The Ultimate Guide to Eating Healthy and Improving Your Diet Feat. Max Lugavere

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Ultimate Guide to Eating Healthy and Improving Your Diet" Featuring Max Lugavere

Episode Information:

• Podcast Title: The Ed Mylett Show
• Host: Ed Mylett
• Guest: Max Lugavere
• Release Date: February 22, 2025
• Network: Cumulus Podcast Network

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Introduction

In this episode of The Ed Mylett Show, host Ed Mylett welcomes Max Lugavere, a renowned nutrition expert, for the second time. The conversation delves deep into the intricacies of healthy eating, effective diet strategies, and the science behind nutrition. Ed is joined by Brendan Burchard, adding further depth to the discussion.

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Key Topics Discussed

1. The Migrating Motor Complex and Digestion [02:16]
2. Importance of Fiber, Protein, and Water in Diet [06:04]
3. Role of Plant Compounds like Sulforaphane [13:02]
4. Benefits of Specific Fats and Cooking Oils [29:15]
5. Understanding and Managing Salt Intake [34:02]
6. Smart Eating Out Strategies [37:14]
7. Impact of Ultra-Processed Foods on Health [81:13]
8. Supplements and Natural Nutrition Enhancements [85:46]

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Detailed Summary

1. The Migrating Motor Complex and Digestion [02:16]

Brendan Burchard introduces the concept of the Migrating Motor Complex (MMC), an essential digestive mechanism that activates approximately 90 minutes after the last meal.

Brendan Burchard [02:32]: "It's like this completely underappreciated mechanism that gets going after about 90 minutes of not eating... It sweeps debris, dead bacteria, food particles that haven't been fully digested."

Insight: The MMC plays a critical role in maintaining gut health by preventing conditions like Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth (SIBO). Constant eating disrupts this "housekeeping wave," leading to digestive issues such as indigestion and bloating.

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2. Importance of Fiber, Protein, and Water in Diet [06:04]

Brendan emphasizes the three key components that make food satiating: water, protein, and fiber.

Brendan Burchard [07:45]: "Fiber we have no biological necessity for does make life better. Fiber consumption is associated with longevity."

Notable Quote:

Max Lugavere [05:49]: "The thing about not being full... I've not really thought about it before, that when I'm eating these processed foods... I'm not satiated."

Conclusion: Incorporating these elements ensures feelings of fullness, preventing overeating and promoting overall health.

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3. Role of Plant Compounds like Sulforaphane [13:02]

The discussion transitions to sulforaphane, a potent compound found in cruciferous vegetables.

Brendan Burchard [14:00]: "You won't find [sulforaphane] in those plants until the cells of the plants get crushed and chewed up."

Insight: Sulforaphane acts as a pesticide for plants but offers significant health benefits for humans, including cancer-fighting and neuroprotective properties through a mechanism called hormesis—wherein small doses of toxins promote resilience.

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4. Benefits of Specific Fats and Cooking Oils [29:15]

Brendan discusses the superiority of extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) over other cooking oils.

Brendan Burchard [31:18]: "It contains a compound called oleocanthal, which is essentially an anti-inflammatory compound that is as anti-inflammatory as low-dose ibuprofen."

Notable Points:

• EVOO is rich in monounsaturated fats and oleic acid, beneficial for heart and brain health.
• Ghee is recommended as a dairy alternative, being free of lactose and casein, and suitable for high-heat cooking.

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5. Understanding and Managing Salt Intake [34:02]

Salt’s role in the diet is reevaluated.

Brendan Burchard [34:19]: "Salt is the one ingredient that takes a single ingredient, food, and turns it into a steak."

Key Points:

• Only 11% of dietary salt comes from home cooking; the majority is sourced from processed foods.
• 25% of the population is salt-sensitive, experiencing blood pressure spikes with high salt intake.
• Importance of using high-quality salts like flake salt over table salt.

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6. Smart Eating Out Strategies [37:14]

When dining out, focus on:

• Prioritizing Protein: Opt for lean meats like filet mignon, grilled salmon, or chicken.
• Choosing the Right Vegetables: Prefer grilled or steamed vegetables over sautéed ones to avoid unhealthy oils.
• Minimizing Processed Foods: Avoid dishes cooked in canola, corn, or soybean oils.

Brendan Burchard [39:46]: "Focus on protein, order a piece of meat or fish or chicken... and then veggies, a side of veggies, a salad."

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7. Impact of Ultra-Processed Foods on Health [81:13]

The detrimental effects of ultra-processed foods are extensively covered.

Max Lugavere [81:29]: "60% of the calories that we consume today come from ultra-processed foods."

Insights:

• Calorie Density: Ultra-processed foods lead to overeating by being low in satiating nutrients.
• Nutrient Deficiency: Despite high caloric intake, these foods are often lacking in essential nutrients, contributing to obesity, type 2 diabetes, and other chronic diseases.
• Behavioral Impact: Such foods can disrupt natural hunger and satiety signals, making calorie regulation challenging.

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8. Supplements and Natural Nutrition Enhancements [85:46]

The conversation touches on the role of glutathione and collagen as supplements.

Brendan Burchard [85:52]: "You create in your body another two grams of glycine, which we don't consume off of. Your average person consumes about 2 grams of glycine every single day."

Key Takeaways:

• Glutathione: Known as the body's master antioxidant, it can be supported through diet rather than supplements.
• Collagen Supplements: Recommended for those not consuming collagen-rich foods to support skin, joints, and overall health.
• Dietary Sources: Emphasis on consuming sulfur-containing amino acids from foods like grass-fed beef and eggs to naturally boost glutathione levels.

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Concluding Insights

• Whole Foods Over Processed: Emphasizing minimally processed, nutrient-dense foods to achieve satiety without excessive caloric intake.
• Mindful Eating Practices: Slowing down during meals to enhance digestion and nutrient absorption.
• Balance and Sustainability: Adopting dietary habits that are both healthful and maintainable long-term, avoiding extreme restrictions.
• Environmental Toxins Awareness: Reducing exposure to harmful chemicals by choosing fresh, unprocessed foods and minimizing use of plastic packaging.

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Notable Quotes

• Brendan Burchard [06:04]: "The three characteristics of a food that make a food satiating... are water, protein, and fiber."
• Max Lugavere [07:45]: "Fiber consumption is associated with longevity."
• Brendan Burchard [13:59]: "Hormesis is basically the term given to when small doses of a certain stressor... actually helps to facilitate robustness in the organism."
• Brendan Burchard [31:18]: "Extra virgin olive oil contains a compound called oleocanthal, which is essentially an anti-inflammatory compound that is as anti-inflammatory as low-dose ibuprofen."

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Final Thoughts

This episode provides a comprehensive exploration of nutrition science, offering actionable advice for listeners aiming to improve their diets and overall health. From understanding the fundamental roles of fiber and protein to navigating the complexities of processed foods, Ed Mylett and Max Lugavere equip audiences with the knowledge to make informed dietary choices.

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For more detailed insights and practical tips, listeners are encouraged to read Max Lugavere's book, featured prominently in the discussion.

Transcript

[Ed Mylett]

So, hey, guys, listen. We're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down. Growthday.com forward/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about 5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me.

[Max Lugavere]

To be a part of it as.

[Ed Mylett]

Well and contribute on a weekly basis. And I do.

[Max Lugavere]

So go over there and get signed up.

[Ed Mylett]

You're going to get a free tuition, free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com forward/ed. That's growthday.com forward slash ed.

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[Max Lugavere]

This is the Ed Show.

[Ed Mylett]

Hey, everyone. Welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

[Max Lugavere]

We're gonna talk about eating today and Max Lugaver is going to be here for the second time. I'm talking about nutrition your body, cooking your food correctly, and it's incredible. And he's one of a kind. He's just the best in the world at what he does. So, Max, welcome back, brother Ed.

[Brendan Burchard]

So good to be here, my man.

[Max Lugavere]

I'M really excited to share all this stuff. Really stupid thing to start out with. My stomach's growling. Like, I'm gonna tell you why your stomach's growling. There's a mechanism in there. So there is. So why is my stomach growling?

[Brendan Burchard]

There is. It's super interesting. You know, oftentimes when our stomach growls, we think it's because. Because we're hungry. Right. And in part, it's probably time for us to eat when our stomach gives us that indication. But the reason why the stomach is growling, it's owed to a system in our GI tract called the migrating motor complex.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

And the migrating motor complex, it's like this completely underappreciated mechanism that gets going after about 90 minutes of not eating. So after about 90 minutes of not eating, we feel like we're giving our digestive system a rest. But actually, that's when this process kicks up. And what it does is it sweeps debris, dead bacteria, food particles that haven't been fully digested. It sloughs off dead epithelial cells from the stomach down all the way past the small intestine to the large intestine. So it's essentially called a housekeeping weight. It can help prevent sibo, which is small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, which a lot of people suffer from. So people that have GI issues when they eat, they'll have from otherwise benign foods, feelings like indigestion, gas, bloating, stuff like that. It's because we are constantly subverting this housekeeping way, which is so essential to our digestive well being, by eating constantly throughout the day. So the fact that your stomach is growling means that your housekeeping wave is functioning, cleaning the small intestine and keeping your digestive system healthy, essentially eating throughout the day.

[Max Lugavere]

So before we get into the book, by the way, what's great about the book is that it's not only the nutritional guy, but you also, like, rank things too. On, like, the terminology that you use is like, okay, good, best, better.

[Ed Mylett]

Right?

[Max Lugavere]

And I like that as well because it kind of gives a rank.

[Ed Mylett]

I love to rank things, always with my friends.

[Max Lugavere]

Like 1 to 10, how much do you like this guy? You know, 1 to 10, how good was that song? So you rank things in the book. But I want to ask you first, like, a really basic thing overall. If you walked into my kitchen or an average person's kitchen right now, before we get into detailed stuff, what would you tell them to throw? What would you probably go look for and throw out of their kitchen immediately? Is there something in there.

[Brendan Burchard]

Good, good question. I, you know what I find to be, I used to be a lot more dogmatic about like macros and, you know, carbs, fats and things like that. I think that my perspective, especially with genius kitchen, I really think that the major problem with the standard American diet and at the root cause of all of the modern ills that we're seeing burdening society from obesity, overweight, the increasing rates of cardiovascular disease, autoimmunity, really stem back to our overconsumption of ultra processed foods. These are the foods that are packaged, they're shelf stable, minimally satiating and highly calorie dense. These are the foods that really underlie the obesity epidemic. Now you can take the most obvious offenders like sugar sweetened beverages, which are purported to be the cause of about 200,000 deaths annually worldwide just from sugar sweetened beverages alone. That's how toxic they are. I mean, once one or, you know, the occasional indulgence in your favorite sugar sweetened soda, not the end of the world. But the problem with foods that contain added sugar and sugar sweetened beverages are really at the epicenter of this problem because they're so easily consumed, is that we have no biological requirement for sugar and it's not satiating at all and provides no nutritional value. So you could basically eat all of the calories that you require in a day, get all of the nutritional, you know, all of the nutrients that you need, and then throw 200 calories of high fructose corn syrup soft drink on top of that. And that really is what people are doing. And that's why we're seeing, you know, this, this just crazy rates of ever of our expanding waistlines and the like.

[Max Lugavere]

Well, the thing about not being full, you and I talked about last time a lot. That's my layman's version of it. Right. Is something I had not really thought about before, that when I'm eating these processed foods that although I've intake the same amount of calories, say as a handful of nuts or something like that, I'm not satiated. I'm still hungry when I'm done.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right.

[Max Lugavere]

So when you say, just curious, when you say sugar sweetened drinks like that, you talk about all of them, even the artificially flavored ones, Anything at all that's any kind of basic carbonated drink that we're finding at any grocery store.

[Brendan Burchard]

Well, you don't want to, you definitely don't want to drink your calories. But the sugar sweetened beverages I think are the worst. And that's because there's zero, there's, it has zero capacity to satiate your, your, your hunger so you could drink. I mean look at the size of soda, of beverages at fast food joints these days. I mean they're getting bigger and bigger and bigger and that's because we just don't tire of drinking these products. I'm not that worried about artificial sweeteners, although my personal preference is to go for more natural sweeteners. You know, erythritol, stevia, monk fruit and things like that.

[Max Lugavere]

You do like stevia?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, Stevia I'm okay with. I mean it has an aftertaste which isn't ideal. But you mentioned satiety, which is really important I think to unpack for people. The three characteristics of a food that make a food satiating, that make it fill you up so that you get that gratifying feeling of fullness after eating it is water, protein and fiber. So those are the three things that you want to look out for in any food if you want to avoid over consuming that food. Water makes a food satiating. Because if you think about it for a hunter gatherer, one of our hunter gatherer ancestors, when water ceased to be available, where would the next best place that a hunter gatherer would look for, for hydration food? Food is full of water, right? Fresh produce, even meat is a good source of water. So if you're dehydrated, you're likely going to eat more. So that's why water should be one of the first places that you look to. The second thing is fiber. Fiber we have no biological necessity for does make life better. Fiber consumption is associated with longevity.

[Max Lugavere]

Task one thing on that. Yeah, don't you talk about in the book though that it actually has some LDL particle removal capacity?

[Brendan Burchard]

It does, yeah. Especially viscous gel forming in particular psyllium husk. So a lot of people take psyllium husk for regularity. But there's like this amazing side benefit of psyllium husk and that is that it traps LDL particles in the form of bile acids in the gut. And it's one of these like really easy interventions that can have a small but significant effect on your lipid, on your lipid profile.

[Max Lugavere]

Very good.

[Brendan Burchard]

It can also trap excess levels of hormones like estrogen, which is one of the reasons why fiber consumption seems to be associated with reduced risk of breast cancer, which is one of these hormone sensitive cancers. So fiber is, is really incredible. It seems to do all these amazing things we don't. It's not an essential Nutrient. You know, you see a lot of these like people on the carnivore diet thriving with seemingly zero fiber intake. And fiber, of course, it's also a, a surrogate. You know, dietary fiber intake is probably also like a surrogate marker for just an overall healthy dietary pattern. Now if you're eating a lot of fiber, you're not the typical person consuming the standard American diet, right? You're eating probably more salads, more veggies and things like that. But fiber is satiating because it mechanically it absorbs water and stretches out the stomach, turning off the hunger hormone ghrelin. So that's the second aspect of food that you want to make sure that you're seeking out in order to be satiated.

[Max Lugavere]

That's big.

[Brendan Burchard]

And then the third thing I would say is protein. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient. More so than carbs, more so than fat. And if you look at ultra processed foods, they tend to be deficient in all three of those things.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay, right.

[Brendan Burchard]

Ultra processed foods tend to be some combination of carbs and fat or both, usually sodium, wheat flour, stuff like that tend to be very protein deficient. Also, protein is the most expensive macronutrient. So it's another reason why these high margin junk foods, right? They all tend to be, they lack.

[Max Lugavere]

It because it's too much to put in there. You're saying.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, it's too, it's an expensive.

[Max Lugavere]

Are we too. So protein. Let's stay on that topic for a minute. You're going right down all my questions I wanted to ask you, by the way, here's. It's another one of these interviews, everybody, where you get to listen in on.

[Ed Mylett]

Stuff I want to know.

[Max Lugavere]

And it's to your benefit too, right? Because you don't get a lot of guys like Max front of you very often. So protein is like obviously you know that I've lifted weights all my life and everyone knows protein, protein, protein. Are we overly obsessed? So are we overly obsessed with protein intake? In other words, have we gone so far? Like I try to eat my body weight and protein every single day. So I weigh a couple hundred pounds. I'm trying to get about 200. For me though, I do supplement different things to get to that 200. So what you said protein's so critical, but is there a tendency to be overly obsessed with getting so much protein or you can't get enough of it?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I mean I think that you can get enough of it, but that is, it's actually self regulated. So you really don't have to think about getting too much of it because it's so satiating. I mean, nobody has ever gorged on lean chicken breast, which is one of the most protein dense foods there is because it's so satiating. We have these innate hunger mechanisms in our mouths, on our tongues, in our digestive tracts that know once we've had enough protein. But we do know that the RDA for protein is insufficient for good health, especially for people like you and like me who, who are active and who exercise regularly. In fact, the research suggests that we need to consume about double what the RDA is. So the RDA is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight every day of protein. We don't use kilograms here in.

[Max Lugavere]

But everywhere else does that.

[Brendan Burchard]

But everywhere else. Yeah. So I mean, I'll break it down in terms of pounds, but essentially we need double that. So the research suggests that if we want to optimize our time spent in the gym, which we all should. Right. We work hard for our. For the gains. Right. You should be striving for, for 1.6 grams per kilogram of lean mass or goal weight. And so that's an important distinction. And that breaks down to. In terms of pounds point about 0.7 grams per pound of lean mass or goal weight.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

And the idea there is you're lean. So for you, 0.7 to a whole gram per pound of your body weight. That's sufficient. You're like, you're definitely doing the right thing there. But if you had, say, you know, if you had 50 pounds of fat mass on you that you wanted to lose, then I would do 0.7 to 1 times what your weight would be. Minus 50.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay. Do you consider protein supplements as processed foods? Are those all processed?

[Brendan Burchard]

That's a really good question. I actually don't. I think protein, protein supplements are great. I personally take them. Good. I think it's. Yeah, it's, it's easy to meet your protein goals with protein shakes. And also whey protein in particular has been shown to support immune function.

[Max Lugavere]

Yeah.

[Brendan Burchard]

Which I think is like this nice happy added side benefit.

[Max Lugavere]

It's interesting because when you read Max's book, you would think, because we're talking a lot about plants here in a minute. But there's a lot of meat in there too. And the way to prepare it. And by the way, he actually has a void all the way up to best in terms of foods or ways to prepare them as well. In the book the rankings are. There's some avoid in there. So I'm learning about sulforaphane. Did I say that correctly?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, sulforaphane.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay, so talk to us about, like, having these defense mechanisms in our bodies that we need as well. So go plants and sulforaphane a little bit. Tell us a little bit about that.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, absolutely. So plants, like animals, they don't appreciate necessarily being eaten. Right. Plants have a. Have an innate drive to survive as well. But plants can't fight off predators. So what they do is they become chemists and they create compounds.

[Max Lugavere]

That's fascinating. Right here.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, they create antifedent compounds, basically, that would make smaller animals, mice, insects, even fungus that serve as toxins to those smaller organisms.

[Max Lugavere]

This is fascinating.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah. And we can see this actually, by Sulforaphane is a perfect illustration of this, because sulforaphane, even though it's one of the most powerful putative cancer fighters, neuroprotectant cardio protective compounds in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, and brussels sprouts. Sulforaphane isn't actually in those plants until the cells of the plants get crushed and chewed up.

[Max Lugavere]

You're kidding me.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

You won't find. If you take a raw piece of broccoli, there's no sulforaphane in it. There are two compounds. One is called glucoraphanin, and the other is called myrosinase. You don't have to remember this, but they're basically. These are two compounds held in completely different cellular compartments. And when they unite, which only happens when you chew on the plant.

[Max Lugavere]

That's incredible.

[Brendan Burchard]

When a critter chews on the plant, you create this sulforaphane compound, which is essentially a pesticide.

[Max Lugavere]

It's a toxin.

[Brendan Burchard]

It's a toxin. It's a toxic pesticide that the plant creates itself.

[Max Lugavere]

Gosh, that's amazing.

[Brendan Burchard]

To protect itself from predation. But the reason why these compounds are beneficial in us, we're obviously, we're much more robust than a mouse or an insect. Right. And for many toxins, it's like the dose makes the poison. For an insect, the dose of sulforaphane that they may be getting is gonna be a much higher and more toxic dose relative to its body size. In us, eating sulforaphane, especially at the dose contained, when we. At the dose ingested, when we chew cruciferous vegetables is so small, but it still has a protective effect. And this protective effect is owed to a mechanism called hormesis. And hormesis is basically the term given to when small doses Of a certain stressor, even a certain toxin actually helps to facilitate robustness in the organism. And it's the mechanism by which exercise works.

[Max Lugavere]

Humans in general.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, humans in general. The way we develop grit, like, I mean, you talk about this on your podcast all the time. And so we essentially get this form of. We ingest and we derive this form of chemical stress from compounds like sulforaphane, polyphenols. The plant kingdom is just like, loaded with these compounds, bro.

[Max Lugavere]

That blows my mind. So you all know you should eat more plants, right? Or veggies, rather. But in this case, are you hearing this? How much nature has constructed this to our benefit. That's mind blowing, that it only materializes when chewed. When they are, they're combined and then they have this benefit, by the way, hormesis. I had David Sinclair on the show who's like, I think you know, Dr. Sinclair from Harvard, but he's like the number one longevity dude in the world. And the whole philosophy of his work is based on the concept of hormesis. When you do cold plunges or exercise or things like that in the body. You're saying there's a mechanism that strives inside our own bodies when these toxins kick in?

[Brendan Burchard]

Absolutely.

[Max Lugavere]

That's mind blowing.

[Brendan Burchard]

It beautifully illustrates, I think, the symbiosis of all living things in the sense that you take a plant that's been stressed.

[Max Lugavere]

Unreal.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right. And it imparts, it develops a vigor, right? Like a stressed plant, Like a wild plant. It's gotta be scrappy, right? Like out there in the world. And when you eat it, it imparts that vigor onto you. It's like this beautiful circle of life.

[Max Lugavere]

That's bananas to me. No pun intended. You said fungus earlier. There's this big thing in the book on fungi, right? Like, so I don't like the taste of, like, mushrooms and stuff like that.

[Brendan Burchard]

That's okay.

[Max Lugavere]

So talk to us a little bit about fungi and why it's good stuff.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, well, there. First of all, have you. I mean, there are lots of different mushrooms and they all have different flavors.

[Max Lugavere]

I probably haven't sampled very.

[Brendan Burchard]

There is. Have you tried lion's mane? Have you ever had fresh lion's mane?

[Max Lugavere]

No.

[Brendan Burchard]

So a lot of people are talking about lion's mane these days because you can find it in various supplements. But now you're starting to see fresh lion's mane pop up at different supermarkets.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

And it has the taste and texture of fresh crab. I'm not even kidding you. It's like, it's really delicious.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay, I will try that then.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, you saute it in a little olive oil, maybe some grass fed butter, salt, pepper. It is so damn good. And the beautiful thing about mushrooms is that very nutrient dense and low calorie. So you're not getting a lot of calories from mushrooms, but you're getting a lot of really interesting compounds like beta glucans, which can support immune function. Certain mushrooms have different micronutrient profiles. Some have vitamin D, depending on where they grow. Some mushrooms actually create really powerful detoxifying compounds like glutathione. Glutathione is considered the mother of all antioxidants. And certain mushrooms, like the porcini mushroom in particular, very concentrated in glutathione, which is great. And one tip. So as you've mentioned, the genius kitchen, which is one of the reasons why I'm so proud of it. It's not just a cookbook, it's for people to learn actually how to cook.

[Ed Mylett]

Yes.

[Brendan Burchard]

Which I thought was so important. And one of the, I think biggest mistakes that people make, if they're listening to this and they say, well, I don't like mushrooms. I've never had mushrooms that I've liked. One of the biggest, most common mistakes that people make when cooking mushrooms is they rinse them. You never want to add water to mushrooms because mushrooms are already packed with water. All you want to do when you buy mushrooms is brush off any visible dirt that you see. But you never want to rinse them. Unlike other produce, you just want to throw them in a hot pan with some, like cooking oil, some great oil, like extra virgin olive oil, butter.

[Max Lugavere]

Is it. Because once you're cooking them, whatever the gnarly stuff that could be potentially on there by washing is gone by cooking it or there's nothing on there.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I mean, you neutralize anything, potential harm that would come from eating something raw. But it's also that mushrooms are like sponges for water. And what you're, what you're. The aim when you cook a mushroom is to get the water out of it so that the mushroom's natural flavor comes through.

[Max Lugavere]

Do you, do you look at food like it's actually medicine?

[Brendan Burchard]

I do. You know, I think that I like to say there's a lot of. There are a lot of people in the functional medicine community that like to say that food is medicine. I like to refine that a little bit and add a little bit of nuance. I think that food is definitely a form of medicine. I think it's certainly a form of preventative Medicine, it can be used to help prevent conditions like obesity, overweight, type 2 diabetes. That's uncontrovertible fact at this point. Do I think that it can treat every disease? Not necessarily. I'm not anti medicine or anything like that. I think that actual medicine has a place, but I think that food also has a place. And I think that we need to not be so dichotomous in our thinking. You know, I think that there's a place for both. So I think that food is medicine. I think exercise is medicine. Medicine. I think sleep is medicine. I think hydration is medicine.

[Max Lugavere]

Yeah. I don't understand why more people aren't conscious of this topic. So there's all this stuff now on supplementation. Everyone's on different supplements. Right. And this is why I'm so excited about your book and you working out. Everyone kind of knows you're supposed to do it now. Everyone's heard a podcast on meditation. I think most people know they should drink more water. But for some reason food itself is really still an under discussed topic. Like in general. And for me, one of the things from your work, I already ate a lot of meat. I've added so many more vegetables, green vegetables, to my diet than I had before, after you and I talked for the first time. And one of the things that's really improved for me is my digestion. What don't most people know or understand about digestion that they should in their lives?

[Brendan Burchard]

Such a good question. Well, I think people don't realize, most people don't realize that digestion begins before you take your first bite. It begins actually there's called the cephalic phase of digestion. So digestion begins when you're observing the food that you're about to eat and smelling the food. One of the reasons why I think it's so important for people to be seated and to relax and to take a deep breath and to just calm their nervous systems before they begin their meal. Because our stomachs begin to pump out hydrochloric acid, protein digesting enzymes, enzymes like pepsin, all before we even take that first bite. Did not know that by biting and chewing slowly, chewing slowly is crucially important. So we already talked about sulforaphane. If you're rapidly chewing your cruciferous vegetables, you need time for those enzymatic reactions to occur. So the creation of that compounds will which activates detox pathways in the body. It's a cardio protective neuroprotective compound, but it needs time to be created. The same thing with Alliums like garlic and onions. There's a compound created when we crush garlic, fresh garlic in particular, called allicin. It's an antimicrobial compound, anti inflammatory. We need to chew slowly because that's where the digestion and the synthesis of many of the most valuable compounds in our food begin to be created in our mouths also. This is one of the things that I talk a lot about in Genius Kitchen as well. Some of our most beneficial produce, like beets and arugula, are very high in compounds called nitrates. Nitrates are really good for our cardiovascular health because the end product, nitric oxide in our cardiovascular system basically brings down blood pressure. It supports blood flow. It's a vasodilating gas that we all create in our blood vessels. Also really important for sexual function.

[Max Lugavere]

I was gonna say, guys. It's biggie.

[Brendan Burchard]

Guys. Yeah. Nitric oxide is super, super important. And the nitrates that are found in foods like beets, a lot of people will take, like, beetroot supplement, right, to boost blood flow, but humans don't actually have the enzyme to convert nitrates in food to nitrite, which then gets funneled into that nitric oxide pathway. It's the oral bacteria in our mouths.

[Max Lugavere]

Crazy.

[Brendan Burchard]

That reduce nitrate to nitrite, which then can boost nitric oxide in our blood vessels. So for your oral bacteria to have the time to be able to do that, you need to chew your food slowly. So if you're wolfing down a salad that has arugula in it, that has beets, and you're not taking the time to chew what it is that you're eating more slowly, you're undermining the capacity of your food to be cardio protective. And in tandem with that, it's another reason. And I don't know why I felt the need to mention this in the book, but. But I felt it was, like, really apropos. It's one of the reasons why people should definitely not use antiseptic mouthwash every day. Because what you're doing with antiseptic mouthwash is you're nuking the bacteria in your mouth that basically reduce nitrate to nitrite, which then can actually, they've even an acute swishing of antiseptic mouthwash. Antiseptic being the key here, can increase your blood pressure because it basically messes up that nitric oxide pathway. They've also shown that.

[Ed Mylett]

Wow.

[Brendan Burchard]

Rinsing with mouthwash after exercise can reduce the blood pressure lowering effects of exercise. And people who regularly use mouthwash two times or more per day. And this is about 40% of the population have 50% increased risk for developing type 2 diabetes because nitric oxide is also involved in insulin signaling and they have double the risk of developing hypertension.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay, brother. Okay, I gotta start chewing my food slower. And I threw up my. And I do you antiseptic mouthwash. So is there any. I have so many things mash you. By the way, I told you guys, you never heard a show like this before. So you're gonna write down stuff down and learn stuff. Is there any downside? Cause we're gonna talk about some other stuff here in a minute. And then some of the stuff in the book on preparation is just awesome. However, is there any downside to eating a plant based or too many plants or anything like that? Can you overdo that or is there no downside?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I love this question. I think there is. I don't prescribe a one size fit all diet. People have different tolerances for fiber quantity, for various compounds in food. You know, I have a friend who, if he goes within six feet of an allium, which is like garlic, onions, leeks, he gets the worst digestive discomfort ever. So everybody's different. And I also think that there's this push, especially from the vegan community, to just eat as much fiber as possible. Yes, we know that fiber is beneficial, but if you, from one day to the next, start eating. If you go from what is typical, which is 15 grams of fiber per day, which is pretty low. I'll admit to the goal that some people espouse of being 150 grams a day of dietary fiber. You're just setting yourself up for constipation for all kinds of digestive.

[Max Lugavere]

I was gonna ask you, do you need to drink more water if you're gonna take in that kind of fiber?

[Brendan Burchard]

You just need to. You need to go slowly and you need. Because essentially what it is, is you need to cultivate the microbiome, essentially the gut flora, to be able to assimilate all of that fiber, this fiber. I mean, the thing about fiber, we don't abso. Fiber is fiber because it passes through the small intestine undigested, and it becomes a fermentable substrate for the 30 trillion bacteria that live in the colon in the large intestine. But you need to cultivate that bacterial community first. The bacteria of the person listening to this, compared to somebody in the Hasda tribe, for example, or an Inuit, we all have these different microbial constitutions.

[Max Lugavere]

Some of that's cultural and over time it's materialized. This may seem basic, but this is true. Correct. If some guy from American goes to Mexico on vacation for a long time, the foods or the waters there affect their digestion differently than somebody who grew up correctly.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right. Because you don't have the same immune system. You don't have the same antibodies, you don't have the same gut flora. I mean, the gut is where the majority of our immune system is stationed. So, I mean, the gut plays a huge role in immune function.

[Max Lugavere]

What about fish? So you say in the book know.

[Brendan Burchard]

Your fish, know your fish.

[Max Lugavere]

Yeah. What's the deal with that? Why?

[Brendan Burchard]

Well, fish is really important, especially from the standpoint of brain health, which is, you know, my, my.

[Max Lugavere]

It's your go zone.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah. My number one passion, fish is medicine. When it comes to the brain, we have the most robust body of evidence that the compounds in fish, whether it's the omega 3 fatty acids, preformed, plug and play, ready to go for your brain, or protective antioxidants like astaxanthin, all really, really beneficial from a brain health standpoint. There have been studies that have shown us that one to two servings of fish per week can help prevent dementia in people genetically at risk for developing Alzheimer's disease.

[Max Lugavere]

Prevent dementia one to two times a week. Is there a particular type of fish that you would recommend over another one?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I would definitely recommend the wild, fatty fish. So salmon is a great option. Sardines also a good option. I mean, whenever they look at, this is how epidemiology works, they look at the population level and they say who's eating fish, who isn't. And the people who eat fish, regardless of what kind of fish it is, tend to do better.

[Max Lugavere]

Right.

[Brendan Burchard]

You know, so we can't be snobs about this. Right? That's why in my book, actually, that's why I have good, better best, because to me, like, if all you're able to access is canned tuna, right. If, like, that's all, if you live in a food desert and that's the only kind of fish that you have access to, that's still better than not eating fish.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

Ideally, you want, you know, to, to opt more frequently for a fatty fish like salmon because it's going to be higher in those omega 3 fatty acids and wild is preferred over farmed. But any, any kind of fish is, is beneficial from the standpoint of the brain. Fish is also great in minerals like selenium, like vitamin D. See guys, I.

[Max Lugavere]

Gotta tell you, like, I did not eat almost any. And then actually, when you And I talked the first time. But then reading the book, I'm like, I gotta eat more salmon. I just don't make these choices. The other thing about the book, I think it separates it from anything else too, is actually the preparation parts of it. So you talk in the book. I wanna go through some things about just stuff that's got flavor that you recommend.

[Ed Mylett]

I want to give the whole book.

[Max Lugavere]

Away because I want everybody to go get the book, which you need to go get the book. Here's why you should go get the book. There's not another one in its category like it. In other words, if you want to go get a book on intermittent fasting, there are multiple books on that topic you could go get. All of which are probably pretty good, right? But this topic of the preparation of the food and the way that he talks about eating like a genius, I just don't think there's another one like it. So that's my endorsement, number one.

[Brendan Burchard]

Thank you.

[Max Lugavere]

But the idea of like so extra, extra virgin olive oil is in the book.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yes.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay. Talk about it like one, it tastes good. But number one, why is that something that we should be considering using? And you give recipes and stuff in there in preparation of our food.

[Brendan Burchard]

Oh, I even have an extra virgin olive oil cake. A grain free, gluten free, extra virgin olive oil cake in the book with no sugar added. By the way, I love extra virgin olive oil. It's one of these foods that just for years I've been obsessed with and humans have been pressing olives to make extra virgin olive oil for thousands of years. At this point, it's, it's, it almost is a perfect food. And especially when you compare it to these grain, these grain and seed cooking oils that are so heavily marketed dirt cheap to produce high profit margins, toxic to the bodies in the, in the, to our bodies in the quantity that we're consuming them today. Extra virgin olive oil has super heart, healthy monounsaturated fat, which is the best fat to consume liberally. It's actually a kind of fat called oleic acid, which is the most abundant fat found in nature. Breast milk is rich in oleic acid. Beef has very high in oleic acid. So is wild salmon. But oleic acid, olea is actually, it means olive. So we discovered this fat in olive oil centuries ago and, and now we know how beneficial it is. It actually, it helps prevent inflammation. It helps make our LDL lipoprotein particles more resistant to oxidation and more resistant to adhesion to macrophages, which is where this sort of like atherosclerotic process begins. So it's a really healthy fat from the cardiovascular standpoint. And brain health relies on cardiovascular health. So it's the primary oil that I use in my cooking and that I recommend using as a sauce. And you can cook with it. A lot of people don't, don't realize that there's a lot of misconceptions about that. But the other thing about extra virgin olive oil is aside from the fact that it's a very healthy fat, it's got a superpower that no other fat has. And it's that it contains a compound called oleocanthal, which is essentially an anti inflammatory compound that is as anti inflammatory as low dose ibuprofen.

[Max Lugavere]

Whoa.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah. So over the counter pain relieving medications that are anti inflammatory, they have side effects. Actually, chronic use of ibuprofen is associated with cardiovascular events. But extra virgin olive oil, you're getting all of the benefit, all of the anti inflammatory effect essentially of a low dose of that, but without any of the negative side effects.

[Max Lugavere]

You're kidding me. And by the way, none of the taxing on your kidneys or liver.

[Brendan Burchard]

There you go.

[Max Lugavere]

Either, right?

[Brendan Burchard]

Exactly.

[Max Lugavere]

There's all these little things in the book. I'll mispronounce stuff, but it doesn't matter because I understand the concepts of things. So you talk about cooking with butter, then you're like ghee. Like there's this thing, ghee that you talk about in the book. Everyone else listening is probably going, you don't know what ghee is? No, I didn't know what ghee was. Oh, wow. What is ghee and why are you so high on it?

[Brendan Burchard]

So ghee is a great fat. So is butter. And we can talk about the differences in the two. They're similar. Ghee is derived from butter. It's clarified butter, essentially. So you take butter, you boil it gently, and then you skim off the milk solids and what you're left with is this pure fat that's very well tolerated for people that are even the most dairy sensitive because it's free of lactose and it's free of casein.

[Max Lugavere]

That's big for a lot of people.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, it's great for high heat cooking. It's a staple in Indian cuisine. That's probably the type of cuisine most known for utilizing ghee. But actually butter and ghee, while I use it and I love it and it's definitely a part of my diet, I talk in the book about how for certain people Butter actually can raise levels of ldl, which is the lipoprotein associated with cardiovascular disease. Right. And this is actually kind of interesting, and it's distinct from cream. Now, this is kind of mind blowing. A lot of people don't realize this butter, but butter is made from cream. And is it? You take cream, you churn it, you get butter. That churning process disrupts a compound in the cream called milk fat globule membrane, and it makes the butter more prone to driving up levels of ldl, whereas no other dairy product has that problem. So you can consume all the dairy fat you want from cream, from hard cheeses and things like that. The consumption of full fat dairy is actually associated with better cardiovascular health, with the exception of butter, because it lacks this milk fat globule membrane. So for people that are worried about, you know, have risk of cardiovascular disease, butter is one of those foods that I'm like, yeah, enjoy it sometimes, you know, like, it tastes great. It's fairly nutrient dense for a fat, but it's not one of these fats that I. That I'll go overboard with, unlike extra virgin olive oil.

[Max Lugavere]

What about salt? Do we have misconceptions about salt in general? I know the answer because I read your stuff, but I want to talk about that. So let's talk about salt.

[Brendan Burchard]

I love talking about salt. Salt is one of the easiest ways to elevate your cooking. I mean, salt. Salt is the one ingredient that takes a single ingredient, food. Right. Like a piece of meat and turns it into a steak.

[Max Lugavere]

Sure does.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right? You need salt. That's all you need. So I'm a huge fan of salt, and I think that we're.

[Max Lugavere]

It blows my mind hearing you say that. Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah.

[Max Lugavere]

Well, not anymore. But without reading it would have blown my mind. It's.

[Brendan Burchard]

I mean, a piece of meat by itself is a missed opportunity, right? You gotta add salt and. Yeah, I think that we've been misguided when it comes to salt. A lot of, you know, the nutrition orthodoxy will say, you gotta limit your salt, cut out salt, stop adding salt to your food. But actually, only 11% of the salt that Americans ingest every day comes from home cooking. And the salt that they add with their salt shakers. The vast majority of sodium that your average American ingests every single day comes from fast food, restaurant food, and ultra processed foods, canned, canned foods and things like that.

[Max Lugavere]

So it's not the salt doing the damage, it's the fact that it's associated with those foods. Or is it a different type of Salt?

[Brendan Burchard]

No, it's the, it's the, it's the foods that, that the associated food attached to associated foods. Yeah. About 25% of the population are sensitive to sodium. So they're what is, they're what are called salt sensitive hypertensives. And so that's still a minority. Right. But about 25% of the population, if they eat a lot of salt, they'll see their blood pressure go up by 5% or more. And that, that statistic or that proportion is higher among people who have hypertension already. But for the vast majority of people, they can eat all the salt that they want and not see that they're. And not see their blood pressure go up. If sodium is an issue though, and you are a salt sensitive, if you do find yourself sensitive to salt, I still wouldn't say don't salt your food. I would say cut out the packaged processed foods, the fast food, and you can continue, of course, to add salt to your food to make it palatable. Because even the healthiest foods in the supermarket aren't going to be tasty unless you add salt to them. So by us telling people to stop adding salt to their foods, and by the way, the number one source of salt in the American diet, the number one isn't canned food, it isn't processed meats, it's bread and rolls. That's the number one source of sodium in the American diet. Breads.

[Max Lugavere]

Correct.

[Brendan Burchard]

Breads. Yeah.

[Max Lugavere]

Do you eat bread?

[Brendan Burchard]

You know, I really don't.

[Max Lugavere]

Your face just said you didn't. No.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I don't eat bread. I eat bread. I'll eat bread like, you know, like an almond flour based bread. Because for me, you know, nut consumption is associated with good health. Nuts are very nutrient dense. So if I can find like a good quote unquote paleo bread. Yeah, you know, I'll go to town on that.

[Max Lugavere]

You will.

[Brendan Burchard]

And look, if I'm traveling and there's a really good like sourdough put in front of me, like I'll try that occasionally. But bread is not a staple in my diet.

[Max Lugavere]

That was my next question. So obviously I want people to get the book because they. And by the way, you should be cooking more, you should be home cooking more. And. But let's say you're not tonight. So to your point, I was going to ask you that. So I'm going out to order, I'm in a restaurant because a lot of people eat out or going to eat out inevitably. What's just a good guide when eating out to eat for Our brains to eat for our heart, to eat for our longevity, but yet still enjoy the meal. Do you have a guide? You kind of give yourself when you do that?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I mean, and I want people to eat out. Like eating out is one of the great aspects of modern life. Eating out with friends, I love to eat out. Now, you can't control every single variable when you're eating out. And you shouldn't try to. Right. You don't know what kinds of oils they're gonna use in the restaurant. And so I think you need to give yourself a break and you need to not try to control every variable, control the controllables. And I think when going out to a restaurant, the things that I look for, I base my meal around a protein. So whether that's a piece of steak. Now I try to eat when I'm home, 100% grass fed, grass finished beef when I'm out at a restaurant. Yeah, I really appreciate if a restaurant offers that, but most restaurants don't. And so I don't drive myself crazy. I know that even a piece of grain fed or grain finished beef, which is the most commonly available kind of beef like in a restaurant is gonna be a pristine source of protein. And if you order something like a filet mignon, right, it's gonna be pricey. But a filet mignon is actually a lean piece of meat anyway. And so lean meat, lean beef, it doesn't really matter what the cow's fed, to be honest, from a nutrition standpoint. Cause it's lean. What a cow eats dictates the nutritional quality of its fat. So if you're eating a lean piece of meat like a filet, it actually doesn't matter what the cow's eating from a nutritional standpoint. So I'll try to get a piece of beef. If not that, I'll reach for some grilled salmon, which I know is probably going to be farmed. But it's all good. It's still a great source of omega 3s, still a pristine source of protein. Chicken, Chicken is great. White meat, dark meat, I mean, it doesn't really matter. White meat is going to be just leaner and so it's going to contain less calories, more protein. And then I try to get vegetables. So sauteed vegetables usually I steer away from. Because the veggies in restaurants, when they're sauteed, they tend to be sauteed in cheap oils, restaurant oil, like the vegetable oil or the canola oil or soybean or worse, or corn oil. So I'LL try to get grilled veggies or steamed veggies if that's an option in the restaurant. And then you could always sprinkle some salt or some lemon extra. You can ask for extra virgin olive oil. I love going to restaurants and asking if they can bring out flake salt, which is way better than the table shaker salt.

[Max Lugavere]

Yes, I've done that too.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's really easy to like to manipulate those variables in the restaurant. Focus on protein, order a piece of meat or fish or chicken or what have you and then veggies, a side of veggies, a salad. I mean, those are the meals that I get generally and I find it pretty easy to do. So.

[Ed Mylett]

So, hey guys, I just walked in.

[Max Lugavere]

The studio, we're going to record an episode. And guess what I just did before.

[Ed Mylett]

I walked in, walked into my pantry.

[Max Lugavere]

Got my AG1s out, poured it in my glass, made myself a drink of AG1s. I do it every single day. For me, I do it a couple times a day.

[Ed Mylett]

Why do I use AG1? Number one supports my energy.

[Max Lugavere]

Number two, digestion. Number three, immunity support. And actually I feel a different mood when it comes on.

[Ed Mylett]

My body gets a little bit more.

[Max Lugavere]

Calm, yet I've got more energy. I love AG1.

[Ed Mylett]

One of my commitments is to take.

[Max Lugavere]

AG1 every day in 2025.

[Ed Mylett]

It's literally on my goal list.

[Max Lugavere]

So what are your health goals for the year?

[Ed Mylett]

And I think whatever are Ag one.

[Max Lugavere]

Can probably help support them. So this new year, try AG1 for yourself.

[Ed Mylett]

It's the perfect time to start a new healthy habit. AG1 is offering new subscribers a free $76 gift.

[Max Lugavere]

When you sign up, you'll get a.

[Ed Mylett]

Welcome kit, a bottle of D3K2, and five free travel packs in your first box. So make sure to check out drink ag1.com edmilet to get this offer. That's drinkag1.com edmylet to start your new year on a healthier note. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. So what are some of your relationship green flags? Maybe it's when your partner thoughtfully listens.

[Max Lugavere]

To you or anticipates your needs.

[Ed Mylett]

We often hear about the red flags.

[Max Lugavere]

That we should avoid. But what if we focused more on green flags and friends and partners?

[Ed Mylett]

If you're not sure what green flags look like, therapy can help you identify.

[Max Lugavere]

What they do look like and how you feel when you get them. And it's something you deserve more of in your life, whether you're dating married.

[Ed Mylett]

You'Re building a friendship. Maybe you're just working on yourself.

[Max Lugavere]

It's time to form relationships that love.

[Ed Mylett]

You back and that feel good in your life. Therapy, with better help, can teach you positive coping skills and how to set boundaries in your relationships and in business. And it empowers you to be the best version of yourself, which is really.

[Max Lugavere]

What this show's about.

[Ed Mylett]

They've got more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties. Discover your relationship green flags with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com edshow betterhelp to get 10 off your first month. That's BetterHelp H-E-L-P.com ed show this message is from sponsor Intuit TurboTax Taxes was dealing with piles of paperwork and frustrating forms and then waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money back. Now Taxes is easily uploading your forms to a turbo tax expert who's matched to your unique tax situation. An expert who's backed by the latest technology which cross checks millions of Data points for 100 accuracy. While they work on your taxes, you get real time updates on their progress and you'll get the most money back guaranteed. All while you go about your day. No stressing, no worrying, no waiting. Now this IS taxes Intuit TurboTax get an expert now on TurboTax.com only available with TurboTax live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee [e-mail] guarantees that was a great conversation. And if you want to hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Mylett show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way.

[Max Lugavere]

So I'm eating. I'm going to ask you heart and brain. I'm eating for my brain. Give me one or two foods. Eat for your brain. Do this people. And then here's one or two foods to avoid for your brain.

[Brendan Burchard]

All right, love this. So I would say avocados are an amazing brain food. They have the highest concentration of fat protecting antioxidants of any fruit or vegetable. And this is of particular relevance to the brain because the brain is made of fat. And not just any kind of fat, but like a really delicate damage prone category of fats called polyunsaturated fats. The brain is constructed of these fats and so fat soluble antioxidants are crucial to aging. Well, cognitively speaking, avocado is a great source of potassium which we know helps balance out the effect of sodium on our blood pressure. They're a rich source of carotenoids, which can boost visual processing speed, even in people who are young and healthy. Great source of fiber, Very satiating. So avocados are an amazing brain food. I would say the second food. We've already talked about beef a little bit. We haven't yet really talked about eggs. I'm a huge fan of eggs.

[Max Lugavere]

Good. I eat a lot of eggs. I'm glad to hear that.

[Brendan Burchard]

Eggs are great eggs. When you consider the fact that an egg yolk is packaged with everything that nature has deemed important to grow a brain, it literally is the ultimate cognitive multivitam. An egg yolk. Yeah. So I love egg yolks. And also there was a study in older people that found that choline consumption was associated with slashed risk of developing dementia by 30%, which is, you know, there's no drug on the market that we could say, here, take this. 30%.

[Max Lugavere]

Yeah.

[Brendan Burchard]

Risk of dementia by 30%. But choline is a really important molecule. It serves as the backbone to acetylcholine, which is a neurotransmitter that's important for learning and memory. Eggs are the number one source of dietary choline. You get, I think like 150 milligrams in just one single egg yolk, which is amazing.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay. Avoid food for the brain, processed food.

[Brendan Burchard]

Anything beyond that, I would say definitely the grain and seed oils, canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil. We know that these fats integrate themselves into our. Into our adipose tissue. We've actually seen an increase by about 136% of the appearance of these fats, linoleic acid in particular, in adipose tissue, over the past hundred years, which is owed to the fact that we're just chronically consuming these cheap oils, something like soybean oil, by itself. Our consumption of it has gone up 2000% just in the past 100 years alone.

[Max Lugavere]

That's a big part of the book, by the way, is the preparation part. And I want them to get the preparation part. But that's a big deal is if it's got corn oil preparation, that's just a big no. No, huh?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah. You want to get rid of that stuff. I mean, a little bit here and there certainly won't kill you. But the production of these oils creates trans fats. There's no safe level of trans fat consumption. We know at this point they're also full, especially when we cook with them under real world conditions. The appearance of. Of oxidative Byproducts, certain aldehydes and things like that which we know are damaging to our mitochondria, which is the organelles in our cells that create energy. And these oxidative products are found under. They're found in oils that are available commercially and created under just everyday use.

[Max Lugavere]

And what about heart? Anything you say, this heart. Eat this for your heart.

[Brendan Burchard]

From a cardiovascular standpoint? Yeah, I mean, extra virgin olive oil, I think really important fish, wild fatty fish is great from a cardiovascular standpoint. Exercise important. It's not food, but, you know, it's.

[Max Lugavere]

And I think the fiber part is heart related too. If you are really truly, you know, if it does have some LDL reduction capacity in any way, any particles, then fiber's a big deal.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, it does. I mean, basically what happens is you. You release bile acids to help break down fats in the gut. And bile acids, we, we use LDL particles to make bile acids. And those part, though, that LDL is basically taken back up in the ileum, which is the latter end of the digestive tract. But when you consume fiber with your food, and especially this gel forming, viscous fiber, psyllium husk and other fibers naturally found in foods, it traps the LDL particles and so they're not able to be taken back up in the ileum in time. So you basically pass them. That's why fiber, I think, is so great from a.

[Max Lugavere]

It yanks it from a heart. You're brilliant, by the way.

[Brendan Burchard]

Dude, thank you. I feel the same way about you.

[Max Lugavere]

Thank you. I told you this like five times last time that we talked, but I just. When I'm talking with you and thank you. I appreciate that. Fruit. So here we go.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah.

[Max Lugavere]

So, you know, I get my info from different people. And so I'm curious because I have some friends of mine that say, listen, fruit's like ingesting sugar in the body. The body doesn't know the difference. I'm gonna ask you whether this is true or not. The body doesn't know the difference. So you're gonna get some sort of insulin reaction to it. Then you're gonna get more inflammation. And so fruit equals yeast and equals inflammation. I have other friends who say, nope, fruit's got all this nutritional benefit to it. It's also got some water benefit to it in many cases. And so I eat a ton. So where do you stand on those two ends of the spectrum?

[Brendan Burchard]

I think fruit is great, especially whole fruit. But I do think it's important to bring nuance to the table and to Acknowledge that there are different kinds of fruits. We have low sugar fruits like avocados, berries, all berries are great. Cucumbers, citrus, things like that. And then we have high sugar tropical fruits like bananas, for example, or pineapple, mangoes. If you are, if you have problems with your glucose tolerance and your sedentary all day. Do I think gorging on grapes and bananas, for example, is a very, is a very smart idea? No. I mean, it's better than gorging on junk food, but I think we could do even better than that. I think we can look to foods that have less to have a lower glycemic load, but at the end of the day, fruit is beneficial. And so I don't want to scare anybody away from eating more whole fruit. I personally, my daily fruit consumption ranges from zero to two servings a day. And again, all fruits are different. So berries, there's a lot of evidence now showing how supportive berries are to brain health. Bananas are a great source of potassium, which can boost cardiovascular health. But are bananas the only source of potassium? No, actually an avocado has twice the potassium of a banana.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

With, with all those other benefits, you know, to it that I, that I mentioned, and as you mentioned, fruit, it's self limiting. So again, this is why I don't really, you know, place a limit on, on fruit consumption. It is self limiting because of the fiber, because of the water and the fact that fruit comes with that, the fiber and the water. That is important from the standpoint of how the sugar in the fruit affects us physiologically. So there was actually a really interesting study where this wasn't a fruit per se, but they compared the same amount of carbohydrates from wheat. So they took 50 grams, we'll just say 50 grams of wheat, and they turned it into a porridge. And one porridge, in one version of the porridge, the wheat was coarsely ground, and in the other it was much more finely ground. And the finely ground porridge, again, carbohydrate, carbohydrates were controlled for. So the calories were controlled for. Right. So same amount of carbohydrates in each bolus, the finely ground wheat porridge and the coarsely ground wheat porridge. And what they found in the finely ground wheat porridge was that it sent blood sugar, the amount the glycemic impact was way higher, which led to a way higher release of insulin. And afterwards, so it sent the blood sugar way higher in the subjects. But then what was really interesting was that it dropped it below Baseline, afterwards, whereas the. Yeah, so it led to a blood sugar crash. That blood sugar crash that we all try to avoid. Right. Because that can create feelings of anxiety and people prone to anxiety, fatigue, fatigue, hunger, irritability. Right. But the coarsely ground porridge is harder for our bodies to digest. Right. And it digests more slowly. Return blood sugar. Right back to baseline. Right. So going back to the fruit conversation, this is why I think fruit is so great and not something that we ultimately need to worry about. Right. Because it's not like we're just juicing the fruit and consuming that sugar. It has this whole food matrix of fiber and water and it leads to a very slow infusion of sugar. Whereas you can take the same amount of sugar found in an apple and drink it and you're not going to have the same effect. You're probably going to see a blood sugar crash.

[Max Lugavere]

That's one of my favorite things we've talked about so far right there. Because that's a definitive example of the difference of that and just ingesting typical sugar on its own, which is sort of one of the arguments against fruit. I'm not advocating fruit anymore less than you are. I wouldn't advocate anything because it's not my background. But what about just eating less? So I want you to address a couple different things. By the way, I really appreciate you going so deep because this is really valuable to myself. I care about these folks that are my family listening to this and watching this and their well being. I want them to live happier, stronger, more energized lives. And you really help people do that, bro. So what about less? And when I say less is, I mean less often. Meaning how do you feel about, you know, feeding windows? My cardiologist doesn't like to call it intermittent fasting. She likes to call them feeding windows. Actually, David Sinclair did as well. And then just portion size in general, Is that something you're cognizant of, like how much food you're putting in your body? Actually not just calories, but just amount of food and portion size and how often you've do or don't eat are those things that you think about or focus on?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I mean, I try not to eat for two to three hours before I go to sleep every night.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

That's my primary concern is not eating too close to bedtime. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, I like to eat an hour after I wake up. Sometimes I'm not hungry at all and I can go two, three hours after waking up before taking My first bite. But this all comes back to circadian biology. And you know, we're seeing now that especially with research on time restricted eating. A lot of this research is being done by down over at the Salk Institute with Sachin Panda. He's done a lot of, a lot of really published a lot of really interesting papers on time restricted eating. But that when we simply honor our body's natural inclination to eat during the day and not eat too much late at night, we see cardiometabolic benefits to our blood pressure, to our blood glucose, glucose control. And this is independent of weight. So some will argue that time restricted eating merely just a way of controlling calories. And it is that it can be a very effective way of controlling calories. It's not, you know, time restricted eating doesn't give you a free ride to eat whatever it is that you want. You can still gain weight while time restricted eating. You know, I think a lot of, a lot of people make the mistake of thinking that time restricted eating or intermittent fasting is this hall pass to eat whatever it is that you want and that somehow calories don't matter if you're time restricted eating. That's false. Right? But independent of calories, it does seem to be the case that there is a cardio metabolic benefit to not eating too late at night. And so that's what I try to do. We see that people who eat late at night, their hunger patterns are miswired the next day. And I've anecdotally experienced this myself. When I eat really late at night, my digestion isn't great the next day and I tend to feel more hungry when I wake up the following day.

[Max Lugavere]

Well, for me, I sleep a lot better because my body's working to digest food that I eat later at night. And so when I'm not necessarily in full digestion mode, so to speak, I just sleep deeper. But the reason I ask you about portion size, I want to talk about this. Maybe one of the last two things here is that as you talked earlier about how big these sodas are now, so are portions like you go to when you do eat out, the portions seem to be getting bigger and bigger and bigger. You go to an average restaurant now you're like, my gosh, the amount of food in some places that they're bringing me. And there's been this thing like I grew up with this, like clean your plate. It was a big thing. Here I am 50 years old, but I would sit at a, A lot of us grew up like this. I wasn't even allowed to leave the table if I didn't eat all the food. Mom, I know you're listening to this. I love you, but like, but like, there is a portion issue in our culture. And I do think people think, well, I haven't eaten in eight hours, so I'm gonna eat three sizes fistfuls of steak because I haven't eaten any in 10 hours. So what about portion size? Do you that?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I mean, I personally am a volume eater. I like to eat a lot.

[Max Lugavere]

You told me that last time.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I like to eat a lot. And I think that the way that that has become something sustainable for me and, you know, and I'm able to do that without having to think about calories and to portion control all that much is to focus really on the foods that I know are going to be satiating so that I can feel full but still not have over consumed my daily calorie needs. And the way to do that is to focus really on whole, minimally processed foods. So you can eat a lot. You can eat a huge volume of food and not consume at the end of the day all that many calories in doing so. I mean, that's the problem with ultra processed foods is that by the time you've eaten those kinds of foods to satiety, you've already over consumed them. Yes, these are the foods like pastas and rolls and breads and cakes and fried foods and chicken dishes, like, you know, lasagnas and things like that. But it's the, it's the minimally processed foods that allow you to feel like you're eating a lot when in reality you're actually not eating that much because they're just, they're just that satiating.

[Max Lugavere]

Okay.

[Brendan Burchard]

And so, yeah, I mean, I've done on my Instagram too, like side by side depictions where, you know, if you look at the calorie density of your average fast food meal.

[Max Lugavere]

This is really good right here. You guys, I've seen you do this. Go ahead.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, like the French fries and the sod and the Big Mac, it fits within, like, I mean, you can, you can basically in two handfuls, hold all of that food in two hands. And that's, for the most part it's like 1500 calories worth of food right there. And just, you're holding it in two hands. Right. But if you look at foods like, you know, wild salmon, fresh vegetables, dark leafy greens, whole fruits, eggs and stuff like that, the calorie density is way lower for those foods.

[Max Lugavere]

Calorie density. There you go.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, the calorie density is lower, but the volume is way higher. And so volume is one of those things that it's really hard from the standpoint. Look at any animal when left to their own devices, when allowed to eat ad libitum, which is a scientific way of saying to allow an animal to eat everything that they want, they don't stop, they don't pump the brakes, they have no reason to self regulate the way that we do. But when an animal is eating its biologically appropriate diet, it knows when to stop naturally. Right. An animal's M.O. isn't to eat itself to a state of type 2 diabetes and obesity. Right. So I think that the reason why so many of us struggle with overeating is because of the, it's the food environment. It's not that there's anything wrong with us. I think a lot of people feel like there's like a moral failure, right, when they can't regulate their appetites, when they just find themselves eating too much chronically. But it's the foods. It's the ultra processed junk foods. And it's not even junk foods, it's the, it's food, it's fast food, it's sugar sweetened beverages. And it's not even just food, to be honest. It's our lifestyles. You know, when you are under slept, the next day you're inclined to eat 400 more calories than if you were well slept. So it's, it's all these factors. Yeah, all these factors come into play. And so yeah, I think that like moderating and trying to like shrink your portion size is one of the reasons why diets fail again and again. Because you can't just shrink your portion size. Expect that to be a sustainable thing for you. People want to be able to eat and feel full.

[Max Lugavere]

By the way, what you just said, for those of you that have some guilt about not eating healthy, ask yourself about your satiation level when you're eating. Right. I'm just going through things you've said today. The amount of fiber intake so that you're feeling more full, also your water intake so that you're feeling more full. And just give yourself some a break about that. Maybe it's not the amount of food you're eating, but the types of foods you're eating so that you feel fuller sooner. The other little thing I thought about, I'd eat fast. I eat too fast. You said this earlier. It's one of my takeaways for our conversation today. So One, I'm losing the benefit of some of that combination of circumstances that causes these healthy toxins in my body when I'm eating, but also the fact that it's not even giving myself time to signal the fact that I'm full. Oftentimes I do everything fast. I talk fast, I drive fast, I walk fast. And I think sometimes our personality dictates even the way we eat. And I think it's smart to step back and go, let me enjoy the flavor of the food, let me enjoy the meal to some extent, let me enjoy the conversation. It's not a. I think sometimes I'm always in a contest to be first. I don't know if anybody can relate to that. I gotta be the first one finished, first one to order, first one finished. Which is not just insanely stupid thing, but yet I do it when I eat. And I think when I overeat or when I have digestion issues or fatigue after a meal, oftentimes it's not the food I ate. Sometimes for me, it's just how fast I ate it in some cases. And so. So I really appreciate you saying. Okay, last question.

[Brendan Burchard]

Oh, man.

[Max Lugavere]

Well, there's so many more. I've got 3,000 more questions I wanted to get to. But you know, the depth of your answers are so awesome, bro.

[Brendan Burchard]

I love talking to you.

[Max Lugavere]

I love talking to you, and I want to keep doing it. By the way, guys, I just say this about Max. There's not someone else like him. So follow his stuff, check out his YouTube, listen to his podcast, Get Genius Food. Get the book, you know, get it. So just an in general question. We've covered a whole bunch of stuff today. I just want to. We missed something. We missed a lot of things. But if someone's listening, they go, you know what, man? I'm gonna start to pay more attention to how I'm eating, what I'm eating, how I'm eating. Other than what we've covered here today, what would be one more layered thing you'd say? And by the way, don't forget this either in preparation or the type of food or anything like that that you would throw in that I didn't ask you that. They should just know before I let you go.

[Brendan Burchard]

Oh, man. Well, a topic that I'm really passionate about is our. Our almost constant exposure to environmental toxins. So industrially created compounds that have saturated the food supply that we are unwittingly ingesting on a day to day basis that's compromising our health. So compounds like bisphenol A or bpa endocrine disruptors like phthalates in our food supply or PFAS chemicals. I would say that getting your food right is super important and probably going to be the lowest hanging fruit for most people. But I also think that people should start to at least gain a sense of awareness about where their food is coming from and to reduce their reliance on foods that come in plastic packages and to minimize their storing of food in plastic packages and certainly the reheating of food in plastic packages. So this is a big problem, like the microwaving of food and plastics, purchasing of sandwiches and other food products in oilproof paper, wrapped in oilproof paper. All of these situations increase our exposure to compounds that mess with our hormones, the system of chemicals in our body that guide everything from neurodevelopment to sexual function to where we store our body fat. So becoming aware of where your food is coming from, I mean, there's a study that came out just, I think it was late 2021 that found that fast food was just rife with phthalates. Phthalates are known endocrine disruptors. And so if you're eating a food product that just try to visual where, you know, how it arrived in your hands, if it had to flow through a Byzantine network of plastic tubing, right, to make it into your food supply, to make it into, onto your plate, then it's probably something that you should minimize your consumption of. If it's a piece of, you know, and just compare it to a sliced piece of fresh meat or a whole chicken that you roast yourself, for example, it's a lot different. Or, you know, produce that you grab from the supermarket and put in a bag yourself. I mean, that's completely different. But, you know, so many of us today, we're consuming foods in packaging, and we think that the packaging is inert, but it's actually not. Under certain circumstances, the chemical constituents of the packaging are able to leach into the food that we're eating, and it screws with us. It affects everything from insulin sensitivity to our predilection for weight gain. So I think, yeah, and I and I offer some tips in Genius Kitchen to help minimize one's exposure to these kinds of toxic chemicals, which I think is. Is a really important layer that we need to be talking about more.

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[Ed Mylett]

Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. I got her right next to me. Everybody, this is Paige Hathaway. First things first, Mike and Nico, I know want to know this. They want to know what is the best exercise to build your butt. So what, like. And I know a lot of the ladies are like, watching this too. Like, give me one exercise, one tip from watching this that builds your booty the best. If you had to give me one, what would it be?

[Paige Hathaway]

One. Only one.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay, you can give me three if you want, but just throw me some.

[Paige Hathaway]

If I wanted to do one, it would probably be something that targets the glutes more. Like a hip thrust or something like that.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay, what about squats? Are they good for that or do you not do squats?

[Paige Hathaway]

I do do squats.

[Ed Mylett]

You do?

[Paige Hathaway]

I do do squats, yes. I do squats. But yeah, I mean, it's not the best to target your glutes, but it's a great lower body exercise. I mean, actually all over, but.

[Ed Mylett]

So give me one more. What's one more great booty building exercise?

[Paige Hathaway]

I mean, I don't want to say, like stuff that's gonna like for guys.

[Ed Mylett]

Because, like, I was kidding. For them, it's really a question. For the ladies.

[Paige Hathaway]

They look like they have good glutes, so I don't even.

[Ed Mylett]

I'm not going there and I totally disagree.

[Paige Hathaway]

Something like the Bulgarians, what's the. Would be a really good one. So if you're going to want to build your glutes, the hip thrusters and.

[Ed Mylett]

The Bulgarian split squat, they can Google what that is. If they don't know what that is right now.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah.

[Paige Hathaway]

Or you can show them after this.

[Ed Mylett]

We'll show them. I'll do some Bulgarian split squats. Those are major part of my routine, as you can all tell from looking at me. Okay, so in all seriousness, though, about your fitness routine, you can look like this and not be a complete crazy person about your diet. So I was watching something where you were talking about there was a stage of your life where, like, your diet and your cardio was just cray cray, Right? So talk about what that was like, because if you're really gonna compete in a show, there is this level people ask me, like, at my age, like, why don't you try to go, you know, I don't want a diet like that. I just don't like. I like wine and things other than chicken, you know, like sometimes. So, like, you recommend what diet wise for people. And even in your own case, you're shredded. You're very, I mean, obviously crazy fit. But you also kind of. You don't do cardio nine days a week and for three hours. And so take them a little bit through what you do and what you would recommend or you think is at least possible.

[Paige Hathaway]

Of course. So I used to be super 100. Like I said, I'm a 100 in, 100 out type of person. So I used to not like, I used to eat like 10 foods. I used to cardio every single day, work out every single day for at least like two hours. Like, I was just. I mean, when you hit, when you get competing, I feel like you get in this competing mode where you just like. I don't know, it's. It's something that now that I look back and I'm like, how did I do that?

[Ed Mylett]

Yeah.

[Paige Hathaway]

But now, I mean, I believe in more of like an 80, 20. So 80% clean, 20% live your life. Like when I was competing and 100% in like that type of mentality, I didn't go to family functions, I didn't go to birthdays. I didn't. Like, I secluded myself. So it wasn't even good for me, like, mentally, because I wasn't around people. I was like, oh, I can't go that because I might, you know, cheat or I might. Then I'm gonna feel. And then I'm gonna have to do cardio. It's just like a downward spiral. And you can't live your life like that. So, I mean, I just. I eat clean 80% of the time, 20% if I'm going somewhere. If I want something, I'M gonna have it. I'm just not gonna, like, overly indulge in it. You know, moderation is key. Don't beat yourself up about it. Don't go in the StairMaster for an extra hour.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right.

[Paige Hathaway]

But now I'm actually pescatarian. I don't know if you know that, but I get my protein from fish and, like, stuff, and I just do that for my own health reasons that I've had, and it's worked for me.

[Ed Mylett]

But can I ask you, do you mean by your own health reason being your body didn't respond well to eating other meats? Is that what you mean?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah.

[Paige Hathaway]

Yeah. So for as long as I can remember, I just had a digestion issue, and so I was just researching how to naturally help this, and a lot of it came back to red meat. For you, so. For me? Yeah, for me. So you know what? I was like, I'm just gonna try cutting meat out altogether and see if I can do that. I can't be vegan. I've learned this I just can't do. So I did that for a month, and I was like, okay, this isn't working for me. So then I went pescatarian, and it works well for me. And all my digestion issues that I was having completely went away.

[Ed Mylett]

That's wonderful.

[Paige Hathaway]

Yeah. So you know what? I feel like I'm not one to preach about one diet works better than the other. There's so many diets out there, and so many of them work wonderfully. I just think that you need to find something that works best for you.

[Ed Mylett]

And that you can sustain.

[Paige Hathaway]

That you can sustain. Yeah. Because one thing it is, it's a lifestyle. And if you want to be fit and you want to be healthy for. Because so many people. Yo, yo. Right? They gain weight, they lose weight. They gain weight, they lose weight. Because to lose weight, they're not doing something that's sustainable. So you just gotta find something that you can do long term and that works for you.

[Ed Mylett]

I'm huge on that, too, Paige. I love meeting super fit people. Go, hey, I'm also, like, not a robot.

[Brendan Burchard]

Yes.

[Ed Mylett]

You know, like, I eat a cake once a year. You know, I do something, I eat a little spaghetti. Right?

[Paige Hathaway]

Definitely.

[Ed Mylett]

Because I want people that, you know, some of you listen to this, are competing and want to compete. And that's different. Now you're asparagus, chicken and some tilapia, and, like, that's it. Right? That's gonna be your deal.

[Max Lugavere]

That's.

[Paige Hathaway]

That's great. You know, I was Telling him when we were off camera that like, it's competing is one of the. I'm so glad I did that. You know what I mean? Really, it's, it's, you know, I. Everyone should do a show, you know, just got kind of like test your like inner. You know what I mean? Like strength that you have. So I'm not saying anything bad about competing because I competed and I like. I mean, you guys are amazing.

[Ed Mylett]

Same here.

[Paige Hathaway]

But yeah, for me it's just, it's not a sustainable lifestyle for me.

[Ed Mylett]

Isn't it cool though for people watching this that one of the fittest women that is on the circling planet right now is telling you, hey, I have some fun with my food too, Right? Like, what a great thing to know now for an average person watching this. What would you tell them about doing their cardio?

[Paige Hathaway]

You know, I like hiit cardio best. If you're trying to really tone up.

[Ed Mylett]

What does that mean?

[Paige Hathaway]

Just high intense interval training. But so you're not doing this like rigorous one hour of cardio, you're doing, you know, 20 to 30 minute HIIT cardio.

[Ed Mylett]

Yep. Me too. Yeah. Know that you can Google interval training because for me, cardio is something I want to get over with. Unfortunately, that's just me. It's not for all of you. And so if I can get the best bang for my buck, so to speak, it's interval training. So I'm exactly the same way. And for me, I heard you talk about one time before this change, you had moved from doing cardio like two hours, six days a week to like a couple days a week is what you were basically doing, right?

[Paige Hathaway]

Yeah. And I was doing that. And you know what, if I need to like dial in for something like a shoot or something, I'll hop on there and do some hiit training or on my leg days, even some upper body days, I'll put in those plyos to make my rest more minimal to up that high intense training in between my lifts. So I'll do stuff like that.

[Ed Mylett]

One of the things I like that you do on your website too, I want to talk about this for a minute too. Is that there's different ways to do your contest or your training for a show, meaning there's all kinds of. And you do this on your site, but you could just do your own contest with you in a transformation for 90 days or 30 days too. Right. It doesn't have to be some bikini show or bodybuilding show, but you could say, look, I'm starting to Train right now, I'm 6ft tall, 240, and I want to transfer my body over the next 90 days. You do some stuff through your site, I noticed, like that too, where you kind of mentor people. They can send you. We'll talk about that a little bit. For the average person listening to this too, they can do their own contest, right?

[Paige Hathaway]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I do that online. It's just that, you know, I know that, like, a lot of people, you know, going to a trainer can be expensive. You know, you're paying 40, 50, 60, 80, $100 a session, and that can be expensive. So I just do something where it holds more accountability online, where you can, like, check in and I give. I even give out prize money just because. Yeah, because 10,000 bucks. Because, you know, online training can be super. It's hard to stay accountable, you know, it's so hard. You don't go into a trainer, you don't check in. You're not like, here, see me. So I wanted to keep people accountable, and that's.

[Ed Mylett]

They could do that literally through you if they chose to. Yeah. You also talk about on your site real quick, different body types, too. Like, not everybody trains the same way. So can they get some access to help from you on that through your site?

[Paige Hathaway]

Yeah, my site's just page hathaway.com and you can email me there.

[Ed Mylett]

You respond to everybody, Right. It just blows my mind. So they can do that through your site, Right? They can go to your site and get that kind of information too.

[Paige Hathaway]

They can email me directly.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay. And you told me you respond to a lot of this stuff yourself too, right?

[Paige Hathaway]

Yes. Even with Instagram, you know, a lot of people are like, do you comment back to people yourself? I'm like, yes, I comment back to people. I reply to people's DMs. I try to.

[Ed Mylett]

It's unbelievable that you do that. Okay, so a few more things. We don't have too much time left. So overall, if someone was to ask you for, just in general, I want to get more fit, what would you say to somebody? Like, here's where I'd start. This is my general advice to you about getting fit.

[Max Lugavere]

What would you tell them?

[Paige Hathaway]

You know, if someone's not like, they don't have a healthy life lifestyle, or they, you know, they're. They're trying their best to get into it. I would just ease into it. You know, I'm a 100%, 100% out kind of person, but a lot of people don't have that mentality so my best piece of advice is take a day at a time. I would honestly, I would just take, you know, half the week, eat healthy and then half the week live your what you're doing and just every day take a day out and start implementing that healthy lifestyle. I would just do it like a day at a time because a lot of people, it is really hard for them. So you want to make it a routine, right? Because the routine is what's going to help you stay on track. And a lot of people can't do the cold turkey type of thing. So I would just take it a day at a time. Start with one day, start with two days, start with three days, and then make it a lifestyle.

[Ed Mylett]

Well, I agree a million percent, I'm not as fit as you, but I 100% agree to that. It has to be something you're going to maintain. It's so sad for me when I'm in the gym in January and it's packed with all these people with their hopes and ambitions and New Year's resolutions.

[Max Lugavere]

And then by like February 1st, it's.

[Ed Mylett]

Back to the same people again. Everyone's gone because what they started to do wasn't sustainable. So I 100,000% agree. I have a very special man with me here today. Max Lugavere. Welcome to the Max out show with Ed Mylett. Great to have you.

[Max Lugavere]

Great to be here. And what an appropriate name. I mean, I feel like we're really gonna max out today.

[Ed Mylett]

We are. We're gonna max. My family's pro both. So there's dementia in my family and there's heart disease in my family. And so, you know, these things matter to me. But when it comes to Thei cut you off there, I apologize, I didn't know you're gonna keep going, but I. Is that also true in the brain? Where do plaques accumulate in the brain as well in the vascular areas of the brain, or is that the neck? Or how do we. How does it impact the brain?

[Max Lugavere]

Well, so the same kinds of vascular problems that you can have anywhere in the body, you can have in the microvasculature that feeds blood and nutrients to the brain. So that's where you can start to have a problem from a vascular standpoint. The amyloid plaques and tau tangles that you're referring to, it's sort of different machinery there, different mechanism, but nonetheless, the same problems that are going to cause this backup of LDL particles in the blood that's going to cause inflammation in your blood vessels, chronically elevated blood sugar all incredibly damaging to the brain, there's no question about it. Create inflammation in the brain, can damage the blood vessels going up to the brain. And inflammation in the brain is really what is responsible, I think, for this increase in amyloid beta and the tau tangles that we see. So when we talk about amyloid beta and tau, these are the sort of hallmark proteins that are associated with Alzheimer's disease. There are other forms of dementia. You have vascular dementia, as I mentioned, you have Parkinson's disease, dementia, you have Lewy Body dementia. So dementia is an umbrella category. And Alzheimer's disease is simply the most common form of dementia. And so because it's the most common form of dementia, that's why there's all this research money that goes into it. And so amyloid is most closely associated with Alzheimer's disease, but we all generate amyloid in our brains. It tends to increase as we get older. And for a long time, amyloid was thought of as the analogy that what cholesterol is to heart disease, amyloid was to Alzheimer's disease. So that analogy works really well. But the same way that we now know that cholesterol is not necessarily the villain in cardiovascular disease, it's sort of like it's this molecule that's there at the scene of the crime, certainly, but it's not necessarily the causal player, at least in the early stages. The same thing we're now seeing with amyloid. So amyloid, for the longest time, because you could easily open up the brain of a deceased person who had died from Alzheimer's disease, and you see these plaques and tangles in the brain. It was thought that amyloid beta was the cause of Alzheimer's disease. So what do we have to do to get this amyloid out of the br. Many, many drug trials later? What we've seen is that drugs that are actually effective at reducing amyloid burden in the brain don't cure the disease. So the question has then become, what are the earliest things that what are the earliest problems or the earliest biomarkers that are associated with Alzheimer's disease that we can intervene on earlier to prevent this amyloid buildup in the first place?

[Brendan Burchard]

And.

[Max Lugavere]

And we know that inflammation in the brain, because the brain doesn't really have an immune system the way that the body does. Amyloid seems to be responding to neuroinflammation. We also see that sleep is incredibly important when it comes to keeping the brain clean of these plaques. We know over this, just since just as of a couple of years ago, there's a Newly discovered system in the brain called the glymphatic system, which I think many people are starting to become familiar with, that when you sleep, your brain actually flushes cerebrospinal fluid throughout your brain and cleanses it of these proteins that build up over the course of the day. And the thinking is the more of the protein that there is lingering in your brain, the higher the odds that it can basically clump and form the plaques and tangles that we associated with, that we associate with Alzheimer's disease. So that's why that's where sleep really comes into play as well.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay, I'm glad you went there. So now we're going to shift into some. Thank you, by the way. I'm glad we're going to shift into some practical stuff. So practical thing number one, you need to sleep a bunch. It's healthy for your brain. You don't need to understand why, it just is. That's number one. Number two, I want to talk at length. Well, in some detail about. You went there earlier and I'm glad.

[Max Lugavere]

We'Re going to go there.

[Ed Mylett]

We're going to talk about what we put in our mouths now. And you said processed foods versus really healthy, raw, real foods, real meats, real greens, what have you. I eat like a lot of people, I bet, that listen to the show. If I started to add up how much processed food that I eat in a given day or week, it's pretty scary. I'm talking about protein bars, protein chips, things that, that I, at least in my mind, I think are healthy because they're getting me protein, low calorie, really quick, tastes pretty good, it's a snack. But I mean, I eat a ton of processed food. Why is that bad? Compared to eating what you. I don't know what you would call it.

[Max Lugavere]

Real food every single day.

Yeah. So, I mean, I think it's important to make the distinction.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right.

[Max Lugavere]

Like, processed food sort of has this really negative connotation associated with it, especially these days. But when you cook your food, your product, processing it. So it's not necessarily that processing is like this evil thing. It's the ultra process. It's when food has just become so pulverized and removed from its natural form that it's hardly recognizable from its original form. When you take a steak or something or a piece of raw meat and you cook it in your pan, you're processing it. When you put whole foods in a blender, you're processing that food. The problem with ultra processing, which is what the food industry does is it creates foods that are what are called what food scientists refer to as hyper palatable. It becomes really difficult to moderate your consumption of those foods. These foods are designed to be over consumed. And by the time you've reached satiety when eating these foods, you've already over consumed them. You've already. Yeah, they've shown this. Actually. Recently there was a National Institutes of Health study led by an obesity researcher named Kevin Hall.

[Brendan Burchard]

You can look up the study that.

[Max Lugavere]

Found that when people were given an ultra processed diet, diet to consume ad libitum, meaning like you were able to eat whatever you wanted until you reached a point of satiety, they ended up eating a 500 calorie surplus every single day.

Wow.

When you know, when just eating to feel full, which is something that every human being wants to feel right.

[Brendan Burchard]

When eating food, I mean, it's like.

[Max Lugavere]

It'S a privilege and great thing to be able to feel full. And it's something that we all want when we're eating. In the crossover trial, what they then did was that they gave these same subjects access to a minimally processed diet and to the same degree of satiety. So eating also until they were full and satiated, they ended up eating at a calorie deficit of 300.

[Brendan Burchard]

300, something calories.

[Max Lugavere]

Yeah. So I mean, that ultra processed food diet, which by the way, today is how most people are eating most of the time, 60% of the calories that we consume today come from ultra processed foods. That right there explains the obesity epidemic. Because we're just constantly in proximity to these ultra processed foods where it's really difficult to pump the brakes on them. We end up over consuming them. And the other problem with these foods is that they're minimally nutritious. So not only are we walking around with ever expanding waistlines, one in two people by the year 2030 are going to be not just overweight, but obese. And half of us are either type 2 diabetic or pre diabetic. 90% of us are deficient in at least one essential nutrient. So we're overfed and we're undernourished. And when you put those two features together, that's why you're seeing accelerated aging. You're seeing, I think, just unprecedented rates of cardiovascular disease, of certain cancers and of dementia. Because the brain partakes in. Whatever's going awry in the body, the brain suffers the consequences of that as well.

[Ed Mylett]

And these ultra processed foods, is there an ingredient or two that must be avoided? Like, hey, this is really Toxic and bad for your body. When we're looking at the list of ingredients in something, chemicals in there, is there one or two that are just no, no's.

[Max Lugavere]

Well, I love that you asked that question. Really, really getting practical, practical. I think that the kinds of ingredients you really want to watch out for are refined grains. So that's one and refined grain and seed oils. So refined grains, you know, the wheat fl, rice flour, the, you know, the corn flour. I mean, I'm not dogmatic in my approach. Eating a piece, eating a piece of whole corn on the cob is one of my favorite things to eat in the summer. You know, I eat white rice on my sushi. Like, I'm not dogmatic about like, you know, grains are the devil or anything like that. But in these ultra processed foods, I think refined grains really are problematic. I'll give you another reason why, actually, just because it's, because it's interesting. When you eat, say you eat a handful of whole nuts, right? And you look at the calories on the back of the nut package or whatever and you see whatever, we'll just say it's 500 calories worth of whole nuts. You're actually only absorbing about 70% of those calories because when you chew whole nuts, the particles are too big to be fully digested. It's a whole food. You actually end up pooping out a significant amount of those calories. When you, when you eat pulverized wheat, corn, rice flour in these ultra processed foods, you're absorbing 100% of those calories.

[Brendan Burchard]

Not only that, not only that. So I mean, a calorie is not.

[Max Lugavere]

Really a calorie when it comes to nutrition facts, labels. Not only that, but those calories get absorbed really rapidly and really high up in the small intestine. So it basically sends your blood sugar through the roof before your body really even has an ability to, you know, you're still eating while your body is like, you know, what do we do with this sudden influx of sugar essentially? So I think it's important to avoid foods that are based predominantly on those, on those kinds of grains.

[Ed Mylett]

Very, very interesting. So couple things on going in our mouths again. I've heard you talk about baby broccoli or broccoli sprouts and this is like, some people think this is splitting hairs, but it's not. I don't understand, like, is it like sulfatine or the NRF2 pathways, whatever the heck it is. But I know a little bit, right? Why is baby broccoli or broccoli Sprouts way better than, like, broccoli in particular. Why eat that?

[Max Lugavere]

That's a good question. So when you chew broccoli sprouts or any cruciferous vegetable, you basically break apart the cell walls where two chemicals that are kept in isolation in the plants unite in your. Your mouth to create a new compound. And that compound, in the case of cruciferous vegetables, is called sulforaphane and sulforaphane.

[Brendan Burchard]

Sulforaphane.

[Max Lugavere]

Sulforaphane, yeah. It's considered an insect, like an insecticide, a natural insecticide that plants create.

[Brendan Burchard]

Right.

[Max Lugavere]

Because plants can't tooth and nail their way out of being eaten. Right. So what they do is they practice chemical warfare. And so they create these compounds that if you are a small critter, maybe an insect, a mouse, a mold, the. The compound would make you sick.

[Brendan Burchard]

And so, you know, when a mouse.

[Max Lugavere]

Gnaws on these plants, it creates. It creates these compounds. You know, sulforaphane is just one of them.

[Brendan Burchard]

But there's, you know, I mean, the.

[Max Lugavere]

Plant kingdom is just full of these, like, natural defense, defense chemicals. What we see is that sulforaphane, in somebody like you or me, you know, a big, robust organization, actually has a number of beneficial and protective effects via a mechanism called hormesis. So hormesis is when you consume a plant compound, and if you were to consume a lot of it, it would be toxic. But in small doses, it actually has a beneficial effect, sort of like a counterintuitive beneficial effect. Because here we have this toxic chemical, but in small doses, it's actually good for you. The same thing actually applies to exercise. You could exercise enough where it would kill you. Right. It's a stressor on the body. But in small doses, exercise actually makes you more robust, more resilient. We can sing the praises about exercise for hours, but sulforaphane is great because it's been shown to increase levels of a compound in the body called glutathione, which is the. Yeah, it's the body's master detoxifier, master antioxidant. It's being studied now as a means of its cancer protective effects. It's also been suggested in a small clinical trial, I believe, to reduce symptoms of autism. So for anybody that has that in the family, I think it's worth looking into.

[Brendan Burchard]

You know, it's just one of the.

[Max Lugavere]

One of the many benefits of eating a varied diet that includes cruciferous vegetables.

Okay.

[Ed Mylett]

Glutathione. I love glutathione, so I can't explain this. I'D like you to explain it to me. So I do some. I haven't done it in a while just because of COVID But with all my traveling and I get depleted. I do Ivy IV therapy, even just sometime to get hydrated. I'll take IV hydration. One, I'd like your opinion on that, actually. Two, what's your opinion on that? Am I just peeing it all out or does it help? But here's what I know. When they put glutathione in my iv, something amazing happens to my body. There's a calming effect. I can feel that. I feel B12 when they put it in. You know, you get all wired. The other stuff I don't really feel for some reason. Reason glutathione. I can feel better actually when it's in my body. So do you recommend someone supplements with it? Why is that happening or am I crazy? And what do you feel about IV therapy?

[Brendan Burchard]

Yeah, I don't, I don't really recommend.

[Max Lugavere]

I don't make the recommendation that people supplement with glutathione. I mean, I have glutathione, I take sometimes liposomal glutathione supplements.

[Brendan Burchard]

But I, you know, I'm, I really.

[Max Lugavere]

Am pretty convinced that supplements should be used very diligently and deliberately based on your diet and your specific deficiencies and even in some cases, genes. But no, I generally don't recommend that.

[Brendan Burchard]

People supplement with it. I just don't think that you need.

[Max Lugavere]

To if you're eating a diet that is supplying the raw materials for your body's own glutathione synthesis. So sulfur containing amino acids is very important. Grass fed beef, egg, things like that. Anything with sulfur in it is actually going to be really good for you. Sulfur is a rate limiting.

[Brendan Burchard]

Element in.

[Max Lugavere]

The synthesis of glutathione. When you consume, for example, cysteine rich foods, you're going to basically be supplying that. Also glycine. Glycine is really important. It's one of the reasons why I think collagen is worth consuming. Collagen is actually a supplement that I think is worth, worth looking into because we don't tend to eat a lot of collagenous tissues at this point.

[Ed Mylett]

You know, can you stay on that? You don't, you don't think that you break down those supplements in your stomach and you're never getting any benefit to taking something like I've had other people tell me, hey, you're taking a collagen supplement, you're not getting any of it. It's destroyed before it gets to you.

[Max Lugavere]

Yeah, you do break it down. So it's not a one to one.

[Brendan Burchard]

You know, it's not like you consume.

[Max Lugavere]

Collagen and it becomes collagen in your joints. Yeah, but you are increasing your supply of glycine, which we don't consume off of. Your average person consumes about 2 grams of glycine every single day. And you create in your body another two grams of glycine. And that is why glycine is actually not considered an essential amino acid, because we create it to some degree. But I don't think that we create enough for optimal health, especially today when we consume lots of muscle meat. And the reason for that is. So there have been research calculations that speculate that we need about 15 grams of. It depends on your weight and what you're eating, about 15 grams of glycine a day. And that our needs for glycine increase with higher consumption of another amino acid, methionine, which is more present in muscle meat. And we use glycine to create. Create collagen. So by not consuming adequate glycine, again, we only ingest about 2 grams of every single day. You might be actually limiting your body's ability to create collagen. And collagen is super important. I mean, it's important for. I mean, it's like the most abundant protein in the body, and production of it declines as we get older. It's important for the health of your veins, your arteries.

[Brendan Burchard]

Um, so.

[Max Lugavere]

So, yeah, it's one of those things that I think if you're not eating collagenous tissue in animal products, I think it's worth supplementing with.

[Ed Mylett]

Okay. By the way, thank you. I told everybody in the beginning to be like, feverishly writing notes. The cool thing about this show is they listen to it in their car. Like, all right, well, I'm gonna listen to.

[Max Lugavere]

I gotta go all the way back.

[Ed Mylett]

In a notepad out and start writing all this stuff down. So I really appreciate it. And for me, you know, I'm a. I'd say I'm borderline obsessed with my own health. Just because there is dementia in my face family. I don't know that, frankly, it's so long back. I don't know if it was dementia, you know, a particular form of dementia, Alzheimer's specifically, but it's there. And certainly heart disease as well. And I like that you're telling us some of these markers that we can test for.

[Max Lugavere]

This is the Ed Milan show.