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Brian Keane discusses How to Get into Your Best Shape with Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
Brian Keane is a personal trainer, nutritionist, best-selling author, and the host of the Brian Keane Podcast, the #1 health and fitness podcast in the United Kingdom. His website is BrianKeaneFitness.com. His books are The Fitness Mindset, Rewire Your Mindset, and The Keane Edge. He also hosts a very popular podcast, the BKF podcast.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates. And to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com. Thanks for joining me. And let’s jump into the podcast. Hello, Rational Wellness Podcasters.
Today, we’ll be having a conversation with Brian Keene about how to get into the best shape of your life and how to be your healthiest. Brian Keene is a entrepreneur, personal trainer, nutritionist, best selling author, and host of the Brian Keene podcast, the number one health and fitness podcast in Ireland and England. Brian, thank you so much for joining us today.
Brian: Ben, thank you so much for having me on. I’m really looking forward to chatting.
Dr. Weitz: Good, good, So what do you think would be a good way to start? I was thinking maybe you could tell us about, what if you’re working with a client who’s basically sedentary and overweight? How would you approach their, let’s start with exercise recommendations? When it comes to or do you tell him to just take Ozempic and forget about everything?
Brian: I don’t go down that route and it’s funny, I did a podcast on my show with Johan Hari, who’s a three times New York Times bestselling author. He wrote Lost Connections, a great book around anxiety and depression, but his new book is talking about Ozempic and we had a very black, white and gray conversation on there because he takes it based on his history and as a fitness professional and as a nutritionist. I’m not completely anti drugs when it comes to there are certain cases where all risk mortality goes up if somebody’s weight is and they might need something to get them over the start line or to the start line. But I think there are very much a [00:02:00] last case results. There’s so much you can do with either your exercise options or your nutrition or a combination of both, and then your sleep and your stress that you can control and should always look at that. Prevention first, you know this from functional medicine, everything.
Dr. Weitz: 100 percent and be honest with you, even if you were going to use Ozembic as a tool, if you don’t have those other building blocks in place, the diet, the exercise, the stress control, sleep, all those things, then first of all, even if you do lose weight with Ozembic, you’re just going to gain it right back, unless you plan to take it for the rest of your life. And there’s too many side effects for that, in my opinion.
Brian: 100%. And it’s really important when you think about someone who’s starting, who’s overweight, potentially incidentary to start with that. One of the mistakes I see most often, and I’m sure you see this as well, Ben, is people making too many changes too soon. And exercise is a really good example of this. [00:03:00] If you are not working out or moving a lot, you don’t actually have to do an awful lot of exercise to elicit some physical positive benefits. I. e. if you stay eating the exact same and you start going for a half an hour walk at lunchtime, all other things equal, you’ll potentially be burning more calories, which could kickstart that weight loss journey.
And then if you’re feeling good, it might improve your sleep, which could help with balancing the hormones. It can help with things like your ghrelin, your leptin, things you’ve talked about on the podcast when it comes to hunger and satiety, making sure that you’re noshed. You’re feeling full after meals, which obviously comes down to your food choices, in which we can get into as well, but your feeling of just overall wellness.
And what happens with a lot of people that I’ve worked with in the past who are in that bracket is they don’t know where to start, or they’ve done several diets or several exercise programs, made too many changes too soon. couldn’t sustain it because they felt terrible or they were hungry all the [00:04:00] time, or they felt sore and then fell back off track and then went back to their normal routine.
And in some cases they ended up in a worse position than when they started. So I would say with your exercise choice, doing more than what you’re doing now is better and is the best way to approach things. You don’t have to join a gym and go six days a week. You definitely don’t need to do that, but go for a walk for half an hour at lunchtime, and then maybe increase that to 45 minutes over the next couple of weeks.
And the same with nutrition. Something I will do with my overweight, and I’ve worked with clinically obese people in the past in my one to one programs, and You can’t change someone’s nutrition and overhaul it at once and for them to stick with it because generally there’s bad food behaviors. There’s been poor habit formation around food and the way that they potentially might emotionally eat or use food to soothe in a lot of cases.
It can happen with people that go, not everyone, there’s genetic components and lifestyle components and just the food system, et cetera. But in a lot of cases with the people I’ve worked with, there’s an emotional underlying issue as well. When it comes to, I feel bad. I go to [00:05:00] food, I feel stressed, I turn to food.
And you need to look at that and break it down into smaller component parts. So one thing I would say here, if you’re in that starting point, is look at one meal, pick a meal, normally breakfast, it’s the low hanging fruit, you normally feel your best when you wake up in the morning, or you should at least, and you go, right, I’m going to make a healthier breakfast.
Breakfast food choice, whether that’s a bowl of oatmeal in the morning, or some scrambled eggs, or a smoothie that has loads of greens and potentially some fruits if you want to keep your sugars in and then some fats to balance it out so your blood sugars don’t spike, and then eat everything else as normal. Your normal lunch should be your normal dinner, your normal snacks. Just change that one meal and you’ll start to see a positive change over time. And then look at your lunch and then over the next six, several weeks, keep everything else the same, put your breakfast and lunch are going to be considerably higher nutrient quality and better food quality than you’d been making prior.
And then look at your dinner and then look at your snacks. And over the space of three, four or five, six months, you might’ve overhauled your entire nutritional plan and potentially your exercise regimen. And that’s something you’re going to be able to stick to because you didn’t make all the changes too soon.[00:06:00]
Dr. Weitz: You mentioned snacks. I guess we’ll go back and forth between nutrition and exercise. I was thinking we would cover exercise first and then nutrition, but snacks is an interesting, one because I’ve been involved in health and fitness and giving people nutritional advice for, 35 plus years and competed as a bodybuilder way back in the 80s. And I remember when I first got into, this, we would tell everybody, you absolutely have to eat breakfast. You’ve got to start your day off with some healthy food. And then you’ve got to eat every 3 or 4 hours during the day. You’ve got to have a meal or a snack to keep a steady blood sugar. And over the last 10, 15 years, it’s become much more popular not to snack, to skip meals, to do what we call intermittent fasting, and a lot of people do that by skipping breakfast, and it’s a, it’s kind of going [00:07:00] back and forth right now, but I think it’s kind of interesting how we’ve gone from people skipping breakfast, eating a big dinner, to going to sleep, gaining weight, and then getting people to eat breakfast. And now it’s become very popular to skip breakfast. So where do you stand on intermittent fasting and, also, having snacks?
Brian: It’s such a great question, Ben, because when you think about nutrition, something that I try and educate my audience on is it’s impossible to take black and white in a topic that’s gray. And what I mean by that is different nutritional protocols work for different people and a better way to look at nutrition and a better question isn’t, should I intermittent fast? Because that’s what everyone should be doing. Or should I be eating vegan or carnivore or paleo or insert, ketogenic diet here.
It’s thinking about nutrition, like square pegs into square holes. And there’s a [00:08:00] nutritional protocol out there that will work really well for you, but you might have to experiment with it. And I get it because I wish as a nutritionist, and I’m sure it’s the same with you, Ben, that you could just say to everybody, eat this way, train this way, and you’ll get amazing results because that’s not the truth.
The truth is you have to experiment with exercise. I’m a firm believer in, unless you’re working to an extreme goal, a marathon, a triathlon, a bodybuilding show, you have to find an exercise regimen that you enjoy, like something I’ve, recommended to clients in the past is try and find exercise that feels like play to You if you like playing five a side basketball, or you like to go to run for running sessions to de stress, or you like to cycle or hike, that’s what you should base your foundation of your exercise regimen around because that won’t feel like exercise to you. It’s going to feel like play to you.
It’s going to be something that you enjoy. Food can be very similar to that. You have to first ask, well, what can I stick to over the longterm? Now I do intermittent fasting. I’m a big fan of it. It suits my schedule for me. I get up in the [00:09:00] morning. I like to train fasted. I like to kind of keep my brain clear so I can do my creative work in the morning.
And then I’ll have my first meal, after a cup of coffee, several hours after I’ve gotten up, I used to bodybuild and I competed in bodybuilding for years as well. And I did the six meals a day, six small meals a day. And that worked really well for me at the time as because that was my schedule and my lifetime at the time.
It was all about building muscle, losing body fat, getting ready for stage and getting ready for shoots and things along those lines. So at different stages of your life, different nutrition protocols may or may not work for you. I’m a little bit of a guinea pig when it comes to, I’ve tried all of them.
I’ve done carnivore, I’ve done vegan, I’ve done keto, I’ve done fasting, I’ve done multi day fast, I’ve done the bodybuilding plan. Because I like to see when I’m working with clients, look, this is probably how you’re going to feel. Now, everyone has different starting points and there’s terms like metabolic, flexibility that are important to know that if you’re burning carbohydrates or burning fat as your primary fuel source, your starting point is going to matter a great deal.
So somebody like me [00:10:00] who was relatively lean starting intermittent fasting didn’t really find it that difficult where someone who’s been eating sugary cereals all their life for breakfast and is riding a sugar rollercoaster all day is really going to struggle with intermittent fasting in the beginning because you’re, burning glucose, you’re burning glycogen, you’re burning carbohydrates as your only fuel source.
Your body doesn’t know how to burn dietary fat or the fat stored in your body in some cases, whereas someone relatively lean whose body does know how to do that isn’t going to struggle. So there’s pros and cons to every diet. It’s ultimately about finding, okay, I like the sound of that. That sounds good.
I’m going to experiment with it for a few weeks. You might need professional help, somebody that can help coach you through it. And that’s okay too. We all need coaches in different areas of our life. And then you decide, actually I like this. I can stick to this. I’m getting the results I want. I’m going to continue with it because sustainability and longevity at the end of the day is what it’s all about when it comes to nutrition and exercise.
Dr. Weitz: So let’s go back to the exercise portion. Is weight training or cardio more important?
Brian: I, when people ask me about weight training and cardio, about being more important, I always say, what’s more important to live, your brain or your heart? And the answer is, both because they serve different purposes. And weight training, I’m biased towards weight training and strength training because of all the benefits that you get. One, it increases your metabolic rate, which is probably the most important thing. Something that people don’t understand is they’ll do cardio when they’re trying to lose weight or lose body fat. And on paper it makes sense. Cardio doesn’t burn body fat. Cardio burns calories and burning calories can support a caloric deficit, which can support your body’s ability to tap into fat stores and use them for fuel. So people will think, Oh, I’ll go do 40 minutes on a cross trainer, or I’ll go walk for half an hour on a treadmill.
That’s going to work great for my fat loss. And in some cases it can. What strength training does and what lifting weights does is it increases your metabolic rates so that you burn more [00:12:00] calories while you’re resting. It’s the calorie burning fat loss, equivalent of making money while you sleep. So I’m very biased towards that when somebody is looking to improve their body composition, but weight training and strength training.
Also, if you think about yourself in 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, I’m in my mid thirties. Now I want to be able to walk up and down stairs when I’m 70, 80, I want to be able to move around and not break a hip. Strength training improves that. and increases your body’s ability to be stronger and adapt with that force as you get older and that bone density.
So I love that. Cardiovascular activity then is great for endorphin release. You’ll hear a lot of people saying runners high or cyclers high or swimmers high. Cardio is really good for that so you could feel better doing it. You can also burn more calories if you have a weight loss goal. It can also reduce potentially in some cases your risk of certain, diseases and illnesses. Again, mostly down to improvement of blood flow and reduction in body fat, et cetera. So I like [00:13:00] both. It’s very much a case of if you ask me what’s the best, I would say do a combination. I would say do some cardio, do a little bit of weight training and mix and match.
Dr. Weitz: And as far as cardio, we have long term steady state. What, I guess technically is term zone two training. And then we have higher intensity cardio where you really get your heart rate up and you get out of breath. do you recommend both of these? Do you?
Brian: It depends on the starting point of the individual because they serve kind and slightly different purposes. So I do a lot of my, and my profession is based around body composition, people, weight loss. fat loss, toning up, building muscle. So getting people into physical shape. When you put that lens and put it through that lens, your high intensity interval training is going to be better for those looking to preserve muscle because it’s shorter, it’s higher intensity, it’s not going to take as long.
So it means you can prioritize other things like your weight training. but it’s also been shown in the research and the evidence that it’s preserves muscle better than low [00:14:00] intensity, steady state cardio, all other things equal. Whereas low intensity, steady state, like your 20 minutes, 30 minutes, 40 minutes on a cross trainer is your zone two.
It can be really good if your calories are quite low and your energy levels are quite low. The downside of HIIT training is if you’re in a calorie deficit or your calories are quite low, you might not have the fuel. to be able to keep that intensity high during the session, especially if your carbohydrates are low, because you tend to find that high intensity interval training is a lot more glycotic.
It’s going to be a lot more carbohydrate based, whereas your low intensity steady state, your zone two, it’s a little bit more and potentially can, be in that fat burning zone if your calories are controlled and they’re in that deficit. So that’s where people mix and match it for body composition. I think it’s very much a case of what do you prefer and what can you stick to.
I personally do long distance running and I’ve done ultra marathons and things along those lines. I don’t enjoy it. I’m built for speed and I’m built for short bursts and I love HIIT workouts. I love being able to just, I’m in a hotel room, I’ve got 20 minutes and I’m just going to do [00:15:00] 10 exercises, one minute on each one, two rounds and just go straight through, work up a sweat and I’m done in 20 minutes. I don’t want to go walking on a treadmill for an hour in the morning if I’m busy and have to speak at a conference or whatever it is. So there’s an element of what you enjoy, what fits into your lifestyle. But knowing that there’s pros and cons to both, depending on your nutrition, depending on your starting point, and if you have any preexisting injuries. Obviously, if you have a knee injury, you’re going to be very limited with certain movements for high intensity where you might be fine on a cross trainer. So you have to take all of these things into consideration.
Dr. Weitz: Sure. Absolutely. If you’ve got a knee injury, you’re likely not going to be able to do squats or burpees or lunges or things like that some people combine their cardio with their weight training, as you were just mentioning, either doing body weight or relatively lightweight going from set exercise to exercise, keeping the heart rate up. what do you think are the benefits of doing, let’s say you have an hour. Would you be better off doing an hour of [00:16:00] higher intensity weight training where you do a set of something, do something else, maybe a burpee, a set of burpees, or maybe just go from one weight training exercise to the other, or is it better to do like a half an hour of concentrated weight training trying to lift as much weight as possible and then doing 30 minutes of cardio?
Brian: Again, it would be goal dependent. So if you’re talking someone who just wants to get stronger or someone who just wants to build muscle, your hypertrophy or strength ranges, you’re going to be better doing something that’s very specifically optimized to that. You’re 30 minutes spent on concentrated training. If you just want to feel better, you want to get your heart rate up. You just want to look better. You want to be fitter, a little bit stronger, and just move better. Then your circuit training can be. Amazing there. We are going and picking maybe five, six moves, doing 10, 12 reps on each one and doing it in a circuit that can be a very effective way to training based on a specific goal of the individual.
Dr. Weitz: should it cardio, is it better to do [00:17:00] cardio when you’re fasted? Is it better if you’re doing cardio and weight training, do you want to do the cardio before after the weight training, before, maybe it’s going to warm you up, but afterwards, maybe you’ve depleted the glycogen from the weight training.
Brian: Great. Another great question because there’s a few angles I could come at this from Ben. I had a video go quite viral recently about. And it was in that order about do your cardio vascular activity after you’ve weight trained. And when you’re looking at things like fasted cardio, and I’m an evidence backed coach, so I use the evidence to research because it’s very difficult.
Otherwise I’m just offering opinions, which isn’t really helpful for anyone unless I say this is my opinion. This is what’s worked for me. When you look at the research, things like fasted cardio and overall cardio time is what’s the most important. So whether you do it fasted, 20 minutes in the morning or 20 minutes. 5 times spaced over the day or 20 minutes at the end of a workout. All other things equal, the results will be very, very similar, but they’re [00:18:00] not always similar because context matters. For example, when I used to compete in bodybuilding shows, I loved fasted cardio and not because it sped up fat loss. It was because I was a bit of a zombie in the morning, so I could walk on a treadmill.
I could keep that routine. It was getting me out of bed early. I could do it and it never got missed because it was anchored as a habit at the start of my day, which meant the consistency was really high. So fasted cardio can be really good for people because you can habit stack it with other things.
You wake up in the morning, grab a cup of coffee, go and do your cardio. And you’re very unlikely to skip it then because it’s part of your routine. Morning routines can be really useful for people. But ultimately, if it’s better for you to do it at the end of your workout or to do it at lunchtime, then That’s going to be fine as well.
All other things equal, particularly for body composition and weight loss. When it comes to doing it at the end of sessions, I like to take the approach that your energy levels, if you think of a gym session and you have 45 minutes in the gym. which is generally an [00:19:00] average workout for most people. If you’re any longer in the gym, you probably need to bring a stopwatch, which in time your rest periods, because you probably don’t need to be in the gym any longer than 45, 50 minutes, unless you’re training for a marathon or an Ironman or something that’s more endurance based.
But for body composition, muscle building, toning up, weight loss, fat loss, 45, 50 minutes max is all you’re going to need three, four or five times a week if you’re an advanced trainer. And if you go in, your energy levels at the start of workouts tend to be higher. Regardless. of your nutritional protocol.
Most people just tend to have more energy at the start of a workout, whether you’re carb based, fat based, whether you’re using really high quality foods, which is obviously what I recommend, or if you’re using low, low quality foods, people’s energy tends to be higher at the beginning of a workout and you get tired as it goes on.
Weight training, Unresistance training and strength training gives you a better bang for your buck, as I mentioned, because it will increase your metabolic rate. You want to do those more difficult movement and exercises and parameters of training when you’re fresher. So if you’re going in, it’s the same reason you don’t [00:20:00] go in.
And you know this from your bodybuilding days, you don’t start your workout with a bicep curl and, midway through your workout, when you’re feeling the best. You start doing bicep curls, you do your squats, or you do your deadlifts, or you do your bench press, or you do your military press when you’re fresh.
Those compound multi joint exercises that are going to recruit a lot of muscle, a lot of your body, and are going to give you a better bang for your buck when it comes to the exercise choice you’re choosing. I think of cardio and weight training is very similar. Weight training. All other things equal gives you a better return on your investment. So do it when you’re fresher and then do your cardio at the end when you’re a little bit tired, especially if you’re doing low intensity steady state.
Dr. Weitz: And I think the other thing is, you want to burn off your glycogen with the weight training. Cause then you’re going to burn a higher amount of fat because your body’s going to use the glycogen, the storage form of carbohydrates before it starts burning fat.
Brian: Yeah, a hundred percent. And again, your nutritional protocol would be dependent there because people that are on higher fat diets. And again, this is the reason I want to preface it because [00:21:00] intermittent fasters or people who go higher dietary fat, their glycogen stores can be largely depleted by the time they start training. So that’s why if you are doing a strength program and you’re on a ketogenic diet, sometimes you can find that your weakness or goes down, ie your strength goes down because you don’t have the best fuel source for the activity that you’re trying to do. It’s just one of the trade offs. Ketogenic diet is great for brain function, can be great for hunger, satiety, mental clarity, all these other things.
It can isn’t always the best for strength and weight training. It doesn’t happen to everybody. There is a point at which your ketosis and ketones go to a certain level where improvement and strength can go up, but in the initial phases, it can go down. So the starting point matters greatly, but for the average person consuming an Irish diet, English diet, American diet, that, a kind of healthier version of it. They’re going to find a better bang for their buck trying to work through that glycogen depletion and then better utilize their body’s ability to burn fat for fuel as the workout goes on.
Dr. Weitz: By the way, what is an Irish diet?
Brian: [00:22:00] Potato, potatoes and meat, potatoes and meat with a little bit of vegetables thrown in.
Dr. Weitz: Okay, that sounds like the American diet.
Brian: Yeah. It’s very similar. I lived in California for years. Exactly. You have better, you’ve got better desserts. I must say your desserts are considerably better in the States than we have over here.
Dr. Weitz: So when you’re working with a client who wants to lose weight, how do you decide what type of a nutritional approach to use with them?
Brian: What I do with my clients, and it’s not necessarily a recommendation for any other coaches or personal trainers, but I find this works really well for me. I normally get them to do a food diary for three days. And if they eat Oreos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I say, put down the Oreos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Like, tell me what you’re actually eating. And the first thing I’ll try and do is, right, what are they doing well? And in most diets, I’ll say 95 percent of people have good habits somewhere in [00:23:00] the nutrition. They’re making good lunch choices, but maybe their breakfast isn’t that good. Or they’ve got a really nutritionally dense dinner, but they’re snacking on cookies and Oreos through the day.
I will look to see, all right, these are the things that aren’t going to support them with the goal. These are the things that are, and I try and layer the nutritional plan that I create for them on top of that so that they’re just building off the good habits they already have, and they’re minimizing the bad habits that they’re doing. I had one of my clients before and I put this in the last book and it was a story that it went viral when I released it at the time because my client was speaking about it.
Dr. Weitz: Either way, what was, what’s the name of that book?
Brian: The last book was The Keen Edge, Mastering the Mindset for Real Lasting Fat Loss. And I talk about him in there. I’ve got three, Fitness Mindset, Rewire Your Mindset, and The Keen Edge are my three books. The two, first two are, First one and last one are fitness books. Second book is all around mindset and personal development. But I had a client who came to me, Ben, who ate 10 Mars bars every day, literally 10 Mars bars every day.
He would get two of the family packs and you can get five bars in the family packs in [00:24:00] Ireland. And when I was working one to one, I’m all online now, but I was working Did you measure his blood glucose? Oh, I didn’t. He was very overweight to come in with. And we kept it very simple because he’s like, I’ve been to coaches.
I’ve been to trainers. I’ve been to slimming clubs and nothing is working. And I’ll never forget the look he gave me the first day when he came in, because our entire workout session was just going up and down the stairs of the gym. Cause that’s all he was able to do. And he didn’t want to go in. He was a bit nervous and had gym anxiety around it.
He was telling me about his Mars bears. And I said, okay, I’m All I want you to do for this next week with your nutritional plan is I want you to eat nine Mars bars. That’s all I want you to do. I was like, eat, your normal diet, but I don’t want you eating 10. So I want you to eat.
Dr. Weitz: Brian King recommended eating nine Mars bars.
Brian: Nine bars, the fat loss plan, nine, nine, nine, nine bars. He came back and he was very skeptical and he came back in the next week and his weight was down and he goes, I don’t know how my weight is down. He goes, maybe I walked a bit more. I was like, okay. No changes this week, except instead of nine, I want you to eat eight this week.
So you can [00:25:00] have them anytime you want to eat them when you want, but we’re going to bring it down to eight. You’re way too nice. But the thing was, and I wouldn’t do this with everybody because sometimes I make more changes depending on the starting point, but this, When I’m chatting to somebody on a consultation call and they’ve been to 10 trainers before me and they’re still overweight and they’re still having problems.
I’m like, well, all the traditional methods don’t work. So I just rule that out initially. So we went from eight and you can tell where the story is going. It went from seven to six and it actually got down to the point where he was eating two every day, but it controlled his calories and brought his calories down.
And he ended up losing a hundred pounds over the space of several months. And all we did now, Confidence was huge for him when he actually started to see the weight going down without making any extreme changes. He bought so much into the idea of what we were doing. If I told him to run through a brick wall, Ben, he’d run through a brick wall by the end because he just had so much faith in what we were doing because he saw the results.
But it was about building sustainable habits for him. And I was trying to illustrate that. The importance of somebody like that. And I know you talk a [00:26:00] lot about gut health and, the functional medicine side and overall hormonal balance, et cetera, which is extremely important, but for someone like him who just needed to control his calories for the most part, it was to illustrate you’re eating too many calories every day.
That, that’s it. You’re eating 10 Mars bars. That’s a lot of calories. And just bringing that down. And then we ended up looking at his nutrition overall, his breakfast, lunch and dinner. And over the space of, it was about nine months total, he had completely changed the way that he ate, but that’s how it started. So sometimes the non traditional approach, depending on the circumstance of the individual is just as important as the method that you use
Dr. Weitz: with them. Well, let’s say somebody comes to you and they say, look, I want to be in the best shape. I want to be healthy. I want to lose, 50 pounds. I’m willing to eat any way you tell me to eat. Should I eat paleo? Should I eat Mediterranean? Should I eat keto? What, what would you tell them?
Brian: If somebody was [00:27:00] working with me, the advice I’d offer, if it was a general question versus someone working with me would be different. So I’ll unpack. both and talk through the difference between both. If it’s someone that’s working with me, where I’m monitoring their food and keeping an eye on their food, I don’t really mind how quickly or how slowly we make the changes because I’m assuming they bought in for 3, months, especially if they have 50 pounds to lose and they want to lose and they want to keep it off.
So when I’m working with somebody, I’ll do that food diary approach and I will make small changes over time. is going to support them. As I said, someone that’s 50 pounds overweight in most cases didn’t get there by accident. They’re not a professional athlete. They’re not a fitness person by nature. If I’m working with somebody in that space, I can make more changes with them because they’ve got just a different mindset and they have a different starting point coming in.
So when I’m working with that individual, I’ll make those small changes based on a food diary and try and build off the habits that they’ve already formed that might be good and then make changes around it. [00:28:00] If somebody asks me outside of that, I would generally say you can’t go too wrong. Nutrition is such a funny topic, as Ben.
And the piece of advice that I historically have always been able to give without any push back. And now in 2024, it gets pushed back is eat more fruits and vegetables. Like you generally, eat more vegetables in particular, green leafy veg, and now you have communities of people online who be like, don’t eat green leafy veg, they’re poisonous.
So that, one piece of advice that was a truism for so long now gets pushed back because of the way things are online in particular. But I think if you want to just go with a good healthy food approach, I think complete protein sources. So that’s going to be your meat and fish for the most part, grass fed if you’re in the States, particularly. Making sure you’re getting good sourced fish, high levels of Omega 3.
Dr. Weitz: Can you guys not get grass fed or is all the meat grass fed? All of ours
Brian: EU regulations here. I remember when I was in the States and when I’m working with people in [00:29:00] the States, I’m like, I have to give different specific guidelines. Whereas that’s not an issue here. I’m working with someone in Ireland or England or in Europe. We don’t have that problem. We don’t get the same level of hormones and peptides put into our food. There’s just, it’s, a hard no from the EU regulation. So our quality of meat tends to be higher. compared to the states where it’s way less strict. so that’s what I would look at your complex carbohydrates for most people, your oatmeal, your sweet potato, your yams, your brown rice, all good options, healthy fats, avocado, nut butters to a degree, olive oil, and then your fruits and your vegetables, especially fruits, which get demonized by some. If you have a sweet tooth, you can’t go too wrong.
And again, the quality of food matters, where you’re getting it from matters, but I’m just talking general best practices for people, which is kind of Mediterranean mixed with kind of a paleolithic style diet, which is kind of adjusted depending on the complex carbohydrates. You’re not going to go too far wrong with that.
And I like that approach. because the fiber is high, the nutrients are high. Your cravings [00:30:00] can go down. You’ll, this from talking about episodes of the gut microbiome, you’re giving your body what it needs in terms of good nutrient dense foods. You’re going to have a higher satiety effect. You’re going to feel fuller for longer between meals.
You’re going to have less cravings and that makes dietary adherence considerably easier. And ultimately with 50 pounds to lose, it’s dietary adherence. You’re better off to stick in the gut. 80 percent to a diet that isn’t amazing, then fall 100 percent off one you can’t stick to.
Dr. Weitz: What about your mindset about food?
Brian: It’s so interesting, and I’m glad you’ve given me such an unintentional segue, Ben, because my first book, The Fitness Mindset, and it’s not a plug for the book, people can pick it up if they want. I’m a believer that some people should read the book, some people shouldn’t. all books, every book you’ve ever read in the planet, the people that need it should read.
Dr. Weitz: I think all people need to read more books. Yeah.
Brian: Yeah. it’s a good piece of advice in general, but mindset, I wrote that first book and that first book changed my whole career. It came out in 2017. [00:31:00] It’s been 16 weeks on the Amazon and national bestseller list and opened up more doors for me than I knew what to do with at the time. I’m very, very grateful for it. And Part of the reason the book took off was I broke it into two sections. The first section was called the fitness mindset. The first section is called fitness, which is all about sleep, nutrition, training, stress, supplementation, everything you need to know how to get in shape.
The whole second section is around mindset, your anxiety, managing that stress levels, your behavior around food, making sure that you’re being around good people and supportive people. All these things that people don’t always necessarily think of when they think about mindset around fitness. And I think the reason the book did so well was because that’s what my clients at the time were struggling with.
Most of the ones who came to me knew they should move more. They knew they should make better food choices, and they had a good idea of that yes, broccoli is going to be more beneficial than having a cookie at lunchtime. They knew all these [00:32:00] basic things, but they still couldn’t stay on top of their nutrition and the training program.
There was self sabotage. They were around people who weren’t supporting them. They were anxious and stressed and they couldn’t control that. And that led to either skipping exercises or skipping workouts or making poor food choices. So I merged those two things together. So my entire philosophy as a coach is around that mindset.
And it’s funny, I could be working two, three, four weeks with somebody, I’ll design a nutritional plan, I’ll design a training program, which to be fair, let’s call it a spade a spade, any good coach can do. And then they’ll say something on week three or week four about their relationship or about their job, or about their stress levels.
And I go, okay, now we’re onto something. This is why you haven’t got the results with other coaches or why you haven’t got results yourself in the past. I would start to unpack that and see, well, what’s going on with your mindset? Why are you self sabotaging around food? Why do you need to numb out or why, What, are the emotional triggers that are going on within you that are setting you off and making you fall off track with your nutrition?
And they’re the things that ultimately come down to the [00:33:00] mindset side. So I think it’s really important because fitness isn’t complicated. Yes, we can argue back and forth between weight training and cardio and high intensity and low intensity, but movement is something we can all agree is good. Move more.
Most people need to move more and the same with food. Less processed food, more whole food, in whatever capacity that looks like, is generally going to be better. Most professionals will agree on that. We’ll have nuances in between, but we’ll agree on that. But it’s the mindset that makes people fall off track, and it’s why they can’t stick to it. So I think it’s extremely important.
Dr. Weitz: Let’s go into a little bit about maximizing performance. Protein. We know we need a certain amount of protein to maximize muscle gains. How much protein should the average person have? And, when should that protein be eaten? What about the timing?
Brian: With protein, there’s different recommendations depending on What it is that you’re training for. So someone that’s doing a [00:34:00] strength program or an athlete that plays a sport, basketball, football, rugby, et cetera, the requirements are gonna be slightly different. General best practice is gonna be one to two grams per kilogram of body weight. So that’s per two pounds of body weight if I’m doing the correct.
Dr. Weitz: yeah, I think one kilo is like 2.2 pounds.
Brian: Yeah. So in, in terms of kilos, if you are 80 kilograms, you’re going to want to get about 80 to 160. g of protein per day and it’s very easy to calculate your calories around that for every gram of protein you eat there’s four kilocalories in it, so you can get and do the maths from that.
But what sometimes people fail to recognize is fats and carbohydrates serve as proteins, bigger in macronutrients, meaning that. If you are consuming a decent level of carbohydrate or fat or a combination of both, your body will prioritize that for energy and for fuel, and then it’ll utilize the protein and the amino acids that are the makeup of that protein for repair.
And [00:35:00] sometimes you’ll see, and you probably did this in the bodybuilding days, Ben, I don’t know, I definitely did. So a lot of bodybuilders did where they just ramp up protein to like 300 grams a day. Sure. And you get all the negative side effects, constipation, dry mouth, stomach discomfort and GI distress.
Thinking more is better when in reality you’re would have been way more and optimize your performance in a better way. If you just adjusted your carbohydrates or fat upwards and down and actually took your protein down and you’d feel better. through the day and your inflammatory, your body gets so, like your gut gets so inflamed and your protein is way too high, hence the constipation in a lot of cases.
So I’d say one to two grams per kilogram of body weight, doing the pounds equivalent of that, and then basing the rest of your nutrition around it. So your caloric intake is important. I’m a believer that it’s the bottom of the pyramid of prioritization. IE, you need to know what your calories are. If you have a body composition or performance goal, your macros come on top of that.
Your food choices come on top [00:36:00] of that. Like I, I like the whole food approach. I think the more whole foods you eat, the better you’re going to be. You’re going to do in terms of performance, whether you’re looking to lose weight or whether you’re an athlete, you’re going to get more micronutrients, you’re going to feel better, your fiber will be higher.
And I think when you look at protein, it’s the most important of the macronutrients for an athlete for repair, for performance, because those building blocks, those amino acids that make a protein are the building blocks of all things in life. And you need them to repair from sessions in terms of timing.
Best practice, I like spacing it out through the day, but your workout window is important. So they’ll generally say, depending on your starting weight, 25 grams to 50 grams of protein in your pre and post workout meal, normally in the easily digestible source. So, you know, if you’re eating meat, that might be a chicken breast before training with some sweet potato.
After it might be some oats and a whey protein shake or a dextrose. If you’re really trying to replenish glycogen levels fast, if you’re a high level athlete and you’ve got a game the next day or a training session the next day or a gym session the next day, you [00:37:00] might want to go with something that’s a bit more higher GI, your dextrose, your glucose, et cetera, so that you replenish glycogen stores faster.
And then you have a complex carbohydrate meal, 30 to 60 grams. of carbohydrate and 25 to 50 grams of protein in that meal, half an hour, 45 minutes after you’ve trained when that lactic acid is cleared down. That’s generally how you’d approach it. And then you build the rest of your nutrition around that pre and post workout window.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. What about nutritional supplements? Do you recommend them specifically related to training, pre workout, post workout things?
Brian: I have a food first, but not food only approach. And somebody that has 50 pounds of weight to lose, supplements tend to be pretty low down on the list. They can help. And I will recommend ones. I’m a big fan of caffeine and green tea extract like harness and things along those lines that won’t have a negative impact in terms of a rebound effect or a decrease in appetite or an increase in appetite suppression, and then a rebound where [00:38:00] your appetite ramps up. I like those types of supplements.
Win performance is the goal. You can’t go too wrong with a good quality protein powder, whether that’s a high quality whey protein, if you’ve no issue with dairy for ethical reasons or no issue with dairy for digestive reasons, or, a vegan based blend, if you prefer to go with that, and then creatine, you cannot go wrong.
with creating the most scientifically backed sports supplement of all time in terms of increasing performance for strength for sprint based athletes. And then I maybe throw beta alanine on top of that. Beta alanine helps to buffer lactic acid. So if you play competitive sport or you play high level sport and you get that buildup of lactic acid, which inhibits your performance, your beta alanine can help to buffer that and it can increase the longevity in which until that happens.
So I would look at a good quality protein powder. maybe some creatine, maybe some beta alanine, and then obviously caffeine. If you want to use caffeine in some form, assuming that you’re a caffeine responder, you’ll get great performance benefits from [00:39:00] those.
Dr. Weitz: What type and how much creatine?
Brian: It depends on your starting weight. General, depending on the type, monohydrate is the most scientifically researched, which normally needs to be loaded. But creatine is kind of a funny supplement in the sense that sometimes people are like, what’s the difference? Well, I’ll take it before my workout and it’s going to help me with my strength training.
That’s not how creatine works. Creatine works. And the analogy I give is if you picture a two liter water bottle, when you have a two liter water bottle that’s empty, you’re able to bend and crack it. When you fill it with water, you’re, you can put a lot more strain on that two liter water bottle. That’s effectively what happens with your muscles with creatine.
Creatine pulls water underneath the muscle so that you’re able in the setting of a gym, for example, to move more weight than you normally would, or you’re able to do the same weight for more repetitions because you have more water and you’re able to put more strain on that muscle. So when it comes to creatine loading, All you’re looking to do is saturate the cell.
So saturating the cell in some cases is going to be loading it for say 20 grams. You normally have five gram [00:40:00] dose four times a day over a three to five day window. And then you do a maintenance dose, which is five to 10 grams, depending on your starting weight, but you don’t have to do that. You’ll saturate a cell over a longer period of time, but just five grams a day, it just takes longer.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. how about beta alanine? How much do you recommend?
Brian: That one I would time around your workout, similar to caffeine. So caffeine and beta alanine are one side of the coin and then creatine on the other side. With creatine, the most important thing is about the consistency, meaning that you’re taking the right dosage.
The timing, I take it around workouts just so I don’t forget to take it. Literally the only reason I take it before I go to the gym, so that I’ve Don’t forget to take it. Beta alanine you’ll take in that 30 to 60 minute window before you train and it’s worth noting you’ll get sometimes what are called beta alanine tingles where you’ll get this weird tingly feeling in your face or in your hands.
I remember the first time I took it in college Ben I thought it was my fabric softener that I was using and I remember I changed and I was like I’m allergic to this fabric softener and the thing I’m washing my clothes with I [00:41:00] didn’t realize it was the beta alanine tingles and I was training for about two months before I realized this is like pre forum days, pre Instagram, pre Google, which is showing my age as well. and I didn’t know it was beta alanine, but taking it before training, normally around, 1. 5 to 3 grams, depending on your starting weight is going to be very effective. And a lot of people will pair that with caffeine, which will be, between a hundred MCGs and 300 MCGs, depending on how caffeine sensitive the person is and that stack with your pre training of beta aldehyde and caffeine and maybe some creatine in there and then post workout of something like a high quality whey protein or a protein powder is going to give you very good benefits as an athlete.
Dr. Weitz: So the caffeine is that like in a pre workout formula or are you talking about coffee or tea?
Brian: It doesn’t really matter. Like caffeine itself is the thing you’re looking to do. It’s the stimulant that’s going to give you your central nervous system response, which is going to increase your, rate of perceived exertion in terms of your, you won’t feel as tired. You’ll be more alert. You’ll feel like you’re able to [00:42:00] push harder in this workouts.
So the vehicle and distribution of it matters less, whether that’s a can of monster, a cup of coffee, a caffeine tablet, a pre workout, they all have pros and cons depending on, I use a caffeine tablet, Partly because I love black coffee, but I can’t take it in the morning or else my stomach and my guts feel like someone’s like attacked me with a knife for the rest of the day.
So I have to have food in my stomach before I have my cup of coffee generally. And so I use a caffeine tablet. I use pre workouts for years. Again, there’s a lot of additives, a lot of extra stuff in those that are great, same as cans of Monster. But if you’re talking just purely the caffeine element of the performance enhancer, it doesn’t matter as much in terms of how you consume it. But if you’re talking other things, what’s the cleanest way, probably a black coffee or a caffeine tablet compared to a pre workout or a can of
Dr. Weitz: Monster or Red Bull. Yeah, speaking of that beta alanine sensation with the skin, you ever take niacin before you work out? Yeah, just very similar. It’s a bit more flushy, but it’s [00:43:00] very similar. I know you did a podcast on that recently. I’m a big fan of niacin, but that flushing can be uncomfortable. It’s not harmful, but. Yeah, it feels weird. It just feels weird. Yeah, I used to do that before workouts or before sauna.
Brian: Yeah, it’s really, good. And again, I know a lot of people do it before sauna it’s a big thing over here too. yeah, I, again, similar to belalanine, when you know what it is, it’s fine. But when you don’t, it’s a bit worrying. You actually think something’s gone wrong with your body. Like there’s like a mini alarm system going off, but once you know what’s the niacin or the belalanine, you’re normally fine.
Dr. Weitz: Have you experimented with the nitric oxide, supplement?
Brian: Yeah, I’m a fan. So I make up my own pre workout before I train. And I have AAKG in there, which is a form of arginine. And I use citrulline malate, which is a supplement that’s in most pre workouts for blood flow. So my pre workout is 200 mcg’s of caffeine, 5 grams of creatine, 3 grams of beta alanine, three grams of citrulline malate, and three grams [00:44:00] of AAKG.
And I just make that up myself. And then I throw some acetylalcarnitine for cognitive function in top. And I use that before I train. Oh, interesting. You get powders of all those? Yeah. And it ends up working out way cheaper, but just, I have a little bit of a sensitive stomach. So I literally just put them into a shake, little bit of a drop of cordial or sweetener that goes with them.
and then I just down that before the gym. And it works great. It ends up working out way cheaper because like pre workouts are actually very expensive when you think about what you’re getting dosage wise. So when I’m working with clients, I’ll normally create these stacks with them as well. So they’ll end up paying whatever, 50, 60 dollars for all these individuals. And then it lasts for like three, four or five months and they’re getting the correct dosage for each thing.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, one of the downsides of bodybuilding supplements in particular is they tend to add artificial colors, artificial sweeteners, all this junk. So
Brian: much. And that’s actually what put me off originally, because I was taking those when I was competing in bodybuilding shows. And [00:45:00] I would hate to see what was going on in my gut microbiome during that time, because it was definitely screaming at me from the inside. So I’ve been a lot better with that over the last decade.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. so I think we’re ready to wrap. What kind of final thoughts or, concepts do you want to leave our viewers and listeners with?
Brian: No, I really appreciate that, Ben. It was a great chat. As I said, I’m going to double down on what I said about finding what works best for you, whether it’s exercise, whether it’s nutrition. I know you’ve got some great guests on the podcast. You’ve got episodes and covering content yourself on your Instagram.
Ultimately for people listening, find what’s going to work best for you with your nutrition, with your training. And if you need a coach or a trainer that can help get you there, Find somebody that will serve you. As I said, square pegs into square holes. You might listen to me and go, it’s not Brian. It’s going to be someone else.
But again, I have a Muay Thai coach. I have a yoga coach. I have a Spanish coach. Three things in my life that I’m weak at, that I need to improve on. I’m a big believer that coaches need coaches and that people need help in areas that they’re struggling with. And again, look for [00:46:00] those. use the old Buddha quote, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, find the coach that will support you, whoever that is, and know that square pegs fit into square holes. And it’s ultimately about finding what’s going to work best for you.
Dr. Weitz: Now, what if they want to get ahold of you? Do you still work with clients? Do you have programs? And how would they get ahold of you? I
Brian: do. Yeah. I’m briankeenfitness. com is where I have all the details on my programs. I’m from my one to one. My one to one is application only. so you have to apply to work.
Dr. Weitz: Can you spell out your name?
Brian: Brian Ke, B-R-I-A-N-K-E-A-N-E, fitness, F-I-T-N-E s.com. so brian ke fitness.com. I’m on social. Instagram is the one I’m on the most often, but I’m on all of them. And the Brian Ke podcast and then Brian Keane, the books are on Amazon and available everywhere books are found. So I’m all over the place. It’s just very much a case of finding. What way do you like to consume information? Do you like to listen? Do you like to watch? Do you like short form videos? Do you like writing? Whatever way you want to consume information. Hopefully I can help anyone that reaches out. and for anyone that wants to work with me directly, I have programs on [00:47:00] that website and then applications to work one to one as well as I mentioned, just, it tends to be a bit more at the extreme cases that I take, because I have programs that serve for just general body composition that tend to work better at a lower price point for people. So we try and serve people all along the way of their journey.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Thank you so much, Brian.
Brian: Thank you so much, Ben.
Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy. Listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and give us a five star ratings and review. If you would like to work with me personally to help you improve your health, I do accept a limited number of new patients per month for a functional medicine consultation. Some of the areas I specialize in include helping patients with specific health issues, like gut problems, neurodegenerative conditions, autoimmune diseases, cardiometabolic conditions, or for an executive health screen and to help you promote longevity and take a deeper dive into some of those factors that can lead to chronic diseases along the way. Please call my Santa Monica White Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition Office at 310 395 3111 and we’ll set you up for a new consultation for functional medicine and I look forward to speaking to everybody next week.