How To Listen To Your Body Instead Of Diet Rules

0:00 an argument with somebody and walked away feeling like, how do they not know what an idiot they are? Yeah, all the time. Unfortunately, the last time I had it, it was with me. Let's find out more about So I was asked the other day what the difference is between vegan and vegetarianism. yeah? How'd that go?

0:40 It went really well. Surprisingly, I was able to spit it out and be like, no animal products at all for vegans. And vegetarianism is just like no meat. So like you can still have eggs and things like that. But then I got the follow up question of, well, can you use animal based products? Like, you know, leather shoes and things like that. And I was like, of course. And they're like, well, a true vegan probably wouldn't do that. Now, would they? And I was like, Now, a true vegan, if they were not eating animal products because of the ethical reasons of it, you're right. I'm doing it for a very selfish reason because my cholesterol goes through the roof if I'm not eating vegan, so I have to eat vegan.

1:24 Mm -hmm. protect myself. So very, very selfish. But I was able to answer all of these questions on what is a vegan, what and like the different types of vegans, right? The people who are self preserving and the people who are doing it for ethical reasons. And then I was able to also answer the vegetarianism one too, because I eat mostly vegan. However, I will eat fish and chicken and pork on occasion, but no red meat, no dairy, like no, no. no eggs or anything like that just because I have to like watch the cholesterol. But I was actually pretty impressed with the fact that I was able to answer the question of what that was.

2:04 is impressive and I can hear the carnivores in the audience going, but what about protein, bro? Where are you getting your protein? It's tricky, right? is really hard because like I work out pretty hard yeah. like I have to get it all from like pea protein and things like that because even like the whey protein, like even if I want to like, like, you know, like protein smoothies and things like that, that has like so much saturated fat and cholesterol in it that it impacts my numbers. So I have to get really creative with it. So and I have been reading a ton of articles on how like meat protein.

2:45 is higher quality than other types of protein out there. Now, I've also been reading a whole bunch of articles on how dairy is really good for you and how processed foods are really good for you and things like that. And then you take a look back at like human history and like there's a reason why 90 % of the population of Asia, is lactose intolerant because they've never eaten dairy in the history of their people. So like things like dairy are there were marketing campaigns to tell us that dairy is good for you. I was having a conversation with my girlfriend's son the other day.

3:27 He's like, no milk is good for you. Isn't it? There were so many marketing campaigns. I saw one the other day from the 80s of kids sitting at a kitchen table. complaining about drinking their milk and they didn't want to drink their milk and the mom like looked outside and she's like, well, your dad doesn't drink milk and dad was outside with a lawnmower and his arms fell off on the lawnmower. She's like, and then the kids were just like drinking, like you're just chugging the milk down. Like there's literally all of these marketing campaigns that are out there that convince people they do studies, they do research papers. It looks really accurate. It looks really real to tell you things like milk is good for you.

4:11 You get enough calcium. And if you're eating a good diet, you get enough calcium. You don't need milk for that. Like the human body doesn't actually react very well to dairy products. Like. Scientifically, we are adapting to it and we think it's okay. But like, again, most of Asia, lactose intolerant for a reason. They've never had it. Who lives the longest on this planet? Got us. No, seriously, who does? It's populations in Asia who don't eat dairy, who eat mostly plant diets and very minimal meat, no processed foods. So like, it is scary how...

4:53 And I don't know what the answer is. I don't know if meat protein is actually better than other sources of protein. However, I know that if I eat enough other sources of protein, I still feel good and I'm okay. So I don't... I can't tell you if that's a marketing campaign. I can't for, you know, like the meat industry, but holy shit, like there's, you can't even like peel back the curtain and figure out what the truth is on all this stuff. It is clearly a marketing campaign that we've been fed that, you know, this is good for you, this is good for you, that's bad for you, that's bad for you. This is better than this thing, that's better than this thing, but like, who knows the truth?

5:34 How do you figure out the truth? Well, I mean, to me, the answer is you try it and pay attention to what happens, right? But the thing on the dairy topic for just a minute, just side tangent, I cannot tell you how many times in my life I have either seen someone drinking a glass of milk or because I can't, I literally can't even think about drinking a glass of milk and gross me out. But I cannot avoid the thought of who was the first person to look at a cow and to see milk and go, hmm, looks good. It's like what other animal on the planet consumes the milk of another animal? It's only people. People are the only ones doing this.

6:16 And I cannot, like it must have been, like, why would you even milk the cow? Like I don't, I don't understand, you know, maybe this is common knowledge for other people and I'm just an idiot, but I cannot put myself in the shoes of the person that one day saw that milk was coming from a cow and went, I wonder what that tastes like. Well, let's take it a step further. Who was the super bored person who figured out you could take that same milk and churn it into butter? I mean, seriously, hours of churning, churning. get this nice and moldy. I bet it's delicious. How did that happen? I don't know. I probably don't want to know. It's probably disgusting, but. the rest of human history, an accident was all an accident.

7:01 Like penicillin was an accident. Literally. He had a, the dude had a whole bunch of Petri dishes and he went away on vacation for a week and came back and nothing had grown and figured out that like some penicillin flew in from the window and landed on it. Like we literally have antibiotics because somebody went on vacation and didn't cover their shit up. Yeah. But yeah, I think to try to clumsily and lazily answer your question, you eat it and see how you feel. I've been a vegetarian for most of my life, but I rely heavily on dairy for a lot of the protein that comes from cheese and things like that. And a lot of my calories come from that.

7:42 I coincidentally have gone the other way where I've started introducing fish back into my diet. Occasional other meats, like if I'm at a party and there's, you know, hors d 'oeuvres of some kind of meat, I'm going to eat them, right? Because they're out. It's going to get thrown away if somebody doesn't. So I've loosened my restrictions on what I'm eating. But part of that has also led to me being a little too loosey goosey with the calories. and kind of feeling like I don't know if this is I was actually listening back to one of our recent shows where I was like, hey, I'm just sort of eating when I feel like it now and eating what I feel like. And I just got curious about what does that like equate to? Right. I wasn't I wasn't doing the math.

8:23 I was just sort of living it. And it was too much. And so I've had to put put some, you know, guards in place and start tracking things again, because I do have goals. calories a day is too much? As it turns out, I mean, who knew, right? If only there was some study or some posts on social media about how much to eat, that would be really helpful, right? If somebody could get on that, that'd be, that'd be really beneficial for me. but it's, it is so interesting how when you do pay close attention to what you're eating and how you feel as a result, you can make better progress on whatever you're trying to do it, whether it's becoming vegetarian, becoming vegan, trying to cut calories. If you're not paying attention, you're just drifting and you're not going to get there.

9:05 in mine. vegan, right? Like anyone who's never tried to go vegan, I recommend you not do it unless you absolutely have to, because a vegan diet is easier now than it was when I did it 20 years ago. But there is meat products and fucking everything. It is so hard to live that lifestyle on a day to day basis for a long period of time. yeah, no, I find it, again, like I'm not doing it for ethical reasons. I'm doing it to manage cholesterol because my cholesterol was so high that the doctor was like, I need you on statins now. And I was like, nope. Let me see if I can dial this down myself.

9:48 And I am taking a whole, it's not just the vegan diet though. Like it's not just that. Like I am taking a whole bunch of supplements that help with it as well. However, it this just brings me like full circle back to all these conversations that you and I have around what if I'm wrong? What if this thing that I have believed since I was a child is wrong and I've been living my life, you know, assuming that this is right. You know, the I feel like I'm a little conspiracy theory here. However. I don't think I'm too far off in the field, but like, you know, I work with marketing people.

10:32 Like their brains are literally wired to get you to believe something that makes you consume their product. Period. Whether it's true or not. Right? I mean, the tobacco companies, they knew cigarettes cause cancer. years and years and years and years. And even to this day, there's still advertisements, right? They're limited in what they can do, but they're trying to get people to smoke. So it just brings me back to like whether you're vegan, carnivore, whatever, whatever you believe. It's this whole thing of like, how do you know what to believe?

11:14 Like we live in a day and age where like we have access to all the information, all of it. And exactly. And, you know, like you've seen that quote, you know, don't believe everything you see on the Internet, Abraham Lincoln. Right. How do you tear all that stuff apart? Like it's just, you know, in our children. daughter was like, well I saw it on the internet so it must be true. How do you pull this stuff apart? And some of it, some of it again this vegan meat protein, meat protein versus pea protein, versus all this stuff like I don't know.

11:58 And I'll freely admit like I don't know if meat protein is better than you know pea protein. I sure know I like a steak a whole lot better than I like pea protein. That's for sure. much tastier. But we just keep going back to this, like, what if I'm wrong? Like, it just takes like a moment of being open -minded enough to like look at both sides and accepting them both as valid and like doing proper research and like, you know, coming up with a conclusion, right? Like we are all so dead set on these beliefs that we have. Like, I mean, I've gotten into arguments with people that believe something that they believe since childhood, you know, that they just won't give up on like, you know.

12:40 spelling the Berenstain bears, because they saw it one way as a kid and now it's something else. Exactly, exactly. I literally had an argument with somebody who thought it was still okay to like hit your kid. Things like that because that's just... that was acceptable norms. the shit out of me and that's, I turned out fine. Yeah, as his head ticks and gets exactly. So. but here's the thing with this, right. And I think that there is such an emphasis culturally on picking a side. No one no one lobbies for the middle anymore. Here's here's an idea. What if you have meat protein and pea protein, right? Like maybe less of the meat if it's screwing up your cholesterol.

13:22 Like that's where it is individual. If you eat this and it fucks you up. stop eating it, right? Or eat less of it, eat it once in a while. Like, I just can't help think of again, like when I when I traveled to Europe, I was so curious about the lifestyle, like the, the longevity of people that live in the places that I was in, because everyone seemed healthy, happy, chill, relaxed, I didn't see anybody entering their calories in their Fitbit app, right? I saw them smoking outside, eating pasta, and then meandering lazily through the city like super chill and living to be over 80 years old. And I was like, they're not freaking out. You know what, you know why they're living long. They're not freaking out about every decision and which team to be on when it comes to what I should put in my face every day.

14:06 Like to me, I think the killer is the stress that we put on picking a side and then having to stick to that side. Because if you pick team carnivore, if anyone sees you eating a piece of lettuce, you're fucking dead. You pick vegetarian and you have a piece of chicken on a cracker. you're roasted, you're done, like you're out of the club. It's like, like, what if you just like, what if it's okay to just have a little bit of all of it and have balance, like, everything that when you see these arguments, it always results in maybe we can meet in the middle, because in the middle is the truth. It's okay to have a little bit of processed food, it's not going to kill you. Don't eat it all day, every day for everything. It's okay to have a couple glasses of wine unless you have a very serious alcoholism problem, don't have a couple glasses of wine.

14:50 But if you can just temper your shit and not go all in on one thing or another, I think you'll find that your stress comes down and all of a sudden you feel a lot better and you're not dealing with a lot of the problems that you're dealing with to begin with. Yep, absolutely. Just to, like, I would be just as happy driving a Ford as I would be a Chevy. And I know there's people out there that are gonna tell me I'm wrong, both ways. Chevy. Fuck those. No, I'm just kidding. I will tell you this though, if you start singing about your truck, I'm out. I'm not listening to that. That is a team I'm fervently against. I'm not going to listen to the song where you sing about your truck. and how it did me wrong. That's right.

15:33 That's it. I'm gonna come up with a song on how my truck did me wrong. It won't take me long. put a beat to that later. Seriously, the quick tangent by my kids were listening to some song the other day and it was like a hip hop song but the lyrics were fully country and I was I'm out. heard that it was a... No, I heard the reverse. It was an old hip -hop song that they took to country. I mean, I'm not a big country fan. Like, talk about living in the middle. Yeah, there is, on one side there's country and then on the other side there's everything else.

16:13 I'm fully on everything else. No country. The... offended the country fans. I hope we've offended the vegans, the vegetarians, the carnivores, the drinkers, the non drinkers, the smokers, the non smokers, Chevy and Ford people. Anybody else we pissed off here? That might be enough for today. yeah, it's probably, the people who beat their kids and not beat their kids. Yeah, we got that. the ex prisoners, the current prisoners. Yeah, I think I think we've checked the boxes. I think we did a good job here today. I mean, this is how to not grow your show. That's how to not make friends and influence all of your enemies. All right, well, that's enough for us. Thank you so much for listening. I hope that the conclusion you draw from this is that whatever the thing is that you're freaking out about and all in on, you're probably wrong a little bit.

17:00 And that's okay. That means there's room to grow. So get out there and grow a little bit. I hope this is, that's right. I hope this has resonated with you. If you know somebody who's struggling with any of these issues that we've talked about, we've kind of talked about a lot around nutrition. and other things as it turned out. But feel free to share this with anybody who might benefit from it that will help us accomplish our mission of helping as many people as possible that struggle with the same crap that you and I do. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next week at thefitmess .com with a brand new episode. See you around.