before the swim, you
know, they got up to 103. The day after the swim they were
at 109. And I didn't change anything in
terms of my diet, what I was eating.
I wasn't, you know, particularly stressed around the challenge
per SE, although of course, when you're building up to an event,
that is going to be some element of stress.
But for me, what was striking, what surprised me was just how
quickly my body kind of basically mobilize that and
almost put this, I think, you know, self defence in that it
wasn't truly in a happy place as I was starting the swim.
And it was amazing to me that, you know, 4-5 nights of terrible
sleep can have such an impact on your metabolism, even if you're
very low carb. Again, I was eating less than 30
grams of, you know, of carbs a day consistently throughout the
training and up and up to the swim.
So, and I think that was the reason why on challenge day, I
just, I didn't have any gear above that.
Because I think if your body's not in that, if it's starting to
shift, you know, more to the the chronic stress and the adaptive
stress, I think it does then you know, just it does rate limit
you as a self-defense mechanism. So that for me was a really
fascinating insight around the swim that just I knew how
important sleep was. That was another example of just
how quickly your metabolism can change through just poor sleep.
Yeah, sleep is crucial, man, and we all, we all know that.
But like we all take it for granted.
I mean, we never really prioritize our sleep.
I mean, I look at all the competitions that I've done and
I've never had a competitive season where I actually got good
quality sleep. So the next time I'm just
doubling down on that as my primary focused variable
optimize sleep because I can tell night and day difference,
man. I mean, and look at your, your
hormones. I mean, look at testosterone.
I've gotten blood tests done before a, you know, a 5 day span
of high stress and little sleep. And it literally cuts my
testosterone in half. And if you compound that over
the course of a training cycle, whether it's, you know, one
month or six months, like that has a devastating effect on the
overall outcome. Yeah, I, I totally agree.
And as you say, we do know that what was surprising for me is
just just how quickly it can turn and you can actually see
the impact even for me. So the fasting insulin was super
interesting, but seeing that replicated in my continuous
glucose monitor for me just also made me realise just how
important continuous glucose monitors are.
Because yes, your response to food and these things are
interesting. But actually just tracking your
baseline glucose levels, especially if you're low carb, I
think is interesting because it points to then the other things
that are impacting your metabolism with which stress and
sleep are very, very significant ones.
Totally. So let's let's do a deep dive on
all the blood markers. So starting with the baseline.
So when you were first starting, you know, the preparation for
it, you were trying to get your testosterone dialed back in.
So when you got baseline tests of, you know, glucose hormone,
Panem, you're tracking your ketones, you had the CGMN.
What were those average numbers looking like prior to the more
intensive training throughout and then actually on the day of
the swim itself? Yeah.
So good question. So I only have I would say well
actually I think the hormones is probably I would say that the
most, most of the rest of the stuff I would say stayed
relatively confident changes too much at least in terms of the
build up. So my testosterone back in March
was down at 100 nanograms per deciliter.
And so I managed to get that up from 100 at least to 241 and
then 328 on September the 12th, which was in a pretty, you know,
obviously much better. It's still not as high as I
would like it to be, but the balance of the training for an
endurance thing was never going to be helping my testosterone go
super high. So what was interesting because
I was really cautious around testosterone and one of the
reasons for doing the bloods was to see how much impact it might
have on testosterone. So what was interesting, so the
morning of the swim, my testosterone per the blood test
was at 384. And then the morning after the
swim, so just 24 hours later, it was down at 2:47.
So that's, you know, that's about 140 points drop, which was
pretty significant. Yeah.
What I found really interesting though, was eight days later,
September 28th, when I did my post swim that actually my
testosterone then went up to 528, which was, which is the
highest, you know, reading I've had throughout the whole of this
year. And I think for me that's a
couple of things. Obviously post swim, I wasn't
doing a huge amount, you know, of exercise per SE, but I was
still keeping everything else, you know, constant.
But I was still, I would say more walking.
I think I did a couple of swims, you know, afterwards in between
that period, but obviously nothing significant.
But to your point, I think it showed obviously that stress did
have some impact, but the body actually rebounded.
And for me that the fact that I'm getting my bloods done later
this week. So I'm interested to see what
I'm like. Yeah, a couple of months post.
But that was really heart warming for me actually to yes,
it did dip somewhat significantly, but it rebounded
very quickly. Yeah, I would imagine as soon as
that swim was over and I mean you that that initial drop is
just the acute, you know, drop due to the actual activity
itself. But I feel like after that eight
day span, psychologically, you just dumped all that stress
knowing that it was over and your your whole body was able to
kind of re stabilize. Yeah, totally, totally.
Oh. Yeah, go ahead.
What? What about the when, when it
came to bringing it up from the 100 to that, you know, 24340
range? What were you doing to improve
testosterone while you were training like that 'cause I know
a lot of people are trying to optimize around hormones
obviously and they're not doing preparation for some like that.
So what were some of the things that you were implementing to to
raise it that much naturally? Yeah, so it's the majority of it
were I would say hopefully what was food based.
So I did lean into a much I would say, you know, higher
protein mostly, you know, whole food, meat, fish and so forth
kind of based. I, I would, I would cycle in I
don't know whether this helped or not.
I would cycle in carbs maybe up to kind of 75 grams every 10
days or two weeks just to help take, you know, the edge off and
not have too much stress on the hormones.
I don't know how much, you know, significance that had or not.
I did do that. And some of the other things
that I did was I work with a traditional Chinese medicine
specialist taking, you know, a bunch of different, I would say
more herbal supplements from Ashwagandha to Tribulus to a few
of the different kind of herbal supplements to help manage the
adrenals and help, you know, kind of balance and bring things
more into, yeah, more into shape.
The other thing was doubling down really, or heavily
investing in strength training. So I do think the strength
training did play a significant, you know, part as well.
And so I think it was really a combination of those three
things and carefully listening to my body back to the fasting
side of things to and generally I would, I would swim or work
out as long as I could until I generally I would wait for like
333 significant hunger pangs. So I would let the first one go.
The second one I would notice. But once I got the third kind of
signal of my body was, you know, just wanting something in there.
Then I would add a keto brick or have some macadamia nuts or
something, you know, kind of a high healthy fat fuel mixture of
those three. Yeah, really helped me get my
testosterone, you know, back into at least reasonable levels.
I would love it to be much higher and hopefully now I've
been not spending, you know, hours and hours in the pool.
I've been doing a lot more I would say gym kind of VVO 2 Max
CrossFit type stuff. Then hopefully my results I get
later this week, I should be back in hopefully a pretty good
range. I'm certainly feeling that way.
My sleep a significantly improved I think the last month,
six weeks as well, which is a huge part of getting your
testosterone back into into balance, yeah.
You have to let me know what the the next lab panel shows for
sure. A lot of people pair Tongat Ali
and Fedosia together when it comes to like the herbal
remedies. Did you use that at all?
Yes, I did use Tonka Alley as well.
I was trying to remember the name of the of the other herbal
supplements that that I, that I would use.
Yeah, Tonka Alley was, was one that that I, that I used as
well. Yes.
Do you happen to remember what milligram dose you were taking a
day? I, I can, I can actually let me,
I'll just go and grab the I think I've still got the bottle.
So yeah, let's give me one second.
I'll just double check. Yeah, I'm curious because I've,
I've gotten the tongue GAT and I've not, I've not paired it
with the Fidoji and a lot of people stack those two together.
I personally haven't noticed a massive increase in my own
markers with the tone gap but I don't know.
I mean I don't think. I think stress and sleep is my
my biggest hurdle to overcome but I'm curious.
What those do, so I would take generally 2 to 3 tablets a day
and on each tablet 200 milligrams, that'd be 300
milligrams of Tonka Alley root extract.
Gotcha. OK, OK, cool, cool, cool.
Do you have any idea what your caloric intake was?
I know you were kind of just going based off of your hunger
signalling, but if you had to, you know, spitball it, any idea
how many calories you were consuming on average throughout
that span? Yeah, good question.
I would say. So I did, I did track some of
this. I would say on on average I was
probably on certainly on a non significant training day because
I wouldn't mind colouring intake if I did have a significant
training day. It just back to not wanting the
body to be largely in a neutral or calorie surplus or close to
just to yeah, for me, I was always playing it safe from a
testosterone level. So I would probably be having
somewhere between, I would say yeah, 3, three and a half, 1000
calories a day. But that would go up to, I would
say, you know, maybe 5-5 and a half thousand if I especially
the weekend if I had a long swim.
Nice, nice. And when you were actually doing
your swim, having done it all fasted, did you feel at any
point throughout that swim that you were depleted or deprived or
things just not, were not, you know, going as as swimmingly as
you had hoped? Nice pun.
So no, I never felt, I never felt depleted or deprived or
anything of that perspective. I think for me, the biggest
challenge on swim day was just the that kind of self rate
limiting of only having that one gear.
And so it ended up being a little bit more of a of a grind
than I hoped it would be. But at the same time, I have to
remind myself, you know, especially given the Scottish
weather, I was braced for having torrential rain and Gale force
winds. And it's for having to be, you
know, 12 hour battle against the elements.
And so that was the mindset that I went in and we actually ended
up having really amazing weather.
An area of high pressure came over Scotland.
So we had this beautiful clear day of, you know, this orange
sunrise and almost a glass flat lake certainly to start and
finish. But I did definitely, it was
more of a grind than I thought it would be.
I think that's just back to the lack of sleep and, you know, and
the stress and so forth. Honestly, outside of that, yeah,
your body just gets in in that state.
It was happy. And you just, yeah, you just
keep going and you keep, you keep plowing on.
Totally. And, and were you, were you
training in a wet suit a good deal that time as well, or it
was the wet suit the first time on on swim day?
So most of my training I did just in the pool without a wet
suit. Yeah, it was.
It would have been just too warm without.
But I've done enough open water swimming before and I would take
the opportunity where where I could when we were on holiday in
Wisconsin, for example, or I had a couple of business trips to LA
and I tried to find some lakes. So I actually ended up being
pulled out of one by the police launch because they said that I
wasn't allowed to swim in the lake.
So that was fun. So, so I didn't do as much open
water swimming I would say as I would like to.
But that was the other reason for travelling a week before.
So I flew on overnight on the Friday till the Saturday and
then the Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
I met my brother actually in Loch Lomond.
So we did a couple of days of just practice swims to get used
to the temperature, to check all of our gear, which was actually
really important thing to do. I mean, you should always do
this ahead of any ultra endurance challenge because one
of the other things that my brother was struggling with was
actually the the temperature in the cold.
And I think that was a big, he thinks that that was also a big
part of his swim build up. And I think this was down to
some of the gear that he was using.
His headgear wasn't a particularly good quality 1.
And so when we were doing swapping and testing and so
forth, and he was using testing my gear, he was feeling much
better. So he had, he ended up actually
wearing 2 double wet suits, 2 wet suits because he tried that
beforehand. It didn't seem to be too
restrictive on him, but it gave him a much better protection
against the cold. And so doing that testing a few
days ahead of time, yeah, really helped dial in, especially for
Dave because because his training hadn't gone too well to
plan. And I'll never forget on the
Saturday we went for a swim. And even after an hour of
swimming, I could see, you know, his jaw, he was visibly cold.
And then we did a second hour after the second hour, he was,
he was really, really cold. So even a few days before, he
was really just struggling to figure out how he was going to
just at least, you know, be OK because cold is the main thing
in these types of swims that will usually kind of stop you
from completing it. So that kind of testing of gear
and making sure that we had the right gear and we could deal
with the elements was a really important part of successfully
completing the challenge as well.
And as far as the gear goes, y'all just had like the school
camp and like a wetsuit, right? Like y'all weren't using
flippers or anything like that. So we weren't using flippers,
but we did have boots. So you can get wet suit boots.
And we also had these wet suit gloves or mitts, which actually
is there's, there's a funny Side Story around that.
So, so these wet suit mitts, my brother found, they were really
cool, totally waterproof actually.
And so we were the first hour was just amazing because we
started in the dark and then sunrise came over the mountains
had this beautiful orange sunrise.
The lake was glass fat. It was just the first hour was
just kind of serene. We were both obviously just
looking forward to the challenge and enjoying the nature and the
conditions and just swimming alongside each other.
And then as I get into the second hour, I start to get some
water seeping into my midst, which I was trying to figure
out. I was like, well, where's the
water coming from? Because generally the, you know,
we were wearing pretty good wet suits that largely don't let any
water in anyway. So I carried on for the second
hour and then the third hour even more water was coming into
my mitts. And so I eventually figured out
that this water was, you know, obviously I was taking on water
and electrolytes was, you know, me obviously peeing in my wet
suit and the water couldn't couldn't find its way out.
So it's finding its way into my mitts.
But then I was like swimming with a, you know, with a mini
with a, you know, a dumbbell in each hand because the water
would stay in the mitts. And so honestly, after the,
during that third hour, I was trying to figure out, but can I
sustain this for another 9 hours because there's a significant
difference in just that additional added weights.
So eventually after the third hour, I decided to take the
mitts off and I had to put on some much thinner gloves.
And then the 4th hour, my arms were, it was like they kind of
had some freedom. So I was back to enjoying
enjoying my swimming again. So because otherwise I was, I
remember the end of that third hour, I was trying to debate,
you know, the risk of my hands getting cold and everything else
getting cold versus swimming with these two dumbbells for,
for another 9 hours. Yeah, that does not sound
appealing at all. So you'll have a, a support boat
alongside you the whole time. How did that work?
Did you all like take, you know, timed, you know, stops to to
drink electrolytes or how did that, how was that structured?
Yeah, we did. So the support boat was with us
at all times and we agreed to stop every hour for for a few
minutes. So we had that 3 to 5 minutes.
The stops ended up being every hour for me to take on water and
electrolytes. Dave was taking on obviously
some of the fuel as well as part of that.
And we did think that we might drop that down to, you know,
half an hour as we got towards the end.
But we were both feeling pretty good.
So we just kept on that stop for the same for the whole yeah,
kind of 12 hours. So we just stopped every hour
for a few minutes and then we cracked on and to the safety and
we would get given guidance in terms of, you know, where we
were heading towards. So a landmark of, you know, AV
shape in the valley or one of the peaks of one of the
mountains. And then we would set off for
the next hour and the boat would let us know if we were veering
off course. But we actually did a pretty
good job of spotting. So I don't think we ever needed
to be corrected in terms of going off course.
So, yeah, that's how things worked with with the safety
boat. It was also really nice my older
brother was then on the safety boats as well.
So it was nice to have, you know, the three of us in in the
challenge together. Maybe next time we'll see if my
older brother Cole is is up for doing the swim.
That's awesome, man. That's awesome.
And yeah, what, what did you say your CGM data looked like
throughout the entire film? Is it pretty well flat lined the
whole time? Yeah.
So this is one of the other fascinating things that came out
of the swim. So what I was expecting was my I
always, I always get a spine. I think everybody always gets a
spike as you mobilize and start the swim or start exercise.
I think simply because the body always looks to utilize glucose
first almost as a think a check of the fuel tank with glucose
because it would prefer to use glucose because you know, it's
toxic above a certain level in your blood and in your cells.
And so hence why I think it really tightly regulates that.
So I did get, you know, like a 30 point spike in my glucose
just within the first half an hour, which is normal.
Then I was expecting it just to kind of, you know, drop for the,
for the rest of it down to a flat line gluconeogenesis and
then just stay flat. So that trend did happen.
But what was fascinating was every hour when I stopped to
take on water electrolytes, then my CGM would dip and then it
would come back up. And so the first six hours it
was dropping from an A starting average of around 100, which is
high for me because of the lack of sleep.
So it started at 100 and it dropped down to the region of
55. And what was fascinating, for
the second six hours, it would pretty much religiously lock in
at 55 milligrams per deciliter as I was swimming.
But then when I stopped, it would drop down to 40, sometimes
less than 40, because the Dexcom G7 won't actually give you a
reading if it's less than 40. And then it would literally go
back and then it would lock in at 55 again for the next hour
and then it would drop down to 40 again and then it would go up
to 55. And it did that almost
metronomically for the second six hours, which I found
fascinating. Firstly, I wasn't expecting my
glucose levels to go that low. And you know, I would say many
people would argue and say that that is dangerously low for me.
I don't believe it was or is dangerously low.
I felt absolutely fine, you know, throughout completed the
swim and at the end of the swim still felt like I could, you
know, go and, you know, run 1/2 marathon or something.
My, my arms and shoulders were pretty tired, but I still felt
like I had, you know, bundles and I did for the rest of that
evening and the following morning, bundles of energy.
And so, you know, and there's a couple of interesting, you know,
theories in terms of why that happens.
I'm still trying to, I'd love your perspective as well.
I think one of them is just the main organs just need less
glucose at rest and, and I think because our bodies are so
sensitive to glucose levels, then the body down regulated.
That's one hypothesis. The second one is obviously
lactate by product of your muscles working pretty hard is
then kind of shuttled through the liver and then that lactate
is used to as part of gluconeogenesis to generate
glucose. So obviously at rest, there's
less lactate being produced, therefore there's less glucose
being produced. And I would just say that, you
know, either way, I would like to think that if my organs
needed more glucose, my body would have just up regulated and
produced produced more glucose. But the fact of completing the
swim being absolutely fine for me just demonstrates that, you
know, even at that those perceived or you know, some
would say very low levels. I don't think it's certainly for
me. I don't think it was an issue at
all. Yeah, if you're a fat adapted
man and you're feeling fine, you've got enough circulating
ketones that cross the blood brain barrier and you know,
answer the needs. From a performance standpoint,
that doesn't sound alarming to me.
I've, I've seen mine as low as I think 36 to 37 when I was doing
an extended fast, but I felt great the whole time as well.
I'll see a spike when I do a training session because it's,
you know, pretty acute stressor and it's mobilizing all that
stored muscle glycogen in the muscles and the liver.
But like if you're doing an extended ultra event like like
you are in this instance, it makes total sense to me that you
would just have relatively low blood sugar the entirety of that
time life if you were to Sprint all out at any one point that
you'd probably see a spike then. But if you're just continue
maintaining a good constant speed, yeah, I think it makes
total sense that you would see those lower numbers on average.
Yeah, so that's an interesting. So it actually would have been a
fun test. So maybe I should have done this
towards the end just to go flat out and Sprint towards the end.
I don't think that my maybe I would have had a small bump.
I don't think I would have had a significant bump even towards
the end because I just feel that because I'm so I was so fat
adapted by then. I think the body just it just
would suck in more ketones and it would use more ketones.
But that would be an interesting test to do actually.
I certainly agree with you and certainly at the start.
So I do see the the glucose spike at the start and actually
interesting for you. So even when, if you're, if you
are fasted and let's say down at 40 or 50 and you then go and do
an intense workout, would you then see still see a significant
glucose spike as part of that workout?
I see, I see a bump for sure but it's never high like like when
I'm in a non fasted state and I have a CGM I'll typically see my
my blood sugar rise to like 1:30 or 1:40 typically is as high as
I'll ever see it. And that lasts until about 30
minutes post workout. And then after that point, it's
kind of stabilized back down around 70, 70 or 80 is kind of
where the window that I typically stay in, but I'll see
it go super low when I'm doing those extended fast.
But my ketones, I think when I tested that one time, my ketones
were 7 something millimolar and the glucose was 3637.
But again, I felt fine. So if you're if you're really
deeply fat adapted and you don't feel any signs or symptoms of
hypoglycemia and you have high concentrated blood ketones that
are kind of answering those body demands, then yeah, I don't
think that's anything any, any reason for concern at all.
Yeah, I totally agree. So I, I did, I did some ketone
testing as well, a mixture of I did a keto mojo just blood strip
testing before and after the swim because trying to do that
during the swim was kind of non impossible.
And I used, but I used a keto air the device.
So it's a new device that's been at about I think 6-9 months now.
So that detects level of acetone in in the breath.
So you get kind of APPM score. And so as you would expect, my
kind of keto levels were actually pretty very low at the
start pre SEM. So like 4:00 in the morning they
were at .5 and then post swim. So I about 15 minutes after we
finished, I still hadn't eaten anything.
I took my ketone levels, so they were up at 5.2.
So not quite to your 7, but still, you know, pretty
significantly high. And then the keto air readings
just progressively increased, increased as you would expect.
So from six PPM up to 33 PPM kind of six hours in.
And then they just kind of stayed, yeah, in the early 30s
for the following 5-6 hours as yeah.
And then and that tracked with my glucose obviously dropping
for those first six hours. And so, yeah, very what you
would expect. But the to me, the dips in
glucose were the most fascinating, I would say insight
into just what was happening and the body just very carefully
just yeah, down regulates or self regulates because that
glucose level is just is so critical for our bodies to to
keep in check. Totally.
What was your brother testing any of these as well?
Or was he not worried about so much the the biomarkers as he
was swimming? Yeah, no, so he wasn't.
So I, I was doing all, all the testing and very kindly.
So Sifox very kindly provided me the blood test kits levels
provided the, the CGM, Ketoair provided the the keto device and
Keto Mojo for doing the blood tests and so forth.
I also did some microbiome results from Genova diagnostics,
but I still haven't had the results back from those.
So I'm interested to see if there was, Yeah, if there was
any kind of changes or, or shifts there as well.
So I'll let you know if anything interesting comes back.
But it was, no, it was just me, me doing all this testing, my
Dave. Yeah, I think for him it was
back to, you know, his his true mission was to complete the
swim. Mine was to get as much
metabolic insight into doing the crazy 0 or some might say crazy
0 calorie but and maybe just a touch on one thing actually.
So there was A and my favorite parts of this one, I think were
just giving my brother a big hug before we started and just that
little pep talk to each other to kind of get through.
And obviously the first thing we did when we finished at the end
was give each other a hugger to complete so that, you know,
those were for say my 2 highlights.
But outside of that, when I stopped my Garmin watch, which
thankfully I think it was on like 1% battery when I got to
the end, but just but just seeing at the end as I stopped
it and had a look at my summary stats that, yeah, I'd burnt with
9632 calories, I think in the just in the swim.
And I'd just taken on water electrolytes.
And although I knew that that would likely be the case, there
was just something really cool about that moment of looking and
realizing that I'd done it. And actually, that is pretty
insane that our bodies can just do that.
And then at the end, looked, I still felt great.
I still had a ton of energy. I didn't feel hungry.
I felt like I could have, you know, carried on.
Don't get me wrong, I was thankful to be finished swimming
because the arms and shoulders were pretty tired.
But I definitely could have got out.
Yeah, I would say. And gone gone run 1/2 marathon
or something I felt. No, I love them.
I, I, I feel like for me podcasting with so many
different types of athletes, like, I love hearing the success
stories of people that are taking this low carb ketogenic
approach into the field of multiple different realms.
You know, like the ultra endurance runners, the ultra
endurance swimmers, the bodybuilders, the cross fitters,
the power lifters and strong men.
There's like literally no sport that this would not be
applicable in. So it's just awesome to hear
your story from a swimming standpoint because I haven't
talked to many swimmers, but obviously you know, you, you
were what, what was the total time from start to finish now on
this on the race day, on the swim day?
So first time we did it in just under 12 hours.
So 11 hours, 55 minutes I think was the official time.
And the official distance was 22 miles.
The official yeah, just over 22 miles.
I think it was like 22.2 per the boat's GPS.
So if you can swim 22.2 miles just under 12 hours completely
fasted in a fat adapted ketogenic state, then I I would
say it's a pretty good nod to the efficacy of the ketogenic
bat for performance athletics. So I, I wholeheartedly agree.
And I think for me back to the, the point in the principle of it
was there's one that, but secondly, because people look at
it and think, well, yeah, how could you possibly do that?
Surely that's not, you know, it's not a good healthy thing to
do per SE. And that was the other good
thing about doing all the blood in the biomarkers is actually it
showed that didn't have too much of A significant detriment,
certainly not, not anything outside of what you would expect
from that leg. Of course, my, you know, my CRP
significantly increased as you would doing, you know, any
exercise at moderate levels, you know, for 12 hours, but outside
of that. And therefore, how does that
translate into everyday life? And do you need all of this
sugar, carbohydrates to fuel, you know, your day, irrespective
of athletic endeavour? And I just really hope the
translation to that, and I know most of your podcast listeners
think are probably already low carb.
So I agree from the performance side, but I hope outside of
that. And I have had this feedback
from a number of people that have said, you know what?
Yeah, what you did. I didn't realize the kind of the
magnitude of it until you finished it and saw the stats.
And you're making me think now about how to fuel my own body
because I'm reading and agreeing with everything you say that
we're over reliant on sugar and carbohydrates and we need to
balance our, you know, our mitochondria and give them, you
know, you know, worst case at least a mixture of fuels.
I do tend to agree with you that I do think that from an
evolutionary perspective, we've evolved to be as fat as our main
and primary fuel source. So I do think that should be the
primary fuel source and if people find some benefit in
adding small amounts of tactical carbs for whatever reason, and
if that works for them, great. But like you, I think my purpose
was to show it's absolutely not needed and not required.
And if you start from a true, you know, close to 0 carb base,
then you can play and start to add around and see if it
benefits you or or not. But if you go the other way
around, to your point, you can be in this little bit of a limbo
where you don't truly fat adapts your body and your muscles.
Yeah, well, if nothing else, hopefully it certainly sheds
light on the realization that you don't need carbohydrates for
some of these, you know, pretty, pretty, you know, menial tasks
that people do. I mean, the the notion that you
have to have a car but before, you know, walk into the grocery
store doing the laundry or, you know, doing a 15 minute workout
or something, it just boggles my mind.
You see so many people, they hold into their energy bars,
their pre workouts, their carbohydrate gels and goose.
And it's like if if you can swim 22 miles fasted, you certainly
don't really have much of an argument for suggesting you have
to have an energy bar full of a whole bunch of carbohydrates and
sugar before you do a 45 minute workout.
Exactly. And that was really the the
point of the point of doing it. And I wholeheartedly to do
agree. And I do think over the next
5-10, fifteen, 20 years, I think there's going to be a
significant change in, in the landscape.
And people realize what you and I and most of your listeners
probably know right now, that a lot of the advice and the
guidelines over the last, you know, 40-50 years have been
probably one of the worst things that actually has happened to us
as the human race actually. Because it's just meant we're
living so out of tune with our evolutionary biology and it's
driving all of the chronic diseases.
And it was for me, the realization of that that set me
on, you know, on the new path and mission to leave the world
of tech and try and help a billion plus people to become
metabolic healthy. Because I saw the impact on, you
know, my own, my own health as well as my family suffering from
chronic diseases and some pretty amazing stories of, of people
reversing, you know, or starting to reverse.
Even things like stage 4 cancer, which is, you know, can there's
a quite a few examples out there of, you know, people going into
full remission from stage 4 cancer using ketogenic therapy.
And it's, it's just amazing the power when you work much more in
tune with your evolutionary biology.
But the last 30-40 fifty years and the westernization and the
consumer kind of push for one of these ultra processed foods has
actually just had a devastating impact on society.
Yeah, completely, completely agree.
Well, let me ask you this. So when I do a competition and
my season's over, there's like this bittersweet that
accompanies it. And it's like you when when you
do something profound, when you do something that you're truly,
deeply proud of yourself for accomplishing, you've got like
this, you're like beside yourself, like you just feel
this sense of fulfilment that is hard to replicate on a
day-to-day basis. Like it takes those monumental
challenges to bring that sense of satisfaction.
So how are you doing mentally and emotionally post swim like
this? Like you?
Are you itching for the next big challenge?
Do you feel like you need to take some time to to relax a
bit? Like what's your headspace?
Yeah, really good question. Honestly, it's, it's been such a
mixed bag. I definitely, to your point, I
think I'm always at my happiest when I've got something big that
I'm working towards that challenge, that something in the
diary like that, because everything else then aligns to
that. And I do believe, and I always
have that in terms of my personal mission work and so
forth. But I believe, I believe having
a physical one is also equally important because it helps
balance and actually makes you better even at your work and
your other things. So I wholeheartedly agree with
that. At the same time, you know, it
was honestly it was, it's been a really difficult year for many
different reasons, but trying to balance bringing my hormones
back in whilst doing the training.
Honestly, I would say I've enjoyed the training for this.
I enjoyed far less than any of the previous training that I've
done. I think just because up until
the last month, six weeks, I was battling against my biology and
I was really trying to walk that fine line between getting
everything back on track but training.
So I was, I was always in this really kind of difficult state
and mentally that was somewhat, I would say challenging to deal
with. But then really I would say the
month out, once I did the 30 kilometre, 80% of the distance
pool swim, my body really felt much more in balance.
And so then I really enjoyed, you know, that 3 or 4 weeks post
swim challenge, I promised myself and my family that I
would take some time and just get, get truly get myself back
into hormonal balance. So that has been my main
priority. But I have to say I've missed
some parts of the the training which would have forced me to, I
think, to do more training. At the same time, I also think
my body probably needs a little bit more rest.
But then mentally I've been maybe too hard on myself
because, you know, some days I thought, oh, I'll go for a swim
today. And then, you know, I get busy,
I got this and then I don't end up doing it.
And then I'm like, oh, you've been lazy today, you haven't
done anything. Why didn't you prioritize your
swim? And so, yeah, it's actually been
kind of tricky to, yeah, I would say unpick a lot of that.
But I'm and I did say that I would kind of wait till the end
of the year before deciding what the next challenge, you know,
would be. But I think back to your point,
I feel my best when I'm, yes, kind of set up for something
both physically and in terms of my mission.
So I'm, yeah, looking forward to reflecting a bit over the next
2-3 weeks because it has been a really just challenging year
from many different aspects, the totally pivoting and changing
career to other things that come around with that, to doing the
swim, to immersing myself in the world of, you know, kind of
metabolic health and health and Wellness.
So yeah, I'm looking forward to taking a step back reflecting,
but then yeah, seeing what's what are the crazy challenges I
could probably do next year. I love it man, Totally agree.
There's no balance to it. Like if you're doing impressive
things, you you have to kind of throw balance to the to the
wind, so to speak. But there is absolutely a yin
and Yang or yin and Yang, however want to pronounce it to
it all because you obviously can't.
Do you know that kind of all out intensity non-stop.
You have to give your body and your brain time to, you know, re
stabilize so that you can attack it the next thing with all that
rigor and zeal that you did for the first thing.
So there's definitely that yin and Yang to it for sure.
So I'm excited, man. I'm excited to see what the next
thing is. But I think I have no doubt that
post swim like these next several months are going to be
like very monumental in your psyche as far as like what
you're capable of. What what can you do?
How can you take this further? Like all those time, like I grow
so much after each show for that very reason.
And this is just going to be a season of growth for you for
sure. Yeah, no, thank you for my
friend. I wholeheartedly agree.
I think that's maybe another just a point to, to, to bring up
is so many people have said to me either hearing about the
swim, listening to the swim, or, you know, I, I could never do
something like that. And my reply is always, well,
ten years ago I was 260 lbs and I couldn't run more than 200
meters. I remember the first swim that I
went and I literally, I must have done maybe 50 meters.
I couldn't swim more than 50 meters.
So you know anyone is capable of doing absolutely anything that
they want to do. So firstly, know that the second
thing is do you have the right motivation and can you make the
time to make it happen? Because a lot of people also
say, well, I don't have time. And I totally disagree with that
because if you want to do it enough, you will find a way to
make the time. Yes, you're going to have to
make compromises because you are aren't going to be able to do
absolutely everything that you want to do.
But back to the motivation. If it's important to you, then
you will make the time. So I totally agree anybody is
capable of anything. We are capable of way more than
we thought we would. We, we can do and yeah, like
you, I continue the just enjoy pushing the boundaries of of
what we think our bodies can do because you get so much growth.
And that's the other important thing.
The growth really comes through the journey and through
navigating the days, weeks and months building up to it.
And when you do the challenge, even sometimes you may not
complete the challenge, you may have failures or you may not get
the time that you want. But all of that is just growth
and learning. If you reflect on it in in the
right way. And I think earlier on in my
career as well as athletically as well as, you know, my
corporate career, I think I was too focused on the end goal and
not focused enough on enjoying the journey.
I think the last four or five years I've really focused on
trying to enjoy the journey as much as can.
And you always need that North Star goal, I believe to help
keep you accountable. But that can change.
It can morph. But it is the, it's the day in,
day out of how you approach then breaking that kind of mammoth
task down that I think that's where you truly get the growth.
Amen to that man. Like it's all about the journey.
Like the I don't necessarily think it's true that you have to
love the journey because there's definitely moments where you
don't love it. Like there are moments when I
don't love the training. There are moments when I don't
love the meal prep just because there are moments when you don't
love the swim. But I think you have to respect
the journey. If you respect the journey, then
you know if you're doing yourself a service or disservice
by breaching from the required habits, routines necessary to
reach that goal. But if you respect your journey
and you chip away at it over time, you truly can do whatever
you set your mind to. So I 100% agree ma'am.
Likewise, wholeheartedly agree with that.
I think that's maybe another final thing is I used to be much
more religious in terms of whatever my training kind of
book set I had to do, I, you know, I had to do.
And I wouldn't deviate from that.
And I think the more experience I get, the more I realize that
your body doesn't turn up the same way on every single day.
It's your point. Some days your body just isn't
in that sweet spot. And if you have a really, let's
say, you know, hard session or a particularly, you know,
certainly for running, when I would do either track sessions
or really big kind of tempo runs, sometimes, you know, you
would start off to do that work out.
But knowing when to kind of back out of it because you're maybe
not feeling at your optimum versus when to lean into it.
I think is also a real art of how well do you know yourself?
Because half of your brain says, you know, you're just, you're
just being a chicken, you're chickening out, you're not
digging into it. But the other half of your brain
I think knows that when everything is clicking, if you
execute that work out, then the the growth that you will get in
terms of your body and Physiology through that will be
10 times than if you just do it when everything is is not
clicking. So I think there's a real art of
knowing yourself well enough to then maximize each of those
workouts. And sometimes if it means taking
a rest day or switching a hard, intense session into a lighter,
easy session. And then the following the day
back yourself, you know what, actually, maybe tomorrow I'll
feel better or a couple of days I'll come back and revisit that
session. I found that over the last 3-4
years a huge source of growth because, yeah, I think you just
have to realize your biology isn't just kind of set up every
single day to, you know, go, go, go.
As you said earlier, you know, stress plus rest equals growth
or, you know, something similar to that.
And you know, knowing the days when you really want to hit
hammer down and go for it, I think is is an important part of
growth as an athlete as well. Yeah, yeah.
And you can't really know that with any degree of certainty and
confidence until you have the experience.
And you can't gain the experience unless you put in the
Rep. So there's no short circuit to
the work. You have to put in the
repetitions. But once you do that and you
gain the perspective, you can constantly know, OK, what does
my body tell me today? How can I capitalize on that?
Yeah, 100%. I love it, Neil.
Well, you are 100% a savage by every definition of the word,
man. So I've got utmost respect for
you. I love what you're doing.
I love the message you're putting into the space, man.
And I'm just excited to see what's in the pipeline for you,
brother. Well, thank you very much.
Likewise. And that is back to our first
conversation. We touched a little bit on this
is yeah, I love, as you said, the people in different,
different fears, fears from, you know, ultra endurance, running,
swimming to bodybuilding on all showing that you you can
absolutely thrive and be at the top of your game with a, with a,
with a low carb ketogenic approach.
So I absolutely love and appreciate all of the work that
you and team do around your messaging, around your products
and so forth. I think they they're hugely
impactful. They were hugely helpfully
helpful to me on as part of my training and my journey as well.
So I appreciate all the amazing work that you and team are doing
in the space as well. Awesome, man.
Well, let's definitely keep the conversation going.
But I know we got another podcast coming up doing a deep
dive into Allulos as a sweetener.
I'm super excited about that one.
But yeah, man, you were on the cutting edge of a lot of really
interesting research and you're you're proving the naysayers
wrong. And I've got respect for people
that are told something is not possible and you are compelled
to go out and prove otherwise. Man, that's exactly what you've
done here. So tip my hat to you on that.
That's what keeps us alive, doesn't it?
100% man. Well where can people go to find
out more about you? And then go ahead and give the
link to the the the website too, in case anybody wants to get
involved. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So I have two websites.
The Swimming Challenge website is0-2-lomond.com so there you
can find out about the swim, all the details around that.
I also have my mission to help a billion plus people become
metabolically healthy. So that is one bmh.org, it's a
very simple explanation of what metabolic health is, why it's
important, and really links to tools and resources so people
can either start or continue their journey because I think
everybody needs many different tools and approaches to really
help optimize their metabolic health.
So they're the two main websites.
If you want to get in touch with me, LinkedIn is probably the
best place. So we just search for Neil Gate,
NEILGYTE on LinkedIn. I'm trying to do some more stuff
on Instagram as well, so that is guide Neil at Instagram.
So reach out to me through any of those websites or channels.
And I'm also going to try and work on pulling together a kind
of a short documentary around the swim as well to put onto
YouTube so that hopefully in the next couple of months I'll get
that, get that finished and done.
Yeah. Yeah, let me know when that's
live and I'll put it in the show notes as well.
And let me know what the the the latest blood work that you're
going to take here soon shows as well, because I'm curious to see
what those markers look like now post swim by this much time.
Yeah, absolutely. I will more than happily share
with you. I'm I'm interested to see to see
what they're looking like as well.
So. Awesome, Neil.
We'll keep changing lives, man. Keep in touch and.
Keep rocking it brother. Thank you my friend.
Likewise. See you, Neil.
Take care, ma'am. Thank you.
Bye.