Watch the full interview below or listen to the full episode on your iPhone HERE.
Stu: This week we welcome Thomas DeLauer to the show. Thomas is a renowned health author and nutrition expert (featured on Reddit, Muscle & Fitness, Men’s Fitness, Natural Muscle, Ironman, Muscle & Performance) and is an expert in the world of organic foods and an anti-inflammatory diet.
Thomas is the Founder of OptimizeCEO, which is a corporate wellness company angled at assisting the world’s busiest people get in not only the best physical shape, but also in the best mental and business state as well. Thomas’s work has been seen all over the internet as well as in mainstream publications.
Audio Version
Questions we ask in this episode:
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Are carbs the enemy or can we use them to our advantage for optimizing health?
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Do you think keto is the ‘magic pill’ for weight loss?
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What are your thoughts on ‘looking fit’ vs ‘being healthy’?
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What do you do to ensure that you get the best night’s sleep?
Get More Of Thomas DeLauer
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Full Transcript
Stu
Hey, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition and welcome to another episode of the health sessions. It’s here that we connect with the world’s best experts in health, wellness, and human performance in an attempt to cut through the confusion around what it takes to achieve long lasting health which is something that I’m sure we all want to achieve.
[00:00:30] Before we get into the show today you might not know that we make products too. That’s right, we’re into whole food nutrition. Have a range of super foods and natural supplements to help support your day. If you’re curious, you want to find out more, jump over to 180nutrition.com.au and take a look.
[00:01:00] Okay, back to the show. This week I am excited to welcome Thomas DeLauer. Now Thomas is an expert in the world of chronic inflammation. He’s a pioneer in personal transformation. He’s got a great story himself. He’s a host of a very successful and hugely educational YouTube channel as well. So in this episode, this week we discuss the many faces of inflammation. How it’s probably sabotaging your health goals. We discuss looking fit versus being healthy and whether the ketogenic diet is right for you.
So Thomas is a great guy, hugely knowledgeable, and I’m really excited to be able to share this info with you today. Anyway, enough rambling for me. Let’s get back to the show.
[00:01:30] Hey guys, this is Stu from 180 Nutrition and I am delighted to welcome Thomas Delauer to the show today. Good morning Thomas. How are you?
Thomas
What is going on? Thanks for having me.
Stu
Good stuff. So look, first up Thomas, for everybody out there, specifically over here as well, that may not be familiar with what you do, I’d love for you to just tell us a little bit about yourself. Why you do what you do as well.
Thomas
Yeah. I’ll give you kind of the 30 second elevator pitch here.
Stu
Great.
Thomas
[00:02:30] So a lot of people that do know me, know me probably from YouTube and Facebook. Just from the plethora of videos I put out there but my main claim to fame was my transformation. I was 280 pounds and working kind of in a corporate healthcare environment. Very unhappy person. Very unhealthy person. I was focused on money and focused on business and focused on career. So I had a big transformation in my life. Now I’m 180 pounds. Been on covers of multiple magazines, T.V., everything like that, so in all harnessing the power of the Ketogenic diet, fasting, and really understanding inflammation. And working closely with a lot of physicians over my career, cause I was in the health care industry. I owned an ancillary lab services company.
So that was really my claim to fame. Harnessing the power of all these doctors that I worked around and utilizing it to really transform my life. Then I realized that I had a gift for articulating more complex scientific subjects and articulating health and physiology and really breaking it down for people. That’s what I do now. I create lots of videos for a living and fortunately help lots of people, or so I think I do.
[00:03:00]
Stu
Fantastic mate. I want to dig into that journey a little bit more later on but first up I just wanted to touch on the … You said you had a health care position and I’m intrigued as to the difference when looking at healthcare from conventional medicine to, and it sounds like you’ve tapped into a lot of functional medicine specialists in terms of keto, gut health, and all that kind of stuff.
Thomas
Yeah.
Stu
How aligned are those to things over in the States right now?
Thomas
[00:04:00] No much. I will say they are gravitating that way a little bit more just because of consumer demand. Patient demand. I got my healthcare career start working as an executive recruiter and a physician recruiter. I was working … That was how everything started and then after I had left that eventually I got into the world of lab services. Fortunately, when I was working in the ancillary lab services world, I was working with mostly concierge positions. Now concierge positions are positions that are working on what is called the fee for service model.
Stu
Yeah. Right.
Thomas
Which means they are working with more affluent patients that were paying them cash.
Stu
Okay.
Thomas
[00:04:30] Which means that those doctors weren’t necessarily bound by insurance guidelines to prescribe based on what’s going to get them the highest reimbursement or what’s gonna further their practice. They were much more involved in it for the patient. So less functional and more just physicians that had already worked as hospitalist, or they had already worked in that industry and they got out to work with more private clients and that was predominately what we were working with. So working with these physicians, honestly they truly, sincerely do have the patients best interest in mind because the patient is more like a client. The patient is more like paying, you know.
[00:05:30] So in that world it was a lot more aligned. Functional, general health, everything was aligned there but if you look at the traditional healthcare system, the continuum of care, quite frankly it’s a joke. It’s a total joke. It’s just … You’re treating symptoms. You’re diagnosing based on a rule book. If you’re diagnosing based on stuff that’s written in the American Medical Journal it’s based on Newtonian physics from the 1920’s. Things that are written by pharmaceutical companies. It’s really kinda sad but we are at a pivotal point now, at least in the States, where I think with the advent of social media and advent of people being able to really go and get health information from multiple sources, patients are starting to question that. They’re starting to question their physicians more and more.
So two things are happening. Patients are getting wise and the cost of concierge medicine and functional medicine is coming down so they’re going over there.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
But then some of the smart physicians are saying “Well wait a minute, maybe I want to go a different route. Maybe I don’t want to just treat symptoms anymore.” So I think we’re heading in the right direction but there’s still a huge disconnect and it’s healthcare does not mean healthy. Let’s put it that way.
Stu
Yes. No. Fantastic. Absolutely. It’s almost a system of disease management I think.
Thomas
Precisely. Precisely what it is.
Stu
Yeah. No. Certainly we have had our eyes opened to, I guess the journey over the last, well we’ve been in 180 Nutrition for nine years now, and the stuff that we’ve seen happen from leaky guy, in the early days, to be some kind of woo woo terms to now being the corner stone of health. Is just the tip of the iceberg.
[00:06:30] So you were working in that healthcare industry. What was the pain point for you? What tipped you to want to make change in your life?
Thomas
[00:07:00] Yeah, you know people ask that question a lot and the funny thing is that it’s the same answer. There was no real crazy call to action and it’s so crazy cause it’s never the answer that people want. I wish I could say I woke up one day and someone told me “If you don’t do this you’re gonna die.” But it was really just … I just literally woke up one day and I was like “I know this isn’t me. Like, what am I doing.” Cause I was an athlete all through high school. All through school. I was all state Rugby player. I was a cross country runner. I had run my first marathon when I was 11 years old. I was obsessed with health and fitness and I think that was it right then and there. I was obsessive nature, right? So I think once I became obsessed with career I put all that on the back burner and became obsessed with that and lost focus so everything went to pot.
[00:07:30] So you know, I woke up one day and was like wait a minute. Going through the struggles of business. Going through all the stressors. Everything that occurs. I knew that I wasn’t at my peak and I had this epiphany that wait a minute, I’ve been focused on success. Focused on money. Focused on this and that. But if I was actually feeling good then I think I could probably connect that. So, it was really, for me, a matter of just trying to optimize what I thought I was already good at and health was just, sort of, and avenue there.
[00:08:00] It took about two days of me focusing on my health again before I realized how good it feels to feel healthy. Eating right, and doing the right things, and focusing on inflammation, but I had these amazing physicians in my network I could tap into. I could ask questions that I normally couldn’t ask.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
I had a valuable resource that other people didn’t have. In short that’s why I try to give it back out to the public today. That’s what saved my life and changed my life and having that resource and now I have an ability to stand on the pedestal and dish it out to people.
Stu
Right.
Thomas
It’s my way of giving back to what saved me. It’s really just a random morning. Just said “Something needs to change.”
Stu
And with that something. What was that something? What was the very first thing that you did? Did you tackle your diet or was it more of a holistic overview?
Thomas
No, no, no. It was getting basically obsessed with inflammation. I had been hearing inflammation getting discussed constantly and it was right when, inflammation has always been an issue but back 2010, that generation, it was really starting to become more of a buzz word. People were talking more about it.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
So I became fascinated with cellular inflammation and I dove into it. Learned about it. Every chance I got. Every brain I could pick on inflammation I did. I really realized that inflammation was the root of not only every disease state but it was the root of fat. It was the root of obesity because it truly is inflammation at it’s very best. I’m not talking about water retention, stuff like that. That is inflammation in a different way, that’s more like edema, but inflammation is being overweight and obese. There is inflammation at it’s root. So when I realized that was the epicenter, if I could understand inflammation I could understand how to lose weight. And I could understand how to change my life.
So that’s how the interest I the Keto diet and fasting and everything came to be. It was all rooted with inflammation because ketosis is phenomenal for inflammation. So is fasting. So really that’s it. It was just becoming obsessed with inflammation and going on a mission to reduce that within my body.
Stu
[00:10:00] How do you … Absolutely, it’s great that you’ve described that as well because people think inflammation are, well, absolutely, it’s just weight loss but it can be all manner of things. It can be poor skin. It can be cloudy and foggy thinking. It can manifest itself in so many different ways and certainly diet is fantastic place to start.
[00:10:30] For you, do you struggle? Because you’re a healthy looking guy, right? And you’ve clearly got your nutrition and your diet and lifestyle all dialed in and you project health. What are your thoughts on looking fit versus being actually healthy because I know there’s a gym culture there where it’s just … I look in the mirror and I just want to get ripped. I’ll do whatever it is to get that six pack. That can lead you down a very inflammatory path.
Thomas
Very much so. Very much so.
Stu
[00:11:00] So tell us your thoughts on that because I’ve very intrigued because you’ve dialed all that stuff in but you do have the look, at well, that lots of people aspire to want to have.
Thomas
[00:11:30] Yeah. No. I think that I might upset the fitness industry with this answer but the fitness industry breeds an exceptionally unhealthy lifestyle and I have always said that there is this huge divergence between health and fitness. And we always talk about … We coin it together in marketing. Health and fitness. Health and fitness and I’m always thinking to myself it couldn’t be further from the truth. That’s so different. It should be. Fitness should be the act of movement and getting moving but fitness has become this term that just reflects the fitness lifestyle.
[00:12:00] The fitness lifestyle is about loads of saw dust supplements and low quality proteins and just whatever you can do and drugs and copious amounts of pharmaceuticals to just get a body that you desire and ultimately end up in a terrible position. Cramming food down your through when you shouldn’t be eating. Burning out your pancreas. Causing all kinds of cellular inflammation. The fitness lifestyle is not what it was even 20 years ago when Jane Fonda was using the Thigh Master, right? It’s just not the same thing. It’s different now.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
[00:12:30] I call it the Instagram generation fitness. It’s just way different. So it’s really sad because I have been down the road of doing whatever it takes to get ripped in terms of water manipulation and unhealthy things like that. Never gone to extreme but competing in competitions in a point in time, after I … And I can see how that is so detrimental to your health and people continue to do that for years and years and years and years. Unfortunately they never get their head out of the sand, and they can really hurt themselves.
[00:13:00] Then I realized that being healthy, being radiant, and having vitality is so much more important. So much more important and now with a small 5 month old son of my own I’m like I can’t even imagine going down a path where I would just put my life at risk. Risk me being able to see my son grow up for that silly six pack. That’s just nonsense.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
So, I hope that answers your question.
Stu
No. It certainly does and I guess that touches on your inflammatory or our inflammatory conversation as well where the more of that stuff you do it’s very likely that you are going to become more inflamed through toxic supplements. Through perhaps the wrong type of movement. Overdoing your exercise. Not recovering enough. All of that stuff.
[00:13:30] If you wanted to start with somebody who’s not feeling great. I’m overweight. Don’t really know how to exercise. I am concerned abut inflammation but I don’t really know where to start. Would you suggest then that we have a starting point in terms of well, lets get your bloods done first and see what’s going on with your guy. Let’s get your hormones tested. Your adrenals, all of that stuff. Where would you get that starting point from?
Thomas
Yeah. I would say blood work is the golden wand right. That’s going to tell you a lot. The hard part is getting a lot of these inflammatory tests done are quite expensive and they’re somewhat esoteric. You don’t find them everywhere. There’s the general C reactive protein levels and things like that which will … but those are going to fluctuate depending on where you are in your recover and everything like that.
Stu
Yes.
Thomas
[00:15:00] You can go and you can get different interleukin’s tested. You can get interleukin one, interleukin six, interleukin 15, all these different things that you could ask your doctor to test for and he’ll hopefully give you a solid answer. He, she will give you a solid answer but they don’t know entirely. So measuring inflammation is quite tough unless you know specifically what kind of inflammation you’re looking at. There’s some thing’s that really tell you that you’re inflamed without even testing. Those are simply things like once inflammation is eliminated then it’s a lot easier to understand when you were inflamed and one of the things that I usually tell people to do, first and fore most, is commit to doing ten to 15 minutes of fasted cardio every morning for seven days and you’ll start to feel the effects of what inflammation feels like.
[00:15:30] People always say “How come I can do ten minutes of fasted cardio, literally, every day for seven days and I’ll almost invariably drop four to five pounds even when I’m not in a calorie deficit of that much.” And it’s flat out … The effect of interleukin six with fasted cardio, for small amounts, again, literally seven, ten, 15 minutes, is phenomenal and people start to feel the difference. And that’s usually how I say it. That is exactly what it feels like to start reducing inflammation. That’s step one, right?
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
[00:16:00] So there’s all these by signs of inflammation and how we feel and everything like that but the different interleukin’s, the nuclear factor capa B, all these different bio markers of inflammation are all just very extreme things to test and the technology hasn’t really gotten there to really isolate what inflammation is being caused by what. So, if you wanted to go to the doctor I would say test your C reactive protein levels. Test your nuclear factor cappa B. Have then test your various interleukin’s and that is a really good place to start. And then, of course, all your immunoglobulins, so test your responses to foods. Are you off the charts with your immunoglobulins with certain foods.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
Intolerance testing. You can only go so far with intolerance testing because, again, if you just had eggs yesterday you’re going to have antibodies to eggs when you take the test. It’s gonna throw it off but if you see something that’s off the charts you can probably bet you have an inflammatory response to said food.
[00:16:30] Again, it’s not a solid, concrete answer but it’s a place to start.
Stu
Yeah. Fantastic. And what about genetic testing. How common place is that now for you guys in the states?
Thomas
[00:17:00] It’s getting there. I wouldn’t say … I am a proponent of it because I think that it can be very valuable but I don’t think that it’s realistic for just about everyone yet because, again, it doesn’t break down what really needs to change. It can start telling you what you are predisposed to and it’s getting more popular but it’s not really giving people the concrete plan like what to change.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
It comes back to the same thing. You’re at risk for cancer because of this. You need to try to change this and that but I’m huge on bio individuality and self experimentation in the first place because every single person responds to different things. So I think it’s important and I think it’s going to get there in the next two or three years.
Stu
[00:18:00] Yeah. No. Definitely. We’re certainly seeing a lot more of it over here and we’ve been lucky to have … I’ve been tested personally, myself, and understand what you’re saying in terms of the results can be mildly confusing. I had an 80 page report that read like a Russian essay but now I’m understanding that a lot more. I’m actually realizing that the things that I’m gravitating to naturally are the things that are right for me in terms of more cruciferous vegetables and easing back on dairy and gluten and all of those things. And also exercising in the right way for me. So, yeah, certainly going to become much more of an essential part of our tool kit I think for functional medicine moving forward. I’ll be interested to see what happens. Medicine in 20 years? I’d love to see what it looks like.
Thomas
Yeah. No kidding.
Stu
Radically different and it’ll be smart phone driven no doubt.
Thomas
Yeah.
Stu
[00:18:30] So let’s dive in to diet a little bit. In Australia right now there’s carbohydrate confusion. People are very, very weary about consuming carbohydrates because they think that it leads to inflammation and can be weight gain and keto is this magic pill and I’ve spoken to a lot of experts on this and I personally don’t think, from research that they are the enemy at all and think that we can use them to our advantage but I’d love to hear your thoughts on that.
Thomas
Yeah. No. I’m actually with you 100% and I go on record saying that first off the ketogenic diet isn’t for everybody. First and foremost and not everyone is going to be a fat oxidizer that’s just going to benefit from it. I’ll lead off with say if you’re trying to keto diet and your triglycerides are remaining high it’s a good indicator that you’re not someone that’s cut out for the keto diet because your body is not metabolizing the fats properly. So getting that out of the way.
[00:19:30] Yeah, sure. I’m a proponent of the keto diet personally. It works great for me but I also phase out of ketosis and I joke that the keto police are going to come after me all the time because now we’ve created all these evangelical keto people that are just … if you ever go out of keto you’re not a true keto person. It’s become a cult. I’m like, come on guys. We’re doing this for health. We’re all here for the same reason. We’re all trying to get healthy.
[00:20:00] I’ll speak about my own diet. I will phase out of ketosis every eight to 12 weeks for a good three to four week period and I will have good healthy, super low glycemic carbohydrates and I will do it right and I will reload and I will feel amazing. It’s not until the refined sugars start coming in that I have a problem.
Stu
Right.
Thomas
It’s also, for me it’s the grains. I don’t do well with grains. I certainly don’t do well with gluten and now here in the States gluten is just a monster. I don’t care who you are you should be cutting gluten out of your diet. What it does with your prolamens and what it does with your various antibodies … You just don’t even want to touch it. It’s just not worth it.
[00:21:00] So that said, butternut squash, beans, things like that. I feel phenomenal when I eat those and it’s not bad. Yeah. The carbohydrate confusion, it’s out here too. I think Australia it’s probably hitting you guys even more because … And keto and just really made a big boom there and there’s just not a lot of solid … Just not a good amount of education surrounding carbohydrates and ketosis there and you’re just getting the negative stigma of carbohydrates over there. You’re not getting the plethora of positive benefits.
I also always preempt everything that I say when I’m talking about ketosis. Your body needs carbohydrates and it will always make them if you don’t give it to them.
Stu
Yes.
Thomas
[00:21:30] Your body always creates them through gluconeogenesis, through preservation of certain types of glycogen. Your brain, your body, it needs glucose so do not think that glucose is the enemy and glucose is bad when your body needs it and will, no matter what, create some of its’ energy from it. It’s just a matter of what are you eating and what are you predominantly fueling your body with.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
So, it’s not the … I don’t know. I could go on and one because I do get tired of the keto police and the hard core ketoites telling me that I’m wrong when I tell people that it’s okay to come out of ketosis now and then.
Stu
[00:22:00] Yeah. No, I know. I totally get it and we’ve had a lot of keto specialists on as well. We’ve spoken to Don D’agostino and Jimmy Moore, Dave Espry, and all of these guys and for me there is still a confusion between being fat adapted in a healthy state and being in ketosis.
Thomas
Yes. 100%.
Stu
So what are your thoughts on that because we’re so radically different and …
Thomas
[00:22:30] Dude, they’re so different. I’m sorry you probably … I mean those that are listening can’t see the big smile, ear to ear, on my face right now when you talk about that because I literally, I created a video. I haven’t even released it on YouTube yet but maybe I’ll time it with the release of this podcast. Talking about the different between keto and fat adaptation because it’s … Okay, so fat adaptation is where your body is optimized to utilize fats as a fuel source. You have now developed what is called the mitochondrial machinery, so to speak, to start utilizing fats better. You create adenosine triphosphate through beta oxidation more efficiently when you are fat adapted.
[00:23:30] Okay. Ketosis is where you are sheerly creating ketones as your fuel source. Your body is still creating glucose, of course, for different brain functions but the predominant source of fuel is ketones. Doing a short bout of ketosis for six to eight weeks has proven to permanently change the mitochondrial machinery to where you can become fat adaptive for life. Where doing a short but of ketosis actually changes your structure in your body to actually utilize fats differently and it goes back to infants. Baby’s, they are in a ketogenic state for that reason. Probably for their bodies to start to develop the machinery to utilize fats for the mitochondria. The problem is most the baby’s now are fed formula with so much glucose so they get knocked out of that immediately. Or the breast milk production is tainted because of so many different things that we’re consuming and all the high fructose corn syrup that can leach into that. It’s getting thrown off.
Baby’s, in a natural state, should be ketogenic so that their mitochondria develops the ability to oxidize fat. So we are breeding basically, these almost genetically mutated children that can’t process fats and only can utilize glucose.
[00:24:00] So, how do we fix that? Well, we can go through stints of ketosis to try to condition our mitochondria. So once your body is fat adapted it uses both and that’s what’s great. I, honestly, credit doing bouts of the ketogenic lifestyle with the reason I’m able to stay so lean even when I’m on carbohydrate rounds of my diet.
Stu
Gotcha.
Thomas
Keto adaptation is amazing and far better than ketosis in my opinion because you’re doing it for the long haul.
Stu
And in terms of getting enough nutrition from a ketogenic diet as well because … I could take this the wrong way and just go and eat avocados all day and go “Great! Yeah. I’m in ketosis. Look at me.” But where and I getting my vitamins and my minerals and all of the essential stuff. The building blocks of life from outside of that avocado. How do you mix that up in terms of more nutrition in every day?
Thomas
[00:25:00] You have to do it right. That’s the simplest answer. You have to … You’re not going to magically create vitamins and minerals. You’re certainly not. In fact you’re in a position where your body is much more dehydrated and losing water so it means your actually excreting more vitamins and minerals so you should be even more conscious of it.
I’m prefacing this with the fact, once again, listeners I live the ketogenic lifestyle for the most part. So I’m not saying that it’s bad. I’m saying that you need to make sure that you are getting your vitamins and minerals and that’s hard work. The ketogenic diet is easy but it’s also difficult because you have to be more cognizant of what you are putting in your body.
[00:25:30] So yes, minerals become exceptionally more important. Magnesium, potassium, sodium, all become very important whether it’s through your diet or through proper supplementation. Same kind of thing with the balance of vitamins and minerals that you’re getting from your food. If you continue to just eat coconut oil or just lard for days, upon days, upon days, sure you’ll be in ketosis, but eventually you’re going to run out of some kind of essential nutrient.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
[00:27:00]
You can also starve yourself for six weeks and you’ll be in ketosis. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re doing it the healthy way. So I’m always a fan of every single ketogenic meal should have something green in it and not talking about green eggs and ham. I’m talking about some good healthy cruciferous or leafy greens. That’s just a rule of thumb because it’s far to easy to go through the drive through and get yourself a burger with some cheese and be like “yes, keto baby.” It’s just … ketosis marketing ruined ketosis for what it really is. Ketosis is a therapeutic and medical slash lifestyle way of eating and it’s turning into a smorgasbord of just crud because everyone just thinks that they can just eat meat and cheese all day and quite honestly it infuriates me. It drives me crazy because there’s a couple of good people that are really promoting a true ketogenic lifestyle that really utilize the proper ratio of fats to protein and the right minerals and again there’s the people that are just saying “guys, you can just eat bacon and you’ll be fine and you’ll lose weight.”
Stu
Totally. Exogenous ketones. I know that they’ve … Huge over in the States and they’re becoming very big over here. Very expensive mind you, but it’s almost like that’s fine just suck on this and you’ll have the body and life that you want.
Thomas
[00:27:30] Yeah. We’re on the same page there. People are probably listening to this going “What! I thought Thomas would be totally pro exogenous ketones.” No. I’m not. Every now and then there is a rhyme and a reason to using exogenous ketones. If you are an extraordinary athlete that needs the additional ketones. Predominantly for endurance work. Ketones, no matter how you mix them. How you make them are never going to be anerobic fuel.
[00:28:00] They’re never going to give you energy in the weight room. If they are congratulations, you’re the victim of a placebo effect because they’re just not. What they will do is give you an extra boost when you are doing mixes of anaerobic and aerobic activity where you need to preserve aerobic activity.
[00:28:30] Here’s my take on exogenous ketones. The body, when given the opportunity to run on either ketones or glucose, if you put them both in the same body, the body is preferentially going to use the ketones first because they’re easier fuel for the body to use at that point in time. So my thought is, what happens when you are taking ketones along with carbohydrates? Well, your body’s going to take those exogenous ketones you just took in and it’s going to shunt all the glucose off to the side and your blood sugars going remain elevated and you’re going to give yourself diabetes and then you’re going to put yourself in a situation where you’re gonna gain fat and it’s going to end up turning in … It’s just gonna …
So, I don’t understand why an exogenous ketone could be marketed as something that will get someone, quote unquote, get someone into ketosis faster.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
If they’re consuming carbs. Some of the marketing behind, I won’t say specific name, but there’s one in particular that’s and MLM that goes out there and tells people you’re going to get in ketosis when you take this, and they can legally say that because after they take that exogenous ketone supplement, if they were to test their blood levels, they would show ketones in their blood so by default they’re in ketosis, but they’re not in a nutritional state of ketosis. They have active ketone metabolites and beta hydroxybutyrate and aceto acetate in their blood. They’re not technically in ketosis.
So nutritional ketosis and ketosis that’s spawned by supplements, no. Different.
Stu
[00:30:00] Yeah. It’s such a crazy world. How do you test, or how do you advise people test, because I know you’ve got sticks, breathe, blood, urine, there’s so many different ways. And I think, perhaps in the early days as well, it’s important to test and then you’ll generally know. I think, given a couple of months into it, how you feels. But what would you recommend a newbie use to test ketosis.
Thomas
A newbie is gonna be … I will always say that the gold standard is always your blood. It just always is. That’s just the best way. So the urine strips are a great place for people to start because they’re minimally invasive, you don’t have to prick your finger or anything like that. The problem is they only measure aceto acetate and they only measure excess ketones.
Stu
Right.
Thomas
So you’ll show a high level of ketones in the morning and then you’ll show them early on in ketosis because your body isn’t conditioned to use any ketones yet so you’re producing more than your body needs so you’re gonna excrete more so more are gonna show on the strip. Then two or three weeks in people are like “I’m not in ketosis anymore.” No. You’re just efficiently in ketosis and you’re not having all this waste coming out in your urine. So, there go the strips. They’re no longer really good.
[00:31:30] Then the breath meters, I have to eat some of my own words here because at one point I did a video with a certain device because I thought it was the bee’s knee’s. I thought it was really cool and then as … Some of these breathe meters are really cool just for the convenience side of things, but breathe acetone, I don’t believe, is the most effective way to measure whether you’re in ketosis or not because, I don’t know if you knew this, but acetone is just, it’s a ketone, but it’s a byproduct of aceto acetate instructing so we have aceto acetate which ultimately can convert into beta hydroxybutyrate but aceto acetate is a ketone body and sometimes in the body a certain percentage of it just randomly self destructs and when it self destructs it turns into acetone. So all’s we’re doing by measuring acetone is essentially this … the random anomaly that has self destructed.
So I just don’t think that’s the best. So when it comes down to it, just you pricking your finger and getting the blood meter’s the best way to go. I think that’s the gold standard.
[00:32:00]
Stu
Absolutely. No. That’s good advice and I think, for our listeners as well, once you’ve been in that grove for a couple of months. Maybe three months or so you know how you feel and when you get up and you have clarity of thought and you’re not driven by your blood sugars and you’ve got lots of energy as well, I think you’re more in tune with your body and understand form that point forward.
[00:32:30] So, we’ve spoken a lot about diet and we’ll dial back towards the end of the questions as well because I’m really intrigued as to point our listeners over to your resources for them to be able to find out more, but excessive, on the other side of the coin, can be just as destructive as a poor diet if we get it wrong. If we’re doing the wrong types of things. If we’re not recovering properly. If we’re not sleeping because we’re exercising in the wrong way as well.
[00:33:00] So in terms of best protocols to move every day for long lasting health because quick fix, it’s all very well but I still want to be mobile when I’m 90.
Thomas
Yep.
Stu
Kettle bells or running shoes? I.E. high intensity weight lifting versus endurance.
Thomas
Yeah. Man, it’s tough to answer because I love both.
Stu
Right.
Thomas
Yeah. Growing up as a long distance runner my heart is happy when I’m running, so I love to go out for a run. I think it’s a combination of the two. I really do. I think that if you’re not … You know when it all comes down to the different types of muscle fibers that your body builds too. The type two muscle fibers that are type two A and B that can rotate more towards endurance or more towards anaerobic. You gotta keep them fresh and keep them split down the middle if you want to remain mobile. Take it from someone that has … I spent a lot of years training in a traditional body building fashion and I am not mobile. I joke and say that 2018 is the year that Thomas goes to rehab because this is my year of … And it’s been phenomenal how quickly it’s changed. From 2017 to 2018 have been years where I’m saying I’m focusing so much more on functional training and mobility and sacrificing some of my muscle size because I just don’t care. I want to feel good and part of it, again, stems from having a kid.
[00:34:30] I’m being on the ground with this kid and I’m like it hurts to be on the ground with my son. This is B.S. I’m too young for this. I’ve definitely found that doing a few days a week of high intensity interval training style stuff with kettle bells has phenomenally changed my mobility, my energy, my stamina, and quite frankly, it’s improved my endurance for my longer runs too because I still enjoy running.
[00:35:00] So my philosophy, I’ll just speak on how I train, is I train with a high intensity interval style now. I do focus on time under tension more so than counting reps. I do focus on how long I can keep a muscle under load via lighter weights just because it’s better for mobility. It’s better for me but every time I go into the gym I do that kind of workout. I still have the emphasis on one body part meaning that … I don’t just do one body part. I do full body but I have a little bit of leniency, a little bit of focus on one body part so that I’m still giving it a little bit of individualized attention on a given day.
[00:35:30] So, example being I’ll go in and I’ll do a circuit of some kind, it’s gonna be high intensity interval training, but maybe that day I’ll do two or three movements for chest instead of just one and rotate all the way through. You’re still doing all the movements but that’s more of a chest focused day. The next days still full body but it’s a little more focused on the back. That way I’m still getting the individualized attention that I want to still maintain the physique that I like.
But by and large is I think high intensity interval training is really paving the way now and it’s so much more time effective for people too.
Stu
[00:36:00] Definitely. Definitely. How do you effect during recovery? Are you a proponent of training every day or do you need recover days in between?
Thomas
Depends on … We have to go back to the old school methodology is that we have the different variables. We have frequency. We have volume. We have intensity and we have duration. Those four things dictate how our recovery should go. If our volume is high. If we’re training one workout for a long period of time, we’re going to need more days between workouts. Period.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
[00:36:30] If we’re training shorter workouts we can simply afford to train every day. So you look at your frequency. How often are you training? You look at your duration, your intensity. How short yet powerful is your workout. Or how long and how much volume is in your workout? If you’re training with a lot of volume you shouldn’t train every day.
Stu
Got it.
Thomas
[00:37:00] One thing I’ve gotten wise to is definitely listening to my body a lot more. I used to train through soreness a lot more which, some will say soreness doesn’t matter, that it doesn’t apply but it does. Inflammation, again, is a real thing. You start noticing you’re just stiff all over. You’re not stiff because you worked out that muscle. There’s days when I overtrain my shoulders and my check but I wake up the next day and my hamstrings are stiff. That is inflammation. That is electrolyte imbalances. That is recovery and do you want to live for a long time or do you want to be a bad ass right now, right here.
Stu
[00:37:30] Yeah. No. I get it. Absolutely right. For me, I look at one of the biggest pillars of recovery and if, perhaps the biggest pillar of health, is sleep. It’s where everything happens. All the repair processes and memory consolidation and all the cleaning stuff. All the great stuff but it’s very easy to get sleep wrong. Especially in today’s environment with stress, smart phones, poor diet, inflammation. We’re over doing it at every facet of our life.
[00:38:00] What are your tips to engineer the best nights sleep?
Thomas
Well, for starters don’t have a five month old.
Stu
Yeah. I’ve been there, times two cause we had twins. I get where you’re coming from.
Thomas
Tell me it gets better.
Stu
It gets better. It definitely gets better.
Thomas
[00:39:00] He’s actually great. He’s sleeping almost all the way through the night now but yeah. One of the big things, a general rule for me, is I put my phone down an hour before bed. That’s just a cardinal rule. The blue light is legit. That really does screw up your melatonin production. There was a study I just referenced in a video, I don’t remember right off had who did it so I can send you a link later if you need it for the show, but it was … It was a small study. They took nine individuals and they had them do their normal routine for a week and then the next week they had them go camping with no smart phone’s or anything like that. Just exposed to natural sunlight and no personal devices. They found that after just one week of being outdoors that not only did their circadian rhythm start to time with the sun but their melatonin offset started 50 minutes earlier meaning their melatonin production stopped 50 minutes earlier in the morning than they did previously. Meaning that their melatonin was like okay, we’re shutting down. It’s time to start waking up.
[00:39:30] So their body naturally, hormonally, waking up. Internally an hour earlier which is pretty darn amazing. Showing it was encouraging them to just … You get up easier. So that’s a big thing for me because right now sleep is everything to me and if I’m only going to be getting five or six hours with the baby crying, I want to make sure that it’s good quality sleep because I can’t guarantee I’m going to get the eight hours, nine hours that I really like.
Stu
Yeah. Absolutely.
Thomas
[00:40:00] So, that’s a big one. I’m talking about another one in videos which is taking a hot shower before bed because the cooling process. When you get out of a shower or bath, the cooling process triggers that melatonin production so it helps you fall asleep. I’m also a big fan of keeping my bed times relatively consistent. As consistent as I can. I don’t stay up super late on the weekends and sleep in on the weekends. I keep my body clock the way it should be. I got to bed at 9:00 P.M.ish and I’m up at 4:30 or 5:00 and I’m feeling pretty good with that.
Stu
[00:40:30] Perfect. That’s good advise. It’s very, very easy to screw up on sleep. It absolutely is. Have you found that keto has played a roll in better sleep?
Thomas
[00:41:00] So, it’s a good question because I have had phases of keto where, yes, significantly better and then I’ve had periods of keto where it’s significantly worse. We have to pay close attention to our bodies and what’s happening there because without hormone you do not produce nearly as much serotonin and serotonin is a precursor to melatonin. If you are deprived in carbohydrates, which you are in ketosis, then you might find that you don’t sleep as well.
[00:41:30] So very, very important to take note of that and if that’s the case then you may want to possibly supplement tryptophan just to at least get that tryptophan into your brain so you can trigger proper sleep. But then again, like I said, I’ve had periods of keto where I sleep better than I do when I’m not in keto. Right now, full disclaimer, I’m not in keto, for another two weeks I’m not in keto and I’m sleeping better than I did in keto but then two phases ago when I was in keto I was sleeping like a … Shouldn’t say sleeping like a baby. Sleeping like a rock.
Stu
Right. Okay. Look, that is good to know and in terms of trying to quiet the mind, because I know that smart phones can trigger a whole train of thought patterns that then just keeps us up and stops us winding down. Do you practice any form of mindfulness at all?
Thomas
I’m a huge fan of meditation. Huge fan of body scan techniques are my favorite just because I’m a body person. That’s what I do. I work out. I eat well. I love feeling my body so body scan techniques are a huge part of me. Part of my routine. Try to do those in the afternoon or evening. I don’t do them in the morning because in the morning I believe that you’re in the theta wave state still and it’s way to easy to just go into a sleep and not a true meditation.
Stu
Right.
Thomas
So I enjoy the challenge of a meditation so.
Stu
How long do you typically take for a session.
Thomas
[00:43:00] I don’t need much, ten minutes. Ten minutes for me. If I really am feeling frisky I’ll go for 20 or 30 but again, it’s for me, it’s … It’s still … Meditation on, I don’t know if you meditate or not but it’s not this happy place. It’s difficult. Meditation is difficult and part of meditation is brain training and the discipline that is involved in focusing and not letting your brain, or accepting when your brain wonders and it can be frustrating but, of course, you accept that frustration, right? You just let it go and it’s … So usually when I want to do 20 or 30 minutes I sort of have an ulterior motive of I want a challenge but my standard is 10 minutes.
Stu
Got it. Got it. Have you experimented with transcendental versus any other forms? What works for you?
Thomas
I’ve self experimented with transcendental but I don’t know if I’m doing it correct. There is a proper technique so I’m not confident I was doing it properly. Running meditations and walking meditations, but running meditations is one of my favorites. I’ll listen to binaural sounds in a different and specific frequency and go for a run and focus on my feet. Just focusing on my feet hitting the earth. Focusing on my feet hitting the earth with maybe [inaudible 00:43:53] hertz waves and not only is that a trip, it actually feels like you don’t even remember your run. It’s pretty wild but it’s very effective. In fact, that’s part of my routine on filming days. So when I film I’m filming a lot of content and my brain has to be on point. I study for a couple of days before I’m filming and I, just like any competitive athlete, I get nervous before I film because I don’t feel … I’m not sure if I’m going to perform well. It’s like a PR for me every week. It’s like okay, am I going to nail it because I really like to be on point with my videos.
[00:44:30] Yeah. So it’s part of my routine. Before filming day, rain or shine, you’ll usually find me going for a run with my headphones on listening to my binaural music.
Stu
Wow. It’s funny isn’t it. You know Joe Public would look at you running down the street and thinking oh look, he’s just going for a run but you’ve got a whole strategy happening there that people are very unaware of.
[00:45:00] So we’re coming towards the end of the show now, and just conscious of time, I’ve got a couple of questions before we wrap up and the first one being your daily non negotiable … So you’re a new dad and you’re a very busy man and you’ve got lots and lots of knowledge. You’ve got different strategies for sleep, meditation, nutrition, exercise movement, all of the above. What are your non negotiables? The things that you do every single day just to perform. To be at your best.
Thomas
Yeah. So, family time is one of them. I will absolutely … It’s non negotiable that I will spend, even if I’m traveling, it’s going to be a phone call or a FaceTime or something with my wife. It’s going to be at least 30 to 60 minutes of just non negotiable, undivided attention with my family period. That is, in a sense, a form of meditation for me so without that I’m nothing.
[00:46:00] Non negotiable is always going to be, when it comes down to my fitness, it’s going to be at minimum 15 minutes of movement of some kind. It just has to happen. Movement has to happen. Whether it’s weight training, whether it’s running, whether it’s calisthenics, whether it’s stretching there’s just a non negotiable 15 minutes there.
Another non negotiable is going to be apple cider vinegar. Even when I’m traveling I find a store where I can get apple cider vinegar and if I can’t get apple cider vinegar where I’m going I will bring a ACV tabs. I am a huge … people have seen my videos know how much I love acetic acid apple cider vinegar. Excuse me, apple cider vinegar and that’s just right off the top of my head those are the three that I just don’t change.
Stu
Brilliant. How do you take your apple cider vinegar? Is it a shot in the morning?
Thomas
I do use a straw because I don’t want to ruin my teeth because it will break down your teeth. So it’s usually with a juice of half a lemon, a little bit of cayenne, some water, two tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and suck it down.
Stu
Great. Fantastic.
Thomas
There’s a lot of metabolic effect to it but a lot of it is kind of energizing. It tastes so awful it just wakes you up.
Stu
Yeah. I do a similar. I do a big glass of water with lots of Himalayan pink salt and I squeeze half a lemon in there as well and that kind of gets my adrenals fired and ready for the day.
Thomas
Definitely does.
Stu
Yeah.
Thomas
And if I’m in ketosis I add the salt too. If I’m not in ketosis I don’t add the salt.
Stu
Right. Okay. Fantastic. No, that is great to know. So any top tips that you could share, with all of your collective knowledge, that you think will make the biggest impact on our health? Big question, I know.
Thomas
Yeah. No. Forget everything you know about the Pavlovian response that we have to when it’s time to eat. That’s the biggest piece of advice I could give someone. I don’t care if you’re eating four meals a day, one meal a day, two meals a day, three meals a day, six meals a day, or no meals in a day. Stop the conditioning of breakfast, lunch, and dinner because it’s Pavlovian. We’ve been signaled to respond when the alarm clock goes off, we eat. When the school bell rings, we eat. When the dinner bell rings, we eat and that’s nothing more than Pavlov’s law in action. That’s the biggest bit of advice that I can give people, is forget everything you know about structured meal timing and just eat when it feels right to eat.
Stu
[00:48:30] Yeah. You know, that’s great advise. My daughters had a friend over, a sleep over last week, and in the morning they were getting ready for school and we were preparing breakfast and I was preparing my breakfast and her friend said “That doesn’t look like breakfast, it looks like dinner.” I said “Exactly right. That’s why I’m doing it.” I had brussel sprouts and broccoli and I had fish and everything on there and that verus cereal and juice and toast. And like you said, we are programmed to think right, get up. Right, must have my cereal, my juice, my toast, cause that’s breakfast and then I’ll get into lunch in that way.
Yeah. Thinking outside of that preconditioned programming I think is pretty important. That is good advise.
Thomas
Definitely.
Stu
So what is next for Thomas Delauer? What have you got coming up?
Thomas
[00:50:00] In the very short term I’ve got a big round of speaking engagements coming up in the next couple of months so that’s keeping me busy. Obviously, creating content, as always. I’ve … Man, got so much stuff going on I don’t even know where to begin. I recently became a partner with a company I’ve been working for a long time which is Pure Thrive, which is Pure Thrive Nutrition so I’ve been working with them for a number of years as their spokesperson and now I came in as a partner. So that’s taking on a lot of my bandwidth now which is exciting. It’s great and it’s … So excited for the future with that as well as … My brain is so … Speaking of so much stuff going on it’s like you can hardly pinpoint what exactly you’re working on but I’m excited to spend a lot more of this summer with my family. One of my goals for 2018 was to get myself out of the office every Friday. That’s a new goal for me so it’s really be able to make it that Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are a lot more geared towards family time.
[00:50:30] And I know people will say don’t live for the weekend or anything like that. The fact of the matter is you don’t have to not live for the weekend, quote unquote, but we have to accept that business and commerce and life is occurring during that nine to five and sometimes we can not control the fact that we have to make that communication happen during that period of time. So as much as you don’t want to, quote unquote, live for the weekend sometimes you do have to do what you can to make those weekends even better. And you carve the life that you want for yourself so anyway, my goal for this year is getting my business to a point where my employees are functioning without me there on Fridays and I can run the show the way I need to and spend a lot more time with my family.
Stu
Fantastic. Now I hear you. As a business owner I hear exactly where you’re coming from but, yeah, hope to be doing the same myself.
Thomas
We always say that we want to, as entrepreneurs, we do this because we want to be able to [inaudible 00:51:05] the lifestyle and we want to be able to just take off whenever we need to but you know the reality is where … Yeah, if you want to communicate, if you want to drive business and commerce then you have to sometimes be at … Yeah.
Stu
[00:51:30] Absolutely right. Yeah. At the beckon call of the business. So from everything that we’ve spoken about you’ve clearly super knowledgeable. So you’ve got so much information there, and I would love to be able to drive our audience in to find out more. So discover a lot more. Where would be the best place for them to go?
Thomas
Yeah. Two places. If they’re looking for more resources in the world of keto and fasting and nutrition then it’d be foolish to say anything other than YouTube. That’s just an encyclopedia, a plethora or all kinds of videos that essentially act as whatever you need to learn the process. If you’re more interested in contacting me or my team directly, you know, thomasdelauer.com is simply a great place.
Stu
Fantastic. Well we will … we’ll add the links and any other associated links or information to the show notes and when we roll it out to our audience but for now, Thomas, I have been honored to speak to you and really appreciate your time and can not wait to share this with our crew here as well. So thank you very much.
Thomas
Your welcome. I’m excited too. Thank you.
Stu
Brilliant. Thanks Thomas.
