Episode #120 Featuring Angelo Keely! The Amino Acids CLINIC you have been waiting for!! The most detailed and intricate break down of essential amino acids to date!

Summary

The Dylan Gemelli Podcast – Episode #120 Featuring Angelo Keeley

The Amino Acids CLINIC You Have Been Waiting For!!
Date: May 7, 2026
Guests:

• Host: Dylan Gemelli
• Guest: Angelo Keeley, Co-founder and CEO of Kion

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Episode Overview

This episode delivers an in-depth, practical, and science-backed masterclass on essential amino acids. Host Dylan Gemelli welcomes Angelo Keeley, CEO of Kion, for an open discussion about the supplement industry, the science behind amino acids, and how to best support muscle health and longevity. Angelo shares his personal journey from a turbulent adolescence to wellness entrepreneurship, and together they break down misconceptions about proteins, BCAA vs. EAA, muscle maintenance during caloric restriction (including GLP-1 usage), and practical amino usage strategies.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Angelo Keeley’s Backstory & Approach to Wellness

[03:30 – 10:01]

• Raised in a family focused on natural health and protein combining; exposed to aminos and supplementation early on.
• Experienced severe adversity in his teens, including a traumatic assault, leading to hospitalization, PTSD, and a search for meaning and personal development.
• Founded Kion to create supplement products guided by science, quality, and transparency—"the kind of company my parents would have been proud of."
• Quote: "You can't know and understand success without failures." – Dylan [12:05]
• Stresses using personal setbacks as tools for growth: “My failures taught me way more than my successes have.” – Angelo [12:05]

2. The State of the Supplement Industry

[15:41 – 19:54]

• Industry is rife with shortcuts and “dirty” practices; few prioritize quality.
• Angelo’s approach: Don't focus on competitors—prioritize genuine customer care and make products for himself and his family.
• Quote: "The cream always rises to the top… If your shit stinks, it's gonna come up, and the cream's gonna rise." – Angelo (paraphrasing his mentor) [16:23]

3. Amino Acids Fundamentals: What, Why, and How

[21:42 – 27:55]

• Amino acids are the building blocks of protein; crucial for continuous rebuilding of the body's tissues.
• Unlike carbs/fats, protein is not mainly for energy—its role is structural (muscle, liver, enzymes, etc.).
• Protein must constantly be replaced—as much as 30% of liver proteins daily.
• Essential amino acids (EAAs) cannot be made by the body; they must be consumed.
• Quote: “Some amino acids can be reused… but some… you actually pee out.” – Angelo [25:12]

4. Essential vs. Non-Essential Amino Acids & Protein Quality

[27:55 – 34:25]

• Essential amino acids (EAAs): 9 required from diet; act as both building materials and chemical messengers for protein synthesis.
• Non-essential amino acids: 11 can be synthesized by the body.
• Plant proteins often incomplete but can be combined (e.g., lentils + quinoa) to cover all EAAs.
• Animal proteins are "complete": contain all EAAs in sufficient amounts.
• Insight: EAAs in large, acute doses directly stimulate muscle protein synthesis—even without exercise.

5. BCAA vs. EAA: The Big Debate

[41:12 – 44:39]

• BCAA (branched-chain amino acids: leucine, isoleucine, valine) are 3 of the 9 EAAs, but are insufficient alone for muscle protein synthesis.
• BCAAs alone are not anabolic; you need all 9 EAAs.
• Major marketing persists around BCAAs despite science showing they’re ineffective (and possibly counterproductive) alone.
• Quote: “BCAAs on their own are not effective and they're not worth taking, they're not worth money. But there's a very big marketing business machine behind them.” – Angelo [43:33]

6. EAAs & Muscle Maintenance During Caloric Restriction

[34:25 – 40:46]

• In weight loss—especially with calorie restriction or GLP-1 drugs—muscle loss is common (up to 40% of weight loss can be muscle).
• Restriction increases the body's tendency to burn protein for energy.
• EAAs can dramatically help preserve muscle, even more so than simply eating more protein.
• Quote: “30% caloric reduction required a 300% increase in EAAs just to maintain net protein balance.” – Angelo [35:36]

7. Best Timing & Ways to Take Amino Acids

[45:25 – 55:38]

• Post-workout: Both EAAs and protein shakes are effective; combining can provide greater anabolic stimulus.
• Before workout: EAAs may be even more beneficial due to increased blood flow and delivery to muscle.
• AM use: EAAs are an efficient, low-calorie way to trigger protein synthesis at the start of the day—especially if skipping breakfast.
• Before bed: Useful, especially if last meal was hours earlier; helps sustain overnight muscle repair.
• Quote: “Taking essential amino acids before you work out means they get into the blood and then you have all this increased blood flow… there's a significantly synergistic effect.” – Angelo [53:58]

8. Dose, Safety, and Effectiveness

[56:02 – 58:45]

• Safe upper limit: ~20 scoops/servings per day; typical users take 1-3 servings, with higher doses for those cutting calories or older adults (to overcome anabolic resistance).
• More than 3 servings at once provides diminishing returns.
• Regular AM dosing improves mood, energy, and long-term body composition.
• Quote: “You start taking one serving a day every single morning… you’re immediately going to experience improvements in mood, mental fatigue…” – Angelo [58:58]

9. Amino Capsules vs. Powder

[59:43 – 60:14]

• No difference in efficacy—choose based on personal preference (taste/ritual vs convenience).

10. Kion’s Philosophy & Final Thoughts

[60:26 – 63:22]

• Transparency, science, and customer trust are top priorities at Kion.
• Kion’s website offers comprehensive educational resources; real customer service is available for direct questions.
• Angelo prefers helping others via education rather than self-promotion.
• Quote: “There’s no Angelo hype machine.” – Angelo [63:22]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On adversity:
  "My failures taught me way more than my successes." – Angelo [12:05]
• On supplement industry integrity:
  "If your shit stinks, it's gonna come up, and the cream's gonna rise." – Angelo [16:23]
• On BCAAs:
  "BCAAs on their own are not effective and they're not worth taking, they're not worth money." – Angelo [43:33]
• On GLP-1/weight loss and muscle:
  "If you don't focus on eating more protein and probably just more realistically taking a supplement like an EAA, you will lose a lot more muscle than you want to lose." – Angelo [35:36]
• On EAA dosing:
  "More than three servings at once is not worth it… After that, your body simply doesn't increase the amount of total protein synthesis." – Angelo [58:45]
• On personal philosophy:
  "I don't have to worry about [competitors]. I can just do my thing and do it well." – Angelo [19:54]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 03:30 – Angelo’s personal backstory and philosophy
• 12:05 – Success, adversity, and learning from failure
• 15:41 – The supplement business—integrity vs marketing
• 21:42 – Amino acids explained simply
• 27:55 – Essential vs. non-essential amino acids; complete proteins
• 34:25 – Muscle maintenance during weight loss/GLP-1
• 41:12 – BCAAs vs EAAs: science and debunking myths
• 45:25 – Timing strategies (post-workout, pre-workout, daily use)
• 55:19 – Bedtime dosing, safety, and practical dosing limits
• 59:43 – Capsules vs powder: efficacy differences?
• 60:26 – Kion philosophy, educational resources, and wrap-up

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Where to Learn More

• Kion website: In-depth articles, science, and support for all things amino acids and supplements.
  getkeon.com/dylan (special link for 20% off)
• Science resource: International Society of Sports Nutrition’s position paper on essential amino acids.
• Customer support: Real, knowledgeable staff available at Kion for product and science inquiries.
• Find Angelo Keeley: Prefers to educate through guest platforms and building great products, no personal hype machine.

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Closing Thoughts

Dylan and Angelo provide listeners with a rare blend of real-life inspiration, myth-busting, and practical, science-driven advice. Whether new to supplements or a lifelong fitness enthusiast, this is an essential episode for anyone interested in muscle health, longevity, and navigating the supplement world with confidence.

Transcript

[A]

Today's episode is sponsored by Kion. Kion helps health and fitness enthusiasts live long, fun, active lives by providing supplements and foods that maximize performance and longevity. By combining the cleanest natural ingredients into complementing formulas, Kion helps you unlock your body's natural energy. Kion selects high quality non GMO ingredients, never uses fillers nor junk additives. They then verify the identity, potency and purity of each ingredient and use natural flavors and sweeteners. All Kion supplements are made in a CGMP facility that is NSF certified. Meticulous attention to detail is applied at every step of the process from from measurements to bottling, packaging, and quality assurance. I use Kion not only for the quality, but the trust and dedication to be customer first. Visit getkeon.com Dylan getkeon K-I-O-N.com Dylan and save 20% off today. All right, everybody, welcome back to the Dylan Gemelli podcast. So me and my guests kind of got going there and we decided we better record because the content is too good to not have on the air. But I am, man, I'm, I'm stoked to talk to my guy today because there's so many things that I think we align on that we already discussed about and I think I'm in for a surprise on other things that we haven't gotten into yet. So you probably recognize his face, but if not just a little bit of background on him. He is the co founder and CEO of Keon, which happens to be one of my favorite companies and they are a supplement company focused on helping people look good, feel young, be strong. He's got quite a backstory as well that we're going to get into. A lot of overcoming adversities, a lot of things that he's been through, and it'll kind of lead into why he does what he does. But I am thrilled, honored, pleasured to introduce you to my guest, Angelo Keeley.

[B]

Dylan, thanks for having me, man. It's an honor to be here. It's great. What I was just, what I was just saying before we got on was I love how blessed do you feel like you, you know, like the way you're walking through life and feeling like, you know, through grace and just being blessed, man, it's like, it's a good vibe to be around. So thanks. I'm glad to spend, you know, spend the next hour with you.

[A]

I love it, man. And likewise you it. Since the moment I first talked to you, the vibe has been on point and that's the kind of people I like to associate myself with. And also the things that we're going to discuss today are, I think, are so pertinent that I think a lot of people, A, misunderstand or B, are lacking when it comes to their overall health and wellness and understanding. Because let's face it, you and I both know we've been around it a lot. The supplement world is very, I hate the word polarizing, but in a sense it, it's tricky, it's polarizing, it's marketing. So we're going to get into all that. But I want to talk a little bit about you first because the story leads into the company and why you are here and what you do. I don't always start with backstories or things of that nature, but yours is tremendous. So let's kind of go back a little bit. What brought you to where you are today and fill us in, man.

[B]

Well, there's a lot. I think there's a lot of different reasons why I am where I am today and kind of how it all comes together. You know, one, one way I like thinking about it is almost like a spiral, like an upward spiral that I'm on. So I kind of find myself back in this loop where, where I started in some way. And if I go back really early and I. I guess so. I like to think about myself. I'm constantly going up, kind of hopefully constantly like ascending. And I go back to like my earliest childhood and my kid. My parents were very involved in natural health and fitness. My dad actually had been a importer of botanicals into the US and into Mexico like in the 70s.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

And then had a natural health food store, natural health food restaurant. And yeah, my parents were just, they were very hippie, crunchy, kind of health focused people in the, in the 80s, early 80s. And yeah, so I was born into that family, you know, born at home, never had a haircut till I was 8. Didn't go to like a traditional doctor. You know, they didn't like, didn't get vaccinated as a little baby, you know, I ultimately did as an adult. But yeah, it's like I, Yeah, just raising this like very, very natural health kind of environment. And my parents were, were. They had chosen me pescatarians.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

And with that it meant they had kind of limited protein sources. And we actually talked a lot about protein. We talked a lot about like eating whole, you know, eating fruits and vegetables, but we talked a lot about protein and even like protein combining, like why we would eat quinoa and Lentils together and beans and rice together as like a little kid. It was like a four year old, you know, I would like. No, I had to eat those things together. If we weren't eating fish that day or we weren't eating a higher quality plant protein, like a tofu, you know, which like really like soy and spirulina. There, there are a few others that actually like have, they're as high, they're almost as high quality as like an animal protein and, or dairy. You know, I ate dairy as a kid and so I got exposed to ideas like protein, protein combining and, and we actually took amino acids, so I took supplemental amino acids as a kid and part partly daily nutrition, partly kind of like sports stuff that my mom was into. And yeah, so I just got, you know, I got exposed this stuff very early and then as I got older, you know, and kind of made move my way up like farther away on the other side of the spiral. I became an adolescent and I wanted to experiment and do my own things and kind of push away from like the beliefs of my parents, you know, so I'm like eating fast food and partying and, and doing drugs and getting into trouble. And I think too, my family was very, it was an entrepreneurial family and a pretty eccentric family. And it was very much like kind of figure out your own way and not just like follow the path that someone gave you. And that's awesome. And it's also like not super stabilizing for an adolescent. And I think I just went out and tried to do everything on my own and figure everything out. And I got into just a lot of trouble. I got in trouble with the law, I got in trouble with drugs. And when I was 16, I had a really bad LSD trip and I basically just kind of like lost my mind. And I was not in a great neighborhood and I accidentally provoked some people who were much more hardcore than me and they ended up nearly beating me to death and they stabbed me twice in the back and in the knee. So I suffered my patellar tendon. I, you know, had to have emergency abdominal surgery. I was hospitalized for a long time. Um, you know, when I eventually woke up in the hospital, I mean I was just like totally black and blue and. Yeah. You know, had staples all over my body and that. You know, I was 16 and a half when that happened. It was the, yeah, it was the first day of summer after my sophomore year of high school. And so it was just like, man, that's a really big dose of, of. I don't know reality adulthood, how your actions, you know, lead you to what you get more of in life. But also at the same time my powerlessness. And it was, yeah, it was just a really big dose. And obviously, I mean I had PTSD and, and that kicked off a process for me of really trying to take my life more seriously and be open me up to like spirituality and God in a way I hadn't been to. I think Ben is open. It opened me up to self care and exercise. Not just like playing sports, but like trying to eat things that would really make me healthier and happier and better. And it wasn't immediate, but over those next few years it really became this like really cool personal development project for me that had, that had elements of like, you know, surrendering God focus and elements of vanity and just trying to, you know, like be in control of my life and be much better. But it was, it was a very big shift from just like being out of control and you know, being kind of crazy. And you know, I think that, you know, I've gone through those cycles multiple times in my life and I think less. I mean that was like the most traumatic and the most dark it's been. But I had other really cool parts of my journey that took me. You know, I ended up going to college, I did really well there and become valedictorian my college. I ended up moving overseas for a few years. I lived in France, I worked and lived in France and India. Ended up back in the U.S. you know, during that period, found the woman that I love. I got married, I worked in another company for a few years, built and grew this behavioral healthcare company. And at some point, oh, it's like around. It was almost 10 years ago now, I think I was at that kind of part, you know, that stage in the spiral or in this loop, you know, where it was like kind of coming home and wanting to do more of my own thing. Something I was, I was more passionate about and really into it. Not I was into the behavioral healthcare thing too. It was helping young adults and teenagers who were, you know, went through things like I went through. But you know, it's weird when I think about it now, it's like I kind of just ended up starting the supplement company that like my mom and my dad would have been proud of or something. Not because that's what I was trying to do, but it was like real supplements that have real science, that are the highest quality, that are premium, that are, you know, not cutting corners and like hiring really great People and, like, just trying to build this, like, awesome, really great company and not try to play fancy marketing sales games. Just, like, make awesome products, have great customer service, take care of people, and make products I want to take and I want, like, my family to take and. Yeah. And so I don't know exactly how I got there on the spiral I'm describing, but, like, I think it's all those things that came together, you know, from the earliest roots to me and my own journey of trying to be more real, more sincere, and, like, live the life I really want to live and not live some life on accident.

[A]

The journey is funny sometimes.

[B]

It's. It's.

[A]

If you look back on it, sometimes you can laugh, sometimes you can cry, sometimes you can wonder why, but it ultimately ends where it's supposed to. And sometimes the turns that it takes, you may wonder why, and you may think that you could. Would want to go back and change it, but in reality, if you did, then it wouldn't be how it is right now. I. I've done that a lot. I'm. I'm wondering if you have, because there's a lot of mistakes through there. But the mistakes shape who you become, and then they. You to be what you are. And without them, I don't know if, you know, you'd be here. I know I wouldn't. And I have some things that, on paper, sound horrible, and I don't advise anybody to do them. However, I think if you use those and realize they're actually gifts and tools and keep that kind of outlook, you will ultimately become the most successful you were ever supposed to be. I mean, what do you think about that?

[B]

I don't regret anything. I think that there's. There's things I've done in my life where, you know, maybe I hurt someone. Like, I said something I don't want to say I didn't, like, afterwards, and I'm like, I'm really sorry. Like, man, I don't. I. That's not who I want to be, but I don't regret it. You know, it's. I don't. It's whatever came out. And I'm trying to think of, like, the most difficult things, right? Like, me just messing up or getting in trouble or not doing something right or looking foolish, like, for. For certain. All of those things taught me way more than my successes. Like, my failures taught me way more. But even, like, when I. I think when I maybe hurt someone, you know, it's like. And it's like, I have kids, you know, I have 11 year old and a 13 year old. Sometimes I'll say something just like stupid, you know, like, man, that's not like the supportive all loving dad I want to be. And it's like, you know, that's probably good for him though to have an experience of me messing up and then apologizing and you know, so it's like it's all, man, it's all just grist for the mill and it's all part of like. Yeah, just growing and learning and becoming more of who I am and. Yeah. So I don't regret anything. And I truly, my failures have taught me way more than my successes have.

[A]

You can't, you can't know and understand success without failures. And you can't ever overcome adversity when it presents itself if you don't have

[B]

to deal with it throughout your life.

[A]

And that should provide comfort to people in general that you're trained and you're ready. And I think back on those things as tools and training. And one of the things you said that I find quite funny now because it's it, it did hold true back then as you said hippies about your parents, because people were looked at going off the wall, going natural, going this, like they were hippies. And it's funny because today that's like standard protocol and what we do is, you know what I mean, that's functional medicine, that's alternative medicine. And the way that they were looked at back then and how far ahead of the time they actually were is rather astounding. I mean it's, if you think about it that way, nobody ever really talks about it. I don't either till you just said that. And it's like, you know what, wait a minute. Hippies were actually functional medicine. Doctors, in short. Don't you think?

[B]

Yeah, I mean, what I would say is certainly there are things that, that I was raised in, in my family that at that time were considered very weird and didn't make sense. And now a lot more people think they make sense. And I think, you know, I don't, I don't know about what the science said then versus what the science says now. But like science now says like it's pretty, it's, it's pretty legit, it's pretty real. And I think, I mean, I think that's just like an element of life in general, but it's actually really true to science. Interesting. I brought up around science. Oftentimes the biggest breakthroughs in science and in life do not come from iterating on Whatever we believed or thought before, it's from a totally different insight. It's from. It's from something that contradicts what we believe now that somehow is also true. You know, it's not that maybe like the thing before wasn't true, but it's like. Yeah, but this is actually also true when you go from like chemistry to physics, you know, like there's, There's a next level truth about what's going on or what's happening that you have to think alternatively to whatever the current mindset is around it. And yeah, so there's something really to the people, the outcasts, the alternatives, the, the people that don't fit right in. And you know what, probably some of the things and my parents believed in or I was raised with, like, I. I don't necessarily believe in now and agree with, you know, but man, there's some things I'm. I just feel so blessed that like they, they taught me it so early.

[A]

There's always craziness, I think, to sift through in anything, but then there's always nuggets or ideas or things that I found that I. I think back to myself. Like, man, it's. It's actually helped me to open up my eyes and ears more to people that are talking and not just write them off. You know, when I say prayers for things, I don't ask for a million dollars. I don't ask to be this famous whatever I eyes to see and ears to hear an actual wisdom so that I can understand what I'm doing and be able to pass along to people and actually become a person that makes a significant difference. And I think that you have had some experience that have helped you do that. And I think actually I know that what you do with. With discussing aminos and talking about them in a different way than I've seen people do is very vital and important. And look, I. I don't know your full background in supplements. We never got into that. But I've been around it for 15 to 20 years. And I know how,

[B]

how do I say this politely?

[A]

It's a very dirty industry because there's a lot of people that are sabotaging. A lot of people that take shortcuts, a lot of people that do a lot of negative things. But then there's people like you that do it the right way, that really look out for people. But you take the brunt of being grouped into a category because of bad actors. It happens with what I do. Bad influencers that take advantage of people who don't know what they're talking about. How do you overcome that kind of stigma to be able to kind of be a shining light in. In the industry?

[B]

I think I just don't worry about it. You know, I think there's something

[A]

the.

[B]

I'm trying to remember the exact quote, actually. So Dr. Arnie Ferrando, who's a leader in amino acid research, like one of the most published guys, a mentor to me, one of our scientific advisors, he has this. I can't. I feel like I'm gonna mess it up. But it's, you know, it's something like the cream always rises at the top and you, like, can't keep, like something like, can't bury your shit deep enough or something. You know, it's like, whatever it is, like, if your shit stinks, it's gonna keep. It's gonna come up, you know, and the cry and the cream's gonna rise the top. So it's kind of like, you know, just be myself. Just. Just be myself. Try to be my most true self. And if I value certain things, like, focus on doing those things that I really value. And I mean, I guess as that applies to like, supplements, you know, it's like, I wanna. I wanna make products that like, really make sense to take every day and that aren't dangerous to take every day and that are worth the money for myself and for other people. And I don't want to cut corners. And if, if someone buys something from me, I mean, I just think about, like, I don't know, I wouldn't cut someone's lawn. And they're like, I don't like the way you cut my lawn. You know, I don't want to argue with the person about it, but, like, you know, I'm really sorry. Here's your money back, you know, and like, the experience that that person would have with me, they would be like, oh, wow, dude, that's awesome. Like, okay, well, you know, and actually, like, I'll give you some. You know, they probably give me some of the money back, or we work it out. Or they'd be like, I'm going to recommend you for someone else, even though I didn't like this, or you. Maybe that person is just. They're so disappointed in me and they really don't like it and they never want to talk to me again. That's okay too. I don't. I don't need that. That person's money, you know, so it's. It's like, so have a good return policy. And have good CS and like just, just be genuine and good. And if you do that, you really will be rewarded by people recognizing it over time, like an immediate reward system. But neither is like, nothing in life is. There's no. I don't believe in like get rich quick schemes. I don't believe in get fit quick schemes. You know, it's like, you know, weekly training multiple times a week, progressive overload over a long time, nutrition, eating healthy things every day consistently. It's not like you're just gonna, you know, fast your way into health by not eating anything for five days, you know, or you, you can, you'll lose some weight, but you only lose fat. You'll lose some muscle too. And like, yeah, I guess if that was part of like a thoughtful, you know, annual practice, it's like spiritual or something, you know, I'm not trying to dis fasting. I'm just saying anything that, where you try to do it really fast, it's not going to work. And that's what happens with supplement companies is I think someone is, wants to make money, wants to take care of themselves, wants to try to, you know, like, everyone's out there trying to figure it out and it seems like it'll be easier if they use some fancy, newly studied ingredient or they make some big marketing claims and then they're trying to hire someone else to work with them and help them. And everyone's just trying to like, get by and they're, they're cutting corners and they're. I think, I think everyone's trying their hardest, but I think some people maybe aren't as committed to like really doing it right. And I just don't worry about it. Like, there's other. I have direct competitors that say things that are not true and they raise a bunch of money and they can go hire people to, you know, promote them and, and to do it. And it's like, that's okay. Like, that's. I don't have to worry about them. I don't have to like, beat them or be better than them. I can just do my thing and do it well. And people who like what we do will support us and work with us and like, our life will be good. So I, I just don't. Just don't worry about them.

[A]

The part of the problem is most things in life are a marathon, not a sprint, right? And cutting corners and doing the things that I see done or, oh, wow, I see this company making this much money, so I'm going to do it without the Realization or understanding or care what you're doing. And I think it's important for people to see the man behind the mission and the man behind the brand and see what you're all about. Because a lot of times what I see is companies, they have their owner come on and spit a bunch of science. You don't really know who they are, why they do what they do, what their true intent is. And I want people to see, because I know from talking to you that yours is on my kind of level of people that I want to show off to people and say, hey, you know, because I don't get behind a bunch of brands for a reason. Because there's a lot of good products with a lot of shithead owners or good owners with bad products. And it's, it's, it's few and far between. So it's important to see why somebody does something and how and what the true motivation is. And you can gather a lot by, by hearing answers to that. So I appreciate you getting into that a little bit because it's a tough business, like, like all business. But there's a lot of things that go on people aren't aware of. And it's hard, it's hard to make not only a good quality product, but one that it doesn't harmful, I hear. I'll give you an example. Me, I told my wife one day, I said, let's go through the cupboard and let's pull out all of the different things that we have. And I'm pretty careful about what, what I take over the years. Let's see, what has red blue dyes, what has sucralose, what has this. And, and yeah, it might be on the end of the ingredient label, but how much is this adding up and accumulating? And you look and it's like every single thing has something in it. And I, and, and that's what I want to get into about your products being different. But let's, let's go behind the science a little bit here first. What, what. Can you just break down in simplicity what an amino acid is and why we actually need it?

[B]

Yeah. So. And first of all, thanks again for having me on, Dylan, and I appreciate everything you said. And again, I have a lot of, like, respect for you. And yeah, I'm just excited to be here. So amino acids are. I'm gonna go. I'm gonna tackle this from a couple different directions then I think that'll help kind of create the, the most helpful understanding amino acids technically are these little building blocks that make up proteins and all of biology. It's. It's what makes up proteins in plants, in our bodies. It's literally what makes up proteins. And the reason why they're important is because they play a really big role in actually making new proteins in our body. And so now I'm taking another step back and come at it from another angle and just talk about macronutrients. So most people have heard of carbohydrates, fat, and protein as these three major macronutrients as separate from micronutrients, like vitamins and minerals, et cetera. So for macronutrients, protein is very different than carbohydrates and fat. You know, a primary role of carbohydrates and fat is energy. If you think about your body like a house, you want to run the dishwasher, you want to run your tv, the lights, et cetera, you need energy. So you need to get it from the grid or from solar panels or generator. Think about that as like, carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are this thing you put in your body. It's like kind of primary energy source. And then you also could get natural gas maybe to run your. If you have a gas stove or something like. That's like fat. It's another type of energy source. Now, fat does other things in your body, too. Builds up cells, et cetera. But. But really, those are like, they. They primarily get used for energy. With protein, less than 10% of it gets used for energy. You're not. You're not converting it into a fuel to run, to beat your heart, to move your body, to breathe, the way that carbohydrates are used. The reason why you eat protein is, is because you need to rebuild your body. And that's. That's the main idea behind this kind of connection between eat more protein, get more muscle. It's because the protein actually becomes the muscle tissue, literally becomes the muscle tissue. And just like a house, physical materials, whether that's your toaster or your paint in your bathroom or your hardwood floors, they don't last forever. They wear out over time. And as you can imagine, a paper towel wears out really quickly. You know, the paper towels are in your house, like, they wear out really quickly versus your hardwood floors last a much longer time. And so you don't have to replace your hardwood floors as frequently. You have to replace paper towels much more frequently. Well, the same thing's true with the proteins in your body. About 30% of your liver proteins every single day have to be remade 30% your muscle. It's about 1 to 2%. That's not to build new muscle. That's just to replace the existing muscle tissue that you have. And the reason for that is the proteins in your body. The simplest way to think about it is they wear out, they become degraded, and you need new ones. And so what happens in your body is. And I'll try to keep it something really practical, like skin, right? Your skin is made up of proteins, Right now, if you look at your arm, you can't tell that there's millions of proteins that make it up. And right now, literally right now, one of them has become degraded, and it's breaking apart inside your body.

[A]

Wild man.

[B]

And when it breaks apart, what's it made up of? It's made up of these amino acids. And some of those amino acids can be reused, and some of them cannot. And maybe an easy way to think about this is if you're gonna remodel your bathroom, you might say, oh, this old, you know, clawfoot tub is really cool. I'm gonna keep that. And so that's like an amino acid you might keep. It's still useful. It's. It's a classic. It's gonna keep working. And then there might be some. That's like the flooring. Like, there's old carpet that's, like, ugly and gross that someone put in the. In the. In the bathroom. And you're gonna rip that out. Well, in the same way, you actually pee out some of these amino acids and you keep some of them. So you get to reuse amino acids to some extent, but some you're gonna lose. And so now immediately, what you can see is right now, if this protein breaks apart in my body and I end up peeing out some of the amino acids, I have less amino acids than I had before, and I need more amino acids thus to help rebuild that skin tissue. And that's happening everywhere. That's your heart, that's your kidneys. That's your liver. That's your. All of your muscle tissue. That's your hair. That's your skin. That's. Even things like hormones and enzymes are made up of proteins. All of these are degrading to some degree and have to be rebuilt. That is why we eat protein. When you eat a chicken breast, when you eat tofu, when you eat Greek yogurt, when you eat quinoa, you digest them. The proteins inside of those food sources get broken apart in your digestive system. The amino acids that make them up get released. They go into your blood. And two things happen depending on what the quality of that protein is and what, which amino acids were in it and how much, because every single one of these is different to some degree. Those amino acids will just get used to help rebuild old proteins. If you eat certain combinations of proteins or you eat certain types of proteins, certain types of amino acids, you will actually tell your body to rebuild at a higher degree to where you can get more protein turnover, more new protein synthesis. So these amino acids do two things. One thing is they just help kind of rebuild. But certain ones which we can get into, essential amino acids eaten in the right context, actually stimulate new protein synthesis in the body and thus can help build more muscle, help replace more old skin tissue. Basically it's not so much accelerate, but accentuate, increase the amount of total protein synthesis that happens in the body. So amino acids are really important and

[A]

that's where I was going next. So it can be complicated for some, but I think if we do what you just did and break it down kind of easier that it's pretty, pretty easy to understand. So let's start with this two questions. One, we have essential and non essential that we can get into. I'd like you to explain the difference there. And then two, after that, let's just explain the difference between BCAA and eaa because there's, I swear to you, over all of the years there, that's the number one question I get when it comes to these and what's the difference? And then we'll get into why one is better than the other, et cetera. But those two questions, if you would, please. Essential versus non essential, BCAA versus eaa.

[B]

Great. Yeah. So there's, there's two really important points about essential versus non essential. The first one is more people are familiar with it and that is this idea of what essential means in nutrition. Essential. The definition of essential in nutrition is that your body cannot make it, so it is essential that you eat it. So there's nine essential amino acids. And we're not getting into the nuance of conditionally essential under certain types of like illness or age, et cetera. But basically there's nine essential. You must eat them, your body cannot make them, and then there's 11 non essential. So your body can actually utilize the nine essential amino acids to produce the 11 non essential. Okay, so that's the, that's the kind of key idea. So in that, that's where debates about, quote, complete protein or incomplete protein come from. That's where debates about is plant protein as Good as animal protein come from. That's where I hinted at earlier this idea of protein combining. Why I might want to combine lentils and quinoa together.

[A]

Yes.

[B]

And it's because plant proteins typically are not complete, meaning they don't have all nine of the essential amino acids in sufficient amounts. That's not always true. Like soy is a complete protein and tofu is. And like a soy protein powder are excellent protein sources. No matter how much hate they get about phytoestrogens and all that, which is a whole nother argument. They're the. They're really the only thing that kind of comes close to, to animal proteins. And on the other hand, basically all animal proteins, dairy, chicken, fish, meat, are complete proteins, meaning that they have sufficient amounts of these essential amino acids. And that's. And when we talk about, well, why do you need sufficient amounts? Well, the whole idea is like, if it's an essential nutrient that is going to be required for rebuilding my proteins, I'm going to have to eat enough of it if I rebuild all the proteins in my body. So that's. That's kind of like the core idea. But there's a much more interesting idea that most people are not familiar with. And this is the one I think it's like the biggest takeaway someone may get from this conversation if they haven't really explored the subject. And it's great for dinner parties if you want to sound really smart. And it's highly studied, I mean, like hundred papers on this, tons of human outcome studies that you have proven this and shown this. Essential amino acids are not only important because your body can't make them, they're also, they play basically a key chemical messenger role. The more essential amino acids that hit the blood at once, and they measure this by looking at the amount of essential amino acids in blood plasma. The more stimulus of new protein synthesis happens. So you think about it this way. If I consume some steak on its own and I digest it, and it has a lot more essential amino acids in it than a little small serving of quinoa does those essential amino acids get into my blood and my body reads that there's these essential amino acids and understands and thinks it's safe to break down old proteins and rebuild new ones, because I've got this core nutrient that I need to do that. So the more essential amino acids that are in your blood at once directly correlates to stimulating new protein synthesis. And here's the thing, for anyone who's kind of more familiar with like gym science and Building muscle. It is possible to stimulate new protein synthesis without training, without exercise. The typical idea is I need to go do resistance training. And resistance training does all kinds of awesome things for your body, but one of the main things is it's gonna like break down these old proteins and it's gonna kickstart this process of needing to like rebuild new proteins. And then what I need to do is I need to eat, I need to take my whey protein shake or I need to eat a good meal or I need to you know, take these amino acids and then it's gonna help me rebuild my muscle tissue. That is true, that is correct. On its own though, certain amounts of amino acids have a significant stimulus of new protein synthesis and it's a quick, you know, jumping ahead. But like essential amino acids specifically and leucine enriched ones have been shown outside of exercise to help people maintain all muscle when they have lost all physical activity. And they've been shown to help increase build pounds of muscle on people over the course of a few months with no increase in other types of exercise and not taking them around exercise. So literally the essential amino acids on their own as a nutritional supplement can actually maintain your muscle if you stop exercising, can help you build muscle outside of exercise periods. So there it's, it's again there's this primary idea of like, it's the thing you can only get from, you know, you must get it from your food, which is important. But really it's, it's this like key chemical messenger that can help you build and maintain muscle. I think really remarkably in conditions where you're in any kind of stress based state. And that stress based state could be aging because basically as you get older after 40, your ability to build and maintain muscle significantly drops in and around any type of injury, illness, if you're in any kind of caloric restriction. And again we can get into all these more later. All these create a certain type of stress and it becomes really helpful and important as, as a potential supplement. So that's, you know, what are EAAs versus you know, non essential amino acids. But your other question was BCAs. Do you want me to jump to that one or do you want, do you have a follow up first? Cause I, I see your eyes.

[A]

Well, cause I, all my, I, my, my thought process is like okay then. Because the biggest problem right now that I think you'll agree with me on is the use of GLP1s, the lack of understanding of diet, nutrition and what we need to do to prevent muscle wastage and loss, especially coming things, because it is a prevalent problem. And I think that the discussion instead of always focusing on the weight loss and this and that should be how do we maintain muscle? How do we make sure that we're taking care of our bodies and we're understanding that we're sacrificing the muscle, not just the weight loss. And it's actually degrading our bodies and is becoming a huge, massive problem because you cannot take these forever. I don't care what any doctor tells you. They're not meant to be taken forever. And shutting your mind off from the realization that you're hungry is not smart nor wise. You're trying to play God and it's not going to work. So my question would be then, how would the implementation of EAS into this protocol help to prevent people from the struggles that they're. It's a guarantee you're going to have. Because unless you understand how much you need to eat while taking these, would you consider this like a vital need for people that are on them?

[B]

I would consider it a very high priority. And the science of weight loss is consistent across both GLP1 assisted caloric restriction and just using my fitness pal and like tracking everything you eat and eating less food. Either way, when you consume less calories than you need to maintain your current body composition, your current weight, what's going to happen is your body's going to do two things. One is it's going to start eating your extra fat stores. Like that's, that's. And it's. I think people don't realize it's actually a pretty cool, marvelous part of our creation in that if we were out on the savannah or in the, you know, in the woods and we're hunting and we're trying to find food and you kill this big animal and it's. And you overeat, you eat more food than you could possibly eat at that time. You can actually store some of it. You can store some of it as energy and as fat in your body. That's. We were gifted with this ability to store extra energy as fat so that at times when we can't eat and we can't find food, we can live off that fat. It's actually a really, it's a really cool mechanism for us. Unfortunately, when you're surrounded with too much delicious food all the time and it's highly addictive, then you keep eating too much all the time. It's more than you need. And now you're just walking around storing this fat. You don't need. So in the same way that it worked in ancient times, if you suddenly start eating less than you need, you're gonna start burning that fat. You're gonna start actually living off the fat in your body than only the calories you're consuming that day. But the other thing that happens is that your body now gets confused and considers protein and amino acids in a very different way. It suddenly starts looking at any protein I eat and thinks, ooh, could I actually convert more of that into energy? And you can, you can actually convert protein into carbohydrates basically via gluconeogenesis. So you start wanting to use more of it for that. Similarly, your body is in this stress induced state. It's kind of freaking out and it's not focused on trying to maintain its muscle. It's simply, that's it becomes a much lower priority. And so recent studies in the last few years have proven that basically a 30% reduction in total calories. So if 2,000 calories a day outside, you know, we'll, we won't include exercise now, but 2,000 calories a day is what gonna make, is what's going to make you stay your current weight. And you cut that by 600 calories a day, which is not a crazy cut. Like that's, you know, it's basically in a week you probably, you lose a little over a pound, you know, you know, like over the long if you sustain that. So it's not, that's not like a crazy aggressive thing. That amount of calorie restriction, 30% required a 300% increase, three times as much of essential amino acids per serving. I believe that for that group to maintain a net protein balance, I'll unpack that scientifically if you don't want to lose any muscle, if you want to cut 600 calories out of a 2000 calorie a day diet, you don't wanna lose any muscle. You need to eat a lot more protein, like way more protein. And what would be even easier would be to just supplement with something like essential amino acids. And we can get into why that is. But they're many, many, many times more impactful than just eating whole food protein. Like many times more impactful. And it's because there's so much more bio available, they hit the blood so much more quickly. You can enhance them with leucine so they overcome the anabolic resistance. So yes, whether you are on a GLP1 and you're achieving this caloric restriction because you turned off the food noise you reduced the appetite or you're doing it through just discipline and hard work and tracking all your food. And you know, either way, either way if you don't focus on eating more protein, and I mean, honestly, if it's like significantly more protein, so I would say you don't focus any more protein and probably just more realistically taking a supplement like a leucine enriched essential amino acid supplement, you will lose a lot more muscle than you want to lose. In a short term diet you could lose basically 40% of your weight loss could be muscle. In a longer term diet it's probably about 25%. And that's true for GLP1s or for, you know, tracking everything you eat. I think the big difference is if you have to track everything you eat and you're working with a coach, you're probably thinking about trying to eat lots of fiber. Like, well if I eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, it like fills me up, you know, and, and I'm trying to eat my protein. Whereas maybe if you're just on a medication and you're not getting that type of supportive coaching, you're just eating less of the same not good food. Like if you just start eating 1400 calories a day, but it's still just like empty carbs, meaning crackers, you know, and, and bread type things that don't have micronutrients, that don't have protein, they don't have fiber, you're definitely going to be losing muscle and you're really not setting yourself up for a long term sustainable, good life. You know, I think, and it's like the, it really comes back to eating like fruits and vegetables and protein. Like it's, it's fiber and protein. It's like, you know, I feel like it's not that novel.

[A]

No, that's perfect. I, I really want it. I've got so many different damn questions for you, so I want to hit them all. Sorry man, but when you start going, and this is, I feel like this area is not that difficult to understand, but it gets convoluted like really easily by, by people. And so your, your breakdowns are so pristine. And so I want to slam you for info while I've got you. So hit the BCAAs real quick because I got a ton of other stuff for you.

[B]

Yeah, so BCAAs are branch chain amino acids. They're leucine, isoleucine and valine. They are three of the nine essential amino acids. So when you talk about branch chain amino acids, they, they are Essential amino acids. They're just not all of them. They're only three of the nine. And the way that the science has progressed around this is that leucine is like the star. Leucine is in terms of stimulating protein synthesis, whether it's whole body protein synthesis, meaning even like liver proteins and skin and all this, or muscle. Leucine is the star quarterback.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And isoleucine and valine are also very important. They're like the two next most important amino acids. So when the scientific community started studying this more in terms of human nutrition 40 years ago, they saw that, they saw, wow, these BCAAs are really important. And they started to think, hey, what if we just isolated those three and gave them to athletes? What would happen? Could they on their own be anabolic? If you gave someone these branch chain amino acids, could it help stimulate protein synthesis without having to give them whole food protein or give them all the essential amino acids? And the early studies that were more mechanistic, meaning you didn't actually see if the person built muscle over time. You just saw like how the amino acids moved through the blood and how they entered into muscle tissue and how many left the muscle tissue, et cetera. They thought that maybe you could just give people BCAAs and you would be able to create an anabolic situation, be able to help people build more muscle or improve recovery in a really distinct way relative to all this. And basically, as it got studied more and more over the last 20 years, what has become very clear is that's not the way it works. You have to have the other six essential amino acids. You can't only take the three branch chain amino acids. And there's a great paper, the International Society of Sports Nutrition 2017 published basically a very clear synopsis of meta analysis of all the priorities. Studies that show that BCAAs on their own are not anabolic and they could even potentially be catabolic because they basically, what they do is it'd be like if you went out on a football field with only your three star players, right. Maybe they look like really fast and great at first, and then they're gonna get crushed.

[A]

Right, right.

[B]

And so basically you get this huge spike in what looks like you're generating protein synthesis and then it just crashes immediately. And so it communicates to your body in an unhelpful way, oh, we've got all this leucine, isoleucine, valine, let's go and let's break down proteins and make new ones. And then you don't have any of the other building blocks that you need to complete the process. So in short, BCAAs on their own are not effective and they're not worth taking, they're not worth money. But there's a very big marketing business machine behind them and so they've continued to be sold. If you're going to supplement with amino acids, you want to take a complete essential amino acid formula and you really want certain proportions too, which we can get into later, but the proportions really matter. And that's another thing out there right now where it's like there's just all kinds of brands selling all kinds of stuff with proprietary formulas and just,

[A]

you

[B]

know, it's just making money, but not actually like making a product that, that, that does what they say it does. So, yeah, so that's, that's BCAAs versus easy.

[A]

I'm going to leave that one alone. But I will say less. I am totally with you and that so many years of BCAA pushing and sales and just to hear you say that, and I know it, but I wanted to hear it from somebody that is an expert on it to convey the messaging as to why.

[B]

And it sucks.

[A]

It does. And I think some people knew and some people didn't know, but it went on for so long. But thank you for the breakdown. Now here's the next question. Let's talk about post workout use and just use in general post workout. First, what would be the difference or the preferred method after a workout? Would it be an EAA supplement or a protein shake that most people kind of become reliant upon or are there circumstances where one would be better than the other?

[B]

Either one is good. If you, if you like a protein shake after you work out, that's great. And an EAA supplement is also good after you work out. Both work, you know, and maybe.

[A]

And combining them together, you can combine them together.

[B]

So now maybe this is a good opportunity to explain a little bit more science. Is it okay? Is it okay? Or getting, we're getting too heady?

[A]

No, do it.

[B]

Okay. So going back to this, this core idea of the amount of essential amino acids in your blood at once is what determines how much protein synthesis gets stimulated. Hang with me here. But if you eat and these are like actual real studies that I'm quoting, 30 grams of beef protein. That's why the numbers are so specific. 30 grams of beef protein, which is like about what you're gonna get like in a 6 ounce steak or 70 grams of beef protein. Sorry, the 30 grams of beef protein on its Own, like all I'm eating is this steak with beef protein or 70 grams of beef protein, more than twice that amount, like 12 ounce steak approximately. But I eat that with broccoli, potatoes, part of a mixed meal. The smaller serving of steak will stimulate more protein synthesis than the larger serving of steak on its own. So why is that? That is because your body more easily digests the, the steak on its own. The 30 grams and the essential amino acids get freed up from the protein, they go into the blood and they have a higher peak concentration and your body reads that and it stimulates more protein synthesis. Whereas when you eat the large amount of steak but it's mixed with all the foods, it doesn't hit that peak concentration as quickly or as significantly. Now, I'm, I'm, I'm isolating this really specifically outside the context of training. Right, because training on its own is gonna stimulate protein synthesis and do all these other good things. But truly, if you're talking just pure nutrition, the, the, the more isolated beef on its own is more anabolic than twice the amount of beef eaten with other foods. Now, if I compare that to whey protein, which is the gold standard of basic, it has more studies than anything else in terms of being an, you know, an anabolic protein supplement source. Whey protein, gram for gram, has about three times the impact as whole food beef. So like a 20 gram, 20 gram scoop of whey protein is literally gonna have like three times the rise in the plasma, the blood plasma EAA levels as a 20 gram piece of steak do not. 20 gram piece of steak. A steak with 20 grams of protein in it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So people are thinking, oh, protein's all equal. You know, like after I work out, should I be eating, you know, taking whey protein or eating a whole food meal or whatever. And what I would say is we're getting really into nuance here. And like, all of it's good, man. Whole food protein. I love eggs and steak and vegetables and I love all. And I also like whey protein. I also like amino acids. They're all, they're all good. Like there's not, I don't think there's a wrong answer in these. And the whey protein is a lot more anabolic than the steak. It just simply is. You can't get away from the science of it. Now when you compare that to free form essential amino acids, a free form essential amino acid supplement in a young healthy adult, it's gonna be even more crazy when we talk about older adults. But in a young, healthy adult 25 year old, the free form essential amino acids, gram for gram, are gonna be three times the impact as whey protein. Why is that? Well, the reason why the whey protein was more impactful than the steak is because again, it was a more isolated protein source. More of the other solids that were involved with the protein, like when you actually just eat cheese or milk, right. Have been stripped away and you're just getting the raw protein. But even in a really high quality protein like steak or whey protein, about 45% of it is essential amino acids and 55% is non essential. When you take a free form essential amino acid supplement, 100% of the amino acids are the essentials. So you're already getting twice the amount, more than twice the amount of the signal. The thing that tells your body, hey, go break down the old proteins and let's build new ones on top of that, it's immediately digested. There's basically no digestion. There's no breaking apart the proteins to get the amino acids. They're already immediately available, so they go to the blood so quickly. And that's why even in a young adult, they're gonna be like three times the level of the plasma EAA levels is what you'd get from whey protein. Now when you compare that to an older adult, you get to someone who is. And a lot of these studies are like people in their 60s. But I think it's, it's comparable to think that it's not to this degree, but in your 50s. It's not quite as significant as your 60s, 40s, not quite, but it's, you're on the way there. So I'll give you general guidelines afterwards. But as you get older, your body becomes less and less receptive to the amino acids in the whey protein, to the amino acids in the steak. Yeah, there's an issue around the digestion, but it's less the digestion. Like you actually, you're still digesting the protein and you're still freeing it up. And even like a whey protein that it's not that hard to digest. Yeah, the essential amino acids are still getting freed and released into the blood, but your ability to stimulate new protein synthesis goes down. That said, if you take an essential amino acid supplement and you increase the amount of leucine specifically in that supplement to be 40% of the total dose in a whey protein, it's about 25%. So it's significantly more leucine. As part of the total mix. You overcome that anabolic Resistance. So leucine enriched essential amino acids, which is like what I do at Kion. That's what kion aminos are. They're gonna have six times the impact as a whey protein powder for an older adult. For a younger adult, it's like three times the impact. For an older adult, it's six times the impact. And the reason for that is, is because the older you get, you're simply not as receptive to the amino acids. And so is there a way to overcome it? Yes, it's getting a lot more leucine in that dose. So now getting back to your question, what should I take after I work out? Well, how old are you? What kind of training have you been doing? You know, what are your ultimate goals? And then your question two, like, well, can you combine them? And so what I would say is, you know, if you're pretty hungry and you really want to feel full, have a protein shake or a, you know, eat, eat a whole food meal. If you want to really overcome any anabolic resistance or you just want to like juice it a little bit more, take amino acids with it and you are going to get a much larger anabolic response and get even better utilization out of that protein that you ate by combining it with the essential amino acids. If after you train, you're not really that hungry, it's. It's weird. Like sometimes certain types of training, like I'm just like not that hungry afterwards. I almost like, I feel like if I eat, it'll make me feel kind of nauseous.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

In that case, take essential amino acids. They're going to do the same thing that you get from the protein, but it's a much smaller, lighter dose. It's like there's like no weight in your stomach. You know, I mean, it's, it's really just, it becomes you take it as capsules or like a fruity beverage. It's like you just drink some water. So they're both great tools. Yeah, they're both great tools. I think one, one thing I would name though, also it's something to kind of work through and help people understand. Oftentimes people think aminos and they think BCAAs and they think recovery drink. And what I would say is, yeah, aminos are good for recovery, but you'll get way more benefit taking them before you work out. And the reason for that is taking essential amino acids before you work out means they get into the blood and then you have all this increased blood flow. You're pushing the amino acids into Your muscle. So there's a significantly synergistic effect between the amino acid stimulating protein synthesis and you're pushing more and more of them into, into the blood. So I mean if you own an amino company like me, I take em before I work out, I take em out their workout. I take, I take em all the time. But like, if you had to choose taking em before, you're actually gonna get more benefit. And likely you probably don't wanna eat a big protein shake right before you work out, right? And so it's an easier thing to take before and you're gonna get more benefit from it. But what I'd really say is thinking about aminos as an exercise supplement is not the way I think about it at all. It's a daily nutrition supplement that I take first thing every morning. It's something that I use first thing in the morning to turn on that anabolic switch. First thing in the morning to get this morning, really large dose of what protein would give me. But I can just drink it fast, take it with my creatine and like, boom. I just like got a major kickstart of protein synthesis, my man.

[A]

Same thing I do every morning with creatine.

[B]

A couple other things.

[A]

That's how I start my day. I, I don't eat in the morning. That's what I have before I go walk. There was a few other things I put in there, but spot on. I, I wanted to ask what about before bed with the idea and the thought that it's helping you to rebuild while you're sleeping? Because I've heard that before and I question that. So what's your thoughts that there?

[B]

Yeah, it's great. It's great. Before bed. What I would say is like literally essential amino acids work whenever you want to take them. Okay, you take that, you take them on an empty stomach first thing in the morning or you take them in between meals.

[A]

Boom.

[B]

You're kickstarting another, you're kickstarting basically another bout of protein synthesis. And you're g. And you're hitting these higher like again like you're trying to eat more protein throughout the day. This is like the shortest, fastest, quickest way to do it in the most efficient, effective way. And um, doing it before bed totally makes sense. Especially if you eat a few hours before bed, right? Like if you, I don't know, you eat dinner at 6, then go to bed at like 9 or 10. Like you kind of, you, you had, you took in protein and you stimulate some protein synthesis around that 6, 7pm time and then before you go to bed you're doing it again and it's like an old, I mean you think about the old bodybuilder trick of like drinking casein before they go to bed to help kind of have this slow release. Um, it's similar to that. It's just a faster release and it, and it, and it completes this amazing session of protein synthesis for your body.

[A]

Yeah, the Casey never. It never made me feel good before bed and I started to.

[B]

Yeah, I know. I'm getting. I mean honestly, it's like having a really slow digestive thing all night while I sleep is like. This makes no sense to me.

[A]

It's never felt good man. Never.

[B]

Um, yeah. So I mean before bed is absolutely something I do.

[A]

I kind of stag like, I do like a half to three quarters in the morning, I do some after I work out and then I do some before bed that. So does it come to a point where you could take too much? What would you recommend? Because I, I do like a scoop and a half every day is kind of the what I stay on or two depending on how hard I'm training that day. But I, I generally non workout days is like 1 and then workout days 1.5 to 2.

[B]

So I think it's all. What I would say is one is plenty. Yeah, the safe upper, upper limit is literally a hundred grams a day. So that'd be 20 servings. So 20 scoops a day is the upper limit. And so you're pretty far from like any kind of. And I would just say it's like it wasn't that at 21 it's not safe. It's just been studied to be safe, up to 20 servings a day. And I think it's really, you know, how you want to utilize it. I think a lot of people, you know, I mean like a more normal user takes a scoop every morning and that's what they do. And it gives them energy, focus, clarity, helps them build more muscle, stay leaner, you know, hit those higher daily kind of protein requirements and it's just it become that one staple does enough. More serious users I would say either because they are trying to cut weight, right? They're like, they're, they're cutting calories and they're trying to stay leaner because you get all these benefits of what you get from protein, but for significantly, far fewer calories. Rather than having like, you know, another protein snack, you just have another scoop or two servings of aminos, you're getting more benefit than you would get from trying to have that protein snack for virtually like almost no calories. So, you know, people use it in that way. And then as you're aging, I think this is the situation where taking more really makes more sense. And that's because simply you're not gonna be. Be able to eat enough protein, as I mentioned earlier, to overcome the anabolic resistance. You can't, because the whey is just. Even whey doesn't really have enough leucine to overcome it by adding in two scoops, basically two servings like twice a day. You see people in their 40s, 50s, 60s being able to maintain all their muscle or add a few pounds of muscle within a few months with no other changes. So I mean, personally for me, and actually, I'll give you one other kind of boundary, more than three servings at once is not worth it. So up to 3 servings at 1 time has basically linear improvement. Like literally you take, you take two servings at once, it's basically twice as good as taking one serving. Three servings, it's three times as good as taking one. After that, your body simply doesn't increase the amount of total protein synthesis. So I take three servings every single morning. And again, though, like, I kind of have, you know, I'm not budgeting around it. I have a limited amino source, but, you know, I took three servings every single morning. I typically take three servings some other time during the day. It kind of depends on like, what I'm eating that day and what my, you know, I don't fall like a super rigid specific diet every single day.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then if I, you know, and then, and probably again one more time during the day. So, I mean, I could be up to nine servings a day, which again is like less than half of what the total safe limit is. And it, I feel great.

[A]

I am, because I'm thinking like it's growing on trees, like, you know what I mean? Py hat there. But yeah, it's, it's good to know though, because there, you know, people do like to push a little bit. It's good to know what's safe and whatnot and what's effective and what's not.

[B]

Because, you know, but one serving is plenty. I mean, like, one serving is a great. What I'd say is like, you start taking one serving a day every single morning over the course immediately. I think particularly too, if you don't eat first thing in the morning, you're immediately going to experience improvements in mood, mental fatigue, Et cetera. Because these amino acids also are the precursors of your neurotransmitters. Like literally all the chemicals in your brain through which you experience emotion and focus and attention come from these amino acids. So you give it that first thing in the morning, you're gonna experience improvements in mood, you know, energy, et cetera. And then over time, through that consistency of even again, just that one little small habit, you experience the improvements to body composition, to overall health, et cetera.

[A]

I can vouch. That's why I've been doing it for so long. We're gonna, we're gonna have to do a part two. Man, I enjoyed lunch. That and I, I swear there's a lot of things. I want to ask you one more question in closing, and then we will discuss author about revisiting another episode. You know, most places just sell powders and you have capsules along with powders. Is there any difference in the efficacy when you take one or the other or it can do they both kind of work the same.

[B]

They work the same.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

Yeah. That's a simple answer. It's really just if you, if you're someone who likes capsules and you can just take them down really quickly or you're someone who likes to drink more of like a flavored drink. Yeah, that's, that's really it.

[A]

Yeah, I, I like to enjoy something that tastes good once in a while. You know what I mean? Like, it's totally. Well, the company is key on. I can tell you this. The first thing that ever drew me to the company was the, the way that it is produced because it's clean. There's no BS that's gonna cause you problems in the ingredient makeup. And then the second thing was when I got to meet you, that really made me be a long term customer because I know what you do, I know what you put into it. I know what the real messaging and the desire is behind it, which makes me want to use it more and makes me want to showcase you to everybody out there. Dude, this over exceeded my expectation on the knowledge base. I knew you were so solid, but even more so accentuated what I already knew about you. And so I appreciate not just the time and the information, but you as a person and as a businessman. And I just want to let you know that when I see that, it means a lot to me as a person that has been in this for so long and seen so much, I hate to say it's a rarity because I, I don't want to say that. And act like everybody's so bad, but it's not as commonplace. So thank you for, for everything that you're doing.

[B]

Thanks, Dylan. It was great to be here. And again, man, like, your vibe, your vibe's so good and your positivity and your. Yeah, you just. You feel blessed, man. So I love being around you. Thanks.

[A]

Tell me, me and everybody else out there where to find you if they want to follow you. Any. Are you putting out any content or anything like that? And then also if you could just give a couple nuggets on where to check Kion out. I'm gonna leave a discount code in the description for everybody that you guys have graced me with to use. But if there's any info on the site where people can read more or anything that you're putting out, it would be. Be great to know.

[B]

Yeah. So I, I mean, I think if you're interested more in this, like, subject and want to learn more about Kion or amino acids in general, the Kion website, honestly has tons of really good content. So I think you'll. You'll share that link. You can call us. We literally have like, people in our office. We have real customer service people who you can just call and talk to, ask any questions. And I think if you want to dig in more into like, deep science, I think checking out the International Society of Sports Nutrition, they have a really good position paper on essential amino acids that came out a couple years ago. And again, I think Dr. Arnie Ferranda is the lead author on that. David Church is on it. Bob Wolf, Katie Hirsch. Really awesome, super smart people. And in terms of me, man, it's one of those things too. Like, I don't run the play where it's like I'm trying to build some personal media brand. It's like my passion really is in building awesome products and helping educate people about them. So my primary way of doing that is going on other people's platforms and helping educate and tell the stories. So I don't. I don't have some place to someone to come, you know, learn more about Angela. I'm not. There's no Angelo hype machine.

[A]

Yeah, you're missing the boat, dude. Like, I gotta tell you, you're missing the boat because they're your. Your content and your background and your knowledge base. It would, it would serve a great purpose. But I appreciate you going on to other shows and, and releasing that. But I think you're. I think you're missing out, my friend. But I'll make sure to let people see that. So the code is getkeyon.com backslash Dylan, 20 off. You or you don't need a code. I'm sorry, the link is getkeon.com backslash Dylan, 20 off. No code needed. Use my link, save yourself 20%. Use what I use, use what many other people use and get the best, the best of the best. So thank you, Angelo. Much appreciated. I look forward to speaking to you off camera and hopefully having you on here again.

[B]

Thanks, Dylan. I can't wait till next time.

[A]

Awesome, man. That wraps it up, everybody. Stay tuned for plenty more to come. Dylan Gemelli and Angelo Keeley signing off.