Whole Body Wellness: The Simple Secrets To Health, Nutrition, And Human Optimization With Paul Tijerina

In this episode, we’re going to talk about whole body wellness, and we have just the right guest to speak to that. Paul Tijerina is a master health coach with expertise in functional nutritional therapy and primal health. And boy does he have compelling stuff to share!

As hotshots, it is part of our job to make sure we’re consistently operating in our best form. Consequently, things like proper nutrition, exercise and good sleep come into play. But this is also one of the most hotly contested areas around, with different schools of thoughts having opposing claims, and it’s sometimes really hard to get to the truth.

Paul makes it easier for us by breaking it down to the simplest, most fundamental concepts. If you want to know more, then it’s time to tune in!

A little about Paul Tijerina...

Paul Tijerina is a Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and Primal Health Coach Level 2, who also goes by the title of Master Health Coach.

Once a West Point graduate and army veteran, Paul found himself at his lowest point after leaving the military in 2002. With a weight of 275 pounds, high blood pressure, pre-diabetic condition, major digestive issues, and intense inflammation, his health was in dire straits.

Determined to turn things around, Paul embarked on a two-year vegan journey, hoping for improvement. While he saw some minor changes, he also encountered new complications. It was during this time that he discovered what he now refers to as ancestral health, and since then, he hasn't looked back.

For more than a decade, Paul has been coaching individuals on animal-based nutrition, ancestral-based health, self-reliance, and simplified living, among other fascinating subjects. But recently, some significant life events compelled him to reevaluate his priorities. As a result, he made a bold decision: taking his message off the grid, he now travels the nation in a camping trailer, conducting seminars and aiding people in reconnecting with nature (a process he calls "rewilding").

Paul's ultimate vision for his clients is to help them experience the freedom and joy that comes from being healthy, prepared, and leading a simpler life. By working with him, individuals have witnessed transformative outcomes such as shedding excess fat, enhancing performance, boosting energy levels, improving hormonal balance, strengthening digestion, and enjoying better mental and emotional wellbeing.

You can learn more about Paul and stay in the loop with what he’s up to by following these links:

https://superhumantransformation.com/paulctijerina-bio

https://www.instagram.com/paulctijerina

https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulctijerina

https://twitter.com/paulctijerina

http://www.paulctijerina.com/home

You know the drill...

Stay safe, stay savage...

Enjoy!

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Whole Body Wellness: The Simple Secrets To Health, Nutrition, And Human Optimization With Paul Tijerina

I hope everybody's doing well especially those folks up in Canada. I hope slogging through the bogs is treating you okay and I know that you have got your hands full from BC all the way over to Nova Scotia. We have a lot of lightning starts up there, fuel moistures, weather, and those heat domes, they are lining up to provide the perfect breeding ground for fires to start and go quite a distance. Quite a few acreages depending on what scale you are using.

I hope everybody up there is staying safe and getting after it, but I want to say something. I don't do the commentary thing. I don't do politics. That's not my jam. It's not for me. Fires happen. We got that. However, it did all these wildfires, especially in the eastern provinces. It starts all seemingly at once. Big surprise, everybody. They are not directed energy weapons. The only directed energy weapon that is starting these fires is provided by nature itself and it's called lightning.

This is what happens when you have fuels, topography, winds, weather, and all that stuff in alignment with lightning. Now we can see these photos circulating all the news outlets on the East Coast and saying, “We can't see 5 feet in front of ourselves because of all this wildfire smoke.” I'm sorry, New York and New Jersey, but welcome to the West Coast, every season.

All of a sudden, it's real. With that being said, I cannot stress to you enough how these wildland firefighters are extremely underappreciated and underpaid because I was one of them. Hopefully, things will start to change here pretty soon, but if you want to support meaningful changes on the ground for these men and women that are fighting wildfires, they got families they got to go home to. They have got bills to pay. They got all that stuff.

Go over to GrassrootsWildlandFirefighters.com and check out Tim's Act. Tim's Act is going to be the linchpin of how we are going to change this stuff on the ground. Maybe not the fuel situation. That's Mother Nature. That's a whole other story but go support Tim's Act because we need these people paid. We need these people taken care of and we need all of this stuff to be taken care of so we can keep continuing to put these fires out. Go check it out. It's in the news. Good stuff.

On the show, we are going to have a special guest. He is a health and nutrition coach and he's got some pretty cool philosophies. He's a former Army veteran and West Point grad, and he is a nutrition and health coach. He's got some pretty cool stuff to say on this whole episode. He made some life changes and he's cruising around the country and working remotely out of his van. It's pretty cool and interesting stuff. I would like to introduce my good friend, Paul Tijerina. Welcome to the show.

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On the show, I have a nutritional therapist and health coach, Paul Tijerina. Welcome back. Tell us about yourself.

Nutritional therapy and health coach. I have been doing this for years now. I love my life. I love sharing my message about my version of nutrition and different health practices. I have been doing it for years. I had a thriving practice in Las Vegas and then ended up off-grid. There are a series of things that led to that. I love my life helping people and teaching people these things that I feel are crucial for happiness.

That whole body wellness has been one of those pivot points of why we are here with the BLM and the preseason meeting. We are focusing a lot. They are focusing. I'm still employed by them but I'm not. It's cool to be back here and see this total wellness program being implemented and not necessarily force-fed on people.

Give some options and people can attend whatever they want. That's great. What they want is for these people to show up at their best on the job but also show up at their best at home. They are under a lot of stress and their time at home is limited and they want that to be the best quality it can be, too. A better you is better for everything else that you care about in your life.

The rising tide raises all ships. It's even better for people that maybe not necessarily are taking care of themselves. They will look at you as a leadership example and they can pull their head out of their bum and raise themselves by being in your presence. That's passive leadership that we don't talk about.

It's walking the walk. Leadership by example. You want to look like a badass. You want to feel amazing, look amazing, act amazing, and be amazing. It's contagious.

Especially when it's wrapped in positivity too.

Also, not arrogance.

I love David Goggins. He’s got a cool message. However, sometimes that message is so goddamn in your face and aggressive.

He went off on this rant. It’s like a back-and-forth with some of his ex-buddies and I don't like hearing the drama.

No one gives a crap about that.

I like hearing the hardcore. “Here's what to do. Get up. Bust your bum.” I like that stuff.

The “Stay hard, MFs.” That’s the motivation because we have all seen your story. We have all looked at where you were, what you went through, what you became, and who you are now, and that's inspiring. Keep it positive. You tell some uncomfortable truths about human performance. There are no shortcuts. You have to put the work in. You have to back it up with nutrition and with all this other stuff.

Everybody is looking for a shortcut. However, the drama and the aggressiveness about it don’t seem like the positive flavor that I'm necessarily looking for but it still has value to me. Health and wellness is like a buzz term. What does that mean to you? Is it a catchall? It's like a health coach or clinician. We are having this conversation off-camera, off-topic, or off-recording. There's a lot that goes into that. What does it mean to you?

From my perspective, it’s a way to group the most important things that people need to focus on. A lot of people are seeking to get better and improve their fitness, or their nutrition. They knew they needed to make a change. A health coach is a great place to go because it's someone that's versed in different areas versus one specific area.

The main areas for me are usually nutrition. I'm leaning more towards calling it animal-based nutrition, which is not a carnivore, but nutrition is a huge piece of it. Sleep. As I was here talking about the BLM fire. Fitness and personal quiet time. Those would be the top four things that if people worked on those things and dialed them in, their life would be completely different and in a good way.

Are we talking about personal quiet time like reflection or stoicism?

I call it personal quiet time to ease people into it. I’m a huge fan of meditation and mindfulness. Getting in the habit of setting some time aside for yourself every single day, because most people don't. Most people get up and it's all systems go. You got two young kids and you got job responsibilities. You have a relationship. If you don't carve out a little bit of time for yourself, and you can do whatever you want in that time, you are not going to have it once the day starts.

I have a hard time when I get up. If I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm in go mode. I don't know if that's a crossover from when I was firefighting and some crap that I have carried through my life but not my entire life. Before the fire, I was not like that. Nowadays, if I wake up at 3:00 in the morning, say there's a windstorm and it wakes me up. I can't go back to sleep because I got to be productive. I got to go do stuff.

It's great because even though I'm asked out tired at the end of the day because I have been up since 3:00 in the morning, I may have gotten 4, 5, or 3 hours of sleep. During that personal quiet time, my kids are asleep. I get from 3:00 to 5:00 in the morning before the kids are up, and I get to do whatever the damn I want. It's empowering.

You got to have solitude. It sounds like what you are saying is that quiet time is important to you even though you are getting it at a suboptimal time when you should be sleeping, but still, you see the value in it. Separate from that also sounds like all of us have to have solitude. We have to have some time. I talk to one person and a couple and they are like, “My wife is taking off for the weekend. I'm so excited because I get the place to myself and then vice versa.” The other partner would say that too and it's not because they don't like each other or don't enjoy being around each other, but sometimes we need time to ourselves.

You lose that especially when you start having a family. You have kids and a professional career. You are a mid-level professional or you got all this tertiary crap going on in your life. It's like Random Access Memory in a computer. Pretty soon your computer is going to be slow as hell because you have 900 browser tabs open on your Google.

That's a good analogy. I probably agree on what's important and then schedule those things or build them into it. Health could be a big piece of it but then having some solitude or some time where you are just doing your own thing. I don't know. I'm not a relationship expert. Reflecting on what you were saying, quiet time is important, and some solitude. It's super beneficial.

Most people can't find that unless they block it out for a day. What's beneficial is to practice within that quiet time at some point, even though in the beginning I try to get people used to or cultivate the habit of showing up to some, “This is just me time.” You could do devotion or you could do some journaling or something, but meditation is crucial at some point.

It’s like me practicing meditation. I'm horrible about it. I will try and do it but that me time or quiet time, it's me trying to be productive and do crap that is involved with the show. It's like a passion project. If I get 1 hour or 2 and the kids go to the store, I will go garden. I love gardening. I love growing my stuff and eating it. That's cool.

Also, my woodworking projects. I build custom fly-fishing nets. I'm proud of them. They are cool. It's a passion of mine. That alone time that you are talking about, that's what I focus on. Some of it is meditative like the building processes. The productive and the creative elements to that would be a form of meditation in my eyes, but it's not mindfulness and meditation because I'm distracting myself by doing crap.

There's value in both. You are saying that solitude. You get things done that you otherwise couldn't get done. There's that and then there's the practice of meditation and what you would do during a quiet time. I feel in this modern world, it's almost beneficial to make this a part of our life, whereas maybe in a less stressful time, with less modernization, and fewer distractions, maybe we didn't need it as much. The way that our modern chaotic life is now is blocking out some time for yourself because you are not going to do it otherwise. It’s super useful.

In this modern world, it's beneficial to make quiet time a part of our life.

Think of how many distractions that we have in our lives. You were telling me about how liberating it is to go off-grid. If you want us to tell the story about why you did that and made those decisions, by all means, take it away. It's got to be super liberating removing distractions.

Have you ever done a minimalist challenge where you try to get rid of the crap in your house? A lot of people reading probably have. They have a minimal list. They have this thing. You get rid of 1 item the first day and 2 items the second day and you try to do that for a whole month and it gets challenging at the end.

I have tried to do it but it was out of necessity because I was poor, or I was a nomadic firefighter. I was doing my academy crap. It was a forceful thing. I had to be nomadic and minimalist.

It feels so good to get rid of stuff. I feel like in this modern society especially, we are at this convergence. I'm sure you feel it too. Something is about to happen or about to break in general. It's this compilation of poor health, this consumer mindset, accumulating things and chasing and looking for happiness.

I feel like that's why simplicity, minimalism, and whittling things down are so liberating for most people because it makes you realize what's important. Most people chase happiness and look for happiness, they are not ever going to find it. Including myself, that was myself until I realized that happiness is a byproduct of the things that I'm trying to teach people, which is animal-based nutrition, ancestral-based health practices, and simplified living.

Simplicity is liberating because it makes you realize what’s really important.

When you put those things into practice, you are happier by nature automatically. You are not seeking it anymore. It doesn't make you happy. It's not a silver bullet. Anyone reading, if you sit and think for a second like if you had your nutrition figured out 100%, you had ultra-confidence and it was giving you the results that you wanted. If you had your sleep and fitness figured out, if you had some personal quiet time if you learned to meditate, if you had minimal possessions, minimal bills, and optimized processes, for most people, that feels good. Regardless of what your life situation is, if you have those things in place, you are going to be happier no matter what.

It's so easy to fall into that trap of falling into those distractions. It feels good to buy a nice pair of boots or whatever you are into. Fire boots cost $600 but it's a necessity.

It's a personal decision with each one of those items, but it's like moving into this mindset of scrutinizing, “Do I need that?” Maybe you want it but you got to sit with it for a little bit versus Amazon. You click and buy. It's like having an intention with it. It's very personal and customized. The mindset around simplicity and minimizing things is very personal. There’s no rule about you should have a certain number of things but most people don't have that intention and awareness with things they are purchasing and things they are chasing after.

You even look at Amazon for instance. It's so easy. It almost incentivizes impulsivity.

They know what they are doing.

It's no different from doom-scrolling crap posts on Instagram. There are algorithms that track your stuff. It tracks your cookies, behaviors, and what you like. It keeps feeding you this crap. If you feed yourself crap, it's going to spit out more crap. You become a turd sandwich. Does that make sense? It's the truth. If you remove 90% of distractions and this consumerism, you add intention behind every action that you do and you are very purposeful in your directions or the direction that you want to go, that's empowering.

Most people are not happy most of the time.

It's conditional and circumstantial.

If you are honest with yourself, most people are not happy most of the time. A big part of it is their health, and then the chaos of this modern world. A lot of it is possessions, apps, chasing money, and spending money. You take all that stuff away and simplify things and there's a relative happierness that comes with it.

There's a thought experiment out there that I experienced in the fire. It was the difference between happiness, bliss, and contentness. My buddy, Booze, is all about the intention words and how words are very meaningful. It's great. He's super heady and philosophical. I love the guy. He'd probably jive with this. It wasn't from him but I heard somewhere it's like, “Happiness is conditional. It’s circumstantial. It’s almost fleeting.” You are chasing happiness but what about a state of bliss? What about being content? It's not wrong to be content. It's like, “I'm good. That's all I need. That's how I wanted.”

That's a higher level of being to realize that it's okay once I have these things that make me happy figured out or that what makes me happier contributes to happierness. It's fine to be happy with where you are at. You don't have to keep chasing and doing. I have always said in a lot of my talks over the years that at some point, I would love to go somewhere that I have always wanted to go like somewhere in Europe, and wash dishes. Go from city to city making a basic paycheck with no responsibilities whatsoever. As long as I have real food, I can work out, I can sit in quiet time every day, and get my sleep, I will be happy. Having these basic things in place makes me content.

For the higher folks that are reading out there, they can relate to this. If I were to make that comparison to wildfire, same concept. If you are hiring your career and you are dragged down by these administrative duties, these leadership expectations, all the noise, and background crap, you get a detail because someone needs a hand and you are the last tool. No radio. It's like a phrase. You have zero responsibilities but you are at a GS-8, GS-9, or GS-7 and you have all these responsibilities over here on your home unit, your engine, your crew, or your helicopter. You go into detail with these folks and you have no responsibility. It feels like I can breathe.

I'm used to giving seminars and talking in front of people. When I get to sit and attend the seminar, it's cool and great.

I'm not doing this but I'm enjoying this.

What was the train of thought there?

The contentment piece.

It's getting to that point because most people are not there. When I say most people, it's not a judgment because I am still working on it all the time. Most people are not there. They don't even realize or understand what it is that makes them happy. What I'm saying is, if you can focus on these basic things, you are going to be happy by nature. It's a byproduct of these things.

Those higher great needs.

Once you get these things in place, you have realizations about what is important to you. I can't even tell you how many times. I have had clients that I work with and we get these foundations figured out and they are like, “I'm not happy where I'm at. I'm not happy with my job. I'm not happy with my relationship.” There's an awakening that happens. I feel like this foundation of health and simplicity is the catalyst for a lot of great things that can happen in people's lives. Without that, I can't imagine what life would be like.

This foundation of health and simplicity is the catalyst for a lot of great things that can happen in people's lives.

It's like the whole striving versus thriving mentality. Look at New York rising and what they perceive as success. What is success? What are the things that make you content, happy, and all that stuff? You are truly thriving if you are cutting out the crap and you are taking care of your base needs.

What is it that makes people happy? People ask that question all the time. What's my purpose? I have come to this realization. There’s a lot of different thinking around it, but you don't have to have that figured out. All you have to do is focus on these things. You have this awakening. Maybe your purpose, which you could have a bunch of different purposes and it can change over your lifetime. They present themselves to you. It's strange how it happens but I feel like this is a rediscovery of the way that we were meant to be and it starts with these basic foundational principles.

It's like you found purpose in what you do right now with the seminars, your practice, and everything like that. I found purpose in this, sharing, storytelling, and all that other stuff. We had multiple purposes and also people change and it's okay.

You can change your mind. You can do something if you want to.

I'm over this. I'm going to go wash dishes in Europe, have a basic paycheck, and have my basic needs.

No responsibility.

No last tool or no radio. It’s okay. You got to figure it out.

If you are struggling with, “I don't know what to do,” do these basic things, and you will be blown away at how life presents itself to you and opens up. Everything gets better.

It's like manifesting. If you put out good, typically, good is going to come back. People love it or hate it when I say these words, but I'm a little bit “woo-woo.”

As we were saying before, conspiracy is no longer conspiracy. Most conspiracies have been proven to be true, so woo-woo, there's some validity to it.

It's like sound therapy. Is there science and they are finding out that there may be possible science behind it? It's like psilocybin-assisted therapy or psychotherapies, or MDMA-assisted trauma therapy for first responders and the military. That crap works and it's been outlawed for how many years. They have data and proof that it works. There are some things that we throw out and discount because it's not within our social acceptance or cultural acceptance. It's not true. There's a lot of crap out there.

We don't think it's going to give us the results that we want. There's no way it could be that simple. I hear that a lot too with a lot of the stuff that I teach. Everybody is looking for a complicated answer, something science-based. If it works for you, it works for you that you got to give it a shot.

It's like the conversation I had with Walker before we started interviewing you. He is at the lowest point in his life and he was going through some crap. He had all these noises, distractions, and stuff. His needs weren't being met. He finally had the courage to reach out for some help. He found help in crystals, the woo-woo, and the energy healing stuff, and it's changed his life. The dude had a gun in his mouth at one point. He was five seconds away from pulling the trigger. It saved his life. It works for him. If you are going to say, “That's too dumb because it's woo-woo,” It worked for him. Shut up. We are getting off on a tangent here.

Give it a shot. If it works for you, it works for you.

Let's talk about nutrition and basic needs.

My buddy is going to be reading this. He always says, “You got to land the plane.” A lot of times, we speak in generalities. He's like, “If you get a chance, land the plane.” Talk specifics. I'm super excited to talk about nutrition. Since most people reading this are firefighters, what would be the most useful thing to talk about in that area? I could talk for hours about it.

Some talks that I want to explore are the availability of quality and nutrition. You are on the road and you are eating. You are a veteran. You know the turd sandwiches that you have to eat sometimes. Optimizing that, looking around for better choices to meet your needs. We can talk about supplements if you want to go there. I'm indifferent about supplements. If you need them, they work for you.

There are some good logical reasons for certain things. If we start with the basics of food, so you are saying from a practical standpoint, “How do I plan?” MREs are full of crap.

They fill you up. It's got a lot of calories. It's calorie-dense.

I remember in the Army, trading different things in our packets to make different concoctions. They still have those like the ranger pudding.

You get the sliced apples and crackers.

We weren't that advanced.

Here's the thing. Do you know what a ratfucker is?

No.

It's the person that goes into the box of MREs and cherry-picks. Everybody hates a ratfucker. Don't be a ratfucker.

This is voluntary trading. We are talking about components of it. I got an electric cooler. In my cooler, I have got four tubes of burger patties from Costco. I have been out here for days. I haven't had to go to the store for anything. Maybe in this idea around planning, what are the most nutrient-dense foods that could stock up on? That would be the question because what's the purpose of eating in the first place? It’s to give your body nourishment and nutrition.

You also want to create energy in a specific way. I'd recommend that people be metabolically flexible, which is energy flexible. You can create energy from fat and glucose. Create energy in different ways internally. If you can acknowledge, “What is the point of me eating in the first place? What is this supposed to do for me?” It's supposed to help me build my body, nourish my body, and contribute to the functions of my body. That's part of the building process. When you say recovery, I'm assuming from physical exercise like fatigue.

Accumulative or physical stress.

That stuff wears you out. What are the foods that are going to do that? It's not lettuce.

It's not. It will help you poop.

There's nothing against lettuce. I'm saying when you think about, “What's the most valuable thing that I can take with me or plan for, it's the thing that's going to nourish me the most.” Animal foods are a top priority. Always, 100%. Animal foods give us everything that we need to do because we are an animal. If I want to build my bicep, what’s the best thing to eat?

Probably a steak.

It’s because that is steak. That is a direct source. That's a direct path to exactly what this needs. If I take that bigger, what does this animal need to facilitate this animal? Animal foods are where it's at.

You are an apex predator by nature or by biology.

That's one of the things that's been proven over and over.

There are also a lot of nutrients that you can't get by eating lettuce.

I'd say lettuce is pretty nutrient deplete, but plants, in general, don't give us the bioavailable protein load. There are specific nutrients in animal foods that we are not ever going to get from plants. I'm not anti-plants. I consider myself an animal-based nutritional therapist and animal-based means that they are a priority. They have to be embraced.

Within that, you can have as much balance as you want. I’m a big fan of carbohydrates from good starch sources, fruits, and healthy fat. We are protein-centric within the animal foods round. If I eat something that I know is going to give me a good pop of protein, I'm not getting protein from it. When you eat a steak, you are getting protein but you are also getting all the fatty acids that come with it, vitamins, and minerals. It's a package of a lot of great stuff.

Focusing on animal foods, if we came back to planning for being on a fire line or what would be some other situation. Someone goes away for two weeks or something like that at a time sometimes. If it's me and I'm looking to source foods to bring with me or if I'm in a pinch and I have to hit a gas station or a grocery store, 100% it's always going to be protein-based animal foods.

We are not talking bars. We are not talking about that crap. We are talking about jerky.

Do you mean protein bars or something?

Protein bars and crap like that.

Have you seen the EPIC Meat Bars?

Those taste delicious. They don't taste like crap either. They are super good.

Epic Meat Bars, Chomps meat sticks, Paleovalley, there's a ton of them. Those are options. Beef jerky is an option if you are in a pinch. Back to what's a priority, what is going to nurse you the most? What's going to give you the most bang for your buck? It's always going to be animal foods.

Animal foods will give you the most bang for your buck.

It's the amount of nutrition that's density-wise. The amount of animal nutrition, the proteins, and fats that you are getting. A side note and rabbit hole, let's talk about fat. We have vilified fats in nutrition in America for so long.

Animal fats and saturated fats specifically.

They are critical for the functionality of our body. It's like hormone regulation and production. It’s the lubricants in between your joints. It's everything.

We are animal fats.

That's what we are made of.

That is such archaic information. Whole saturated fat, cholesterol, heart disease, animal foods, or animal proteins cause cancer. It's so archaic but it's still so prevalent. It's like a grassroots movement. More people are becoming more aware of the power of being protein-centric and animal food-centric. Understanding that these fats are extremely helpful for you because this is exactly what I'm made of. We are not made of canola oil. Even though we use these things sometimes, avocado oil or coconut oil is fine to use but animal fats are where it's at.

Something about the richest that tastes when you add beef tallow, for instance, duck fat, or butter.

Ninety-five percent or a majority of what we cook is butter-based unless we have access to some good tallow.

You can make your tallow and you can use pork fat. You can use bacon grease if you want some smokey flavor in there. You can use these things. It's like a lost art. It's almost like we have lost some of the baseline homesteading tribal knowledge in our society like making tallow, clarified butter, or preserving even.

Useful skills to try to go back to. That would be the number one piece of advice. You are sourcing and planning your foods trying to be protein-centric because protein is what your body needs. You are out there working your bum off on a fire line. Calorie expenditure and the breakdown of your body. What's the best thing for it? Animal foods. Protein comes from animal foods because you are not getting the protein, you are getting all the fats, connective tissue, vitamins, and minerals. What's better, that or some carrot sticks? I'm not against carrot sticks either.

You said it best yourself. The revolution of becoming aware of these things and how we have been misled by “science,” it's all BS. It's all been paid for studies. Look at the nutritional pyramid in the United States. It starts with BS, fruits or grains. Why is that the base? It’s because they need to sell it.

It's propaganda. At this point, I'm convinced that it's been a deliberate move to weaken this population so that we are more controllable. There are people that understand and know that you shouldn't be eating some of the things that are in processed foods. Most of those things shouldn't even be allowed on shelves.

It's carcinogens. It's like you are eating one molecule away from plastic in some cases.

Who makes those decisions? If you want to rebirth yourself, embrace animal foods. Animal foods are where it's at.

The whole vilification thing that lied to, that propaganda thing. It's like masculinity. There's good, bad, or indifferent. It has its purposes. You are a warrior at one point in your life. You probably still are to some degree. It's like that quote by Mike Tyson, “You don't understand how much violence I have had to experience to become this docile.”

It gives me chills. It’s masculinity in itself. It's been vilified. Weakening the culture and the society as a whole. It's down to our nutrition and then that can shine it back into the conspiracy BS. I don't necessarily think it's a conspiracy, but it's fun to entertain. Maybe it's a byproduct of the blind leading the dumb or the uneducated. It’s not necessarily dumb but they have no frame of reference. The general population doesn't know that crap about nutrition, the purpose of masculinity, or the purpose of this, that, and the other, and how it fits into society.

Everything has been captured by money and power. As it's all been captured, it's influenced not by truth, but by making more money. The demonization of saturated fats and animal foods, it's been happening for a long time. We are worse off health-wise than we have ever been in our entire existence. It hasn't worked.

The demonization of saturated fats and animal foods has been happening for a really long time. We're worse off health-wise than we've ever been in our entire existence.

When I go to the grocery store and I see people's grocery carts, they are not loaded up with steak, eggs, and butter. They have very minimal of those things. Yet that same person is inflamed and on a fistful of medication. It's not meat, butter, or eggs. It's all the other BS. Their fault is not our fault because this is the information we have been fed. At some point, we have to wake up and say, “This is not working. This advice is not working.”

If anything we should be vilifying, it’s sugar. Look at the new research that's been coming out about Type 3 diabetes. The little dark corner of science over here that's not being peer-reviewed because no one wants to accept it but it's got legitimate data. Also, Alzheimer's and dementia, too. Both of them.

In some ways, they could be considered metabolic diseases of the brain.

It's insulin resistance in your brain. Correct me if I'm wrong here. You are the pro here. Is that correct?

The question is what contributes to insulin resistance? It's a factor for sure and there are genetic components. Carbs used to be the demon for a while. I feel like there's always been the shifting scapegoat, but saturated fat may have never gotten a break. Eggs have been vilified and then they are great again. They are back and forth.

Even insulin resistance was thought to be a big carb sugar thing, but now we know it’s inflammation and there are several things that contribute to insulin resistance. One of them would be eating all the time. If you are snacking and grazing all day long, you are secreting insulin constantly. That would be one thing to be aware of. You don't want to graze all day. You want to have a couple of solid meals and that's about it.

Carbohydrates and sugar can have an impact, but if you are only eating a couple of times a day and you have some carbs with those meals, it's not a big deal. Types and source matter. Industrial seed oils like highly processed plant-based oils like canola oil and soybean oil inhibit the body's ability to use fat for fuel and it makes someone more carb dependent.

Those are the three main things. Frequency of meals, carbohydrates may be too much or from the wrong sources, and then those highly processed plant-based oils. Those are the things that would contribute. You pull any one of those levers or you pull back on any one of those and you will start to see some improvements. A lot of clients that I work with are pre-diabetic and diabetic, I never even tell them to go low-carb. They don't have to. They pull out all those crappy oils and they stop eating so often. They focus on protein and animal-based nutrition and everything fixes itself pretty quickly.

What about talking about behaviors of eating? We use it as a comfort mechanism oftentimes. If you are craving a Snickers bar and you get that hit, it's no different from taking a hit of heroin for an addict. It becomes addictive but a lot of things can become addictive. Even fitness itself. I have seen CrossFit athletes, that's all they do. It's like they get high on it. Let's talk about nutritional habits in combination with trying to source them and breaking your bad habits.

Maybe you are talking a little bit about your habitations, urges, and cravings, breaking through that, and trying to do the right thing. If we come back to being protein-centric and animal food-centric, a lot of those things that we are experiencing, it's physiological or biological. When I have a craving or urge for something, I'm not making it up. It's not fake, but a lot of us are like that.

We beat ourselves up because we feel like we have to have the willpower to resist. It's not in your head. You are experiencing these cravings and most of the time, it's because people unintentionally, inadvertently, and unconsciously, and because they have been given the wrong information their entire life, they are eating nutrient deplete foods and/or they are carb burners. They are carb whores.

When they don't eat all the time, their body is screaming for food. When they don't eat nutrient-dense foods, their body is screaming for nutrition. When they don't eat frequently because their body is so used to having carbs so often, they are screaming. That's another reason that we have these hunger signals. Hunger is a sign of nutritional deficiency and/or toxicity.

There is a reason for your cravings. Hunger is a sign of nutritional deficiency and/or toxicity. 

Nutritional deficiency, toxicity, and energy deficiency. Why am I hungry? It’s because my body is craving something. How do we flip that? We eat nutrient-dense foods. We stop eating so often and those cravings magically go away for most people. I'm not saying they completely go away, but that makes it way easier. Imagine getting up in the morning. This is what I have for breakfast. I had 4 eggs and a 3-pound beef patty.

I have zero appetite right now. Snicker bars are my favorite thing in the world. You could put one in front of me right now. I have no interest in it whatsoever. If you don't do this, then you are already battling so much. It's a matter of willpower and beating yourself up. If you do this, at least you have a fighting chance and it makes things a lot easier.

Here's a question for you on a biological signals thing. You alluded to it right there. That's a biological signal that you are deficient in something, either a nutrient or a macro. It takes someone who's dialed in on their nutrition. Maybe they are pregnant or something like that, and then they are craving pickles and ice cream. Is that because your body is saying, “I need whatever is in this ice cream and pickles?”

What you are saying is if I'm craving that, then my body is saying, “Maybe I need that.” It doesn't mean that if I'm craving a muffin, my body needs the muffin. My body is craving something. It boils down to some nutritional component or some energy component. It's an energy thing. My body is craving some energy and it sends me these hunger signals. I want a Snickers bar or a muffin. It doesn't mean that that's the best thing to satisfy it. I could easily eat half a sweet potato, apple, or something like that and I'd feel as satisfied. Maybe not emotionally satisfied because I love that thing.

It's a psychological element of eating the foods that we do.

There's an enjoyment factor. To answer your question, it's like it could mean that. If you get the basics dialed in, you don't have those situations happen that often. A lot of times, people have cravings and are doubting. If they are doubting according to what I would consider optimal and they are craving something, then maybe they are being too restrictive. Women, especially around their menstrual cycle, have to be easy on themselves. They can't be 100% strict, hardcore, and super protein-centric relatively lower carb. They need to be easy on themselves around that period and outside of that, it's game on. They can be a lot more strict.

Look at the hormone differences strictly from a biological hormone difference in men and women. I have the utmost respect for women firefighters because they have to put in 2, 3, to even 4 times the amount of physiological effort to get the same amount of physiological output as a man does, and that's biology.

Have I seen women run circles around men in the field of Hotshot crews on smokejumpers? I have seen it and it's possible. Shout-out to the ladies out there because you have to put in so much more and that's strictly from a hormone thing. Testosterone is a very powerful thing. In that regard, we are talking about cycles and hormones.

Let's talk about the meat-centric and meat-based diet, and its importance in hormones because I have seen people out there with a meat-based diet. I watched my buddy who was pre-diabetic. I watched him go from pre-diabetic to 110 pounds overweight, and he went to the hardcore mode of animal-based diets. He went strict off the couch, no BS into a carnivore. The dude was shredded, yoked, happy, and all dialed in a rapid amount of time.

His body was craving it. The master hormone is going to be insulin. Insulin is not a bad thing at all. A couple of things I want to talk about here, but one of them is that insulin is the master hormone if we can learn how to manage it and make it our friend because it needs to be secreted. When you eat, you are going to secrete insulin. It's necessary because it tells your body how to store energy, use energy, use nutrients, and store nutrients.

It's a necessary hormone. We don't want it secreted all the time. We already said that these highly processed plant-based oils have an impact and they make you more carb dependent. If we pull those out, that's a big one. If we make sure our carbs are from real food sources in smaller amounts, and I'm talking like half a sweet potato, a cup of rice, a piece of fruit, or something like that. If we are doing those things, then we are taking control of that master hormone that has an impact on all the other hormones in the endocrine system.

That's cascading effects throughout your body.

The other piece of that is protein-centric or animal-based-centric, which stimulates muscle protein synthesis. You mentioned testosterone. When I eat a certain amount of protein, first of all, I have a daily requirement for protein. All of us have a certain amount of muscle protein turnover. Our body is cycling through amino acids because they are used for a lot of different functions inside the body.

Being animal based centric stimulates muscle protein synthesis.

There's a certain amount of turnover that needs to be recouped. If I want to maintain and build muscle, I have to eat a certain amount of protein in my meals because then my body is getting the signal of plenty. I have got so much stuff coming in, I'm going to make this person big and strong. Versus if things are skimpy, then the body is not going to have that signal.

There's a certain amount of protein everyone needs to get in a day, and then there's a certain amount of protein we need to eat at meals. Big boluses of protein to stimulate muscle protein synthesis. Those are two things that come to mind when it comes to hormones. We want to control the master hormone and direct it as much as possible. That means a couple of meals a day. Most of the people that I work with gravitate towards 2 meals a day, sometimes 1.

I eat a big dinner usually, which probably should be my lunch meal. I do the fasting thing too and that's a thing that I'm used to. I don't eat breakfast. I drink a cup of coffee and I go about my business and I don't eat until 1:00 or 2:00. It's a big dinner and I go to bed.

Mastering and directing insulin, two meals a day, protein-centric, and smaller amounts of carbs from real food sources. Take out all the crap and processed foods and highly processed plant-based oils. As you are eating protein, make sure you are getting the same amount of protein in a day. Make sure that your meal contains big protein pops.

It doesn't mean that you are not having vegetables and a little bit of starch and fruit, but that's got to be the centerpiece. It's got to be the main focus. If you do that, then you are controlling insulin and you are building and maintaining muscle, strong bones, connective tissue, and all the great things that come with that.

Your bone density is going up. Everything is going up. It's optimizing it.

How do you get strong bone density? It’s strong muscles because they correlate together.

Having resistance training too. That plays a big thing.

If you had to focus on anything in the fitness realm, the number one priority is resistance training and strength building. Women or men, it doesn't matter.

If you had to focus on anything in the fitness realm, number one priority is resistance training and strength building.

I am so frustrated when people say, “I don't want to do lifting because I'm afraid I'm going to get too bulky.” I hate that.

Usually, it's women saying that. In some ways, it's about concern because you watch TV. Especially a few years ago, you got the CrossFit games. You got these huge jacked women. I promise you. You can work out as hard as you want, as long as you want, and you are never going to look like that. Resistance training for women is going to give women everything they want, which is good posture, a nice curvy butt, and nice curvy legs. An athletic-looking person, whether it's a man or a woman, is going to be way more attractive and it's super functional.

That's another thing too. It's everybody who wants to look good naked. It doesn't matter if you are a male, female, or in between. You want to attract a mate, whatever flavor of mate you want to go for. Fitness and resistance training, that's the core right there.

In the fitness realm, resistance training is where it's at. The number one priority.

I hate people saying, “I need to lose weight,” and they run on a treadmill or just run.

They don't know any better. That’s why I have so much compassion for so many people because I was there. When most people think about, “I want to make a change or I want to lose some fat,” their mind goes to fitness and nutrition. The nutrition is so confusing. Most people can't figure it out. There's everything from vegan to carnivore and advocates in all spectrums.

In the fitness realm, most people, unless they know or are aware, the first thing they do is start running or get on a treadmill. The best thing that they could do is resistance training because it's building strength, capacity, functionality, and muscle. That's giving you the aesthetics that you want. That's primordial on this. The reason it looks good is that it's an indication of someone is capable.

It's like that whole warrior culture thing dating back to when we were throwing rocks at each other and the invention of fire. That individual is fit. I want to seek them out as a mate. It’s a survival mechanism that bred into us over eons of time. You can't avoid that.

It's why it's attractive to us.

I 100% agree, but that's the thing too. It’s the grand science experiment with nutrition. Your diet is like the whole comment about lettuce. That crap works for you specifically. You have dialed in your nutrition specific to your needs. Whereas I might be a little bit different, I'm still animal-based. I love a good ribeye, but I might need something a little bit different. Let's explore that.

A super bio-individual. That's the great thing about the way that I teach and work with people. First of all, I don't come out of the gate and say I'm a hardcore animal-based. When I work with people, they come to me wanting some help and they want help implementing better health practices and habits in their life. It doesn't matter what their goals are, I'm going to support them. If I got a vegan that comes with me and they are dead set on being vegan, I'm going to help them be the best vegan they can be.

My buddy who is a hardcore carnivore lost a crap ton of weight. He optimized his body. That worked for him. Why wouldn't work for me?

My priority is meeting these people where they are and helping them achieve their goals, whatever they think they are now. They are coming to me for some guidance usually. When the door opens for some education, then we have discussions about what's best and what's optimal. Starting out, I have my definition of real food and it's animal foods, the traditional fats, vegetables and greens, full-fat dairy if you tolerate it, starches, fruit, and things like that.

Within that general guideline, you can gravitate toward whatever you want. If you don't like steak, you eat chicken. You can eat fish if you like it. If you think that steak and red meat are bad for you for whatever reason, then you can gravitate toward eggs, chicken, and fish. It doesn't matter. Within that realm, there's a lot of flexibility, and potential bio-individuality for your personal preferences and things. Usually, people start to gravitate towards what makes them feel good.

Most of the people that have been with me for an extended period, all do the same thing now or something close to it. It’s very similar, which is protein-centric, animal-based, and then a little bit of vegetables, fruit, starch, and things like that. Within this realm of real food, the priority is understanding real food has got to be my number one priority regardless of what my thought is around what that means. It's not processed foods and there are some caveats to that.

Within the realm of real food, if you can be protein-centric and understand this is the thing that's going to nourish the body the most, maybe let your personal preferences guide you with how you prepare those things. Some of the ancillary foods like vegetables, greens, and things like that, and then have some guardrails around the carbs and you are done.

If I'm eating a meal of 1.5 pounds of steak, hamburger patties, or something like that, I don't want to follow that up with 3 cups of white rice, but I can still have a little bit of white rice. It’s super flexible and super bio-individual, and the priority is getting out of the modern processed food realm and abiding by those basic principles of real food, and then trying to gravitate towards being more protein-centric.

The first priority is just getting out of the modern processed food realm and abiding by the basic principles of real food, and then trying to gravitate towards being more protein centric.

Staying on the exterior of the supermarket because of all the BS in the middle.

It’s typically a good rule. Something that does help us be a little bit more flexible and make this work in a modern lifestyle is if you understand how to read labels and ingredients, then you can find alternatives to the things that you think you have to give up.

This is super important for the folks out in the field that can't have the stuff available.

Examples like cookies, crackers, ice cream, and chips, which are not great in large amounts. If you get ones made with appropriate ingredients, they are perfectly fine in moderation on occasion and that can make things enjoyable. There are tortillas that are not made with GMO corn, wheat, and things like that. Those are appropriate for a taco night. If the majority of the food you eat is real food, you are being protein-centric and animal-based. It's fine to have some flexibility with less-than-appropriate foods, but they are made with better ingredients.

It's like choosing the lesser of two evils. It's either you go for the turd or you go for the slightly less turds. You are forced to make these decisions. I perform the best on red meat and especially wild games. Wild game, it feels like you are on crack and you are going into town.

It's good to hear you say that. Red meat is where it's at. I had a question from a client about why is red meat so good for you versus these other things. The reason she was asking is that she feels better about it. She's like, “Are you sure it's okay that I'm eating hamburger meat every day?” We had this discussion around, “Why are herbivore meat and ruminant meat so good for you?” It’s because of their digestive systems. They have the ability to detoxify plants. They have a very complex digestive system that ferments. They detoxify everything. A lot of people will say, “I can't afford grass-fed.”

Even conventional beef. Those animals detoxify everything that they eat so that their flesh becomes relatively toxin-free. Even glyphosate is detoxified. Not 100%, but these animals’ digestive systems are so awesome and complex that whatever they eat, consume, or are exposed to is detoxified through that system versus monogastric animals like chickens, pigs, and fish. They are fine but they don't have that fermentation process. They don't have that transformation process.

What those animals eat, they are very much like human beings. What we eat, we become. If I want protein, I need to eat protein. If I want magnesium, I need to consume sources of magnesium. They are the same way. If they eat crappy feed, soy, corn, and all the things that some of these industrial animal feeding operations are fed. When we eat the flesh of those animals, we are getting those things as well. Cows, ruminants, and wild game don't do that. That's why people feel so amazing. It's like doing the opposite of everything that we have been told to do and you are probably on a good path.

It's so counterintuitive to what we have been told.

However, it's not working for everybody. We have heard this for so long. If you are going to eat meat, it needs to be chicken. Do the opposite. I rarely eat chicken.

Have you seen the Tyson chicken farm? Have you seen an industrial cattle farm?

I have seen it on YouTube videos.

It's sad. That's another thing to talk about. Bringing it back to the wild game thing. You have to have so much respect and humility for animals out there. At least I do. There are going to be crappy bad actor hunters out there, fishermen, and all that stuff. There's a certain dose of humility and respect that have the realization and the ability to either let the arrow fly, pull the trigger, or whatever you are hunting with to understand that animal is dying to sustain your own life for you to keep living.

Following up the kill and then cleaning it. It is something. It's an eye-opening experience for a lot of people. The majority of people that I talk to that go through that experience have a reverence for it and they appreciate the food much more. It's not like it makes them averse to it. It's something that connects them to it a little bit more.

It's intimate. It's not in the sense of sexuality or anything like that. It's weird, but intimate as in you have a relationship and the understanding that is sustaining you, your family, and whoever else partakes in this elk backstrap or whatever it is. There's a lot of work too that’s underappreciated. Meanwhile, corporate farming, it's like, “Here come the cattle.” Conveyor belt. There it goes. It's diseased and sick. It's still better for you than the other choices like you have said.

Even cattle. I will plug you into a couple of good books. One of them is Sacred Cow. It’s amazing. They go through this nutritional analysis of conventional beef versus grass-fed and 100% grass-fed and organic and all that stuff. There's almost no difference. All cattle are raised on grass the majority of their life until the last sometimes three months or something like that. You talk about feeding operations with chickens, pigs, and even fish as relatively horrific. Most cows, when you see them anywhere, they are out in a pasture until their last few days. That's another positive or benefit of eating herbivores, cattle, and beef.

There's something else about grass-fed cattle or pasture-raised cattle. You got rancher Bob out there and this cow has been out there its entire life and it's just chilling doing cow stuff. It's relatively happy I'm assuming because it's doing cow stuff. It's doing its part in nature. It’s fertilizing land. It's doing all this other stuff. There are all the other cascading and fallout benefits of that. It's the taste of grass-fed like true well-raised beef. The fat, it's not that sickly white. It's not that weird color. It's yellow. It's different.

It has an authentic taste.

It's almost gamey in a good way. You can't replicate that any other way.

I don't get tired of eating beef. I never get tired of eating that. I get tired of eating other things. I never get tired of eating beef.

I get sick of chicken. I can get sick of fish. I'm a huge fly fisherman. I don't even catch unless I'm out camping. It's like, “Fish sounds great. This brook trout is invasive. I'm going to take it. I'm going to harvest this game,” and eat it with my buddies. Drinking beer around the fire. That's different, but usually, I'm a catch-and-release guy. Between hunting and grass-fed beef, that's my jam. That's where I find the best feeling, performance, and optimization in combination with salt. I don't know why I perform very well on salt, but let's explore the importance of salt in our diets.

Salt has been traded for thousands of years because it's super valuable for human health. Most of us mineralize the drinking water that we use. We embrace salt big time. Especially, it's a denatured natural salt like Himalayan, Celtic, Redmond salt, or something like that.

That's what I pickle my vegetables with, the red real salt.

The whole sodium chloride thing is crucial for a lot of different functions and reactions inside the body especially if you are an athlete. You are probably depleting and blowing through minerals. If you add to that like you are transitioning from eating processed food to going to something a little bit lower carb, keto, carnivore, or something like that, as you are dumping glycogen, you are also dumping a lot of minerals. That's one of those indications that your body wants and needs that. When you are craving salt and minerals, most of us hedge that off by mineralizing our water and fully embracing using salt in our foods.

It's not like I'm craving salt, but I prefer salty and savory over sweet any day and I tolerate salt well. I will cook at my house and my wife is like, “Cool.” My friends are like, “It's good.” Some people are like, “This is the saltiest piece of ribeye that I have ever had.” It’s weird. I tolerate it a lot better.

You like the taste of it. You enjoy it. Minerals in general, the foods that we are eating are not the same foods that our ancestors had access to. The soil has been completely depleted. Most of the plants that grow in the soil are artificial for the most part. They don't contain the things that they used to. The animals eating those things don't contain the nutrients that they used to because they are not getting them from the plants. Sometimes there's an argument for supplementing or being conscious about deliberate mineral supplementation. Paying attention to how you feel is a good indicator.

The foods that we're eating are not the same foods that our ancestors had access to. That’s why we need deliberate mineral supplementation.

Speaking of mineral supplementation, the popularity of ZMA, Zinc, Magnesium, and Aspartate. It's a popular supplement and everything. It's supposed to promote sleep, health, and all this crap. Let's talk about the importance of these micronutrients, especially the underrated ones like magnesium and zinc. Magnesium helps with sleep. I do know that but I don't know what zinc does.

It's great for immune function and for fertility. A lot of times, when we come in and we try to look at the different functions of all these different minerals, they have so many different functions. It's hard to nail them down into what specifically is beneficial about these specific nutrients if we look at a little bit bigger and broader picture. If we focus on the right foods, we are probably getting those things in the right amount of balance. This human body is a certain combination of a certain amount of things. If I'm eating animal foods that are close to mimicking and resembling me, then I'm probably getting those things in appropriate proportions.

Let's go back to the supplement thing. Since we are segueing into these supplements. They are not for everybody. There is some science involved with it especially your pre-workouts and crap like that. The protein powders might be effective for somebody, especially if they don't have access to clean protein, red meat, and all that stuff.

As well as they trying to increase their protein or something like that.

It’s a supplement. It's not a replacement. It's adding on top.

There is room for some general broad supplementation for most people. COVID pointed that out to a lot of us. A lot of people are vitamin D deficient and zinc deficient. There's a baseline of things that I usually recommend most people take, and that would include vitamin D unless you check your 25(OH)D levels and they seem to be sufficient. You get a lot of sun most days.

Vitamin C would be something most people would benefit from supplementing 500 milligrams up to 2,000 milligrams. Especially if you are animal-based or carnivore-based because you are not getting a lot of that from animal foods. Magnesium is something that I throw in the mix a lot of times because most people if they check their nutrient levels, can be deficient in magnesium. Most people don't do that when they go to the doctor.

It was some astronomical amount like 60% deficient.

That's a result of poor soil. Beyond that, a lot of it is very bio-individual based on symptoms and dysfunction. I come from a substance-used background. I used to be that type of guy. I still love to have a drink here and there. I try to optimize my liver to the best of my abilities and there are certain supplements and nutrients that I take that I can see in bloodwork that I have seen healing happen, and I notice it functionally in how I perform and feel. There is a call for supplements but it's useful to have a coach pull you through that process to help you figure out what you are trying to optimize for and/or what your symptoms are.

When I work with people, I have this cool symptom assessment that I put them through. It's like 300-plus questions from that. Sometimes we can figure out, “You are deficient in these specific nutrients and so that might be a call for supplementation.” A lot of my clients come to me initially with digestive issues, 80% of them, and the majority of that is low stomach acid.

Low stomach acid is usually the precursor to a lot of other digestive dysfunction because that’s the first entryway into the whole digestive system. If you have a strongly acidic environment in the upper GI, then that triggers better digestion throughout the system, but that also means you are absorbing nutrients a lot better. A lot of my supplementation is digestive-based and it's not something that they have to be on permanently. Although a lot of us take it indefinitely.

Supplementation can be used therapeutically. There's a baseline of things that a lot of people need to take that most people are probably deficient in any way. You can be strategic. If I'm looking for performance or if I know that I'm trying to hit a certain amount of protein at a meal or in a day and I'm not hitting that, then a good protein powder would be useful.

How do we keep track of all this stuff? Everybody is at charts, it's like, “You got grams of protein per kilo of body weight.”

The kilogram thing throws people off, including myself. I get to sit there and think about it for a second. For protein, first of all, we are not huge fans of weighing and measuring, but it can be useful if that's something that helps you stay dialed in on something. The awareness component is useful sometimes for people to see, “This is what I have eaten in a day. I wasn't aware of that.”

A good place to start is SHT macros. It would be focusing on your total protein intake for the day, and what's optimal is a gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight. That makes the math super simple. A gram of protein per pound of ideal body weight in a day. You have to have a certain amount of protein at each meal to stimulate muscle protein synthesis and that's usually 30 grams plus. That's to help build muscle.

You have to have a certain amount of protein at each meal to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

If I get less than 30 grams or about 30 grams in a meal, then I'm not stimulating muscle protein synthesis. I'm not stimulating my body's desire to create and maintain muscle. That does contribute to the daily protein intake, but it's not stimulated. What we want are these pops of protein to stimulate the body to build and maintain muscle.

From a protein standpoint, if I focus on a certain amount of protein in a day and then I'm making sure that my meals are good boluses of protein, everything else can work itself out. I usually tell my clients about half a cup of carbs per meal is a good way to measure things out. If you are still hungry after that, eat more meat, eat some vegetables, or whatever you got for the sides.

As far as the rest of the stuff like macro tracking, that's popular. Is it beneficial? Is it bro science? Do you have to understand what you are doing to an exact T? I have seen people that are doing this and they have no clue of what they are doing.

It works for a lot of people. Anything that helps you be better than what you are doing right now is going to be a good thing. Why do any diets work? Almost all diets work for someone that's transitioning off of eating inappropriately because it's helping them dial into something. Something better is better than nothing at all. A simplified way to do it is if you focus on the protein piece of it, there's not much left to focus on. What's your ideal body weight?

I probably like walking around. Not at a high level of fitness. I'm a very sedentary dude now. I have an office job. I run a show. I got two kids. I don't work out as I should. Probably about 150 or 155.

Do you know how much meat you would have to eat to hit that?

Probably a couple of pounds or a lot.

The numbers work out pretty well with meat.

It’s more than you could physically eat probably.

No. It's possible but it's challenging.

Anything can be done with the proper amount of force.

It's optimal and it's possible and it takes some work. The numbers work out great with the meat. 1 pound of meat is 100 grams of protein. An estimate. 0.25 pounds of meat is 25 grams of protein. You are right. You would have to eat about 1.5 to 2 pounds a day of meat. If you are focused on that, then there's not much room for anything else. That's why I call these simplified macros.

It's not just eating nothing but meat, but if you are trying to hit your protein requirements, you don't have to worry about the fat because you have got fat in the protein source that you are eating anyway. You are typically cooking with a little bit of butter or whatever it is you want to cook with, avocado oil, olive oil, or something like that.

Regardless, you are still getting plenty of fat in meat, especially if you are eating beef. If you measure out your carbs and keep those small, that's the best way to do it. People that do macro programs are super successful. If someone is doing it the right way and they have proportions that are similar to that, it's a way for them to keep themselves in line with something healthy or healthier versus doing something inappropriate. It's like real food-based macros. It's going to work. It's going to be great.

Especially the people that do macros and truly understand it, they have an intention behind it. They have a goal in mind like they want to be high-level. They are going to do the games or they are going to do the open. They are going to get primed for the fire season. I got to understand that as long as you truly understand the macros and what goes into it, it's a lot of stuff that goes into it to optimize your body. If you have a goal and this works for you, it seems like you got no problem with it.

It feels good being doubted into something and having a plan. I have seen this work with athletes, distance athletes, CrossFit athletes, and strength trainers. I hate to keep saying the same thing, but if you are protein-centric, it's animal food source protein, and you are hitting these daily requirements, everything else works itself out. It's magical.

I keep seeing a theme reoccurring here.

As far as the nutrition goes, it's pretty simple and simplicity is great. Limited decisions are great. Part of simplifying your life is not giving yourself so many different choices. If I'm focused on, I know I got to hit these numbers every day and then I can be easy about the rest of it. Something magical happens when you hit these protein marks. You are not fighting yourself to try to stay away from these other foods. It's an automatic part of the process because you don't feel like it. When I ate that breakfast, I have zero appetite right now. I will eat some meat when I get back and have half a sweet say or maybe a couple of drinks.

There was a point in my life when I experienced a food detox. We are talking about optimizing nutrition and how it has all these cascading effects throughout your hormone system, your body, or sleep even. When I experienced this, my diet was crap. I was drinking way too much. I was a 24-year-old little crap. I was not taking care of my body because I could stay up all night and party and have a good time.

You bounce back from everything. You are jacked to the gills on like that young youthful person hormone schedule. You just do it and recover. You can't do that crap anymore. I was doing jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai. I was doing CrossFit. I was running about 20 or 30 miles a week and I was doing firefighting during the summer, and all this stuff was mixed in. I was going through this health-free discovery thing, but I decided that I was going to quit all the BS that I was doing and go strict paleo right off the bat, and I went through a gnarly food detox. I could not eat enough. What's up with that?

An adaptation to making energy in a different way. Transitioning away from the things that you were doing before. Were you eating a lot of carbs?

Yeah. I was eating bars and crap.

That's a huge part of it. There could be some detoxifying issues. Think of it like an adjustment. It's like if I haven't worked out for years and then I go do a brutal CrossFit session, I'm going to be sore for weeks.

You might even get robbed.

It’s similar. If you are transitioning to something, even if it's something that's better, if it's drastically different, or if you do it without weaning yourself into it, then you are going to experience some “adjustments.” What's behind that is a lot of the adaptation to making energy in a more appropriate way and being a little bit more metabolically flexible.

If that's the case when I'm working with people, that's why I never have people go low carb right off the bat. That's why I'm not like a carnivore coach. I’m animal-based, meaning I'm protein-animal-centric, but I'm a huge fan of carbohydrates. That was probably a big part of it and it could be some detoxification issues and your body getting rid of some things that it's been holding onto. A lot of times, when you lose fat because fat is where the body stores a lot of toxins. Those toxins get released into the bloodstream. Symptomatically, we are experiencing some of the things that are very unpleasant.

Especially the GI stuff, it's like demons coming out there for three solid weeks.

Super loose stools.

All of it. It’s random like, “I got to go right now.” It was a weird experience, but then I came out of the dark corner. The fog lifted.

Imagine this body being exposed to all the junk that we expose it to when we were younger, and I was the same way. I grew up on junk food and crap food and still had six packs. I still worked out when I was younger in my teens and stuff. I was big into fitness. I tried to eat as healthy as I could, but I didn't know what I know now. Imagine the shock to the system that happens when you start flooding it with good food, nutrients, and energy sources. It’s going to take an adjustment and most of our digestive systems. I remember before I found what I found here, I was taking Zantac every single day of my life. I thought there was nothing wrong with it. It was normal. Acid ingestion.

This is medicine.

It shuts down digestive processes. If we are not eating animal foods because we have been told that animal foods are bad for us, it can cause cancer, heart disease, and all this other stuff, we lose our capacity to digest animal foods, which is why a lot of people come to me and they have low stomach acid issues. It’s an adjustment, but thankfully, you saw it through where the fog lifted. The payoff is amazing. When the fog lifts and you are in this realm of like, “I didn't know that I could feel this good from changing my diet.”

If we're not eating animal foods because we've been told that animal foods are bad for us, we lose our capacity to digest animal foods.

It was a meat-centric or animal-based-centric diet. It was one of those experiments. You are constantly building your temple. Your body is a temple. You are building the temple and you are constantly experimenting or improving it. You are putting a different coat of paint. Whatever analogy you want to use, it all boils down to whether you would put 87 octane or 83 octane in a Ferrari.

I don't know what's the best one.

If you had a dragster, would you put regular out the pump gas in the dragster?

The best of the best.

You got to get put the good stuff in or else you are going to get crap performance. You are not optimizing it. I see the utility in that.

It's a good way to think. We hear it our entire lives is you are what you eat but you are what you eat. You build yourself with what it is that you are consuming. People have to have some experiential realization of that. Do an experiment or work with a coach and feel the benefits for themselves and then they start to realize, “This is the truth. When I eat the right way, I do feel different, feel better, and look better.”

Here's another thing too about the paleo thing. I was remarkably astounded by how affordable a very strict paleo diet was. When people are like, “I can't do paleo. It's too expensive.” I'm like, “BS. You have to eat less once you get past the demon part.” It's like this very nutritionally-dense food or calorically-dense food. You are feeding yourself that you have to eat less, and it’s overall cheaper than buying your box full of Cheez-Its. Don't get me wrong. I can crush an entire box of Cheez-Its in one sitting.

How many vegetables do you have to eat to equate to the protein and nutrients that you get from eating meat and eggs? It’s a lot. I do a lot of cost comparisons. If I eat, I try to eat about 2 pounds of meat a day. That's $11. That's not bad for a day. The fruit and stuff are a minimal cost. Sweet potatoes and rice don’t cost that much at all.

What's your opinion on dried foods and freeze-dried or traditionally prepared things? If it's dried or freeze-dried, you still get that benefit.

To make this work in a modern lifestyle, fast food is cool. I don't have a problem going and getting Wendy's double patty burger without the bun. If it's real food-based, it started with real food. It has the possibility of being a good option. Dried foods and freeze-dried foods preserve nutrients pretty well. I have a freeze-dryer. It’s pretty awesome.

I have been eyeballing one at Sportsman's and it was $4,000 for that thing.

Was it Harvest Right?

Yes.

They are $5,000. If I need some of these convenience factors to make this work in my crazy modern life with kids, a job, and a spouse, then it's better than the alternative, which is eating BS.

These are those little things that you got to think outside of the box, especially when you don't have the availability. You are getting your bum kicked as a firefighter. You are out in the middle of nowhere with MREs. You are fed crap on a shingle at times. Have you ever seen a fire lunch?

I don't think so. I have cycled through a ton of pictures getting ready for these talks that I was doing. What is it?

Do you want to talk about a bag full of BS? You got nothing but carbs. You got M&M’s, cookies, Nutter Butters, Oreos, and Uncrustables sandwiches.

It reminds me of the 3-square or 4-square organization they had in Las Vegas I went to volunteer at. They put together these boxes of food for kids and it was Oreos and marshmallows. I was like, “What?”

Which tastes good. Kids are like, “Oreos. I love Oreos.”

Who puts that together for them?

It's contractors. We have the nutritional requirements that are set by NWCG standards and some mucky muck that's back in the technology development center setting the standards for what our nutrition is. I understand the need for carbohydrates and the abundance of them to some degree.

I was going to say that the rationale behind that is probably to give some easy-to-digest-and-use carbohydrates for people on the fire line hitting things hard. I could see a rationale for that if that's the reason behind it, but there are probably better sources for it.

That's what I'm saying. It's like a bag full of the cheapest and lowest common denominator BS that you can ever see. It's 5 pounds of crap and it sucks. I understand the utility behind it and it's cool to occasionally get a bag of carrots. It's like, “I like carrots.” No problem with that but the processed foods. I understand the utility behind that too, but the rainbow meat beef wad sandwich is like roast beef. It's stacked this high with meat. There's maybe a slice of a craft of single on top of it, and it's this dry meat brick that you have to muscle through and you need that stuff. There’s got to be some better sources out there. I understand that you give a chicken breast, a steak, or anything like that. It's not going to last.

Maybe it's part of doing what they got to do.

Thinking outside the box as far as those traditional preserving things, I know a bunch of firefighters especially in the Pacific Northwest that can their fish, can their meat, or dehydrate their own beef jerky. I know a couple of people that threw in on one of those harvest food dehydrators, and they make their own essential Mountain House meals.

If it starts real and it's traditional preparation, preserving processes like salting, curing, drying, and fermenting. I love fermented foods. It’s great. When I was in Vegas, I used to teach a lot of classes on making kimchi, sauerkraut, and kombucha. All those things are great. Our ancestors have been doing that for a long time.

It's easy knowledge to gain too. If you were to bake your preserves, beer jerky, and stuff like that, it's not rocket science to do. It isn't. It might be a little bit expensive on a startup for a decent dehydrator. It was probably $200.

If you can constantly pump meals out from it, if the crap hits the fan, you have got a great food source. I have got in my trailer right now at least three months’ worth of freeze-dried food.

It's easy to stock up on that stuff especially if you have a food saver. You want to talk about buying in bulk and the affordability factor of quality food. If you go to Costco, instead of the package of ribeye, steaks, sirloins, chicken, or whatever your flavor is, if you get the whole roast and do the butchering yourself, you are going to save even more money. You throw in a food saver bag and you freeze dry it and throw it in the freezer. It lasts forever.

Freeze-dried food is not that bad at all.

It's like making things stretch out. While you were here, you did a big presentation on sleep and the importance of sleep. Nutrition ties into that physicality, and fitness ties into that as well. Let's talk sleep.

If I had to focus my efforts on the most important things, it would probably be nutrition, fitness, sleep, and quiet time. I mentioned that in the very beginning. Sleep is one of the biggest missing links for most people because we are all so used to going and going, and we sacrifice sleep for everything else especially to get things done.

There was one guy that was in one of my talks and he got it. He understands that when you get good sleep, everything else about your life immediately, that the next day or the morning you wake up, is better. Sleep is so crucial for every physiological, biological, and psychological function that happens inside the body. It's the time that the body restocks its immune system. It fights infection and malignancy.

That's why people who sleep well rarely get sick especially if they got the nutrition stuff dialed in. It's also when your body resets its metabolic state. When we wake up in the morning, we should be our freshest and best to make energy properly. Do you ever notice how you are super snacky when you are tired or super carb craving when you are tired?

Sleep is so crucial for every physiological, biological, psychological function that happens inside the body. It's the time that the body restocks its immune system. It fights infection and malignancy. That's why people who sleep really well rarely get sick.

Having good sleep helps you with your fat loss goals. It makes you feel better and create energy in a better way. You have better appetite control. When you modulate your cardiovascular system because theoretically or ideally when you are sleeping, you have got this trough of a pulse rate. It's super low. If you have sleep trackers, most people would notice if they are sleeping well, then they should notice a pretty low pulse rate.

Also, sleep is when the body heals the physical body. During the day, it's like all systems go. You have a lot of input. You are experiencing a lot of things and you are using the physical body. Sleep is when the body heals itself physically. It's when it gets rid of memories that don't serve the body very well. It also uses dreaming as this virtual reality to integrate experiences with the memories that it chose to keep.

When you wake up the next day, you have this reset emotional state and you can deal with that day's challenges a little bit better. It's very primordial and evolutionary. Do you ever notice sometimes that if you go to bed and you are pissed off, upset, you had an argument with your partner or something like that, and then you wake up in the morning, you feel different about it?

What was I so concerned about? Why was that a big deal?

Sleep on it. One of those adages. Sleep is magical. For a lot of people, the easier place to start is food and fitness because that's what they are used to, but sleep is where it's at. It's so precious. Nothing is going to mess with my sleep now. Maybe I didn't understand the importance of it until I got into all this. I remember in Vegas in my early years there, we'd go out and hit bars and things here and there. I was the guy that I'm like, “I got to get to bed here in a couple of hours.” I get pissed off. After a while, people got used to it and they stopped inviting me because they know that I'm not going to stay up late.

I said goodbye to people during the bowling tournament. I was like, “I got crap to do tomorrow. I'm out.”

I want to live life. I want to feel good. It's a night and day difference, pun intended.

That's another thing too because you have the inverse there. You need to sleep on it. If you went to bed pissed off, you got decent rest and you wake up in the morning.

Your emotional states reset. Your body feels better. You recover better. Your workouts are going to be better because you are recovering better. There's not a single health condition that's not made worse by sleep deprivation. The flip of that is if I can prioritize my sleep. In synergy with these other things, it's something that's noticeable almost immediately like the first night.

I think about it on the inverse of that. You get good sleep and you had that argument with whoever, and then you went to sleep. You get the inverse of that. You don't get good sleep. When I wake up in the morning and I don't get good sleep, I'm terrible at my sleep hygiene. I'm terrible at it because I'm always in the go mode.

When I wake up in the morning, it's the most insignificant stupid crap that pisses me off. I'm so irritable. Everybody being a jerk. You stepped on a Lego. That's like stepping on a minefield in Cambodia. Have you ever stepped on a chewed-up Nylabone from a dog? That is criminal. It is like laws in the Geneva Convention should be written about chewed-up Nylabones. It's a war crime when you step on one of these things and it ruins your whole day. That escalates and snowballs. You slept like crap and it keeps snowballing.

You don't even realize that's why. You are in a funk and you don't know why. You track back and you are like, “That's it.” It's so sacred.

It is and there are a lot of things that interrupt sleep like alcohol. A bunch of young men and women, a very young person's sport and wildland fire, the military, law enforcement, and all these people that keep you safe at night. We go blow off steam at the bar and we are notorious for drinking. That is a huge sleep interrupter and then the social pressures of staying out late and then doing all this crap, drinking more, and compounding interest.

It's tough. I'm glad you are bringing that up. Measuring your sleep with a sleep tracker or monitor, your pulse rate is all over the place. Even if you feel like you pass out easier, you are not getting good quality sleep. It's tough because there are all these things that we could or should change as we are talking about all these different things.

There are things that we hold onto because we enjoy them. At some point, you have to realize that if I want to live my best life, if I want to show up at the best of the things that I care about, I got to make myself and my health a priority. Maybe starting small and making small changes and adding to them over time is the best way to do it. At some point, sleep is got to be a part of it too.

You even mentioned it too. The fallout from poor sleep. There's not a single thing that it doesn't affect. For good, bad, or worse, you can have cancer if you get crappy sleep. If you have cancer, it's going to get a lot worse a lot faster.

I only get sick when I don't sleep. That's it. That's the only time that I get sick.

Here’s a funny insight about kids. As soon as my two-year-old started going to daycare, he was dragging crap home all the time. This little turd sleeps like a rock. He goes to bed every night at 6:37. He sleeps great. He slept all through the night and wakes up at 5:36 and maybe sometimes 7:00 if he's had an exhausting day. He'd bring home germs and stuff from daycare. He's picking up stuff because he has no frame of reference for his immune system. He's picking up everything new.

You guys catch it and he does not?

He catches it but he's fine. He's doing his two-year-old crap. There hasn't been a single month that I have not been sick this entire experience of years.

That's one of the great things about having kids.

Plague bringers, but that's a sleep thing. I can guarantee you that I got better sleep if I wasn't waking up in the night and helping feed the baby, rocking something to sleep, or checking on the kids because you get that paranoia thing when you have kids. You got to look and see. It wakes you up.

It’s instinctual in you. That is probably one of the best pieces of advice when you first get sick or you feel that little tickle or itch in the back of your throat. You got to rest as much as possible.

Sleep hygiene is one of those things that you briefly talked about. Let's talk about sleep hygiene.

Best things you can do for sleep. To keep it super simple, you got to be consistent with your schedule. That means the same bedtime and same rise time most days or around the same time. Your body has to be able to anticipate that rest period, so it can fully commit to it. If it's haphazard like during the week I'm pulling all-nighters and I sleep it on the weekends. It's very hard for innate intelligence to commit to a full recuperate process.

Consistency is crucial. That means that during the week, bedtime and rise time are, the same as on the weekends ideally. Mimicking the day during the day, mimicking the night during the night. It is almost self-explanatory. Mimicking the day during the day means that when the sun is up, I want to be experiencing light and brightness. I want to be outside. I want to be letting that brightness hit my retinas in my eyes and hitting my skin. That's giving me a signal of activity that's helping me set my circadian rhythms in my hormone patterns.

If I get early morning light, which is the most beneficial and important light that you can get like natural light into your eyes as soon as you wake up or as soon as the sun comes up, then you are anchoring that morning hormonal pattern and cortisol spike. That's going to translate into a lot of other beneficial effects throughout the day. We were talking about the importance of getting outside and getting sun throughout the day, but if I had to prioritize a moment in that, it would be the first morning light that you can get. If you wake up before the sun comes up, then make sure you step outside and catch the sunrise.

If you wake up after the sun comes up, literally getting out on the porch and getting outside, no glasses or no sunglasses, and letting that natural light hit your eyes. Mimicking the day during the day means early morning light and then ideally punctuated light throughout the day. You are stepping outside and taking a break or something like that.

Every time you do that, your body is getting these signals from the sun. There's the position of the sun. There's the intensity of light depending on where the sun is in the sky. Season too can change. Your innate intelligence is picking up on all that information. The more times I get outside, it's the more data I'm giving my body. The more data I'm given my innate intelligence and at some point, it figures itself out. It's like, “This is when I need to do this and this is why I should do this. This is why I secrete this.” That's the day part.

Mimicking the night at night flips that. When it gets to be sunset or a couple of hours before bedtime, you want to minimize your stimulus. You want to minimize brightness. Think cool, calm, and collected. It’s not ideal to be on your TV, iPad, smartphone, and things like that. You are being aware that I don't want to keep this right in my face and have a lot of bright stuff going on. The mental stimulus for a lot of people is problematic. To keep it simple, it's consistency in schedule, mimicking the data during the day, and getting brightness as much as you can. As soon as the sun goes down a couple of hours before bedtime, try to chill out and make everything cool, dark, and dim, and minimize your stimulus.

That explains a lot from the input and output perspective like the data inputs. We have this thing where we are in a fire camp and there's a lot of noise. There's someone slamming the blue room door at 3:00 in the morning. There's somebody arguing with their significant other on their phone. A lot of chaos and you are trying to sleep in a fire camp while some person is trying to back up a fire engine into a parking spot. It's chaotic and you can't do anything about it.

I heard some stories. We did talk about specific to the fire line. Blue-light-blocking glasses would be crucial for all firefighters. Do you understand what those do?

I’m not familiar with what they do.

If I have this light in this studio blasting me in the face after the sun has gone down, that's tricking my body into thinking that it's not this time of day. It's like during the day. I'm going to delay my melatonin secretion by 2 or 3 hours. Anything brightness exposure, whether it's the camp ICP, they have a lot of lights there. They have to because this is the operation.

Any brightness is going to mess with your sleep. Having some blue-light-blocking glasses that are from some reputable brand. I got three brands I recommend. If you put those on as soon as you know that you are going to be coming offline. A lot of times when you come offline you have to do hygiene and rehab your equipment and do some eating and stuff like that.

Maybe if that's your reminder to put those on, then within a couple of hours, you will be tired and ready to go to bed. That's going to help facilitate some better-quality sleep. As far as the noise, we talked about setting up your sleep situation as far as possible from that camp or the ICP. You will have some rules or guidelines as far as how far you can go but setting it up as far away as possible.

If it were me, I'd probably lay in the tent and point my head towards the camp so that if there were bright lights coming from the camp, I wouldn't be seeing them through the tent. Having a noise maker, maybe some earplugs, eye mask, or something like that, you can get some portable noise makers that have a good little ambient white noise or something like that. You can still hear important sounds if someone yells at you, yells your name, or comes and tries to wake you up, but it's drowning out a lot of that noise that you said was irritating. What do you think about that? Those are some things we talked about.

There's going to be cultural resistance to wearing blue light glasses. It's uncouth. It's like, “You are not part of us. You are the standout.” There's that cultural thing.

It's visible something that's separating you from everybody else.

There's the whole stigma about putting your gloves on your carabiner and putting them on your hip. That's uncouth. It's like, “We are the cool guys and girls. We are the cool people camp over here. We don't do that crap.”

We got to make the glasses cool somehow. I like being different but I like sleep. Sleep is pretty cool personally. When I first started wearing them, I'm out at restaurants and stuff. You get some looks sometimes, but they are becoming more mainstream. You see more people put them on. They don't look as bizarre as they used to.

It's not like, “Look at Bono over here.” It's like these red sunglasses.

They look cool these days.

It’s cultural acceptance. It’s that whole woo-woo conversation I had with Walker. If it works for you, it works for you. I was like, “F whatever people think.”

What if a doctor prescribed it or a nutritional therapist? What if someone said, “You got to wear these? You have to because your sleep and health are wrecked. If you don't do this, it's not going to end well for you.” People would do it. It's almost like you have to look at it like, “This is a priority for me. It's going to help my health.”

I got a lot of crap for it, but I'd never sleep in a tent. I'd always sleep on the stars unless the weather was crap, and then instead of a tent. It's one of those cultural things too plus I love sleeping on the stars. I'd always get crap for wearing the sleep mask and earplugs. I would do that.

That type of person would give a crap about people giving you crap about that.

Maybe at the time and now I don't give a crap. I don't care anymore. At that point, I very much did. I didn't want to be the outsider. It’s like forced conformity but it's part of our culture. You got to respect hierarchy. You got to fall in line. You got to do what we do and this is how we have always done it, but we can try new crap every once in a while, but let's try not to make a big deal out of it. There's more of an acceptance of thinking outside the box these days. When I was coming up through it, you'd clip your gloves to your carabiner to your belt loop. You were fine. We have this couth fun thing going.

The fact that they are having these talks means that they are open to this info. It sounds like some of it can be a top-down leadership movement. Imagine if you are a superintendent or assistant captain. Imagine if you had these people say, “This is the focus for this week. I want us to focus on this one piece of sleep hygiene.”

That takes away the whole being different from everyone else because the leadership is supporting it. Maybe there are some supportive blue-light-blocking glasses in some way. Maybe it could be useful to be a leadership top-down thing. Have a test group. I have always thought about having leadership do something themselves so they experience the benefit themselves and they'd be more prone to promote it.

You got to try it and see what works. It's a great social experiment but also a human physical experiment too. It's like that whole like health. Health is holistic well-being. Well-being is a buzzword and it's no different than mental health. How do you define mental health? We have these key pivotal things that mean a lot to us, but what other things play into mental health or wellness as a whole? Social health, financial health, and all this other crap, but it's all cyclic and it all correlates to each other. If one falls, the rest of the dominoes tend to fall as well.

That's why I have been so impressed with what's been put on here because they are focusing on a lot of things. I'm assuming a lot of other organizations out there aren't doing this.

Not a lot in my experience but things changed in the last few years.

Very forward-thinking. I could see it at some point in the future. If I was running the show of something like that, they are the norm. Blue-light-blocking glasses are the norm. Eating meat and protein is the norm. Resistance training is recommended because it makes you a better performer when you are out in the field.

I'm all about building better humans and over the last years in Carson City District here in the state of Nevada as a whole, it extends outwards to Region 4 in general. It seems like they have been adopting these things and pushing the boundaries and trying new things. Being accepted and breaking those social barriers or cultural barriers and saying, “It's cool.” If you think this is your freak flag, then let it fly. There's no shame in that if it works for you.

The truth surfaces over time. A lot of things that we do for health that we know are the truth. Several years ago, it seems or sounds crazy now like it was unheard of. I remember when I first started doing all this. People could not believe that it was okay to eat butter. Now, it's mainstream that butter is way better than margarine.

When we first started wearing blue-light-blocking glasses, it was bizarre and now, so many people, it's like, “I have heard of that.” The more exposure people have and the more that things work for people and the more that surfaces, then the more mainstream it will become because the truth is surfacing with all these different health habits.

There's a thought experiment with leadership too. It’s the first follower phenomenon. I don't know if you have seen this video. This dude is out there. He is got his freak flag flying and he's on a grassy knoll, probably like a fish concert or something like that. This is probably something that your average firefighter would probably not want to hang out with. It's funny because you watch this video and you are like, “What is this guy doing?” Pretty soon, one person goes over there.

They start dancing.

The next thing you know, there's a gaggle of people. That's the thing is the first follower phenomenon. It's like widespread acceptance comes from early adopters. The state of Nevada with the BLM, and the Bureau of Land Management, are good at adapting things and those early adopters.

That speaks something about speaking your truth, standing up for the things that you believe in, and being vocal about it. Part of that is with your health and the things you do for your health. Especially in this world, the way it is and the direction this thing is moving, the more people can stand up for what they believe in. If you have the guts to be vocal about it, it's great but being the example of the thing that you feel like you represent and want to represent is super powerful.

The way it is today, more people can stand up for what they believe in.

This whole show and this conversation, this is your truth. You have the courage to step up, stand up, and say something about it because you believe in it and it's worked well for you. It could be beneficial to others. It's like Walker when I was talking to him. He was on the show. The amount of courage that you need to get up and stand up and share your truth about something as intimate as being on the verge of suicide.

As long as that says there's one person out there, that's huge. My friend had cervical cancer and she survived it. These are her trials and tribulations. She has shared her truth with a huge audience. That's the cool thing about all these podcasts and all this stuff coming out with fire and what you do. It’s reaching a wider audience. Look at how influential Joe Rogan is. He's lifted the most minor of people to this noteworthy status. That's what everybody in the community is trying to do. Take these conversations, have them in a wider audience, and amplify those voices much like in the grassroots movement.

When you start talking about people sharing their difficulties and struggles, that takes a lot of courage.

It's the ultimate form of leadership in my opinion.

There are so many people out there that are affected by that in a positive way. A lot of people need to hear that.

Let them know that they are not alone, too. That's huge. Back to the sleep thing. Side note there, you got the fire camp. You got crappy sleep. It's horrible. When you are out and you are spiked out and we have spike camp. I don't know if you heard about this. Spike camp is where you are miles into the middle of nowhere land. You are cutting line and forced to have stuff flown into you in your support camp. Your base camp is very remote. It's either flying or hiking way out in the middle of nowhere. Do you want to talk about some of the best sleep ever? It's all the things that you talked about. There's no noise. It's nature. You are sleeping on the stars.

The guys said that they slept better when they are on the fire line than they did at home. I was like, “Let's try to break that down and figure out what is it that's different about it.” That's the question. Try to mimic that in your home environment. We all came to the same conclusions. It's like we are pulling ourselves away from the modern world, the chaos, the noise, the EMFs, the radiation, and the light even. It’s exactly what we are saying. Reconnecting with the things that made us healthy as human beings before all the craziness of this modern world.

Even when you wake up, you are getting that fresh natural light, that circadian rhythm. You are watching the sunrise and its beautiful vista. You are empowered by the pine trees and the smells.

It's beautiful without you even thinking it's beautiful. You are there for it.

That's a happy place now. I have had some of the most miserable nights and days of my life on the line, but something magical about those moments and watching the sunset.

That's another good pun. Happier by nature or being in nature. It's immersing yourself in these things that made us healthy as human beings before the modern world. Anytime you get to taste or connect with those things that support that, you feel different. You feel better.

We have that joke. It's like we are paid for sunsets. You have probably heard it a couple of times while you are here. The Federal pay scale is crap. You are expected to take on an enormous amount of risk for very little pay.

Not a lot of firefighters got paid a lot.

Not the Federal side. We are trying to make things better but it's your Cal Fire agencies, your state agencies, and your municipal firefighters. The big red Reno Fire, they are getting paid an adequate wage in my opinion. They are getting paid for their worth, their duties, and the amount of risk that they take on.

They have that pay parity. Not necessarily equality because everybody is different. They are compensated accordingly. With some state agencies, some contractors, and some Feds, that's not the case. We have these dark jokes and humor about being paid in sunsets, but there's something magical about it and there's a reason why we do it.

We don't do it for the pay because nobody does. We do it for the sunsets and those magical moments, and that being connected with nature, having a greater purpose, and all this other stuff that goes into it. It's addictive. It's like you are chasing light and everything. It's nomadic and poetic. It's all that stuff rolled into one. It makes sense.

That's a big reason a lot of firefighters love what they do in addition to helping people and being a hero because you get to connect with nature to some degree.

I wouldn't necessarily even say a hero. It's finding purpose and doing cool crap. Sleep, nutrition, total body health, and overall wellness play into your mental health immensely.

It’s huge. People come into my office and they have a lot of anxiety, stress, and depression and then they get these things figured out and they are completely different people within a couple of weeks.

It's night and day difference. You are a different person but that's another thing too. When you are doing all this stuff, you are doing it for the sunsets. You are having those connections as social interactions. You get to meet cool people like yourself. You get to have those epic sunrises and sunsets and sleep under the stars. Get some of the best damn sleep even better than a home on the most comfy bed imaginable.

As a seasonal employee, what I have traditionally experienced is that you go from 120 miles an hour in 1 direction to practically reverse. We brushed the topic up when you first came over here. When you are cut off from your purpose, your friends, that battle camaraderie, it's hard and then you are compounding it with a disruption in your circadian rhythm.

You are talking about coming back from being up. It’s a shock to the system. Doing your best to acknowledge. For some people when we were doing these talks, there was a realization, “I do feel better when I'm out there sometimes.” What is it about that experience that is making you feel better and how can I recreate that back home?

Maybe people reading this, acknowledge that comradery. Going through crappy situations with other people doing the same thing. That's what I loved about the Army. A lot of the stuff that we did felt horrific at the time. It's like we were doing it with other people. We could laugh at each other about it and talk about it later.

Maybe acknowledging there's that comradery piece. Why is it that I'm sleeping better? Maybe now we can acknowledge, “It's because I'm immersing myself in a much more natural environment.” It’s something along those lines and figuring out, “What is it about that experience that makes me feel so great and happy versus being back here and how can I recreate that or at least acknowledge it so that you know that's what it is?”

It's going to be a lot easier pill to swallow if you are dialed in on your nutrition and you are aware of your sleep and all these things that play into your overall well-being.

Happier by nature, 100%. You dial those things in and you don't even have to try to be happier. You are going to be happier guaranteed.

If you could just get dialed in on your nutrition, sleep and all the things that play into your overall wellbeing, you don’t even have to try to be happier. You’re going to be happier, guaranteed.

Paul, I appreciate you being on the show, but before we go, I want to give you the opportunity to give some shout-outs to some homies, heroes, and mentors. Who have you got for us?

I got one guy. He is going to be reading this. His name is Rene. He's been there with me since the beginning of my tenure career. We have been back and forth and supporting each other. He helped me make this decision to go off-grid because I didn't feel like I had anything else that I wanted to do. If it wasn't for him, I wouldn't be here.

I got this buddy of mine, John Lombard. I know he is going to read this. That guy has been unwavering in his support, friendship, and loyalty. My whole community of people is amazing. A lot of people I have worked with for years and they have been there with me through thick and thin. My private clients make me who I am. As I work with them individually, this is where I get all my learning experience. They don't know it, but I experiment on them. The feedback that I get from them over time, the experiments are based on a lot of science and logic. I'm thankful for them because every time I work with them, they make me better as a practitioner and as a person.

Keep doing what you are doing and keep pursuing that happiness and hope that everybody that's reading this pursues their happiness and finds their contentedness. It all starts with your basic needs like your nutrition. It can be simple.

Thanks for having me on and thanks for what you are doing too. I can tell you are an inspiration to a lot of people and you are giving the voice to people that need it. Maybe firefighters seem to be this relatively underappreciated and underpaid occupation and they put so much out there and they sacrifice so much. It sounds like you are giving them a great voice here. That's amazing.

That's not me giving them the voices themselves. That's the trick on them. That’s my experiment on them.

That's the same thing I do with my coaching. It's not me. It's them doing the work. It's them putting all this stuff into practice. It's them living the challenges and going through the challenges. I'm helping to highlight the best.

That's how you change the world. Empower people. Paul, thank you so much for being on the show. I appreciate it.

I appreciate it too. Thanks.

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There we go with another episode of the show. It’s in the books with my good friend Paul C. Tijerina. If you want to get ahold of him, type in his name on the old Instagram. You can find him on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and all that stuff. If you want to support him, more importantly, it's Operation Rewild and his health coaching. With that being said, Paul, thank you so much for being on the episode. That was a pretty cool speech you gave over at the Bureau of Land Management meeting there. I'm glad to have you back any day. It's been a fun one.

I hope that everybody got something out of this episode. Paul's story is pretty unique. The dude was in poor health. By following his recipe for his diet, he has managed to turn his whole life around. The dude got out of the military in 2002 and he was in his worst health ever. He was 275 pounds, had high blood pressure, was pre-diabetic, had major digestive issues, and had chronic inflammation.

He switched everything over to his new diet and he is doing well. He was even vegan for a while and that didn't work, but now he's dialed in. Hope you all take some notes on this one. For the rest of you, I hope everybody is doing well. As for the rest of you, I hope everybody is doing well. The episode is going to be brought to you by other than Mystery Ranch Built For The Mission. If you want to go check out some more, go over to www.MysteryRanch.com. We got Hotshot Brewing. They are the purveyors of some kickass coffee for a kickass cause. A portion of the proceeds will always go back to the Wildland Firefighter Foundation. Go over to www.HotshotBrewing.com and check it out.

Last, but not the least, we got The A.S.S. Movement. My man, Booze over there. Go over to www.TheFireWild.com and check out The A.S.S. Movement where you can get 10% off your entire order by using the code AnchorPointASS10 at checkout. Bethany with the Fire Wild also known as The Smokey Generation have an epic grant program. If you are telling the story of Wildland Fire, go over there and check it out. Go over to www.WildFire-Experience.org. Bethany, you got to a kickass organization over there. Keep it up. As for the rest of you, you all know the drill. Stay safe and stay savage. Peace.

Important Links 

• GrassrootsWildlandFirefighters.com

• Paul Tijerina

• Jay Walker - Past Episode

• Sacred Cow

• Instagram - Paul Tijerina

• Facebook - Paul Tijerina

• Twitter - Paul Tijerina

• Operation Rewild

• www.TheFireWild.com

• Mystery Ranch

• Hotshot Brewing

• Wildland Firefighter Foundation

• The American Wildfire Experience

• The Smokey Generation

About Paul Tijerina

Paul C. Tijerina BS MFT CPT CHC NLP NTP

Functional Nutritional Therapy Practitioner - Primal Health Coach Level 2 - Master Health Coach

Paul is a West Point grad and an army veteran. After getting out of the military in 2002, he hit his worst health - 275 pounds, high blood pressure, pre-diabetic, major digestive issues, and extremely inflamed.

After going vegan for 2 years, and seeing minimal improvements and additional problems, he found what he calls ancestral health, and has never looked back.

For over 10 years he's been coaching people on animal based nutrition, ancestral based health, self reliance, and simplified living, among many other things.

Recently, some major life changes forced him to scrutinize what was really important. he's decided to take his message OFF GRID in a camping trailer, traveling the nation doing seminars and helping people REWILD.

His dream for his clients is for them to experience freedom and happiness that comes from being healthy, being prepared, and simplifying life. His clients experience fat loss, improved performance, increased energy, improved hormonal profile, stronger digestion, better mental and emotional health.

Rediscover how you were meant to live and learn how to be happier by nature! If you find this information valuable and you'd like to support Paul, he is living completely off of donations! Check out his support page at https://buymeacoffee.com/paulctijerina To schedule some time with him and to connect with him on social media, here are all his links https://linktree.com/paulctijerina