#299 Why We STOPPED Eating Vegetables to Get into the BEST Health of Our Life

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Extraordinary Family Life Podcast where your host Greg and Rachel Denning.

Today we talk about health and fitness and food.

Again.

We get lots of questions because, well, this particular question came because one of the podcasts I said, yeah, we don't eat veggies.

And so people are like, wait, hold up, why are you not eating vegetables?

That sounds extreme.

You crazy, Dennings Right?

And at the very beginning of this podcast a couple 100 episodes ago, like, I was pounding salads and I was like, right, we love salads.

We love vegetables.

And now salads are toxic sludge.

That's right.

And ice creams.

Homemade ice cream is healthier than salad.

To say it subtly.

Well, and that's.

Like you like to do.

But that's what's funny, that's why I like to say it that way, because it's shocking.

And so it like it activates this part of your brain.

That's like what a salad is toxic sludge and homemade ice cream is healthier than salad.

Like I will literally let my children eat homemade ice cream for breakfast because it is so much healthier for them then.

Well, well, for one thing, for cereal, then cereal or bagels or orange juice.

And it's definitely healthier than salad.

So but but this is funny and I love that you brought this up because you're right.

When you started this podcast, which you started without me because I was not ready to do a podcast.

And it's probably been how many years?

Five years, maybe ish, ish.

We were still eating salads at that time.

So that shows how much we've transformed our beliefs over that period of time.

Although I have been studying health and nutrition for 20, I almost pretty much our whole marriage because.

Since I was 27, so 30 years, I, I became a personal trainer at 17 and so I got into muscle building and health and fitness and I bought into this whole bogus eat vegetables.

Salt salad.

Yeah.

Vegetables fact our first date was at an all you can eat salad buffet we.

We bought into this whole thing and then realized we've we've since realized that that's no go.

Well, and The funny thing is too, because because I've been studying it since my father was diagnosed with colon cancer, which was the same week you and I met like our first date.

And then when we got engaged, I remember very vividly that we were, we went to Target and we were doing our wedding registry and we were registering for all the things we needed.

And I wanted to register for an ice cream scoop.

And you were like, no, we're not getting an ice cream scoop.

And I was like, we have to because I can't use a spoon to scoop out the ice cream because, you know, and the.

Spoon is too hard.

You're going through this whole scenario.

And you just looked at me and you said, no, we will not be.

We do not need an ice cream scoop.

And I knew when I looked at you, what you meant was we won't be eating ice cream.

That's where we started our journey.

And now here we are saying.

And we still don't.

Eat store bought ice cream, but we now you know, I know that ice cream is healthy for you and good for you.

Homemade ice cream.

And so we've come full circle really in a lot of different ways.

And so I guess we want to expand more on that today because we have received more questions recently.

I don't we have done well.

I just want to say that we have done episodes about this already.

So in the show notes here, I'm going to link to all the episodes we've done about health and nutrition so that you kind of have the full picture of where we're coming from here.

And and to just to clarify.

So like in the 30 years, I think the only thing that has changed a little bit, at least for me, is the vegetable piece.

I I was kind of I bought into the vegetable thing and then studied my way out.

Of it though it's I don't all.

Right.

Let's let's disagree, woman.

Well, because I don't think that that is the only thing that changed because, because when we started out, for one thing, we didn't eat a lot of meat because.

I did.

I was eating it.

I was pounding shrimp.

That's what I'm saying.

Yeah, I was.

I was pounding shrimp.

I was I and I, I was poor as a teen.

And then we were.

You know.

We weren't rich, we early got.

Eat a lot of meat.

Got married but like I was still hitting like a shrimp was amazing source of protein.

I knew that beef was, I know that beef has creatine in it and I was building muscle.

So even from 1617 I knew those things.

I'd study them and I would eat meat as much as we could.

Afford.

OK, but, and maybe this was where our mindset was different.

In my mind, it wasn't just because we couldn't afford it, which was part of what we believed, but also I thought we need to eat meat sparingly.

Because you and I, we grew up in a religion, we're that taught that, believe that.

And so that was a part of my mentality about it.

Like I was, I viewed us as almost vegetarian.

We would eat meat, you know, chicken occasionally because it was, I don't know, we wanted to, we felt like we needed it sometimes, which now I know, now I understand why.

But at least in my mindset, part of the reason we didn't, that we didn't do that wasn't just because we were poor, but also because I was trying to live healthy by eating meat sparingly.

All this time I thought now something else.

I'm like what is going?

On yeah, but then another thing too that I think has changed drastically for us is that I also went through a phase of and you believe this too, because I remember you telling us our kid, our kids when they were young, like if you eat butter, you're going to have clogged arteries.

You're going to, I remember from heart.

Attack some heart surgeon, some cardiovascular specialist as we travelled around the world and they were they were just totally bought into this the clogged artery things.

And from eating butter and fat.

Bad for you?

Yeah.

All the while, what it what it really was, it's the seed oils.

It's the seed oils that was doing that.

But there was this misrepresentation that dairy was bad.

And then we lived.

We lived, we lived on an organic like all you can eat, meaning all you can eat is like everything that grew was edible on these organic farms around the world and, and in Central America specifically.

And so we really leaned into.

Well, you're reading Kale every day.

I would walk out around the property and I would just get a whole belly full of of greens as I was out grazing.

And I could never get into that.

And now I understand why.

I know why that is because I felt like the only way I could eat salad or I could eat anything like that is if I covered it with fats like that was the ore meats.

Like then I could eat a salad because it was covered with dressing and I had protein in it, right.

So that's the irony because even then that was the only way I could get myself to eat the salad and I was forcing myself to eat it because it was quote UN quote good for me.

And now I realize, well, no, what my body really wanted and what it needs and what is healthiest for it is fats.

Now of course, the reason a salad is toxic sludge is because you're pouring seed oils all over your salad.

Most.

Salad dressings are horrible.

Yeah, because they're made from seed oils and the proteins.

So that's all.

Get rid of the salad.

You don't need that.

Just eat the the fats and the proteins, Right.

So that was another thing that we believed.

So we did not eat butter or use butter.

We did, but it was very sparingly.

We didn't drink milk.

In fact, we were all into like the oat milk or the rice milk or all of that, which now we know is all toxic.

Like we don't do any of that.

And so I would say that in a lot of ways we those things have shifted now.

We didn't start out in our marriage that way and we kind of grew into that.

And then we've now come back around to where our our diet now is completely whole food based, excluding vegetables.

And you know that's we.

Got to clarify.

Here we will.

We will.

We're going to clarify that, but that's where this question comes from.

Like, wait a second, you don't eat vegetables.

Like, like that is what we have all grown up, at least in my mind.

We've all grown up believing that if you want to be healthier, you need to eat more vegetables.

And now I don't believe that anymore.

That's not true.

And so we want to talk through that and we want to talk why.

But, you know, I grew up literally eating margarine and Crisco, Crisco and oatmeal.

And now that's.

All I am is culture.

Exactly.

And now I I I would never feed any of that stuff to make it.

No way.

Yeah, they tried to eat it.

I think I'd take the spoon and beat them.

So they have a mental association.

This is bad.

I would take the box of cereal and beat them with it.

Well, we don't even buy it, so it's not an option.

So we're going to start here with a question and then and talk through why and how I guess we've come to this viewpoint and why specifically we don't eat vegetables.

With with the whole goal.

Let's kind of set up the premise here.

My my greatest desire is to have health, fitness, energy, vitality, strength, stamina for a long time.

I I plan on zooming right past 100 years old and and keep on going like I want to.

And not being an invalid and you know, mentally gone, right?

Like that's not your goal eventually.

And physically sharpened Cape.

Exactly.

I want to be out backpacking through the wilderness in our 80s and 90s.

Right.

And the the for me, that motivation came from my father getting cancer and then dying.

He died.

At 47, I'm 47.

Yeah, he died at your age.

And then since then, my mom got remarried and then my stepdad has also died of cancer.

So I, I'm very motivated by these things to figure out why these things happen and why they're occurring.

And, and in that journey, I've discovered that the food pyramid is a scam, that there's all sorts of things going on that are, that are causing these chronic diseases.

Like it's not, it's not just in my mind, it, it's, it's so obvious now.

It is so obvious.

I know that in my journey it felt confusing or unclear or like, well, maybe it's genetics or maybe it's this or maybe it's just bad luck or whatever.

Now I'm like, no, it is absolutely crystal clear to me.

These things are being caused by a diet and the solution is diet.

And as a result, you know, here we are in our 40s, you're 47, I'm 46.

We have no chronic diseases.

We have no illnesses, no ailments, no like.

We don't take medication, we don't take vitamins.

Yeah, we take exactly no supplements, no vitamins, no medication.

Like I would say we're the picture of health, really.

And, and to, to add to the standard, I wanted to share like just kind of so you guys know where, where our baseline is and my own personal standard, like at any point in my life, I want to be able to, and I'm talking about any point like you, you walk up, knock on the door and like, hey, let's go for a 5K run.

At any point in my life, I want to be able to run a 5K, I want to be able to drop into a minimum of 50 push ups, and I want my abdominal muscles to be visible my entire life.

And then there's no like, starving suffering.

Well.

Yeah, it's, it's like I feel fantastic.

I'm not suffering, I'm not skimping, I'm not dieting right.

Like I'm living my life.

We love food, we travel all the.

We eat a lot of food.

Good things we we work out because it's fun and and we do a big challenges like there's no right.

That's it.

We're enjoying our lives and we're staying in fantastic health.

And yes, that's another good point to emphasize here because we are, we're eating well, like we're eating good food, food we want to eat.

And it's not like, oh, better eat this tofu or this kale to be healthy so we can, you know, reach these goals.

It's like, no, we are eating good things every single day.

I think it's important to add we have never forced our kids to eat, never have.

To we don't have food attitude with their kids.

This is so good, I want some more.

Yeah, like 0, like literally 0 food issues with our kiddos, right?

No battles over food?

No, no.

Eat your vegetables, stay here sitting at the table and they're crying ice cream.

You're going to be grounded.

And like all of a sudden, like they, there's nothing like trying to trick them or persuade them or play these little tricks or games or bribes or anything.

Like we sit down, we eat great food.

They everyone ate in the house, eats it and we're good.

And the I would say the only thing, the only requirements or restrictions we have on food is that we teach our children if you're going to eat sugars, which in our household includes fruit, basically if you're going to eat fruit, you have to eat or you need to eat fats and proteins first.

So we won't allow our kids to eat fruit first thing in the morning or if they haven't eaten for a while to eat like just a piece of fruit.

We're like, Oh well, eat some cheese with the apple or eat some mascarpone with the apple or, you know, And so we're teaching them because what's happening in that case, which we want to get into, is that when you eat sugars, it's spiking your blood sugar, which causes insulin.

Resistance.

Resistance and insulin resistance is the contributing factor or causing factor of most chronic diseases.

So that's the one thing that we talk about with our kids and we're like, you want a snack, you want a mango, you want something great, have some fatness proteins first and then you can have that.

One more quick element before we get to the question.

We've learned and kind of known this, but but gone back and forth and it's, it's just becoming overwhelmingly evident now with the research and and all this, the stuff that's out there, muscle mass matters.

So, you know, there's been times where people are like, you can just be really skinny, then you can go on a vegan diet or a vegetarian diet or whatever and you end up just being really skinny and you lack muscle mass.

Well, and people say that there's been people and there's still people out there like, oh, that's healthier, less mass, less weight, you know, longer.

It's just not true.

Having muscle mass has so many positive.

Well, contributing to longevity, for one thing.

Well.

And well, it's related because it actually helps with your insulin sensitivity.

Muscles eat and consume the good things and, and, and make your body function properly, like you're healthier when you have more muscle mass.

And so it's.

Like to tie in here again, the insulin is so important because it's actually just like everyone knows that insulin and diabetes are connected, right?

And they think, oh, that's, that's not good.

But but what most people don't don't understand, and it's coming out more in the research, is that insulin resistance is also causing heart disease and dementia and.

You know, Benjamin Bickman who wrote when he gets sick essentially and all his research said, well, at the very core, insulin resistance is the cause underlying.

Cancers.

Of all disease and death, right?

And they're now calling thing like dementia, Alzheimer's, they're calling it type 3 diabetes because it's all connected to insulin resistance.

So what you were just saying there about the muscle mass, that's important because it is helping your insulin so that you don't build up insulin resistance.

Exactly right.

So OK, all of that is US geeking out here about this stuff, but This is why.

And and like they said in this thing, like the question, I know you research topics to no end.

Well, yeah.

Like we don't casually just say, you know what, we're not eating vegetables anymore.

You know, we are not the type of people that do that kind of stuff.

We have to be convinced with hard evidence that this is something that we should do before we adopt it in our lifestyle.

And so that's, you know, something we want you to know.

It's not taken on casually.

It's serious for us.

It it comes with the evidence behind it.

OK, ready for the question right.

The subject line is you don't eat vegetables.

Question mark, question mark, question mark, exclamation point, multiple explanation points.

OK, Greg mentioned something in a recent podcast episode about not eating vegetable.

It sounds a bit crazy to me, but I know you research topics to no end.

I've been on a health roller coaster and they go on explaining the, you know, gaining weight, losing weight.

I'm, I'm not going to give too many personal details, but essentially they're in their 20s and, and you don't have been figuring out how to keep the weight down, how to not be depressed, how to not over diet.

Three months ago, I switched a job so I can be more active, but I know, I know moving more isn't going to cut it if proper nutrition doesn't follow.

And that's key because you know, again, ultimately fitness and health are connected, but they can also be very separate.

You could be very fit, can be very unhealthy.

That's why some people who are runners or whatever, they can have a heart attack because just because you're fit doesn't mean you have a healthy body.

Because if your nutrition is bad, that's going to be causing the diseases, the heart attack, the distances.

Exactly right.

So fitness and health are connected, but they're also very separate.

So it is important to also have the proper nutrition and not just the exercise.

And I like the distinction of you can be fit and not healthy, but you can't be truly healthy and not fit.

Yes.

So we're focused on health, overall health, holistic whole life health, which includes fitness, and not just fitness at the sacrifice sometimes.

The wealth or vice versa?

OK, they said.

I've recently read Forever Strong by Doctor Lyon, now following the line protocol.

I just completed the book Fat Chance by Doctor Lustig, working to implement.

He says you're probably familiar with these.

Actually, I'm not familiar.

We haven't read those ones, but we are going to.

He's asking for a bunch that we have read that we are going to share.

And then I really want to know is best for my body.

I'm hoping you could aid me by suggesting some of the best books or resources that sum up your family's views on nutrition.

I'll put all of the links of what we talked about in the show notes of this episode along with the other podcasts we've talked about.

I want to understand the whole anti vegetables comment, yet more importantly I want to understand your years and years of study on health.

I will read whatever you suggest as I have dedicated 2025 to achieving a lifestyle that will keep me healthy for the rest of my life.

That's the most important part right there.

And and I'd like to extend that invitation to everybody listening the year that you get into the best health of your life and stay there for the rest of your life.

It's not that.

Hard.

We make it so, we make it seem so hard, so difficult, like I'm just going to have to suffer.

And then when I say do it for the rest of your life, they think that's unsustainable.

How can I exert this much effort?

You're in and you're out for the rest of my life.

And what we're saying is like, no, figure out a lifestyle that you love, that you enjoy so it's easily sustainable for the rest of your life.

Stay very healthy.

That was actually what I was going to say and emphasize as well, because when you learn these things that we're teaching and from the books that we're suggesting and all of that, it's not hard.

Like I don't feel that we are sacrificing in any way to be healthy and yet it's so easy for us to maintain health because we are fueling our body with real healthy foods.

Like it.

It's easy for us to be healthy.

It's easy for us to not be sick.

It's and we're not suffering on some health food diet that makes us miserable for as an example, today we are going to have homemade chocolate ice cream covered with homemade caramel sauce.

That our son, who is 19, is making for us, that's one of the things.

The caramel sauce because.

It's you just disgusting.

I know you just don't like it.

Kids make homemade marshmallows too.

Like.

We have homemade chocolate covered marshmallows, we have homemade caramels that sometimes we would chocolate on, like we're eating delicious things Now that of course that's not what we're eating as the main part of our diet because that would not be healthy either.

But what we're trying to say is you don't have to cut out all sweet things or good things or whatever from your life.

You just have to understand insulin resistance and how that works.

And if we're eating anything like that, we're balancing it with fats and proteins, one of which is ice cream.

Ice cream has fats and proteins.

I think we have to clarify there so there's not misunderstanding is like we are, we are for all intense purposes cutting out refined sugars.

Yes.

And so those are great.

So the sweeteners we use are pure honey and pure Maple syrup.

Yes, we we did for a time.

We used urethral and and monk fruit extract and xylitol we were using.

Some monk fruit or something on occasion, but it's not something I use regularly.

And and we have.

And we don't, we do no sugar at all.

Like, let's emphasize that no sugar.

We buy no products that have sugar in them and we don't.

I mean, you buy it to feed to our bees.

Just kidding.

But that's irrelevant.

So no sugar at all.

And and that's important right there.

So we do have some hard stops on the things that and seed oils, like absolutely zero seed oils coming into the house.

Which includes anything and and just.

Vegetable oil, Canola oil, just like cooking oils.

Which foundational piece here?

In essence, we're we're not buying anything that has ingredients on it.

And if we are, we're buying things that only has ingredients that we can read and understand.

And and simple.

Simple ingredients, like when we go to Scotland, I will actually buy their shortbread cookies because the ingredients are flour, butter, it does have some sugar and vanilla.

That's it.

Like that's the only four or five ingredients on their cookies in Scotland.

So when we go there, OK, you know, I'll get that once in a while.

That's my point.

But otherwise, we're not buying anything that has a full long list of ingredients that you can't read or understand.

And the number one is canola oil or whatever and chemical and sugar.

Like food, if it has food coloring in it, we're out.

If it has a bunch of chemicals in it, we're out.

Like if it's not, if you can't make it in your kitchen and it's not Whole Foods, it's not simple and delicious, it's not going in.

So it has to be delicious and nutritious.

Then the next piece is if we want to eat any of those things, then we make them at home like marshmallows, like ice cream muffins, like ice cream, like cookies.

We will eat those things, but we make them at home with the ingredients that we know are going.

We know what's going in it and we can control how much sugar goes what, how much sweetener goes in because we use honey, etcetera, etcetera.

And, and for a general standard, we eat very few simple carbohydrates.

So bread, rice, things like that.

Very, very.

Good, but we don't eat it.

But it's again it's smaller portions.

So last night I made it a soup that was mostly ground beef.

It had some rice in it and some and then here's where we get into it had it had a lot of cream in it.

It had cream cheese in it.

It had cheese in it.

It was sub.

And here's where we get into the vegetable thing, because it also had a green pepper and it had some onions.

So let's say they just because that was the that was the big thing here.

And and most of this stems from a misunderstanding of what a vegetable is.

So we'll start there.

So, and you guys, all of this is, is spelled out in my I've, I created a 90 day food and fitness course and it is challenge.

It is transformative.

The, the, the people who've gone through that like they get amazing results.

And I wholeheartedly believe this.

I've helped people do it for years and years.

You can transform your body.

You can become unrecognizable to your friends and colleagues and your former self in just 90 days.

You totally transform your whole life and and it's all in there.

Legumes are basically on a small level, they're poisonous.

Let's start the other way around.

Let's start with what we do eat.

Because they're not vegetables.

They are.

Fruits.

Fruits, for all intents and purposes.

So what we do eat are things like zucchini, squash, cucumbers, bell Peppers.

What?

Else.

Avocados or?

Skins or anything like the the squashes?

All squashes is that.

That's basically it, yeah.

So.

And those are.

Great for but those and.

We eat them regularly.

And that's because those are technically a fruit.

Now maybe this is where I should explain why this matters.

Because when you when you dig into this and you begin to understand why you shouldn't eat vegetables or eat them in abundance.

The reason being is a plant designed or evolved so that its fruit should be consumed because the fruit fruit is technically the classification is something that has the seeds inside.

So if you think about an apple, you think about a zucchini, the the seeds are inside of the fruit.

The plant wants somebody, an animal, a person to eat the seeds so that then the seeds will be spread across and the plant can propagate.

That's how evolution works for plants.

That's why fruits are consumable, because they do not have the same toxins in them, defense chemicals, defense toxins in them that the rest of the parts of the plant has.

And then if you think about things that are not fruit that people eat and classify as vegetables, will they all fall into the category of roots, stems or leaves?

And for most all plants, the root, stems and leaves have toxic chemicals in them that are defense chemicals to prevent them from being consumed so that they can survive and produce more fruit so that they can propagate like that.

That's just a simple biology of the plant.

And, and it's, I mean, it's, it's, it's out there kind of all over.

I even as I was researching this, you find it even on the, on the websites that I don't necessarily agree with or would follow, you know, they're on there saying, Oh yeah, you know, plants have defense chemicals and you're like, OK, this is, it's across the board and that's why we end up getting gas.

Or kidney stone?

Yeah.

Or stomach and yeah.

And all, all these little issues that we've come to say, oh.

This is part of life.

Part of life, I'm like, no, our family has never experienced any of those things, right?

It just doesn't happen.

And when we don't, when we don't eat those things, when we don't eat vegetables, when we don't eat too many carbs, we also don't have gas.

Like, let's get very real here.

We don't have gas as long as we're eating the things we're supposed to be eating.

When we're eating the diet that we're laying out here, our family does not experience bloating.

Our gas that that's for real.

Or any health problems and we have boosted immune systems.

We rarely get ill and get the sicknesses the spread around because the the body and its healthy state has an awesome immune system and, and you just feel fantastic, right?

And that's where we ought to be operating most of the time.

The the standard American diet, the food pyramid, everything that's been pushed and marketed for the last.

Yeah, and what is a scam?

Food pyramid scam.

In a very real way, it's a crime against humanity.

It's caused so much weakness and almost.

Death.

Like so much preventable death.

I, and this may seem extreme to people, but after having studied it for so long, 24 years, I feel that my father and many other people I know are victims of this scam.

They are because they were taught things that are not true and it has led to disease and death.

That's how I feel at this point about this.

That's how strongly I have come to this conviction.

And if you've listened to our other episode about how can you be so certain is that isn't that wrong to be so certain about things, You'll understand.

We do not come to these conclusions lightly.

We come to them after years and years of study, after looking at the topic from every angle possible.

That's the only way I come to these conclusions.

So it's, it's been a long time coming, but now that is how I feel.

I feel that we've all been scammed.

So it is important also even in what we're saying and the things we do eat, that we consider the source.

Some fruits are showing up having not been ripened, having been colored, having been sprayed with all kinds of chemicals.

And so not all fruits and location or production is of of equal value.

There's there's a lot of toxic garbage being put into or onto the fruit or the meat or the dairy, not all meat.

So quality matter.

It's low value.

Not all dairy is of equal value.

If you think you think a gallon of raw milk and a gallon of your your ultra pasteurized skim milk is the same thing like milk is milk, no way.

Well, and in that case we're, we always drink whole milk because it's meant to be drink, drink whole, it's a whole food in that case.

So, and, and I would say though, like if you have to choose between processed food and lesser quality fruits or meats or whatever, like I would still choose that same, but at some like there's levels here, you know, and you got to start at what level, whatever, whatever level you can start at.

But the goal is to move up the level so that at some point you're eating grass fed beef and grass fed butter and grass fed milk and whatever, fill in the blank raw milk.

That's the goal.

But the point is to start where you can so that you are making gradual improvements in your health.

And I would say one of the things that's been the greatest benefit for us is we had some hard stops and some hard nose like fast food, junk food, highly, highly processed foods, sodas, energy drinks.

It's just a hard no hard stop.

That's a great place and an easy place to start by just cutting out what you know for sure is bad and then it does because of how our bodies work and we crave those things, we want them.

That has always been a motivation for us to be like, okay, well what's in a replacement here?

How can we make something that's slightly better for US1 replacement is kombucha.

Like we will either buy kombucha or we'll we've attempted making kombucha, not always successfully, but that's, you know, if we want something like that instead of a soda, we get a kombucha.

Not that we drink soda, but I know.

And you don't like it.

But to do anything, Physium is that burping?

And I'm out on this.

Right.

But you know, some of my kids and and I enjoy a kombucha, you know, every once every once in a while.

One thing that I wanted to mention because I think it's significant, we eat very, very little pasta.

Well, not.

Never falls into the category of processed food and.

Simple carbohydrate, right, so very little I think I think that's an important one to just bring up because people will be asking or or they'll they'll come hang out with us and like yeah, we eat super healthy and I'm like you eat pasta 3 meals and no wonder you're struggling so just.

Should we go back to the vegetable thing?

Sorry.

Sure.

OK.

What else?

Well, because we started with what we do eat and then I, I forgot to mention, but I guess we should include it that pretty much will eat any fruits as well, apples, bananas, but it's always.

Percentages.

It's not the bulk of our diet.

Yeah.

And and OK, I want to emphasize this because this is important.

But first, before I emphasize this point I want to make, I want to say besides the fruit of the plant, which includes what we talked about, the squash, the cucumbers, etcetera, the rest of the plants like I already mentioned fall into roots, stems or stocks.

Now it, it is the defense chemicals that are causing the problems.

They're leading to inflammation.

Inflammation leads to disease.

They can also lead to insulin resistance.

But the point is, and I guess I want to say like, it's not that you should never ever eat those things, but where people fall into trouble is when they try, and this was the problem, right?

When they try to make it the primary focus of their diet.

If you are only eating plants that have defense chemicals in them, you're going to be experiencing a lot of inflammation.

So that's where this starts to be a problem for.

You're going to be undernourished.

And that's there's another element there because some of the arguments is like, well, you know, the leaves and the vegetables have so many nutrients.

And while that's true, there is a difference of the nutrients being there and the nutrients being able to be consumed by the human body.

So it has to be bio available.

Like your body actually actually has to be able to get the nutrient out of that thing and into your body and your bloodstream for it to be helpful.

Just because it's contained in the thing doesn't mean it naturally goes from that thing into your body.

Yeah, it it'll often just get peed out or, or pooped out and they're like, well, there it went and the nutrient stayed in and went out with it.

Like you didn't benefit from it.

So you could be eating and you would have to eat massive amounts to get the nutritional value from it.

But then you're defeating the whole process and and you're you're struggling with that and you actually end up undernourished.

Interestingly was so you have a full belly, but you're undernourished, right and so.

And you're bloated.

Yeah, and you feel like crap and you're not getting benefits, so and you're not feeding your muscles, which was one of the things he pointed out in in his question.

He said he went, he had been feeding it with his wife's family and he lost all this weight.

He's like but I also lost all my muscle.

Well, and let's talk about that for a second.

First of all, there is a lot of research that if and when you eat vegetables, you need to be eating them with fats like butter so that you can help to make the nutrients in there more bioavailable.

The other thing?

And make it even palatable.

Yeah, exactly right.

The other thing he said is that he did, he lost a lot of weight when he went on a vegan diet.

Now, the reason that that happens because people will do that.

And we've met lots of people that are like, my life was this.

I had all these health problems, blah, blah, blah.

I went on this vegetarian diet or I went on a vegan diet and suddenly my whole life changed and everything was great.

It's the new religion and they'll never change.

And that also also was the story with my dad.

He went on a raw diet and that initially made a huge impact on his health and well-being.

He lost tons of weight.

He got healthier.

And the primary reason for that is because you are cutting out processed foods, you're cutting out all the crap.

That's what makes a difference.

But.

Necessarily the vegan or vegetarian diet.

And I think doing those things are great to do short term because from everything I have researched and what I have seen, it's not meant to be and can't be a long term thing.

It's not sustainable for the the muscle mass for the building of muscles for.

Overall health.

Overall health and well-being.

And stamina.

Yeah.

And so that's when you know, if you do something like that, that's great, but then you have to come back to bringing in the animal based diet so that you can sustain this health long term and build the muscles and everything you need so.

And obviously I can hear people say, well, but I know so and so who is an ultra runner and vegetarian.

And yeah, I do too, right.

And I've had them on my podcast and, and there's, there's some exceptions and exemptions in it.

And we've traveled all over this planet, and we have.

We're there's an entire cultures that only eat vegetables like Indians or.

Elseagians or vegan or whatever, but but when you look at.

The big picture, for one thing.

And, and the goal within the big picture of being well built with enough, you know, of a proper amount of muscle mass, strength, stamina, longevity, that's what we're going for, right?

And so that's how we've, this is what works for our family.

It's worked for years and years and years that we are, we enjoy phenomenal health and fitness.

And so that's what we're sharing here, right?

Well, I think it's also important to point out we're hitting all these little points and we're kind of piercing this together.

And I think it's important that we, we hit all these little aspects.

One of them is fat.

We have to get the fat we talked about already, but I want to emphasize that low fats, low fat diets negatively affect the brain and the body massively.

And they found a correlation or connection to depression, low fat and and well, and the the low fat idea was just sold to Americans.

Yeah, and it was a scam.

The total scam like low fat people think, Oh well, well I won't be fat if I eat low fat.

And the opposite happened.

They exploded with fat because they want low fat.

So we're we're saying here boldly eat beef, but I'd say eggs.

Eggs is is a good free range healthy egg.

Not all eggs are created equal, but a good egg is one of the best things we can be consuming.

Now immediately you're like, what about cholesterol?

Well, obviously they found that that that kind of cholesterol, there's different types of cholesterol.

That kind of cholesterol is actually good.

Well, so those cholesterol levels will be higher when you're eating more eggs.

That's good.

And a man's body specifically will take cholesterol and turn it into testosterone, which we want and need.

Yeah, I've actually been seeing more and more research lately where they're saying actually that whole idea was wrong.

Cholesterol is important.

We need cholesterol.

Low cholesterol leads to depression.

Low cholesterol leads to all sorts of problems.

The.

Horrendous testosterone levels across men in our day.

It's right.

Pathetic.

So, so the truth is our bodies actually need cholesterol to function properly and so low cholesterol has is causing all sorts of problems.

So the reality is we do want cholesterol and we want high cholesterol.

I even saw some numbers where it said, you know, I can't remember how long ago, maybe 50 years ago, like everyone's cholesterol was way higher.

It was just considered normal, like you were supposed to have that.

And now high cholesterol is lower than what it used to be.

And so all of that, that whole thing is just wrong.

We do want high cholesterol.

We want to be eating high cholesterol foods.

Yep.

So eggs?

Beef.

I don't like chicken.

I don't eat chicken.

Chicken, though, is a great source of protein.

We need some pork if it's a good source of pork and then because.

The concern with pork, especially in the US, is that they often feed it things that has seed oils in it.

So the pork has seed oils in the.

Beyond garbage and and then they're injecting it, medicating all kinds of stuff.

We're going to do lots of good sources.

Dairy, so cheeses, creams, butters, milk and then fruit that that's what we're eating them and I eat them recipes in my, in my 90 day food and fitness challenge.

Yeah, we're eating the the fruits that people call vegetables again.

They're cucumbers, zucchini squashes.

Peppers.

Peppers, those kind of things.

And that's that's the bulk of our diet and we have recipes that that mix it up, that make it delicious for the whole family.

We have healthy snacks that we have.

Every day.

All the, all the little things that we kind of loved and missed, we instead of just saying, well, I'm going to use my willpower and discipline to not eat those things or drink those things.

We replace them with something healthy.

And so there's no fight.

There's no willpower, there's no like battle every day to for your existence.

Like I crazy love what we get to eat and it's amazing.

Now for me, I I love to operate less than 2000 calories a day on on average.

I'm not, I'm not tracking everyday because I don't think that's sustainable.

Yeah, we don't track calories.

I know just about how much 2000 is and that's where I eat.

I personally like to operate a little hungry.

This whole idea of you should be full and eat to your full and then when you get hungry, eat again until you're full and just kind of stay full.

That's unhealthy.

We should, at least for me and and for the men I coach, like we operate a little bit hungry to keep that little edge.

And that's, that's the right place to be overall and just kind of a, a full hunger of philosophy.

Well, and I think it's important to mention here, we won't go into in a lot of detail the importance of intermittent fasting because throughout human history, humans have fasted intermittently.

Like whether you worked on a farm or you were a hunter gatherer, there were just times when you just did not have food available.

And so that's normal.

I mean, part of our daily routine is we get up in the morning, we we'd work on our stuff, we'd go work out, we work on projects and we generally have breakfast as a family around 10:00 or 11:00 AM, like that's just normal.

And then we generally have dinner probably like six or seven.

And then, you know, that's basically it.

We will have some snacks in the evening if we're doing something.

But you know, otherwise we are fasting.

We're not, we're not, we're not trying to stuff ourselves all day long.

And you know, you might be thinking, wait, you guys said that this was going to be easy and that was going to be enjoyable.

Trust me.

I promise that once your body adjusts to that.

Which takes two to three days.

It's not a struggle.

I, I don't feel like, Oh my gosh, I just got to make it one more hour.

You know, I, I never feel like that.

We eat when we haven't earned hung.

That was another book that we read long ago.

It's called The Science of Being Well by Wallace Waddles, and he talks about that.

He's like, don't eat.

This is another philosophy we've lived by because of this book.

Don't eat unless you're hungry and stop when you're full.

Like it's that simple.

We live by that.

We've trained ourselves to do that.

It's not hard to do once you've adjusted.

We eat when we're hungry, which means legitimately hungry, and some people have forgotten what that feels like.

I'm actually hungry right now because I had a tea.

So used to overheating our portion sizes are right and we got to cut those way back and again, that's only for you'll feel hungry for the first couple of days, right And then after that you feel.

Great.

It's not hard because now that I've adjusted, I am full when I eat and then I don't, I don't want to eat anymore.

I've my body has gotten to the point where it's not enjoyable for me to keep eating when I'm full.

I feel heartburn, I feel blood like I don't want to do that.

I love feeling the way I feel most of the time.

And so I don't overeat because it's not pleasurable.

And once you get used to that, then it's just easy.

It's easy to not eat until you're hungry, and then it's easy to stop when you're full, and then it's easy to eat again when you're hungry.

And it's not like suffering and pain and and privation.

Yep.

And, and we don't do any like big meals, like we sit down and have this huge production or a massive quantity.

Of food with courses and courses, well, just we do that Thanksgiving something.

Christmas, but on a on a daily basis, we're preparing enough food that just.

You eat it and then it.

Satisfies each of us and that's it.

Like it's not.

We're not doing big portions or even lots of combinations, right?

We have 5 or 6 different things with a meal.

We don't do that.

It's, yeah, it's often very one thing, maybe two things.

We have a steak and maybe we have some eggs with it or we have some yogurt is actually good with steak.

You know, we have one or two things together.

We eat until we're full and then we're done and we move on.

Well.

I think here's one that we do a lot and we just, we cook up a Patty, get some good fat ground beef, cook up a Patty.

I like melting a little cheese on it.

That's it.

Salt.

Has salt and has some salt, right?

So and then throw an egg on top or a little avocado and you're like, wow, there's a party in your mouth, but no way shape or form am I throwing a bun on there and like lettuce and tomatoes.

Yeah, and we don't eat things like ketchup or mayonnaise unless we make it ourselves.

And I'll start you be like that sounds disgusting.

No, like when you get your body like in a good healthy state, a nice beef Patty with with cheese on it is amazing that is and you feel so satisfied.

That is something I think that most people don't realize because they don't experience it enough.

But when you've like cleansed your body, you've gotten rid of all these cravings that you have for things because that's another thing like part of the whole food scam is that there's all sorts of chemicals in the foods, Doritos and Cheetos and Oreos and all that, that are literally.

Addictive.

Addictive.

So they don't they block the part of your brain that makes you feel satiated like that you're actually full.

So you keep eating and so you you literally will keep eating past the point of satiation because there's no signal being sent to your brain.

But when you get rid of all of that, it's amazing how satiating and like satisfying something so simple as that.

You from an outside perspective, you think, oh, that's so boring.

Well, how good are you?

Just eat.

You got what else are you going to have?

But it's so amazing to me how it is just fulfilling in so many ways.

And even it's still fascinating to me because sometimes I'll still be like, you know, we go upstairs, what are we going to eat?

The answer is some sort of meat, like which meat are we eating?

Ground beef, a beef Patty, a steak, some brats, like which meat are we eating?

And I'll have on occasion where I'm like, I don't want to eat any of those things.

Like I, I don't want any of that.

And still, without fail, you'll cook it up and I'll take a bite and I'll be like, Oh my gosh, this is, you know, and it's, it's so funny to me that that will happen where I don't know what part of my brain is where I'm like, Oh, I don't want to eat that.

But then when I actually eat it, I'm just like in love with it.

I'm like, this is so good.

And so it's fascinating to me that the body works that way, or even if it's not craving it or wanting it, if I still just give my body what it needs, it's so great.

Yeah, well, an example of what yesterday I can't remember lunch or dinner, you and I shared a like an 8 ounce steak.

Yeah, I didn't even finish it all.

Right.

And we just.

And I gave some to our little piglet that lives in that.

And we both walk away like that's, that's right, got the salts and, and the meat, the protein and the fats.

It's fantastic.

Now I know some of you were squawking it like we're supposed to eat meat sparingly and not much meat and all this stuff.

And you know, 11 cow will yield roughly 500 lbs of meat.

And I'll eat less than a, a pound a day.

I think some most of the time much less than a pound a day.

And so one cow would would last a year and a half, and that's amazing.

Well, there's, there's all kinds of things out there nowadays about cow farts ruining the the planet and causing this and blah, blah, blah, and it's not good for the environment.

All of this, again, part of the whole scam, the major scam that's going on, right?

That's just not true.

Like literally Pasteur raised meat is one of the healthiest things for the planet and one of the most sustainable ways to feed people long term.

Like it really is just better.

And there's these ideas because we grew up in a religion that, again, talked about eating meat sparingly, all of this.

And there's this idea that that's the higher way of living or that's the better way.

And people have asked us, like, how do we reconcile that?

How do we, you know, bring that into alignment so that we can live our religious beliefs?

And we also know many people as well who because of their religion, we have a friend who's seek and he's vegetarian and he's also very rich.

Like he's very muscular, very muscular.

And so, OK, I get it in that case.

In his case, he does not eat meat because of his religion.

He has to work extra, extra hard.

To.

Get enough protein to maintain his muscle mass.

Like I have seen him.

He's carrying stuff around all the time.

He's like, I got to eat, it's time to eat.

He's.

Like.

He's constantly.

Eating gain amounts of yeah skeer and and it's like a yogurt right where it's just high.

Protein because like all, all the time he has to eat all the time in order to live his religious beliefs and get enough protein so he's not just, you know, skin and bones.

So he recognizes that that's a part of what he has to do and that's great.

Like if that's your thing, great.

For me, even though I grew up in a religion and I still belong to that religion, I, I, because of the life we've lived and how we've traveled and lived abroad.

And, and you know, I've still read the Bhakava Gita and the Dhammapada and the Quran.

And, you know, I've expanded my mind and my thinking and my reality and we've read these books on, on health and well-being.

For me, truth has to align in multiple spheres.

It has to align in multiple genres.

And domains.

And domains.

So if it if what I've learned to come to be true also aligns with my religion, great.

I'm going to keep that practice.

If what I've learned to be is true doesn't align with my religion, well then that's a piece that I'm going to drop.

Not that I have to drop the whole religion because there's still plenty of aspects in there that are true, but some of them are false.

Like that's the nature of any organization.

And I don't care what it is, if it's the government, if it's a church, if it's whatever.

Like everything is filled with flaws.

Nothing is perfect, so if it aligns I'm going to keep it, but if it doesn't align and from everything I've studied like eating meat sparingly just is not one of those things that aligns, I'm dropping that piece.

Well, and it depends on on how one defines sparingly as well.

There's another line there is like who who's ever going to draw the line as sparingly.

I've I've not ever seen anyone give a specific like this many ounces is defined as sparingly.

It's never been touched, and so each person might define that differently.

I don't feel like we eat meat excessively.

Yeah, excess.

I was going to say unsparingly excessively.

People might say, well, if you're eating it every meal, that's not sparingly, that could be the.

Argument.

Yeah, you're right.

You're.

Eating it every single day?

That's not sparingly.

Like the quantities, like I'm full, I'm, I'm more than full on an 8 ounce steak, right?

And then maybe I'll have a little burger.

So I'm not, I'm not passing a pound and, and we eat, so I'm, I'm consuming less than 2000 calories a day.

Like I'm eating a small amount.

And it's interesting, like, you know, this whole idea of like we, we strain at gnats while we're swallowing camels and, and sort of this, you take somebody who's just absurdly overweight and obese and eating tons of horrible garbage and, and eating from monoculture crops and factories also like this damaging their bought and damaging the like, it's like ruining the planet.

But they're like, I only eat meat sparingly.

It's like, yeah, because you're eating truckloads of other garbage.

Like does that you feel like you're helping the planted?

Or yourself.

Or yourself.

Like what are you talking about?

You're missing the whole.

Right, exactly.

And so we're going off holistic whole health and that like.

Across domains, meaning.

And when we say that, what we mean is, OK, this, this is true in science and it's true in biology and it's true in religion and it's true physiologically.

Like that's what we talk about.

That's what I mean when we're talking about different domains.

Like truth is truth across domain.

If there's something that's true just in one place, then it's not really true.

You need to question that.

And so we take that same approach to our religion and our beliefs.

We're only going to keep following and practicing the things are that are not just true in that religion, but are also true in these other domains and.

Even with that said, I don't feel like I'm I'm violating anything.

No, I don't that's.

How we're doing here?

Living.

Right.

So I'm saying that's how we.

Judge us as yes, like sinful meat eaters, right, you sensible carnivores.

Exactly.

But we're, we're in a fantastic place where it, it works phenomenally well across the decades for our family and with the people we get to work with and coach and yeah.

It just because it's producing results for them too, not just for us.

And and they're, they're losing weight and feeling great.

My clients come in and I put them on this the kind of framework we've given you again with more details.

But within a week, they're just like, I haven't had this kind of energy since I was in and.

And that's the irony too, because they're people and they're people who come in some of who are in like grew up with similar beliefs.

They have some of these same ideas.

And so they're, they're eating meat sparingly and they're eating a lot of beans and grains and whatnot.

And then of course, because they have low energy, they're drinking all these energy drinks because they also don't drink coffee or things like that.

And that's the irony.

They come in low energy, amped up on energy drinks and still low energy.

And within a few couple weeks of eating the way you've prescribed, they are completely different.

They're totally changed and they're like, Oh my gosh, this is amazing.

I feel amazing.

I have more energy, I have more clarity.

The brain fog is gone.

And that's because this is how we're supposed to eat.

I don't care if you believe in evolution or you believe in God and creation, or both.

Like me, you're going to feel better when you eat the way your body was designed to eat.

That for me is the simple truth here.

Like I through study, I've learned this is how we're supposed to eat as humans, and when I eat that way, my body operates the way it should.

And again, I think it's important to point out like we're not taking any supplements.

We're.

Not medications.

Protein powder, right?

Or vitamins?

I'm not injecting testosterone like a lot of people do because they're eating.

They're about producing it.

Poorly.

Because they're not getting cholesterol.

And they're not getting the proteins and the fats they need.

So they're, they're eating this, you know, whatever quote healthier, more vegetarian looking diet and then they have to go to doctor and take injections for testing.

So they're not getting enough fat and cholesterol.

That's blatantly why.

Oh man, in the male body, the way it was created by God stops functioning properly.

Like don't keep doing what you've been doing.

It's clearly not working.

And so the the ideal is.

And again, those of you who are religious or spiritual or questioning some of the stuff, like what do you, what do you feel like God really wants for you?

He wants the body that you created and the way he created it.

Well, yeah, that unit, the body that he created, that you're in your vehicle.

He wants you to be healthy and strong and energized and alive for a long, long time, right?

And to be healthy and fit and have strength and stamina so you can be there to love your family, to serve, to make a difference, have impact in the world.

Not to be limping along saying, but I'm being more righteous.

I just can't sustain it.

It's like, what do you no.

It's kind of fascinating, just came to my mind, but I figure I'll share it because in the Bible and you know, I'd I'm someone who has also studied a lot about the Bible.

I've read a lot of books about it and one of my favorite is how the Bible actually works by I forget the authors.

Anyways it doesn't matter but so I don't take everything in the Bible literally is my point.

I believe the Bible in a way is a meta story that teaches meta truth.

I think all scriptures, yeah.

But what I'm saying is that in the Bible it talks about how these people lived hundreds of years, you know, And So what came to my mind, I'm like, well, if you lived in a pure world without all the chemicals and without all the toxins and you ate pure food, I could see us living for hundreds of years.

You know what I mean?

Like I especially because when you really dive into some things like longevity and aging, there are so many scientists out there.

In fact, I think anyone who's really study it who say there's no reason, like there's no, we can't understand why the body ages because as long as you take the cells and you give them exactly what you need and avoid toxins, they live forever.

They keep replicating.

That's what happens to cells.

It's only because we are poisoning them with toxins and not giving them the nutrition that we need that they're aging and then eventually dying.

Exactly.

So, you know, that's fascinating to me.

And awesome.

It's such a cool idea.

Yeah, love it.

OK, now if, if we can help, if you have specific questions to ask, but like we're all about energy, vitality, just great help the vast majority of our lives, we should feel fantastic.

Yeah, of course we're going to have some down days.

We're going to be sore and tired and whatever and, you know, not feel 100%, but the vast majority of the time we should enjoy mental clarity and kind of a physical stamina and the muscles should respond.

They should be tight and strong and, and we love the whole idea of functional fitness that our bodies are capable and able of doing the things that we need them to do that that's where we want to be like I'm, I'm ready and able to be an asset to myself, to my family, to humanity.

Well, and not just functional fitness, but also functional medicine, because essentially the entire approach of functional medicine is preventative medicine.

I mean, that's the approach we live by, which is one of the things that has allowed us to avoid hospital doctor illness.

We haven't had insurance for so many years because we focus on prevention, right?

We focus on not trying to cure diseases, but on preventing diseases from happening.

So we don't have to go to the doctor for pills and prescriptions because we give our body what it needs and then we don't, we don't have the disease, we prevent it from happening.

That's that's the underlying principle of functional medicine.

And food.

In that case, food is fuel and food is medicine.

Exactly.

And I think, think if we were to try to do a percentage, I would say that the 80% of health and stamina is food and lifestyle and 20% is fitness.

And while we exercise probably five times a week and, and we love working out hard, really what we're eating, how much we're eating and having healthy lifestyles that it of course include when we go to bed and how long we sleep and how well we sleep.

And when we get up and getting out and having sunshine and breathing and breathing exercises, like all those things fit into the, the whole picture and I think need to be added.

We can't, we can't touch on them all here.

But those, those are critical elements that fit into, yeah, the food and exercise pieces.

Like, yeah, how well are you sleeping and are you doing breathing exercises and really ausching your blood?

And, and we do, I do cold therapy and we do saunas like we're sitting in our sauna 3 or 4 times a week now because it's so good for the body.

And all these elements help a ton with the workouts and the food.

Well, digestion.

And nutrition.

Right.

And so all of those things are, are consistent actions we're taking to prevent illness, to prevent disease, which then become our quote UN quote insurance because we are taking action to be healthy.

And then you don't have to respond like so many people are doing.

They they wait until they're sick and then they have to respond to the sickness by figuring out how to get healthy.

For us, we've just done it the other way.

We've because of the catalyst in our life, we've spent so much time researching and studying and learning about it that we just consistently do all of those things that give us health and well-being.

And so we're living in that state rather than responding to the negative states of sickness.

All right.

OK.

Thanks for listening.

Commit today and this year to get into the best health and fitness of your life and stay there for the rest of your life.