In today’s episode, Jay picks the brain of body building industry insider Nelson Montana. Their conversation covers his career and interest in body building, his experience of the industry and the body building techniques that are part of his own routine.
Jay and Nelson kicked off the podcast discussing Nelson’s bodybuilding career and how he got back into it when his own teenage son took an interest in it. Nelson also gave a detailed background of his music career and the writing career that got him into bodybuilding. They discussed journalism and brand building before the internet and how the industry has changed. The listeners are also treated to Nelson’s extensive industry knowledge and knowledge of weight lifting gurus and legends.
In the second part of the interview, Nelson told Jay about his own weightlifting regimen and he mentioned how he’s become more interested in working out quicker as opposed to spending more time experimenting with different techniques. He’s found that the new method gives him a better cardiovascular and aerobic benefit which fits in with his goal of maintain muscle.
Jay and Nelson went on to discuss diet, and the fact that most people eat way more than they need. The subject of science also comes up and the pair discuss whether it provides a complete picture of the needs of bodybuilders. The key, according to Nelson is to keep learning and discovering your body’s needs.
At a certain age, you won’t be able to gain muscle, so your goal should be to maintain muscle. A complete physique comes from experimenting with different techniques to employ muscle confusion, while cardiovascular benefits take place when you focus on getting through your workout quicker.
Nelson is a musician, body building insider and author of The Body Building Truth. https://www.amazon.com/Bodybuilding-Truth-Secrets-Youre-Supposed/dp/B001VZ4SMY
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Health and fitness gurus often push calorie counting and macros on their clients but what’s missing from their guidance? Nutritionist Paul Burgess explains why clients need to understand food and its environment before anything else, and how his practice does exactly that. We also get special insight into food sensitivities and ketogenic diet tactics.
Three Takeaways
Macros can be misleading because people don’t just fit into specific categories. Macros also fail to take individual allergies and sensitivities into account.
If you put on weight quickly that means your body doesn’t take fat and sugar well. Consider intermittent fasting to allow your body to improve its sensitivity to glucose.
To take stress off your system, get your diet right and get your gut right.
The show started with Paul giving a bit of a background about his interest in fitness and nutrition. His focus was always on having a long healthy life. After leaving the investment industry in London he began his work in the nutritional coaching industry.
Paul noted the big difference between the needs of a client in their 30s and a client in their 40s, but he stated that his process is the same for every client he works with. “Clients come with different goals but there are two things you need to do before anything, and if you are not doing those things then there’s no point going any further.”
Paul believes in first evaluating what the client is eating to flag any potential intolerances and sensitivities, then he likes to examine the environment that the food goes into. “If you’re eating crap you’ll never flourish properly or optimize anything in your system.” He goes on to add, “you can have the best diet in the world but if it’s not getting absorbed properly, and is compromised - you are still not going to absorb those nutrients and you’re still going to have problems.”
Paul went into detail the testing process his clients go through, as a way of ascertaining the diet adjustments they need to make. Paul looks at a three-month window of reactivity to a certain range of food and these findings give a closer look at the markers for health. The information simplifies the process of addressing organ health and a client will know which foods to use and which ones to avoid.
We turn our conversation to an example of the kinds of tests Paul would run and how he’d use the data gained from them. For the average person with a high amount of liver enzymes, lifestyle plays a huge role and the result would be non-alcoholic fatty liver disease caused by insulin resistance or sensitivity. “Once your liver is compromised in that way, it functions sub-optimally.” We also discuss the foods that are most reactive for a lot of people. Contrary to popular belief wheat and gluten are not number one on that list. Eggs, almonds, walnuts and whey protein are much higher on that list. Paul also stated that a lot of people are commonly intolerant to beef, potatoes and kidney beans.
Towards the end of the interview Paul and I touched on;
Modern society has been ruined by additives, GMOs and environmental toxins and this gets in the way of health. Before considering a new diet, make the effort to have yourself tested for food sensitivities and any digestive problems that might curb any progress you’ll make in fitness and nutrition. The work of becoming healthier becomes much lighter once you’re empowered by this information.
Paul is the founder of Athletic Fitness & Nutrition, which he created with the purpose of being able to deliver the highest specification, most cutting edge physical training techniques and nutrition advice. In his mid 30’s he decided to turn his passion for fitness into his full time career and became a nutritionist and personal trainer gaining Diploma’s in Clinical Nutrition, Personal Training and Anti-Ageing. Visit http://athleticnutrition.tv/ to learn more or get in touch with Paul.
To Download Your FREE PDF Copy of the Amazon Best Seller: The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual, Click Here For a FREE Paperback Copy. The TRT MANual has helped hundreds of thousands of men around the world reclaim their health and vitality. Don’t suffer in silence a moment longer! PS. As an added bonus, upon finishing the book-once you provide a Thoughtful, High Quality Review on Amazon (hopefully 5 STAR), we will send you our new unreleased eBook 7 Lies You’ve Been Told About Testosterone for FREE.*
(To receive book, email jay@trtrevolution.com a screenshot of your posted review.)
High iron levels can negate your good diet and exercise habits while raising your risk of age-related diseases like cancer and heart disease. In our latest episode Dennis Mangan shares the best methods for testing for high iron and reducing iron to healthy levels in your system, plus touches on the benefits of intermittent fasting and his perspective on SARM’s.
Dennis started with the basics of iron as a reactive element. Iron reacts with different constituents in our body, so the more iron in our body the more damage it causes. The #1 storage mechanism for iron in our bodies is our blood. Interestingly, Dennis points out than 10% of people in the US are truly iron-deficient, and those are mostly pre-menopausal women.
The basic problem is this: Our bodies are evolutionarily conditioned to retain iron, so we have exquisite internal mechanisms for grabbing onto iron and no controlled means for getting rid of it.
Over the years our bodies gradually accumulate iron and continue accumulating it beyond a healthy point. In fact, Dennis explained, “The average 35-yr old man has about 4-5x the amount of iron in his body as a woman the same age.”
Our internal systems for mitigating the damage of iron aren’t perfect, resulting in age-related diseases like cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, all of which afflict men at much higher rates. So you may have your diet and exercises and sleep dialed in, but an over-accumulation of iron may negate those good habits.
Then Dennis went into detail on how to get your iron to healthy levels; “Know your ferritin levels – this test is the most common measure of the level of stored iron in your body...The #1 most effective way to get rid of iron is blood donation. The average man who donates blood once a year cuts his ferritin levels in half.”
If you’re not qualified to donate blood you have other options for lowering iron levels, from exercise to supplements and diet habits that inhibit iron uptake. There are no iron-reducing pharmaceutical products, which explains why there’s no incentive to raise public awareness of the issue. We hear much more about cholesterol as the cause of age-related issues like heart disease, because there are so many cholesterol-reducing drugs being pushed on the public.
We finish up by touching on the benefits of intermittent fasting and keto powders. Intermittent fasting puts you into a state when your body is burning fat for fuel, and keto supplement powders that help put your body into ketosis faster can help you fast longer and reduce hunger pangs.
There is an important point to remember- Adding protein or BCAA’s during your fast will cause an insulin response and mitigate the benefits of intermittent fasting. All studies show that intermittent fasting does NOT burn muscle - provided you’re getting enough calories overall.
To get the benefits of intermittent fasting, start by experimenting with minimizing your eating window – skipping breakfast and shutting down food intake at 8pm - to turn on your body’s fat burning furnace.
Iron levels are so critical to aging that excess iron may negate all your good diet, exercise and sleep habits. So getting your iron to healthy levels should be an integral part of your self-directed health management. Start by working with forward-thinking doctors who can help analyze your lab tests and donating blood 1-2x per year.
Dennis Mangan is the author of Dumping Iron and the founder of Rogue Health & Fitness, where he educates others on natural means of rehabbing their bodies and creating the body of their dreams. Click here to get the book Dumping Iron on Amazon.
Click here to get your FREE copy of the Amazon Bestseller: The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual. The book has helped thousands of men around the world reclaim their health and vitality by presenting practical information about the best ways to maximize TRT.
Esoteric researcher and author Matthew LaCroix shares his perspective on modern medicine, suppression of plant-based cures such as cannabinoids. Matt and Jay also dive deep into consciousness, awareness, focusing on the present, reconnecting with nature and the influences and experiences that inspired his book, The Illusion of Us.
The interview kicked off with Matt’s background and early writing influences including Graham Hancock, explaining “There was a lot of information being suppressed and not being talked about.”
A big part of Matt’s drive to research alternative and natural health solutions comes from his wife being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Matt dove into research and came to the conclusion that “the so-called medicine we were being given...was causing harm.” Matt also pointed out that they were able to transition off pharmaceuticals completely, and she has stayed off for 2 ½ years.
Next Jay and Matt turned to the subject of cannabinoids, and Matt pointed out, “The first thing we have to do is separate the idea of someone ever getting high... Cannabinoids and cannabis are just one little piece of an enormous palette of natural plants that we used to use for thousands of years that became pushed out by artificial components and the pharmaceutical industry.”
Matt went on to explain, “Every component of cannabis, it sounds too good to be true. The seeds of cannabis have the most amount of protein of any seed on earth. We could eliminate hunger on the earth by cannabis seeds alone.”
So why are cannabis and cannabinoids being suppressed? “There is no money in a cure,” Matt pointed out. “If you had both, the natural component side, and the natural was vastly superior to the synthetic, nobody would be taking artificial drugs to begin with. So the only way to keep those in the system is demonize and basically not even create medicines out of the natural ones.”
After discussing consciousness, awareness and nature, Jay and Matt shift to Matt’s book, The Illusion of Us. Matt shared his perspective on consciousness and the modern world, “Cities and cars, going out to dinners or the movies, those are all just things we’ve created in the last hundred years. Those aren’t real. They’re just things that distract us from what IS real.”
It’s essential to step back from the distractions of our ego-driven culture to reconnect with our true consciousness. Matthew’s story is a great example of a simple, relentless search for truth in a world that does everything it can to demonize and suppress it.
Matthew LaCroix is an esoteric researcher and author of The Illusion of Us: The Suppression and Evolution of Human Consciousness.
To Download Your FREE PDF Copy of the Amazon Best Seller: The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual, Click Here For a FREE Paperback Copy. The TRT MANual has helped hundreds of thousands of men around the world reclaim their health and vitality. Don’t suffer in silence a moment longer! PS. As an added bonus, upon finishing the book-once you provide a Thoughtful, High Quality Review on Amazon (hopefully 5 STAR), we will send you our new unreleased eBook 7 Lies You’ve Been Told About Testosterone for FREE.*
(To receive book, email jay@trtrevolution.com a screenshot of your posted review.)
Fitness levels, recovery periods and the body’s response to exercise changes as we get older. How does a person over 40 get a workout that gives them results while still avoiding injury, overtraining and overtaxing your nervous system? On this episode, Jay Campbell talks with fitness coach and writer Bryan Krahn, who provides a guide for training in your 40s.
We started off the episode with the core topic of the day - fitness over 40. On the subject Bryan says it’s impossible to prescribe a blanket statement to an entire age group but there are key trends that have to be modified because you’re aging. There are people that respond much better and that’s because they come from an active background and follow a quasi-athlete lifestyle. For older people, when your training, nutritional and lifestyle factors are dialed in you actually look better because you’re neurologically more efficient. Also, if you’ve been training for 25 years consistently with an appreciable load, your muscles develop a hardness and density that doesn’t happen over a short period of time.
Bryan added a key benefit to training when you’re older, “you get good at this, you figure out how your body works and you allow yourself to get into a really good rhythm. When you’re young you jump from trend to trend but when you’re older you figure out what truly works for you.” To develop the kind of mastery that benefits your physique it’s important to get into habit and learn your body. “Everyone has a slightly different recovery pattern and mental things that keep them engaged and you learn what those things are.”
Jay then turned the discussion to the matter of programming. Bryan stated that he had to draw a line in the sand when it came to strength training even though there’s a huge push for it online. He said, “volume is what you have to curtail as you get older.” If you keep busting heavy loads and low rep sets it crushes you way faster than doing normal body building sets. It’s way less impactful, you bounce back faster and it builds a better physique and there’s less risk of injury.
Bryan aims to get his older clients out of the habit of loading more bars and more into the training experience, figuring out baseline volume and working their way up.
On the subject of isolation exercises for older people, Byran said, “isolation work is important because it allows you to have a much more focused and better mind to muscle connection, there’s a lower risk potential, you won’t injure yourself as much. Jay and Bryan then focus in on overtraining, which Bryan calls “the boogie man of body building.” People over 40 typically are not overtraining and doing things like bench presses because their shoulders can’t handle that anymore. Strength training is something many glamorize but it can cause injury if you’re not built for it.
For most people who go to the gym recreationally, you’re not going to overtrain but you might overreach - especially if your lifestyle isn’t aligned to your workout regimen. Bryan reminded us to look out for the signs, which include things like negative self-talk and feeling like exercise is a chore. When this happens, it’s time to do a little less work and get some sleep. Jay closed the interview with a question about the cardio and resistance training balance when you’re older. He said he leans more on the strength training side but he uses cardio as a stress management tool, a good stress management tool.
Bryan’s tips for training over 40 are to start off with a realistic assessment of where you are, focusing on the quality of your work in the gym instead of performance. Lastly and most importantly make sure you avoid injury because it sets you back and recovery is harder when you’re older.
Bryan Krahn is a personal trainer, fitness writer, blogger, online physique coach and creator of
The Physique Mastery Principles. He specializes “in helping make ordinary bodies look incredible.” Bryan is also a “semi-serious physique athlete,” who enjoys building a lean, muscular, aesthetic body which he believes makes him a better coach.
To Download Your FREE PDF Copy of the Amazon Best Seller: The Definitive Testosterone Replacement Therapy MANual, Click Here For a FREE Paperback Copy. The TRT MANual has helped hundreds of thousands of men around the world reclaim their health and vitality. Don’t suffer in silence a moment longer! PS. As an added bonus, upon finishing the book-once you provide a Thoughtful, High Quality Review on Amazon (hopefully 5 STAR), we will send you our new unreleased eBook 7 Lies You’ve Been Told About Testosterone for FREE.*
(To receive book, email jay@trtrevolution.com a screenshot of your posted review.)