Podcast Summary

What Are You Made Of? with Mike "C-Roc" Ciorrocco

Episode: Unlocking Peak Performance: Nutrition, Mindset, and Habits with Dr. Marc Bubbs

Date: February 13, 2025
Guest: Dr. Marc Bubbs, Performance Nutritionist, Bestselling Author, Consultant for Elite Athletes and Executives

Overview

In this high-energy episode, host Mike “C-Roc” Ciorrocco sits down with Dr. Marc Bubbs to explore the building blocks of peak performance, both on the field and in life. Diving into nutrition, mindset, and habit-formation, they discuss how world-class athletes and top executives unlock their potential—and how everyday people can apply the same science to upgrade their lives. Dr. Bubbs shares practical, actionable strategies rooted in scientific research as well as personal experience. The tone is conversational, insightful, and always focused on real-world results.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. What Drives Elite and Everyday Performers?

Timestamps: 01:15 – 02:45

• Dr. Bubbs on Core Ingredients: Passion, curiosity, and loyalty are his bedrock values.
  • Passion for work, life, and family is “definitely a driver.”
  • Curiosity: “Science is curiosity, right? Research is basically formalized curiosity, right? Curious to push the edges, curious to push the boundaries.” (Dr. Bubbs, 01:19)
  • Loyalty: “To teammates … family, friends … and to the process,” emphasizing that real success comes from focusing on the process rather than only the outcome.

2. Small Changes Make the Biggest Difference

Timestamps: 02:47 – 04:13, 13:00 – 14:43

• Marginal Gains Mindset: At the elite level, fractional improvements matter. “You’re not trying to get them a big giant gap closing … but a couple strokes off their score” (C-Roc, 02:47)
• The same principle applies to high-performing executives and entrepreneurs—small, consistent tweaks in habits drive huge results.
• Habits Overhauls Don't Last: Overhauling nutrition works short-term; true, lasting change comes from stacking small, do-able habits.
• “Most people are used to, especially with nutrition, having to put a lot of effort in and overhaul their lifestyle and then it takes a while. … You’re trying to do something that really resonates quickly.” (Dr. Bubbs, 13:02)

3. Self-Reflection as a Superpower

Timestamps: 06:28 – 08:33

• C-Roc and Dr. Bubbs stress that regular, honest self-assessment is crucial:
  – “Reflection is a superpower, right? … The best thing you can do … regardless of the training plan, regardless of the exercise plan … at the end of every week, what went well, what was the challenge?” (Dr. Bubbs, 06:50)
• Contrast between data-driven decision-making in business vs. emotional, irrational choices in health/nutrition.
• Continuous minor adjustments, based on regular reflection, outperform massive, infrequent course-corrections.

4. Dr. Bubbs’ Origin Story: From Athlete to Performance Expert

Timestamps: 09:03 – 12:57

• Early passion for sports (aspired to be a pro athlete; “topped out at 6'2”, not quite NBA material”)
• Personal health challenges in his teens sparked an interest in nutrition—life-changing results.
• Clinical practice, before consulting for elite teams (Canada Basketball, NBA, NHL)
• “... That passion for sport drove me into health … and then all of a sudden, chronic conditions start reversing themselves. And so that just added fuel to the fire.” (Dr. Bubbs, 10:06–10:52)

5. Practical Nutrition: Start Simple, Automate, Then Optimize

Timestamps: 14:44 – 17:42

• Breakfast is the Best Place to Start:
  – “People don’t eat enough protein at breakfast … typically a minimum of 20 grams. The average is 12 to 15.” – Focus on just one target at a time (“Don’t worry about lunch yet. Automate breakfast.”)
• Habit Stacking for Busy People:
  – “You don’t have all day to be tracking everything and logging into apps … we try to help clients make sense of it, simplify it.” (Dr. Bubbs, 16:20)

6. Protein—How Much and When?

Timestamps: 17:46 – 22:43

• Daily protein targets by weight:
  – Baseline: 1.2 grams per kg body weight (minimum to avoid age-related muscle loss/sarcopenia) – Optimal Range: 1.6 grams per kg body weight – “You can divide that in the day in a lot of different ways…”
• Key Analogy: “On your worst day, I want you hitting it in the rough, not 30 yards into the bush. … If you're hitting it out of bounds all the time, it's really hard to break 100.” (Dr. Bubbs, 20:32)
• Intermittent fasting can challenge protein intake, especially as you age (“we actually need more protein as we get older”)

7. Benefits and Side Effects of Diet Changes

Timestamps: 23:00 – 24:12

• Major driver for weight loss is caloric intake—most diets work simply by stopping “crappy food.”
• “Anybody who starts a diet stops eating crappy food ... it’s not necessarily what they’re doing, it’s what they’re not doing now.” (Dr. Bubbs, 23:27)
• Breakfast “hacks” or skipping it often work because they create a calorie deficit or eliminate unhealthy foods, not because of magic macronutrient timing.

8. Mythbusting: Do You Need to Constantly Switch Things Up?

Timestamps: 24:12 – 26:46

• The real key in training is progressive overload, not variety for the sake of “shocking the body.”
• Nutrition and training plans work best when goals and progress are mapped out—similar to business planning.
• Fad diets often conflate water loss or GI tract emptiness with fat loss. “There’s three to five pounds of weight in your GI tract … so they think they’ve lost weight when they’ve just lost other stuff.” (Dr. Bubbs, 26:10–26:27)
• Sustainable fat loss is gradual—“The faster you go, the faster you try to lose weight, the more water you’re going to lose, potentially muscle, too.”

9. “Bible” Myths of Nutrition & New Research

Timestamps: 27:07 – 30:41

• Low-Fat & High-Carb Myths:
  – “We used to get wrapped up in, you know, low fat diets for everything … or high carbohydrate in endurance training … Now we know that we can really reduce carbohydrate in spots to get a training effect … then on race day, you need to put the carbs back in.” (Dr. Bubbs, 28:48)
• Periodized nutrition (cycling carbs/fats) is effective for training adaptation and performance.
• Some “old wisdom” (e.g., flat Coke for marathoners) was later validated by research; sometimes, science leads, sometimes lived experience does.

10. Tech & Metrics: Use What Matters

Timestamps: 27:07 – 28:32

• Wearables and tech can be cool, but often, a simple self-assessment (“How do you feel, 1–10?”) is just as powerful or more so than $50k gadgets.
• “If you start by thinking about what’s important to you … it becomes a lot easier to then say, yes, this tech will help me or no, that’s not going to help.” (Dr. Bubbs, 27:25)

11. Trending Topic: Nicotine and Performance

Timestamps: 30:41 – 32:20

• Nicotine use (gum, pouches, patches): Possible mild benefits for focus/energy but comes with risks, especially for addiction and sleep disruption. – “If the benefits aren’t that high and the risks start to become more significant, then you’re sort of looking for other ways of achieving that same thing.” (Dr. Bubbs, 31:14) – Advises clients to use nicotine early in the day—avoid in evenings to protect sleep quality.

Memorable Quotes

• “Reflection is a superpower, right? The best thing you can do, regardless of the training plan … at the end of every week, what went well, what was the challenge?”
  —Dr. Marc Bubbs, 06:50

• “Science is curiosity, right? Research is basically formalized curiosity, right? Curious to push the edges, curious to push the boundaries.”
  —Dr. Marc Bubbs, 01:19

• On habits:
  “You’re trying to do something that really resonates quickly … now all of a sudden you're building some buy-in and … that intrinsic motivation.”
  —Dr. Marc Bubbs, 13:02

• On fad diets:
  “It’s not necessarily what they’re doing, it’s what they’re not doing now … they’re not eating all the garbage.”
  —Dr. Marc Bubbs, 23:27

• On protein:
  “On your worst day, I want you hitting it in the rough, not 30 yards into the bush.”
  —Dr. Marc Bubbs, 20:32

• On balancing tech and basics:
  “Just asking someone, how well do you feel on a scale of 1 to 10 could shake out just as well, if not better than some of the equipment that costs $50,000.”
  —Dr. Marc Bubbs, 27:07

Important Timestamps

• [01:15]—Dr. Bubbs on his “big three” personal values
• [06:50]—Reflection as a superpower for personal growth
• [13:00]—Why small, quick wins work better than overhauls
• [14:53]—Breakfast protein: The first nutrition habit to automate
• [17:46]—Daily protein targets explained
• [23:27]—Why most diets seem to “work” at first
• [28:48]—Nutrition “Bibles” that got rewritten
• [31:14]—Risks vs. rewards of nicotine for performance

Resources & Getting in Touch

• Dr. Marc Bubbs:
  – Website: drbubs.com
  – Podcast: “Performance Nutrition Podcast”
  – Instagram: @drbubs
  – Startup: proBionutrition.com (use code CROC for a discount)

The Takeaway

Small, consistent changes—rooted in science and self-reflection—drive the biggest performance gains, whether you’re an elite athlete or just trying to show up better in your daily life. Automate what works, question old dogma, and stay curious.