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Hey everyone, it's Mikki here. You're listening to Mikkipedia. This week on the podcast, I bring back fan favourite, Brandon DaCruz, coach, educator, and one of the sharpest minds in physique and performance nutrition. And this week we do something a little different. Our conversation takes a more personal turn with Brandon sharing what he has done over this Northern Hemisphere summer to get shredded basically.

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We chat about how he has leveraged his model of high energy flux in a fat loss phase, which is quite different from what he might normally do to get the most out of his food and his training. We talk about the foods that he chose to eat, the supplements that he took, and how he implemented rapid fat loss days, also known as protein-sparing days, and you know I'm a fan of protein-sparing, to accelerate fat loss. And also we delve into his approach

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when things got tough deep in that deficit. Brandon normally regales us with the literature and client stories, but today it is a mix of his personal practices and how this has been informed, of course, by his understanding of the research. So this is just such a great opportunity to hear how the pros do it. And I think this has something for everyone, be it practitioners, research buffs, or even if you're just interested in this approach yourself.

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So those of you who are unfamiliar with Brandon, he has been on the podcast now five times. So I'd be super surprised actually, if you were. Brandon is, DeCruz is an online nutrition and physique coach and sports nutritionist. He's also a national level NPC physique competitor and an internationally published fitness model who's written articles and filmed educational content for publication like Men's Fitness Magazine and Bodybuilding.com.

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Brandon has spent over 13 years working within the sports nutrition and fitness industries and has coached every type of athlete including Olympia level, professional men's physique competitors, college athletes, MMA fighters, CrossFit competitors and lifestyle clients like you and I. He believes in blending what's been proven in the research with his own anecdotal and first-hand in the trenches experience to improve body composition, optimize performance and enhance health.

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in order to help his clients achieve their goals, whether that be building muscle, losing body fat, increasing performance, and or optimizing health and longevity. This is what he refers to as his health centric coaching model, as he believes that improving one's health is the cornerstone to optimizing their physical goals, as do we all. So I've got links as to where you can find Brandon in the show notes at his website, BrandonDeCruzFit.com and on Instagram at

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Brandon D'Cruz underscore and of course to his Chasing Clarity podcast which is like this treasure trove of the science and the practice blended amazing conversations with like-minded individuals. It is certainly a masterclass education in all things fat loss, health and performance. So before we crack on into this interview though, I would like to remind you that the best way to support Micropedia is to hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast listening platform.

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that increases the visibility of this podcast and amongst literally thousands of other podcasts out there. So more people get the opportunity to listen to the experts that I have on the show, such as Brandon D'Cruz. All right, team, as always, I appreciate your support. Enjoy this conversation.

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They talk about the hard-ass place in Jersey and all of their songs. I'm like, man, they grow up tough, but you're saying differently. Yeah. I think Jovi's the softest you're going to get from Jersey. I'll you, people, I'll send you a video of a new, it's not a new gym. It's actually an old gym that I actually used to attend back in the day. There was a gym called Diamond Gym, that is essentially like a legendary gym in New Jersey. Now, I went there years ago.

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and was owned by an old school bodybuilder named John Kemper. He was a bodybuilder, I believe in the sixties and seventies. And I actually did his show many years ago before it was reformatted and now it's named something different, but I won that. That was the first show I ever won. So it always sticks back in my mind. So this was 2016 I won that show and it's an old school, hardcore bodybuilding gym. And now I don't, I've never been on TikTok, but apparently like a trend on TikTok is they take influencers.

04:40
and they bring them to Diamond Gym and they just put them through the most rigorous workouts ever. And it's so interesting because anytime I try to describe the environment that I like kind of came up with, it's an old school bodybuilding environment. It wasn't that gym. I lived way far from that, but I went to a lot of old school bodybuilding gyms. I've trained at that gym. And a lot of people don't understand what I'm talking about. These dingy gyms where it's like these old school bodybuilders, there's cops, there's convicts like in the same place working out together. It's mutual respect. It doesn't matter your color, your race, your ethnicity. It doesn't matter.

05:08
It is just hard work ethic. And I think that that's something that has shown through in everything that I do. I don't bodybuilding anymore, but I still have a very, one thing I'm very prideful of is having great work ethic. And that was something that was built within me. I mean, 20 plus years ago when I first started training, but interestingly enough, there's now like this new trend essentially, where they're bringing all these influencers and just breaking them, like having them throw up in buckets. uh They're not letting them have water and like all these things. And this is an extremist thing, but that's really how some Jersey gyms are. And that's what people don't get.

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you train for three hours until you're on the floor. It's a different environment. And what's so interesting about that is that 20 years ago, 20 plus years ago, I started training. At that point, that was glorified. I'm not saying that this extremist thing is the best physiologically, but it does build mental resilience. But now we're in an era that in 2025, everyone is trying to do the least possible to get the gains. it's almost like there is no hack around the hard work, whether that comes to your physique, your knowledge.

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your business, anything you want in life requires hard work and you can't try to get a shortcut or some pill, potion, or powder and think that that's going to replace the necessary work that needs to be put in to gain mastery in some area of your life, whether that be losing a lot of weight, getting to very low levels of body fat percentage, gaining a ton of muscle, being an immensely great endurance athlete like yourself that was running, I believe you ran like 250 in the marathon. That's, you're fucking moving. Like none of that.

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comes from doing the minimum. I'm not saying you have to be a maximalist, but I'm saying a lot of people are trying to do the least and many would benefit from doing a little bit more. A hundred percent. And I will just qualify. was 255. So, it's moving. It's still moving. And, and also just in case, because we, are recording this because I do like your little gems at the start. Yeah. Yeah. But it was always good. Like when you mentioned pills and potions, there's no heck. Like this isn't

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Brandon being totally against things like GOP ones or anything like that, because I you've done several podcasts on the utility of them. But to your point, uh even within some of the, or even with those types of um medications, et cetera, you still need to put in the work because it's not the weight loss itself, it's that weight loss maintenance. 100%. I really believe that any of these interventions need to be laid over.

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a good foundation. So you need to have a nutrient-dense diet in place. You need to have your protein dialed in and have sufficient protein intake to accrete muscle mass and also maintain lean muscle mass, especially in the case of massive weight loss, which would be the best case for someone to be indicated for using a GLP-1. We also have to have progressive resistance training in place and some type of cardio modality, whether that be steps or intentional cardio. So you have cardiovascular health and then also sufficient amount of activity to have appetite regulation to have...

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good glucose uh management, like from a blood glucose and insulin dynamics perspective, those things come first. And I think a lot of people are trying to step over dollars to pick up pennies and they're looking at, instead of really focusing on the basics and the big rocks, which aren't sexy, I get it. They're looking for the latest biohack or the next peptide or the next hormone or whatever they're getting pitched on the internet or from their hormone replacement clinic and neglecting.

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the basics that need to be in place. And that's actually why if you look into the literature on hormone replacement, specifically on testosterone replacement, we see that within one year, the vast majority of men that go on testosterone replacement will get off. And when you actually look at the uh qualitative, so just looking subjectively, qualitative surveys of men on testosterone and their experience with it, a lot of times they say it was almost disappointing. And the reason for that is they...

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expect testosterone to be a panacea. We are sold this, especially in American culture, meaning you get on testosterone, your whole life is great. Women want you, you're jacked again, you have a great libido, all these things. it's like, hey, if you had libido issues, if you had erectile dysfunction because you are insulin resistant or have type 2 diabetes, you're not going to completely rectify that with testosterone. If you have excess adiposity and you have high levels of visceral body fat because you eat in excess,

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You're not doing sufficient amounts of activity, especially from an aerobic training perspective, which we know that that's actually preferential towards losing visceral body fat. You're not going to go on testosterone and magically morph. Now, will it improve lean body mass and body composition? Absolutely. However, if you're not doing the sufficient and necessary work, the prerequisite needed, the stimulus needed to transform your physique, you can't rely on a pill, a powder, a potion, an injection, a peptide, whatever it may be.

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to do all the work for you. There is a required amount of work, effort, and some sort of discipline or restraint. I know people don't want to hear that word, but think about to lose body fat, there is a necessary component of dietary restraint. Now, this doesn't have to be rigid restraint where you're black and white and your dichotomous in your thinking. It can be flexible restraint where you're open-minded and you're willing to adjust and adapt as things come up in your life and as well as challenges that you face. However,

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there needs to be some form of restraint and also cognitive oversight. You need to be aware of your habits, decisions, know, your habits, behaviors, decisions and actions. Yeah. And it's funny, I was speaking to a friend about this yesterday on another podcast actually about the idea of discipline in the realm of diet and exercise. And we had slightly differing opinions like, and I think that the industry does a terrible job of trying to sell diet and exercise as

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It should be easy, you know, like, it's, I mean, it is simple. Like the actual theory, I suppose, is simple from an intellectual level of what you need to do. But, the actual implementation is really hard and people shy away from it because, they fail at the first hurdle because they come up against something and they're like, but this was supposed to be easy. This must be my problem. I can't do this. Yeah. I think one of the biggest issues um from like a marketing perspective is that fitness is now

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being sold and marketed as something that's easy and they want to make it, it's almost like we're trying to lower the barrier of entry. I'm a hundred percent behind that. However, there is a degree of informed consent that you need to give your listener, your client, or whoever you're speaking to. So for instance, I had a conversation today and this this will actually lead us partially into our conversation for this topic, but I have a client who initially was well over 200 pounds at about five foot four, five foot five.

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And probably when it came to me, pushing close to 30 % body fat, so excess adiposity, he would have a BMI in the obese category. And he asked me, what are my thoughts on his next fat loss phase going through RFL? And so this was just out of the blue. Now, mind you, initially he was at 30 % body fat when he came to me. Over the course of last three years, he's down approximately 70 pounds, but he is someone that struggles with appetite signaling issues, hunger management. And what I've seen is he is

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someone that really, it's hard for him to moderate things. And so, if you go off the beaten path, for instance, if you do an extreme approach like cut his calories too much or give him little bit too much leeway, he goes between ends of the spectrum essentially. So, he swings between the pendulum. And so, I said, listen, I want first and foremost for you to be where your feet are. Right now, we're in a health phase. We're trying to maximize your fertility because your main goal that you came to me with for this phase was to get yourself in a very healthy place to be able to

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have a child with your wife. So, that is the main goal and dieting is not conducive to that. We already had seen that your motility and your sperm motility markers were low. And this was something, you know, he had been obese. There was many things previously, a poor lifestyle previously that had predisposed him towards that. And then also he had been on hormones for many years. So, he's been going through, he's been working with a fertility doctor. I've been worrying about the nutrition and natural supplementation. But I said, listen, right now, I need you to keep the goal of the goal, which is

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to improve your markers for fertility. And then we can have that discussion, but I don't want you to get distracted by this thought of the next phase. And secondarily, RFL, despite me just covering that with Lyle McDonald on my podcast recently, that does not mean that it's applicable to you. And I want you to keep in mind that despite the fact that I did this, I will be very transparent with you that for many people, it's brutal. So it sounds good. essentially his question was, hey, could this make this faster and more efficient and also easier for me? And I said,

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Faster, more efficient? Yes. However, it may not be feasible first and foremost. And secondarily, it may be so much more difficult for you because you are someone that comes from a background of over restriction leading to excess overeating. And I saw that on your intake when you came to me and I saw that during the initial portion of us working together. So what I'm trying to do is to help you avoid your mistakes of the past and make sure that we set up or we take different methods and interventions that set you up for success. And oftentimes,

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that necessitates that I take a different approach than you've utilized in the past and failed doing so. Yeah, which makes sense, right? Because you know me, Brandon, I'm not very good at dredging up names or correct sayings or whatever, but there's someone very famous and it's totally escaping me now that has that saying, the definition of stupid is doing the same

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like thing that fails multiple times or something. know the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. that was my god. Yeah, that's it. Oh my god. was so far wrong out of it. That's why I'm here, Mickey. Yeah, I know. Thank God. Hey, so Brandon, let's chat about that fat loss phase. You mentioned rapid fat loss and and I really loved that podcast with Lyle. I also will just give a shout out, of course, to the podcast that you did with Eric.

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Helms, the second one that you did, which you also said that you really enjoyed doing. And remember, I do remember some things. And one of the things I remembered was how, how I think you mentioned either to me or on the podcast, just how sort of flat both you and Eric sounded because you were both in the depths of your fat loss phase and both of you even like, because obviously Eric has a physique goal and a very real reason to get as lean as possible. Whereas other people might say, Brandon,

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You even started and you were already lean and already really cut. So what was the purpose of this fat loss phase for you? Yeah. So first and foremost, I would give the caveat that what many people don't realize now that they've gotten in a lot of people are introduced to me in one of two ways. If you go back five or 10 years, everyone knew me as a competitor and a bodybuilding coach.

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And now, since I've become more of a podcaster and appeared more on podcasts and things of that sort in the last five to six years, a lot of people just hear me from podcasts not realizing my background in bodybuilding, in professional fitness modeling. So this was a major component. I've been training at this point 20 years. I've been coaching others for 15 years. So I'm a big advocate of being a walking representative of the lifestyle that I preach and that the principles that I utilize with clients. so my main goal for this phase wasn't just to get beach lane. And that is usually what many people are looking to do.

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For me, it was to push myself close to photo shoot condition while testing some of the concepts that I talk about with clients or even on podcasts like your own. And that's specifically my high energy flux approach. Now, Mickey, we had done a podcast on high energy flux either last year or the year before, so you can link that in the show notes. usually, and if someone goes back, they're going to say, know, Brandon, you're using this differently in this updated podcast that you did with Mickey. Yes, you're correct. And so typically, when I use high energy flux,

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I used it as a lifestyle. So I use it after a fat loss phase to help clients maintain leanness by eating more because they're moving more. But this time, I really wanted to test what would happen if I use that approach during the fat loss phase itself and it created more of my calorie deficit through increased activity rather than through substantially reducing my food intake. So instead of continuing to push my intake down as low as I normally would, instead I ramped up my daily movement and structured cardio so that I could keep calories higher and still get lean.

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And this allowed me to eat more, to fuel my performance better, and sustain energy levels while still getting leaner week to week. And at the end of the day, I really view these phases as a way to refine my systems. And I truly believe that the extremes inform the means. Now, what I mean by that is my clients, all of them may not need to get down to the same level of conditioning that I do or the standard that I hold myself to. But by running these experiments on myself, I can scale these principles and these methods.

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to help them achieve their goals more effectively in a manner that fits them. So anytime I'm thinking about exercise, nutrition, or training programming, I'm looking to strike a balance with clients. I want to meet in the middle between what's most optimal for their goals and what's most realistic for their lifestyle, their preferences, and their constraints. And so what we have to realize is that we all have different constraints. We all have different goals. We all have different lifestyles. And we all have different experience levels. So I am someone that I'm a very experienced dieter.

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I've been on stage 15 times. I've done well over 100 professional photo shoots. So really when it comes down to it and someone asks me, hey, why are you pushing yourself to get so lean? Well, first and foremost, I'm really about being in the trenches. And for me, it's really about evolution. And I'm very much into testing, refining, and improving my methods so that with every future phase, whether it's for me or even just for a client of mine, it runs smoother and I get to deliver better results. And so I'm very results oriented. But I do think that there's such a

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a utility and a necessity and a benefit from me doing these things myself and being in the trenches still, because I think a lot of people, they speak a lot, they're theorists essentially. They speak a lot about theories. They're very intelligent. had the utmost respect for them. And some of them are just educators. And by all means, if you are not a coach, I'm not expecting this of you, but there's many coaches that they talk more than they walk. And this is a really important component of who I am. My business is an extension. My coaching is an extension of who I am as a person. And the first thing I do is I show up and I execute.

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And I lead people from the front. Yeah. Nice one, Brandon. And you're right. We have talked about that high energy flux model in relationship to being able to maintain weight. But of course, it does sort of make sense as well because calorie expenditure and the number of calories you burn each day is a critical component of the deficit. So can you sort of chat about what your usual pattern of movement might be like in everyday life, just generally?

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and how you shifted that in your deficit or in your, yeah, deficit. Yeah, absolutely. So usually I will say I always have a baseline level of activity. So I am someone that I believe in taking step breaks and taking movement snacks essentially is what I like to call them. But generally most times of the year say that I'm in a building phase or I'm in a different phase of my periodization year. So I do everything based off a yearly periodization scheme essentially that I construct for myself. Usually maybe I'll do 30 minutes of fasted cardio every day.

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I will ensure that I do laps around the gym when I'm at the gym just to economize on time because I'm very time-constrained. I generally spend about 12 hours working every day and I'm in front of this computer that I'm sitting here with you. When I'm not working, not doing check-ins, I'm on podcasts. These are sedentary activities, say at least. Mickey, you can reinforce me on that. Generally, I would say baseline, I'm usually hitting around at least in the region of 15,000 steps, I'll say. However, and I'm doing maybe 30 minutes of cardio.

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Now, for this phase in particular, I wanted to test how far I could push the concept of high energy flux. So from a movement perspective, I set a baseline, meaning a minimum target of 25,000 steps per day, meaning I did not go below this target and I achieved this target through multiple forms of movement. So every day, I committed myself to two hours of low-intensity treadmill walking. And what I did with that, I didn't do it all at once, so I want to make that very clear. um The first session was an hour of fasted cardio every single morning.

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And then did another hour session around midday and I actually would do it during right after my lunch break. And what I do with that is I would actually do emails. So I would clean up. I have a, I have my whole day broken up into work blocks, making you know that I'm very schedule oriented. I'm very like a calendar person, very planning oriented. So I have a morning, I have a very early morning work block with international clients. I have a domestic work block. And then after that, you know, I'll have replies coming in before my next work block. So I would just get on the treadmill and I would either do social media stuff or I would be answering just

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not updates and not check-ins, but just questions that I get through, whether it be my inbox or through my email. Then I also did post meal walks after each of my four meals. In addition to that, I took laps between sets while training and I followed a work to walk ratio. So what I mean by that is it's almost like a Pomodoro method, which I used to use in like when I worked in a corporate office, but how I did this, this was a minimum thing that I did. So for every 15 minutes that I worked on my computer, I would at least take a 10 minute walk outside or on a walking pad.

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So, in mind, I generally walk. I mean, I generally work about 10 to 12 hour days. So, I was getting at least a minimum of another 100 minutes of walking. Now, to the average person, that might sound like overkill, but it created a massive increase in my total daily energy expenditure without adding fatigue. So, every day, was easily getting, I don't want to say easily, but I was feasibly getting 25,000 steps. The other thing that I do want to note because I did share this on social media was people were like, man, how are you doing this much cardio? First and foremost, I come from a bodybuilding background. I did this shit when I was like old school.

22:21
We did two hours of cardio without thinking, without batting an eye. We did HIIT, all these types of things. Now, this cardio was low-intensity. And what I really want to get across to people, what I find so interesting, and I think that you can relate to me on this, Mickey, is that when you're a physique athlete and you say you're doing two hours of cardio, even though I was doing, low-intensity cardio, it was steady, low-impact movement that added up across the day. But it was low-intensity. But when I say that, as someone that is mostly a physique athlete, people are like, man, you're crazy.

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I had people in my audience that are endurance athletes that are running two or three hours a day and I'm thinking, do you guys not comport that you're doing way more activity than I am? like, it's all about scaling it towards you. So yes, compared to my average general population client or lifestyle client, that is a lot of movement. However, compared to some of the endurance athletes I've worked with or someone like yourself, that's really not that much because I'm going at like 2.5 miles per hour. Like I'm not moving that much.

23:15
Interesting though with that Brandon, because of course with the running, I'll go out and do like a 90 minute run. And then my goal in my head is, because I do like to little step goal targets as well as, as long as I get another 6,000 steps in today, I'll be fine. Whereas, so actually your level of movement is probably more, it'd be interesting to know relative like the sort of the caloric expenditure actually um with that. So I still think you probably moved more than a lot of athletes because

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endurance athletes might run two hours once a week and then they'll be doing 45 to maybe 75 minutes outside of that on a day. Yeah, I just think that the actual fatigue cost of what I was doing was so low that it wasn't debilitating to me. Yeah, nice one. Nice one. Do you think, Brandon, and I'm not sure if this is in my list of questions, but I just thought of it, over the course of, because how long did you spend in your fat loss phase? So I did 16 weeks. 16 weeks. And obviously as you reduce your body mass, the overall caloric

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cost of it will obviously drop anyway. But do you think even with someone in your experience that you became more efficient and burnt less calories, was there any sort of adaptive hemogenesis going on? we're going to have to tease this apart, So I'll give you a few answers. First and foremost, is there an increase in efficiency that comes from walking?

24:37
I think that I would have already been adapted to walking. I can't say from a biomechanics perspective. And actually, this is something that would be a great question for Lyle because I know that we've spoken, I was talking with him a very long time ago about this. But when you actually look at the increase in efficiency and how much of a percentage we even see in high level endurance athletes, it's somewhere in the realm of like five to 7%. So I can't really imagine that my gait and my like walking mechanics improve that much throughout the course, like this walking experiment that I would have had that much of an increase.

25:06
There's a different component that isn't from walking mechanics that we do need to acknowledge. First and foremost, I lost body weight and a substantial amount of body fat. So that is going to have, yes, like you mentioned, adaptive processes. That's going to be on the side of metabolic adaptation, though. So we're going to see that my body weight is lighter. So yes, a lighter body burns less calories for the same amount of movement. That is why we see, for instance, if you were to look at any of the calorie-equated studies on cardio, on aerobic training,

25:34
between men and women, you will always notice that if they're going for a specific amount of duration of time, we discussed this with the Midwest trial one and two on one of the podcasts we did on the constrained energy expenditure model. I believe women in that study, and in other studies, I know this for a fact, they generally have to do 20 to 30 % more minutes, more time duration to hit the same caloric expenditure value. So for instance, I'm going to give you hypothetical. If it's 500 calories burned in each cardio session five times per week.

26:02
The men might, that might take men an hour. Say hypothetically, that may take women 72 to say 75 or 80 minutes. So there's a difference in terms of time duration. So a lighter body, and the reason I give you that example is it's easier for people to really rationalize that in their mind. All right, we have a 200 pound man and a 140 pound woman. They're definitely going to burn different amounts of calories, but even myself losing 10 or 15 pounds, I'm essentially burning less calories per set. Then there's another component, and this is best...

26:30
noted or best looked at by Rosenbaum and Liebel. They did a 2010 review called adaptive thermogenesis in humans. We see an increase in mitochondrial efficiency where at low levels of activity, we burn less calories. That is another component from a mitochondrial perspective. There's not as much ATP leak and it's all these enzymatic processes that make you more efficient. Yes, I do believe that I was burning less calories per step or per say block of 25,000 steps per day than I was at the end.

27:00
But it wasn't enough. It's never enough that I'm doing that much activity and that I'm going to be negated to not losing anything because I'm still in a substantial deficit. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense, Brandon. so outside of the walking, there was no other cardio that you wouldn't have known how you would have put it in, but no other cardio other than walking? No, I did. And I will say this. There was a time in my life when HIIT was really big and I tell you there was a prep that I did in 2015 where I did HIIT five days a week. And then these were like 20 or 30 minute sessions.

27:30
But the fatigue that I carried day to day, especially my legs from that, whooped these 25,000 steps. So I will tell you that this was a completely different game for me in terms of if you were to ask me, what was my fatigue like? Did I have heavy legs? No, I didn't experience any of that stuff. Now, there's two caveats to that. A, I'm pretty aerobically fit. I won't say I'm an endurance athlete by any means, but I can walk a lot and I can do some cardio like I'm a light, lean individual. And then secondarily, I have a...

27:56
a pretty high tolerance for pain or discomfort or fatigue because I've been in much more challenging situations from a dietary perspective. Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. And people listening to this might be thinking, I could never do what Brandon is talking about and work myself up to that level. I mean, let's be clear, we're not suggesting everyone do this. No, not at all. What I would actually like to highlight is people often say that to me when I go and do

28:22
When I do the endurance training and I do the hiking and I go and do the events like the ones that I've just done, I've only done two of them. anyone can actually train themselves to do that. mean, physical limitations aside, legit physical limitations, like you're trainable. Like that level of um efficiency, that level of, I guess, durability is totally trainable, whether it's walking a gazillion steps or actually like getting up and doing the hiking slash jogging slash um events that I do as well.

28:52
I think people underestimate themselves. 100%. I will say that I think self-limiting beliefs are one of the biggest things that I try to work around with clients. Sometimes I think many, especially many women, they come to me and they say they think they have issues with their physiology. They have weight loss resistance. They have metabolic resistance. They're hypothyroid. ah They have Hashimoto's, whatever it may be. And those are physiological limitations. Or I'll have some with PCOS. These are conditions. Absolutely. They're changing the hormonal milieu. They're changing certain aspects of energy expenditure.

29:21
But oftentimes the biggest limitations are the self-limiting limitations and beliefs that they've set upon themselves. And the biggest thing is, this is way outside my area of expertise, so I'm not going to speak about it too in depth, but I believe it was Tim Noakes that coined something called the central governor effect. And really with that, we see that the limit is not your body, it's your mind. And we can see that in all aspects, whether that be from a output perspective in your career or in your relationship.

29:49
The levels in which you're willing to push yourself is based on your experience and your background and kind of like how we started the show. I'm from like a gritty placement and like I'm willing to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty. And here's the thing, I did this, like I said, the extremes informed the means. This is not me making a suggestion for everyone else to do this. What I'm saying is I had certain hypotheses. I've used this in weight loss maintenance. And really with that, it's usually between 12.5 to 15K steps I utilize with clients. It's really like the max that I go to.

30:17
I said, all right, well, I am at a place where I'm usually maintaining around 15,000 steps. So, I can't just say, all right, it's going to be between 12.5 to uh 15K. I need to create a delta. I need to create a differentiation. So, that's what I did. I made a substantial increase. But I also wanted to test out the constrained energy expenditure model because that is something that's always the refutation to the energy flux model. And I don't think they're at odds. I think that a lot of people just don't understand the data correctly enough and they've kind of taken a lot of things at face value.

30:46
And secondarily, this was not just about the steps. There are nutritional adjustments I made. was whole food. There's so many other components, calorie cycling, proteins, very modified fats. There's so many other aspects that you and I will discuss that it wasn't just a singular one lever intervention. This was one aspect alongside other meticulously calculated adjustments within my programming that led to an outcome of getting into close to photoshoot condition and a much

31:15
more feasible, efficient and effective manner than I have previously. Yeah. And that's huge. And before we dive into the nutrition um piece of it, Brandon, which I can't wait to discuss, obviously you said from a recovery perspective, things were actually fine for you. From an appetite perspective, you like, no, I mean, you're going to be hungry in a deficit anyway, and it's sort of expected. And I know that you mentally can handle it, but any appreciable difference this time versus other times?

31:43
100%. I will tell you that we have to consider the fact that I was able to eat substantially more in this fat loss phase than I have previously. That made a big difference from a food flexibility perspective. When I say flexibility, I don't mean fitting in macros or fitting in Pop-Tarts in my macros and stuff. What I mean is I was able to fit a lot more high-volume nutrient-dense foods, polyphenolic rich fruits, vegetables, starches, whole grains, things that were highly satiating.

32:12
from an actual nutritional composition perspective, I had way more of a dietary budget to fit in whole foods. So that's the first thing. And I really did lean into minimally processed whole foods. Second to that is that there is an appetite regulating effect of high levels of activity. So this is something that you and I have discussed many times on podcasts, but we see that there's an ability to become better regulated with your appetite once you get to higher levels of physical activity.

32:40
So, really, if you look at the research, mean, there's many different research labs that look at this, but we see that there's essentially a regulated zone and a non-regulated zone. So, in the regulated zone, essentially, is when you're doing high levels of activity, you're able to essentially couple energy expenditure to energy intake more effectively. So, for me, I was able to feel more satiated from my meals. felt more satiety both at the end of my meal and then in between meals.

33:08
I was able to eat more, so it was compounding those things. Now, when you go to very low levels of uh movement, it actually dysregulates your appetite so that you're hungrier for the same amount of calories than you would be if you were just a little bit more active. Now, if I had been a lot less active, not only would I have been hit from that aspect from a satiety signaling perspective, but then also I have to eat much less food. For me, I generally have to eat 1800 to 2000 calories to get lean. I'm like an Eric Helms, where I'm a big dude, but I have an adaptable metabolism.

33:38
In this case, I was able to eat around 2,800 calories as an average across the week. We're looking at a delta 500 to 1,000 calorie difference in my weekly caloric intake average. It made a substantial difference from a nutrient perspective, the actual what my diet looked like, not only from what foods I can include, but how much it's even psychological. Mick, I'll tell you there have been many phallosphases that I do. It's like there's not a lot of food on that plate.

34:05
and that is something that psychologically you look in the research on that. It will show like that's why if you use massive silverware or plates, it will actually make you feel like you're eating less food. Whereas if you use smaller silverware or you use baby spoons and things like that, there's ways to kind of trick your brain into thinking you're eating more than you are. But for every meal I had, I had a lot more calories to play with, which I use very judiciously. And that allowed me have these big plates full of food that kept me satiated.

34:32
Yeah, nice one. Brendan, is there a threshold, you think, with that uh coupling of appetite and physical activity? Because I know that at very low levels of activity, can be that dysregulation of appetite. it's not a linear relationship, is it? Do we have a threshold with which, above a certain level, you're not going to a similar, I guess, response? I'm going be honest with you. I've never seen that directly investigated. There is a Mayer study.

35:01
that's from the 50s where they look at essentially uh different occupations within a Bengali mill worker like uh office. They had clerks and sedentary positions, so like the office managers, the clerks, things like that. They were sedentary. Then they had low-level activity, moderate-level activity, very high-level activity. They actually found it was what they call a J-shape curve. Anyone watching this video will see me make a J-shape, but really what ended up happening was the

35:30
people that were in the sedentary position, the lowest levels of activity actually had a spike up in hunger. They ate as many calories as those in the moderate and high levels of activity, but they had very low energy expenditure because they had very low movement. So, they actually weighed on average, I believe, 30 plus pounds more than those in the moderate and higher levels of activity. And what they actually found was the curve goes like this. So, as you go from very, very low levels, sedentary levels of activity, your hunger is very high and your energy intake is high as a result of that. And then as you get into more

36:00
low to moderate. When you get into moderate levels of activity, then your hunger starts to balance out where you're more able to accurately balance between energy intake and energy expenditure because now you've gotten into a regulated zone. But even if you go to the higher levels of activity where these guys were working manual labor all day long, and now this is probably way before unions and labor laws and things of that sort. I'm assuming they're doing 50, 60 hours a week. You do not see them compensating and eating in excess. You see them eating

36:29
good amount of calories to couple between what they're doing, but it's not like there was a threshold in which they were cut off. Then if we go to more modern data, I can go to Bassett 2004, it's based on Amish. With the Amish, they were averaging 18,500 steps per day in the men and I believe 14,000 in the women. Those men were not intentionally exercising, not doing anything, but they were walking around with 9.4 % body fat and eating like 3,600 calories a day, which for their body weight,

36:58
and their body fat is a ton of calories per pound. So, I have yet to see anything that whereas there is a threshold to activity and then appetite regulation. I'm sure at the very ends of the extreme. So, the only thing I could think of, and this is more so in the realm of like the constrained energy expenditure model, there was that Thurber paper, and that's a 2019 paper. And they looked at the RAM, the Race Across America race. And that is where they saw that there was, it was the only time that they've ever seen like essentially like...

37:26
ceiling to energy expenditure levels because they did one marathon a day, six days a week for 20 weeks. And so then they started seeing activity not matching energy expenditure. I would assume in those individuals that they would eventually get an effect where they were either excessively hungry or they were so, so overtrained or so chronically fatigued that they actually lost appetite even more. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I can actually imagine that that's the case. Okay. Thanks for that, Brendan.

37:56
What I want to chat about is your nutrition schedule. you've mentioned it a little bit in that last question, but can you talk us through how you structured your week with regards to maybe calories and then we'll sort of go into the food choices and things like that. All right. So on the nutrition side, the first thing I did was I'm very big into having a protein anchored diet. So I kept my protein intake very high. I was averaging 1.5 grams per pound of body weight. And then occasionally, which was one to two days a week,

38:24
I was running protein hyperfeed days where I'd go up to two grams per pound. And this wasn't just for muscle retention. I wanted to personally leverage proteins higher thermic effect of feeding to create what I refer to as a caloric funnel where the higher protein intake slightly elevates my total daily energy expenditure and metabolic rate through the increased cost of digestion, absorption, and assimilation. Now, one thing I want to hit on is that my diet was as whole foods as you could get. It was when I actually did a back calculation of all the foods that I ate.

38:52
And I wanted to see what percentage came from whole food and what percentage came from processed food. It was 95 % of my diet came from whole, minimally processed food. So we're talking lean protein sources, fibers, carb sources, veggies, and fruit. And that allowed me to maximize my satiety, stabilize my blood sugar, and then keep food quality high while maintaining a large energy turnover. And there was another reason I did that. There is a higher thermic effect. There's a bar study, which finds about two times the thermic effect of eating from whole foods.

39:19
There's another study, which was a diet quality study that was based I haven't read this in many years, but I thought about it when – I just said that. I did a podcast on this many years ago, but essentially, they looked at calorie-equated diets in a fat loss phase. They looked at predominantly whole foods, what they called a high-quality nutrient-dense diet versus a low-quality nutrient-dense diet. They went down to the granularity of the monounsaturates, the omega-3s, the omega-6 index in the one diet. They were using a lot of omega-3s and fish oil and flax oil.

39:49
things of that sort in the quality diet. Then in the lower quality diet, they're utilizing a lot more processed foods and they were also utilizing a lot more inflammatory fats. When you look at the difference, it was the same calorie deficit, but there was a substantial difference in the amount of fat mass lost and the amount of lean mass maintained. Now, the one caveat to that was they were supposed to be calorie and macronutrient matched, but the whole foods diet ended up being a few percentage points or

40:18
few percentages higher in protein and having a higher fiber intake. So then even when we look at the metabolic profiles, obviously, even if you do calorie-equated diets, we see that higher fiber intakes will generally have better metabolic health outcomes in terms of blood sugar regulation as well as blood lipids. So that is to be expected, but there was a substantial difference in terms of actual outcomes from a fat loss perspective. So that was something that I was thinking in my mind and I am someone that I just like to leverage whole foods. Now, the other thing that I did was I used a calorie cycling approach.

40:48
where I kept calories higher on training days and then I lowered my calories on non-training days. On these non-training days, I'd usually run a rapid fat loss day, which is all that means is it's a modified protein-sparing, modified fast to keep the fat loss progress moving. So from a calorie perspective, most weeks I was eating around 3,100 calories per day, five to six days a week, and then I was implementing between one and two rapid fat loss days per week. And those days were very low calories. So that was between 1,200 to 1,400 calories.

41:17
So on my higher calorie dieting weeks, my average intake was a bit over 2,800 calories averaged. And then on weeks where I really needed to push for fat loss, I needed a greater deficit to expedite my fat loss progress. My average calorie intake was a bit over 2,500 calories. Okay. So a few questions. One, is that 5 % processed food? Is that just all mustard or is there something else in there? I'm dead. Definitely heavily mustard.

41:43
um It was actually, Jane makes these protein brownies and they're mostly whole food ingredients. That would be the only thing that was included, but it was such, remember my energy intake was quite high. So it was, they're about 95 calories. So if you look at the actual percentage of my diet, it takes up a very minuscule portion. Yeah. Okay. Nice one. And then Brandon, four points. So you essentially, you push the protein higher to 4.4.

42:08
um grams per kilo, I think that's what it was. Yes, that was two grams per pound on the protein hyperfeed these, but that was not every day. My average every single day was 1.5 and then I would go up to two grams per pound. And so your protein hyperfeed day, is that your protein-sparing modified fast day or is that something sort of different again? No, so it was different. So a lot of times if I was trying to really push the deficit, I would actually utilize

42:33
a rapid fat loss day, which is a protein-sperm-modified fast day, but I would keep it on my normal protein intake and then I would drop out all my carbs and fats besides omega-3 fatty acids, which was in a form of a fish oil supplementation, and then fibrous veggies. That would be it. So, would be just protein and I would keep that 300. was averaging about 310 grams of protein to around 420 grams of protein per day. Now, the protein hyperfeed days, I did in a reactive and auto-regulated style. If I saw that my biofeedback from a hunger perspective,

43:01
from an energy perspective or just from like, uh this is kind of subjective to say, but irritability, to be honest with you. If I was feeling more irritable or short, and I'm generally not that person, Mickey, you've interacted with me so many times over the years, that's generally not my personality. I'm very patient and uh individual. If I noticed that and I knew it was dietary related, then I would throw in these protein hyperfeats. I want to give a

43:23
just a shout out and a hat tip, because this was something that Alan Aragon told me about over 10 years ago. And I did a podcast with him probably in 2022. And then I also, we went out to dinner after a conference that we both were speakers at. And we just dug into like into the trenches with one another on this topic. And I've used them, I used them prior to meeting Alan in person. But ever since then, I've thrown them in and I always like to give a hat tip to him because he was the one that exposed me to them. Nice one. So, okay, now, this isn't on my list of questions to ask you, but I

43:52
want to continue down this. So what would a hyperfeeding protein day look like? Like, tell me about that in terms of food, just so people are aware of it. Because I actually think that, you know, we're talking about sort of almost the extremes with what we're talking through with your approach. But I think this is something that people could absolutely utilize if they notice this in themselves. And it might not be at that four grams per kg body weight or 4.4, but I think it's

44:19
I'd love to just sort of dive into that a little bit more, Absolutely. So I don't know if this is going to be super interesting to you, Mickey, or to your audience, but I kept it super simple. So on those protein hyperfeed days, my goal was to maximize satiety, minimize calories that were coming from excess other than protein, and then obviously to accrete lean mass or maintain lean mass while creating a big enough energy gap. Because remember, the only thing I was increasing on those days was my protein intake.

44:45
I usually would do that on a protein-sparing modified fast. That doesn't mean that every time I use a protein-sparing modified fast, it was a protein hyperfeed. I did this auto-regulated. But if I was on a day, it was a non-training day diet, I noticed that my biofeedback was off, I decided, hey, I'm going to increase this. It would be about 100 grams of protein increase just from proteins. It would be lean proteins. I would start with, I'd go do fasted cardio. I would start with meal one.

45:09
big into keeping my morning, my early morning meal simple because I'm up very early and I'm focused on getting back to clients and I'm most productive in the morning. So, my goal is always, it doesn't matter if I'm protein hyperfeeding, if I'm on my regular diet, I want to maximize efficiency. So, meal one usually consisted initially it was a protein shake, then as I got deeper into the diet, my body fat started coming down. I will say hunger was well managed for being a fat loss phase, but I was still hungry. So, I don't want people to misconstrue what I'm saying. I'm saying I've been starving before and I wasn't this time.

45:39
And so, meal one would generally consist of a creamy made from a high quality whey protein isolate. And what I would do is, especially on the days I was trying to minimize calories because it was this protein-surfing modified fast type of thing, just higher calories or higher protein, what I would do is I would just put a creamy with water, with ice, and with liquid Splenda. With that, whatever protein – so, this could get undulated. So, for instance, if I was on my normal diet because I eat four meals, that meal would consist of 75 grams of protein.

46:06
If I was on my protein hyperfeed, it'd be between 100 and 105 grams. So, all I have to do is titrate. It's super simple for me to do. It's just a protein intake. With that, I would have mixed greens and sea salt, and then I would have my fish oil for the day. I really like to get this in early so don't forget it. And that was six grams of a Nordic Naturals Ultimate Omega. And that comes out because I'm sure you're thinking in the back of your head, well, what is that in EPA and DHA? I did the calculation for you. It's 3,600 milligrams because the research shows between three to four.

46:33
3 4 grams is best for cardiovascular health outcomes. I would get my omega-3s and my protein a big bolus off the bat. Then my next meal would always either be grilled chicken or 99 % ground turkey. Just the portions would differ based on if it was a protein hyperfeed or if it was protein-sparing modified fast and I had green beans. My third meal, which is midday, would be a lean protein source like ground turkey or if I was really hungry, I would do egg whites.

47:00
liquid egg whites and I would just cook that so that I could have a big volume meal. And every day, I would have a high volume, low energy dense carb or low energy dense veggie. And most days, it was a big ass salad. So, that's where I would break out my mustard, I'm a Splenda, as you very well know, I love, and I would make sure I got my greens. And then, the last meal, I actually used to use a combo. So, this is a meal that I combine protein sources. So, I wanted something that I could chew because there is a sensation essentially or there is literature and I also experienced this myself.

47:28
when you have harder texture foods, they actually increase the tight. For instance, if you were to take a steak and compare it against ground beef, you will be more satiated by the steak. If you are to take grilled chicken and it's a chicken breast where you have to cut and you have to chew it more readily, it will be more satiating than crock pot chicken, which is like that shredded chicken. I would do a grilled chicken breast and I would also do a creamy, but it would have a less whey protein isolate powder.

47:56
than the morning creamy. So, I would have two shakes a day, but I would have grilled chicken with that and then would have a very high volume of veggies. So, it would be like cauliflower rice. Usually, I would add like Bragg's liquid aminos to that. I would make sure that I had a lot of sodium in that last meal. I tell you this why. Because if you take a creamy and it's within a couple of hours of bed, you're going to be peeing all night. So, I made sure that I was having sufficient electrolytes on that. And really, my goal on both these protein hyperfeed days as well as the rapid fat loss days

48:22
to keep meals simple and to execute the plan on autopilot. That's really important for me because the only time I don't want to say the only time, but how I actually align my diet is not only based on my training and non-training days, but it's actually based on my work output from an actual business perspective. So, I take my non-training days on my heaviest work days, which are usually Monday, Thursday, or Friday. And so, I would know my schedule in advance and then I would plug in those protein-sparing modified fast days.

48:50
So you train on four days of the week then? No, I train five to up to six days a week, but I undulate it based off a pattern. And so I will know in advance, I have a calendar that's already preset. And then I also know not only my client check-ins, but when I've actually scheduled, if you ever noticed, Mickey, when you asked me about podcasts, I will give you very specific dates and times because I know everything. do all my calendar allocation and alignment about four weeks in advance. So I already know what days I kind of undulate.

49:17
Some weeks will be five days, some days will be six days. By the end of the fat loss phase, I went down to five days per week so that I could have five training day diets a week and two protein-sparing modified fast days per week. I would undulate those or would place those on my two heaviest work days. At that time, so this was last month, not this month, because I wrapped with the fat loss phase around October 2nd or the first week of October, I had Mondays and Thursdays were generally my protein-sparing modified fast days. Yeah, nice one. Then,

49:47
Brandon, when you're talking about training, just so everyone is clear, we're still getting 25,000 steps on those non-training days. It's just the training we're not doing in the gym. Yep, yep, yep. So what I would actually do, and just for completion, is I would still go to the gym. At the same time, I really like keeping standardized schedule, but I would walk on the treadmill, or I would do some mobility stuff, some abs, and I would just do laps like I usually would. Because honestly, I get within my 90-minute session of training,

50:16
that do five days a week, I get about 4,000 5,000 steps. Say I was to just replace that with just working another 90 minutes, which the Lord knows I don't need to work another hour and a half every day because I already work 12 hours a day. If I didn't go to the gym, I would be down 4,000 5,000 steps. I would have to get on the treadmill anyway. It's uh just a really good way for me to start my morning because the other thing with how I actually make my daily schedule

50:40
is I'm up very, very early. You know this about me. I start work at 3 a.m. every morning so I can get back to international clients, but I have a 3 to 6 a.m. work block usually. It's 3 to 6 or 3 to 5 30. And then I hit the gym right after that. So usually between the hours of 6 and 8 or 6 and 7 30, there's no one checking in. And the reason I made my schedule like that is because I used to realize that. So I still had the time allocated and booked out of my schedule. So I just, kept that momentum and I kept that consistency going because I see this is actually just advice for other people. A lot of times,

51:09
they have such a difference in their scheduling or in their lifestyle or in their approach in terms of meal timing and in terms of just how they go about their days between both the weekdays and then the weekends, as well as their training days and their non-training days. And there's just no congruency. So they really never get themselves in a consistent pattern. And I'm very big on consistency. Yeah. Now I'm the same. And I really think the body just loves routine. And the mind just loves routine and just your productivity and your focus is so much better if you're doing.

51:36
if you're getting up at around the same time, which people hate hearing that because the weekend they're like, Oh, but I want to sleep in until eight. I'm like, I sort of know you do, but it's like one of the worst things you can do anyway. Um, but I totally agree with you. Like that consistency is so important. Absolutely. So Brandon, um, did, does the protein hyperfeeding for you, does that reset things and cause because other people might look at that irritability and look at that, um, uh,

52:07
sort of how you're feeling and think maybe Brandon just needs to do maintenance calories or three days at maintenance calories, but you sort of took like a different approach actually. Yeah. I think that if I was on a very low carbohydrate diet on my training days, I would have done more refeeding strategies. That's what I would either use a refeed. I would use a flexible high day or I would use a deficit D-load, which are essentially intermittent dieting strategies that I use to manage diet fatigue. But I will say I wanted to do this in a much different manner than I had.

52:35
previously, first and foremost, I wanted to test different methods. But also, I have so much experience and so much data on myself that I generally know when I'm teeter tottering into essentially like a black hole. So, I wasn't getting there and I didn't feel that there was a necessity. But I'm not saying, I will say that when I do this again, there's going be different methods. I would like to utilize some of my previous strategies because keep in mind,

52:58
I'm refeeding what is needed. So for instance, on my training days, I was eating 3,100 calories. was eating 350 to 400 grams of carbs. I wasn't really glycogen depleted. And also, I will say from a subjective perspective and just a visual perspective, I wasn't as flat from a muscle fullness perspective as I had been on previous diets. And so that was a big difference because just as a caveat, I was able to diet between 2,500 and 2,800 calories as an average across the week. So when you actually would calculate

53:28
My rapid fat loss days at 1200 to 1400 plus the five days, five or six days that I would have at 3,100 calories, the average would be usually 2,800 calories. Now, there were some days that I really brought myself lower. would do more of those 1200 calorie days and it would come down to a little bit over 2,500 calories. But just for you guys to understand, I have a very adaptive metabolism. So, most fat loss phases that I brought to this point where my body fat was at the same level...

53:54
I would diet on around 1800 to 2000 calories. So we're looking at a difference between 500 and 1000 calories to get to the same level of leanness. So that was so alleviating of much of the biofeedback or maybe the decorance that I feel that it was advantageous to say at least. Yeah, absolutely. obviously you do fasted cardio at 6 a.m. You get up at about 3 a.m. So you just having electrolytes and water and coffee before you do that?

54:22
Oh no, so I do my fasted cardio at 4 a.m. every morning. Oh, 4 a.m. I'm I am up around 2.30 a.m. I'm on my email by 3, and I do about an hour of work, and then I go do fasted cardio around 4. Yeah, okay. No, that makes perfect sense. And then of course the training that you do at 6 is your training in the gym training. Yeah, resistance training. Absolutely. Yeah, nice one. Brandon, you mentioned obviously that whole foods have a notable, a potential difference to energy expenditure and things like that.

54:52
So vague, isn't it, when I say things like that? But are there specific strategies and foods that you utilized that you thought this may have a better metabolic advantage or have a different thermogenic effect? I've heard you talk about almonds before. Can you check me a little bit through that? Absolutely. So let's think about it like this. I'm going to leverage every single lever that I can, to be honest with you. And now this might be for many.

55:17
really digging into minutiae. I accept that and I understand that. This may not be for you, but I will tell you, I have worked with people at the highest level of physique sport, meaning at the Olympia level. If there is a way that I could manipulate a dietary variable that will not hurt them or harm them, but will only potentially benefit them, I'm going to do that. First and foremost, I utilize a lot of whole food lean protein sources. A lot of times, yes, I did use whey protein powders because it's extremely convenient, but I

55:47
In other words, or in other meals, I would use whole food protein sources because they're not only going to have a higher thermic effect, but they're also going to have the texture base. I utilize a lot of fibrous carbohydrate sources. So we're talking sweet potatoes, we're talking brown rice, we're talking oatmeal. Now, these are multifaceted benefits. So A, if it has fiber, you're not going to be able to digest every single gram of carbohydrates. The other thing that I would do is I would often turn some of my

56:15
carb sources into resistant starch forms. So, I would heat, I would cook, say, rice. It can be jasmine rice. It could be sweet potatoes. It could be a white potato. I would cook it then I would cool it because it creates a resistant starch, which will lower what's called the net metabolizable energy, meaning the energy yield that your body actually absorbs. Now, keep in mind, if you're using, say, a 7.5-ounce portion of sweet potato, which is generally around 45 grams of carbohydrates,

56:45
you're still getting 7.5 ounces. So in your mind, you don't need to think about the difference. You don't have to recalculate, just count it as 45 grams of carbohydrates, but your body may receive 30 or 35. And so it's just these little metabolic advantages. Other things that I really like to do is I'm very specific for myself and then higher level clientele with fat sources. So for instance, I'm going to utilize fat sources with either a higher thermic effect of feeding or with a fiber matrix, which needs to be excreted in feces.

57:15
really what it comes down to. A great example is there's research on the at-water value of which just means the actual combustible energy value of almonds versus almond oil versus almond butter. We see that there's a massive differentiation. There's other studies on this in peanuts, but it's not as substantial. When you look at the at-water value and what people actually metabolize or the net metabolizable energy of raw almonds – now, this isn't roasted, this isn't honey roasted, this isn't the flavored ones. Talking raw almonds,

57:43
which don't taste that great. So they're more satiating because they're less flavorful. We also see like differences in palatability will drive energy intake or decrease energy intake. Well, with that, you lose about 30 to 32 % of the calories in that because your body cannot metabolize that. However, from a physiological or psychological perspective, you still ate that 20 grams of almonds. And so it doesn't matter that you didn't absorb all 10 grams of those fat, that's actually advantageous to you. You ate the same amount of food, but you burn more calories or you excreted more calories.

58:12
those are things we can look at the same thing with MCT oil. All of that is not as satiating, I guess, because it's not a whole food. A lot of times, this is powder or oil. So, there's many different aspects that we can utilize within that. I utilize a lot of fruit that has fiber in it. So, there's many different aspects of the diet that can be used to drive up the thermic effect of feeding just like I did with that clorac funnel that I was discussing with the protein hyperfeeds. I was doing that with my proteins, carbohydrates, and fats, and I was trying to employ every lever. Now, the confusing or maybe

58:42
The area that for data-driven individuals like myself or many of the people that will probably contact me after this podcast, I can't tell you exactly what my net metabolizable energy would be. I'm telling you, I average 25 to 2800 calories. Would I be able to back calculate that and tell you exactly what that equals? No. But I will tell you, had a conversation with Dr. Erick Helms about this and you could lose a few hundred calories. You could either increase energy expenditure by a few hundred calories or you could decrease net metabolizable energy that your body absolutely absorbs.

59:09
by doing this, by switching all these levers. So, increasing protein intake. So, I'll give you another hypothetical or not a hypothetical, some research. There's a study by Weigel and colleagues where they took people and they put them on a run-in diet. And so, it was really based on like the US values of averages. So, it was 15 % protein and then they ramped them up to 30 % protein and left them at an ad-luminum diet at 30 % protein for 12 weeks. They had a spontaneous energy reduction of 441 calories.

59:37
without even trying and they lost body fat. there's many levers. doesn't only have to be from the energy expenditure. It's also we got to think about both sides of energy balance equation because they're intrinsically tied. We can increase energy expenditure like I did through energy flux, through whole food diet, through higher protein, through certain of these food sources. But we can also utilize food and food quality to drive down energy intake from an ad-libitum or spontaneous perspective.

01:00:04
Yeah, nice one. And I really liked that you qualified that people didn't have to do any sort of crazy, um, uh, sort of maths gymnastics to figure out how many calories they're really getting. Cause you just take it as face value and it's just a real bonus. Absolutely. Yeah. Nice one. So Brandon, you mentioned, um, Oh, can we just, one last thing I'd like to ask you actually is like, do you think about the window with which you eat? Like the,

01:00:33
Not a time-restricted eating window necessarily, but in your mind, you trying to eat within 12 hours or does your schedule naturally allow for something like that? I will say that just naturally, I eat within a 12-hour window just based on how I situate my schedule and that's more so based off a circadian rhythm perspective. I start eating around 5 a.m. right after I finish cardio and I eat my last meal at 5 a.m. but that's mostly because I'm in bed by 7, so I want at least two to three hours.

01:01:03
be able to have between my last meal and going to bed. But I will say from a timing perspective, this is actually something that I'm super fascinated by and I never get to talk to. So, Mickey, strap in because we're going to go down a rabbit hole. Timing is something I understand. We actually have a podcast that should be coming out with nutrient timing and we discuss all the nuances of fueling. You and I had discussed that and we haven't released that yet. But I'm going to talk meal timing, which is a different area that is often overlooked. And one of the things that I find

01:01:31
to me most advantageous is actually front loading my energy intake and shifting more calories earlier in the day. And I found that front loading food, especially my protein and carbohydrates in the first half of the day improves not only my energy levels, my appetite control, but also my daily activity output. And I say that because not only have I seen that in practice, not only have I seen that with clients, but there's a huge research base on this and I very rarely ever hear anyone talk about. So first and foremost, we have a lot of people in today's culture and

01:02:01
just the fitness world, that are really big into intermittent fasting. That's all well and good. A lot of them are proponents of breakfast skipping. But if you actually look observationally, people who eat breakfast consistently tend to be leaner and more successful at long-term weight maintenance than those who skip it. And the greatest example of that are those in the National Weight Control Registry. As 80 % of them report eating breakfast each day. Then if we go to actually randomized control trials, so these are actually studies that are very well controlled.

01:02:29
their ear is great research by, I believe it's Dr. James Bett and he's at the University of Bath. And he really digs into the difference between breakfast skipping and breakfast eating. And so he has at least two studies. I know there's a lean individual study and an obese participant study. And what they did was they looked at groups who ate breakfast versus those who skipped it. And the breakfast group had a good portion of their calories earlier in the day. I believe they had a

01:02:52
pretty high calorie loaded breakfast. was like 700 or more calories. They spontaneously increased their physical activity throughout the day, especially in the morning. And on average, they burned around 440 more calories per day than those in the breakfast skipping group. So now we see it's not just about energy intake. It's also the energy expenditure that get from that. Now, mind you, this was from non-exercise activities. This was just normal movement. This was not exercise. So even though the non-breakfast group technically saved calories by skipping a meal,

01:03:18
their bodies actually compensated by moving less, which lowered their total daily energy expenditure. And I'll say that I have a lot of individuals that come to me that they have suffered with under-fueling early in the day, and then they're subconsciously slowing down later. Now, where I think this area of research is most fascinating, and this is an area that I think that a lot of people have overlooked except one individual, which I'll give them a shout out about this, is we have research on chrono-nutrition, which is something I'm fascinated by, but I understand that this is

01:03:46
really getting into the minutiae for many people. I very rarely discuss it, but there is a researcher that's done a lot of work on this and her name's Dr. Daniella Jakubowicz. And she does a lot in the field of chrono nutrition. And then she looks at how meal timing affects metabolic health as well as like um body indices and body composition. And one of her best studies, she took overweight and obese women and gave them the identical 1400 calorie weight loss diet. And in one group, they consumed a large 700 calorie breakfast, while the other group

01:04:15
did a backloading and they did a 700 calorie dinner. Despite both diets being of identical calories and macros, the uh breakfast heavy, so the big breakfast eaters, lost significantly more weight and body fat. They saw greater improvements in insulin sensitivity and triglycerides and they reported lower hunger and higher satiety scores throughout the day. She's also shown in the same type of model where she has front-loaded calories with high protein and high carb breakfasts that women that have done that have seen

01:04:44
and experience a greater suppression of ghrelin, which is our primary hunger hormone, not only during the fallow's phase, but actually for six months in the post-diet period. So that's a huge finding because one of the biggest challenges post-diet is the rebound in hunger. And that's usually due to a skewing of appetite and satiety hormones. So if we can make an intervention where you use the same amount of calories, we bring you back up to maintenance. But we're able to time things in a manner where it's able to blunt that response. That is giving you a behavioral edge that most people overlook.

01:05:13
Now, there's more recent data that has actually looked at subjective hunger and appetite related benefits of front loading your calories. So, a few years ago, I had on uh Danny Blenin, who's the host of Sigma Nutrition. And we discussed in depth coronal nutrition and he is a wealth of knowledge on that. And that's who I want to give a HAP tip to. But he reviewed with me a study and I don't remember the actual title of the study, but I do know that Alan Flanagan, who is his co-host on Sigma Nutrition, was actually an author on the study.

01:05:41
I want to say that the real author was Ruddick Collins, but I could be mistaken. In that study, they compared morning loaded versus evening loaded calorie distribution and found similar weight loss outcomes. But the morning loaded group reported significantly lower appetite, reduced the desire to eat and fewer food preoccupations throughout the day. really, a lot of times when we look at outcome data, and I am a very body composition focused individual, but a lot of times people are only looking at the weight loss outcomes. For me, as a coach,

01:06:10
The subjective appetite and the behavioral things are everything because what you may pick up in a six, eight, 10, 12 week study may not be everything when it comes to long-term outcomes. And I'll be honest with you, the average client I work with works with me for over 12 months. So I can't just be concerned what happened in a fat loss phase of six to 12 weeks. So when it really comes down to it, if someone is experiencing lower hunger, their adherence is higher and adherence is everything. So overall, when it comes to like meal timing or calorie timing, I'm a big advocate if it's possible for that individual.

01:06:40
to shift things earlier in the day because they're going to be fueled earlier, which is going to help maintain activity, regulate hunger, it helps stabilize mood and blood sugar levels usually, and it can enhance metabolic flexibility. This is not to say that late night eating is bad, but it is that front-loading calories set you up for better decision-making and higher daily energy expenditure later on in the day. The other thing is, I really try to look at it from just a logical standpoint. If you think about it like this, if you get up early in the morning and you decide to skip a meal,

01:07:10
That is when you're going to be hungry and you're going to go the longest amount of time with being hungry in the day. Whereas at night, a lot of people like to backload their meals and there's this common theme or a popular approach that a lot of people take in the States where they macro hoard. They hoard their macros for the end of the day. I've always thought about it. You're filling yourself up so much that you're actually impairing your sleep quality first. Second of all, say that you eat two hours before bed. Well, great. You're full for the two hours before you go to bed. But if you had taken those same calories and you actually

01:07:40
Instead of backloading them at the end of the day, you front loaded them. You could have went four or five, six hours that you were actually awake in a fully fueled and well fed and full state. Yeah, no, I a hundred percent agree with that. And I feel like people don't trust their appetite enough because they've never really leaned into appetite signals to trust that they're not going to be hungry in the evening time because they're not joining the dots that they're under fueling across the day. And in fact, I've got a post that I'm just about to put up that, you know, the

01:08:09
a very common phrase that people use all the time now is food noise. And you would never hear that even 18 months ago. People never talked about food noise. I'd never really heard the term. And what I think a lot of people are attributing to food noise, it's actually just hunger. Like they're not eating enough. And so my post is like, sit down to a steak and two eggs and then test whether or not you actually have food noise. So I think that it's a very similar thing. people leave.

01:08:37
a lot of the calories to later in the day, one, because they don't trust that they're not going to be hungry and they're not going to overeat. well, actually that's it. That's it. They're not trusting that they're not going to eat it in a time. they're just going to hold off until then. I think the other issue is that we know that ghrelin has a hunger hormone as entrained by your actual meal schedule, your meal timing, and then also the essentially how much you eat at each meal. for instance, there's a lot of people that have essentially entrained themselves into being snackers, meaning

01:09:07
that they have like that in the States, we call it a 230 feeling where they need to go get a Snickers at 230. Physiologically, there's nothing in your body that needed a Snickers at 230, especially if you're like the average person in the States that's gaining 0.5 to one kilogram per year or 1.1 to 2.2 pounds. think the latest statistics with the US is that every year adults in the States are gaining 1.8 pounds per year. So, they're in a surplus to say the least, but it's that they've been trained their body not knowing that by always going to

01:09:36
snack machine or going to the kitchen or going to the fridge at 2 30, they're just reinforcing and self-perpetuating that feeling. So they think they're hungry because they need food. No, you're hungry and you think you need food because you always give yourself food. And now your body has developed and been entrained to release that hunger hormone because all ghrelin is besides being a hunger hormone is a meal, um essentially a meal initiating hormone. Yeah, I 100 % agree. it's

01:10:06
And I talked to people who come into my programs and they're like, but what do I snack on? I'm like, you literally, you just have to white knuckle it probably for a couple of weeks, but your body will adapt and you will stop feeling hungry. And even if people go into a meeting at 10 30, where they might normally have a snack, but were unable to, but they may, and you'll know this as well, Brandon, they may feel that initial hunger of, you know, I'm about to have my 10 30 snack, but give yourself 15, 20 minutes, Greenland comes down and you can actually get through a new

01:10:35
who likely didn't eat in the first place. Absolutely. So two things, just practical things to go off of that. First and foremost, there's a lot of people who have the experience of actually utilizing an intermittent fasting or a time-restricted eating technique where they've skipped breakfast. And often, and I've had many clients that have told me this, it was tough for the first two or three weeks. And then you re-entrain yourself based on your actual new meal pattern or your new eating schedule. So that's the first thing. If you are someone that's always feeling a constant hunger during that time,

01:11:04
Realize that it's short-term and it's temporary, just like you essentially ingrain that into your physiology. can detrain that essentially. The secondary thing is that a really good activity that I like to have clients do, especially if it's within their schedule, they work from home or something of that sort, is actually either pair activity or exercise at that time that they usually feel hunger. Because if you actually look in the data on appetite or on exercise and its effects on appetite, most exercise will actually have a hunger blunting effect. This could be a walk.

01:11:33
could be a cardio session. This can be a resistance training. Sometimes I'll just have clients do what I refer to or what's referred to as exercise snacks. This could be as simple as five to 10 minutes of some type of activity, push-ups, wall sits, air squats. Could be anything of that sort. Some pull-ups like, Mickey, you're always doing pull-ups in your house. So, a little thing like that. Not only is it going to have a catecholamine release, so we're going to have epinephrine and norepinephrine or adrenaline and noreadrenaline wherever you're from, that is going to have a hunger blunting effect, but also it's a nice little distraction. And it actually

01:12:03
lets you do something like the it's quote unquote exercise snack rather than a calorie laden snack. So you're able to replace an activity that has actually been derailing you and taking you away from your body composition, your fat loss, your performance goals and replace it with something that brings it brings you closer to them. No, I love it, Brandon. Now I need to be mindful of your time. So I've got my last question really comes to how do you get yourself out of your fat loss phase? So what is your

01:12:34
uh What is your protocol or process for coming back into within maintenance? you dropped your energy expenditure and keep your calories the same? Have you lifted your calories? us through it. So first and foremost, I do what I refer to as a metabolic restoration phase. I'm actually, you've inspired this, Mickey. I'm going to make a post on it tomorrow. I'm going to commit myself to that. So October 31st, something will be going out. uh Well, a metabolic restoration phase is essentially a phase in which I'm trying to reverse the metabolic adaptations that were induced through.

01:13:02
dieting it through being in a deficit. So first and foremost, my first priority is increasing energy availability. We see that that is the number one knockdown on all accesses, but especially from a leptin signaling perspective, which really creates the entire cascade of metabolic ramifications and metabolic adaptations. So the first thing I did was I increased my calories. Now, how I do that is based off all the data that I have. So I have multi-component or multivariable data that I'm looking at. First and foremost,

01:13:32
I know what is generally my maintenance calorie intake at my normal level activity. I know what my maintenance calorie intake is at certain different body weights over time historically. And then I also have my back calculated averages based off my rate of loss throughout the phase. And I really like to particularly look at the last four weeks. Now, I was only in a slight deficit. Now, keep in mind the last four weeks of my fat loss phase, generally I was averaging around 2,800 calories. And usually my maintenance is around 34 to 3,500 calories when I'm

01:14:02
fully fed and on backup at a higher weight. Now, we have to realize that metabolic adaptation has multiple components. It is not only the decrease that you lose from actual loss in body mass. So, you're a lighter human being, you're to have a lower resting metabolic rate, you're eating less food, you have a lower thermic effect of eating. Your body has increased efficiency, especially from mitochondrial level. So, you have less energy output from an exercise activity thermogenesis perspective. And usually, you would have a substantial reduction in need. Why offset that substantial reduction in need?

01:14:31
because I did so much activity. So I would say at least three out of four of the components of total daily energy expenditure are lower just because I'm lighter, leaner, and I have less body fat and less body mass. There's another component, which is the adaptive component, which is beyond what I lost from a body weight and a body fat perspective, there is some type of adaptive component. And generally, that is in the realm between 5 to 15%. Now, based on how my biofeedback looked, how this wasn't like a very severe type of dietary approach,

01:14:59
I could go in between that, but generally, I'm really looking at that person. When I do this for a client, at that person's physiology, how far away from their starting point are they and how below their lower intervention point, which is from John Spiegel's dual intervention model, how lower, like what people would call their body fat set point. Well, that physiologically doesn't make sense because there isn't just one set point that's only governed by physiology. We also have to think about environment and habits and behaviors and training.

01:15:26
John Speakman's model really encompasses all of that, but we essentially have a upper intervention point and a lower intervention point. How much lower below that did they get or did they even get there? So, if they're lifestyle lean, they're not below their lower intervention point. If they're not feeling a lot of physiological pushback, I did specifically in the decrements to my sleep. Anytime I get below 8 % body fat, my sleep goes to shit and I can have the most dialed-in routine. I can have your blue blockers. I have blackout curtains. I'll have...

01:15:54
Supplementation like magnesium and melatonin and glycine, it doesn't matter. Once I get below a certain amount of body fat percentage, I have a lot of disruptions to my sleep. So, I knew I was below that lower intervention point, to say the least. So, I bumped up my calories. The first week, I believe I went right up like 550 calories. So, I was very close to what would be my proposed maintenance. And from there, I'm really looking at body weight trends, biofeedback markers, my sleep getting increased, which it's gotten better. You know mean? I'm only about three weeks out of the diet.

01:16:22
It hasn't been that long a period of time, but I'm also looking visually. And the other thing is how are my performance markers looking in terms of the gym? Because I will say that performance was maintained very well until the last four weeks of that deficit. So, I got through 12 weeks of that fat loss phase in really good shape. And towards that latter portion, that last four weeks, I will say that's probably from a combination of really poor sleep, first and foremost, having a lot of sleep loss. I was moving at that time, so there was lot of added stress and added responsibilities and tasks that I had to take on my day.

01:16:52
And so was just a lot of mental load and strain. And then in addition to that, I had lost so much body fat that my levers changed. So for instance, if I would try to do a pressing motion, now I lost fat off my back and also my chest. So now every single movement I was doing, especially from a chest pressing perspective, it's a longer range of motion. So I say I had maintained my same weights in the gym, the same amount of reps, I'd actually be technically stronger because the actual distance that I was covering would be longer.

01:17:20
So, I lost strength. Now, I'm just getting back to about three weeks out or three weeks post. I'm back to where I was prior to that four weeks. So, I'm back to where I was at the 12-week values. So, now, it's just about tracking biometrics. have lab work coming up in about six weeks. So, I'll usually get lab work between eight and 10 weeks. I couldn't get it any sooner than 10 weeks. Then, I look at all parameters from hormone perspective like my sex hormones, my thyroid hormones. I also look at other indices like blood work.

01:17:47
in terms of my actual metabolic markers. I'm someone that has very, very good metabolic health. Besides my blood lipids, I'm always having to keep a very, very and I've mentioned this to you. I keep my saturated fats dialed in below 7 % because over 10%, I see very harmful effects to my lipid profile. That's my father had hypercholesterolemia. Everyone in my family has high blood lipids. I'm making sure I'm not in that category because I would rather – it's not I'm not against statins or anything of that sort. I would rather be able to manage it.

01:18:17
nutritionally and through natural supplementation until that's a necessity. right now, I've been able to keep it very well under control. I have very low triglycerides. We're talking like I'm like a 46 or like a 44. My fasting insulin last time it was a three and that was fully fed. Usually in a dieting phase, it's two. like I'm usually in prime metabolic health, but I still like tracking those parameters. think that's important. No, I totally agree. And so body weight, how much did you lose, I lost about 10 or 11 pounds when it came down to the ultimate. I have to

01:18:45
I don't lose a lot during these phases. Yeah. But you don't have a lot to lose. No. And you know the other thing is that this approach, I didn't go as flat as usual. So I didn't lose a lot of glycogen like we usually talk about in our podcast that we did on maintenance. You could float three to five pounds of glycogen. Well, if I was keeping every day at 350 or 400 grams of carbohydrates, I wasn't completely carb depleted and I didn't look completely flat. There are times like my last photo shoot prep that I did last summer, I was stringy as could be.

01:19:13
And when I reloaded, I actually did a very, and we had discussed this on your show last summer, I did a loading protocol for carbohydrates where it was between a thousand to 1200 carbs per day for two days. And so within that, I repleted about 4.5 to five pounds of just glycogen. I wasn't gaining body fat during that time, but this year I didn't even have to do that. Yeah. And so has your body weight maintained where you would want it to be, Brandon? My body weight's come about a pound and a half.

01:19:42
that's just been glycogen restoration. I will post a photo tomorrow so you can see that I'm like three weeks post-IIT. It's either three or four weeks post-IIT. I will post a picture. I'm still in very lean condition, but I feel much better. I'm probably like a pound or two above. Technically, I'm 1.5 pounds above, but it's floating day to day. We know that scale weight. It's not consistent even for men day to day.

01:20:04
So I'm really between like one to two pounds every day. It's a calculated average when I look at my spreadsheets at 1.5 pounds. And that's been in the course of three weeks. I will slowly titrate it up, but I'm not someone that I'm lean, but not so lean. Like I've been at points previously. I've been at 4.7 % body fat on Dexha where it was like, I got to gain like five to 10 pounds in the next couple of weeks, or I'm going to feel like death for forever. that's not the case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, nice one. Last question, Brandon. What's your favorite food? Wow.

01:20:33
I have answers for everything, but I don't know if I can answer that. think, I will tell you this. I think my favorite food now in this stage of my life are chicken cutlets. I know that's an odd thing. I'm a very big fan of chicken cutlets. At one time in my life, and this is actually something that I gave up, I think we had this discussion one time. I'm not a moderator. I am a map senior. And so my favorite food always was pizza. And in 2015, going into 2016, a very close friend of mine who was in bodybuilding with me, he always used to see I would go off the rails.

01:21:03
Like every weekend when I wasn't competing, I would have a whole pizza. And it was like, at that time, cheat meals were supposed to stoke your metabolic furnace and like all this BS that now I look back and I'm like, dude, you studied physiology. Like, what were you thinking? Anyway, so he did a bet and he said, listen, Brendan, can you go the full year of 2016 without a pizza? And I said, yes. If you bet me to do anything or you, or I give you my word, I'm to do something. I will not break it come hell or high water. So I went the full year and I never ate a pizza again. Now recently,

01:21:31
Just within the last couple of weeks, Jane has been into – you know my girlfriend, Jane, she loves to do these protein recipes, these baked goods. She does protein bread and protein muffins and protein brownies, which are great. I love those things. Well, she wants to make – she wanted to make a protein-based pizza. So, we just recently did that twice. We did it here at our home and then we went and visited her – basically the in-laws in Georgia.

01:21:56
and we made it for them. It's a protein base. Instead of doing cauliflower as the base, it's actually made out of ground chicken or ground turkey. Honestly, it was phenomenal. But I hadn't had an actual pizza. Now, this is not a technical pizza. It's not flour, I wouldn't want the flour and the gluten and all that kind of stuff. But it was phenomenal. I would say some derivations of that. I'm also a massive steak fan, but that's a once a year occasion. If you remember, you asked me if you could send me meat and I was like, listen, I don't eat any red meat because

01:22:25
I can't cost my blood work on that. So I'm not a huge foodie, I'll be honest with you. But what I really do like, to be honest with you, the greatest thing that I like about dinners or going out to eat, it's not about the food itself, it's about the communal bond. think that a lot of people will see us and they say, oh, these are these nutrition-focused, these health-focused individuals. If you really look at it, if you look at the longevity indices, we see, we always talk about the physical ones, grip strength. We talk about lower body leg strength. And then we also talk about walking speed.

01:22:54
One of the greatest indices of longevity is a sense of purpose. So we saw you that that actually is correlated with your profession. So are you doing something that you're truly passionate about that gives you a driving sense of purpose? And we also see correlated to that, that when people retire and they don't have that sense of purpose, they generally die quicker. The second component of that, which is more from a total health perspective, so we're talking mental, emotional, physical and spiritual, is close connections, a sense of relatability.

01:23:24
sense of communal bond with someone. That doesn't mean that you have to have all these friends and all these associates. Probably if you have too many associates, you don't have enough close friends. You need people that you can deeply engage with and have close ties with. We are communal and tribal beings. So, the biggest thing for me is those dinners are never about the food. It's about breaking bread with people I love and really having deeply engaging conversations with them. So, that is the biggest thing. It doesn't matter what restaurant it is. It doesn't matter. It's not about my favorite food. It's like, what can I bring to this table in terms of

01:23:54
engaging conversations and really getting to know that person or a side of that person that I've never seen. And that's what that's all about for me. Yeah. Oh, I love it, Brandon. As always, I love this because I listen to your podcast every week as my educational content. appreciate that. I do a bit more. I like the protein hyper feeds and actually just what you do. You're such a wealth of information and you so willingly share it. So thank you so much. People should know where to find you by now, but let them know.

01:24:23
And then we can wrap this up and you can go and have dinner. it's absolutely. Well, Mickey, first and foremost, I genuinely want to thank you. You reached out about this and it was kind of odd for me to be honest with you because this was talking about what I do. And I'm so used to sharing in a public platform or on these long form content in terms of podcasts, what I do with clients or just educational topics that over the last couple of years, I kind of seared away from sharing my own personal anecdote because I never wanted to be clouded by bias. But at the same time, I think that I hope

01:24:52
For those in the audience, it's helpful to see a normal person that's running a business that's working 70 hours a week that has sick family members and a family that he's trying to manage and traveling back and forth across the country trying to manage homes. I have a real life. Yes, I'm a fitness professional. I have certain advantages, but I have time constraints. I have certain goals. I have challenges just like you guys do, but where there's a will, there's a way. And I'm always trying to be a student. So just like I have a lot of principles that I preach and I speak about.

01:25:20
I'm always experimenting. It's a Bruce Lee mentality. Take what's useful and discard what's useless. But if you guys want to learn anything else and you'll hear less about my experience, but more about the evidence, the research, as well as my in the trenches experience with the many clients that I've worked with, you guys can find me at BradenDacruzUnderscore. then also the best place to find me really it's my strong suit is long form content is the Chasing Clarity Health and Fitness podcast. But Mickey, I have the utmost respect for you and I truly appreciate you having me on because

01:25:49
It means a lot to be able to just tell what I'm doing. The fact that you had an interest is honestly uh an honest honor for me. Thank you, Brandon. Well, I can't wait to release this, and I'll probably catch you online later on today. Sounds good. Peace. See you later.

01:26:17
Alrighty, hopefully you enjoyed that and I really loved bringing it to you. So great um to have again chat with Brandon. He's just one of my faves really. And next week on the podcast, I speak to Dr. Liz Alshula, an integrative doctor about people thriving post breast cancer. This is such an interesting conversation. I think you're really gonna love it. That is next week. Until then though, you can find me

01:26:45
over on X, Instagram and threads @mikkiwilliden, Facebook @mikkiwillidenNutrition or head to my website, mikkiwilliden.com, book a one-on-one call with me. All right team, have the best week. See you later.