This episode is sponsored by Transcend, a veteran
-owned and operated performance optimization
company that I introduced recently as a sponsor
on this show. Well, since then I have actually
been using my products and I have had incredible
success. There was initial blood work that was
extremely detailed and based on that they offered
supplementation. So I began taking DHEA. BPC
-157 for inflammation based on the fact that
I've been a stuntman, a martial artist and a
firefighter my whole life. Lots of aches and
pains. Dihexa to help cognition after multiple
punches to the head and shift work and peptides.
Four months later they did a detailed blood work
again and I was actually able to taper off two
of the peptides because my body had responded
so well to just one of them that it was optimized
at that point. So I cannot speak highly enough
of the immense range of supplementation that
they offer, whether it's male health, female
health, peptides to boost your own testosterone,
which I would argue is needed by a lot of the
fire service, or whether it's exogenous testosterone
needed, especially after TBIs or advanced age.
Now, as I mentioned before, the other side of
this company is an altruistic arm called the
Transcend Foundation, which is putting veterans
and first responders through some of their protocols
free of charge. Now, Transcend are also offering
you, the audience, 10 % off their protocols.
And you can find that on jamesgearing .com under
the Products tab. And if you want to hear more
about Transcend and their story, listen to episode
808 with the founder, Ernie Colling. or go to
transcendcompany .com. Welcome to the Behind
the Shield podcast. As always, my name is James
Geering, and this week it is my absolute honor
to welcome on the show sports nutritionist Dr.
Nathan Jenkins. Now, in this conversation, we
discuss a host of topics, from his journey into
the world of exercise physiology, studying disease
as a vascular cell biologist, obesity, diabetes,
the importance of a comprehensive blood panel,
gut biome, supplementation, rapid health optimization,
and so much more. Now, before we get to this
incredible conversation, as I say every week,
please just take a moment. Go to whichever app
you listen to this on, subscribe to the show,
leave feedback, and leave a rating. Every single
five -star rating truly does elevate this podcast,
therefore making it easier for others to find.
And this is a free library of well over 1 ,100
episodes now. So all I ask in return is that
you help share these incredible men and women's
stories so I can get them to every single person
on planet Earth who needs to hear them. Now,
one more quick side note. My account got shut
down for the second time in a year on Instagram
for posting kindness, compassion, and community.
They don't give a reason. I have no idea what
happened, but here we are again starting at zero.
So if you are following this podcast on Instagram,
it is now at BehindTheShield911 .3 .0. So with
that being said, welcome onto the show. Dr. Nathan
Jenkins. Enjoy. Well, Nathan, I want to start
by saying two things. Firstly, thank you to our
mutual friend, Phil White, for connecting us.
And secondly, I want to welcome you onto the
Behind the Shield podcast today. Thank you so
much for having me. Happy to be here. So where
on planet Earth are we finding you this afternoon?
You're finding me in a little town called Watkinsville,
Georgia. Almost none of your listeners will know
about that unless they're randomly local. But
it's just outside of Athens, Georgia, which may
be more familiar, where the University of Georgia
is. We are about roughly an hour and a half east
of Atlanta. Beautiful. Well, I would love to
start at the very beginning of your timeline.
So tell me where you were born and tell me a
little bit about your family dynamic, what your
parents did, how many siblings. Oh, yeah. Wow.
Going way back to the beginning. Way back. Yeah,
I was born in the Atlanta area, suburbs of...
North Atlanta, Marietta, Georgia, where I mostly
grew up. Let's see, what's the interesting stuff?
So I have one younger sister. I have a step -sister
who's the same age as my younger sister. They're
about six weeks apart and they're about two years
younger than me. So we were all really close
growing up. And we also have an older step -brother,
three years older than me. And, um, that nuclear
family all came together when my mom and stepdad
got married when I was nine. Um, this is all
in the, or was I eight somewhere in there? Um,
we're going, we're in ancient history right now.
So I might get a little of the details, but,
uh, let's see, what can I tell you? Uh, that
was, um, those were, these are, these are fun
times. So we moved from, uh, from the Atlanta
area out to Seattle, Washington. Right. Pretty
much immediately when my mom stepped up, got
married, his job took us out there and we thought
we were going to be there for forever. We were
only there for about two years before his job
then brought us back to the Atlanta area. And
so all that to say, and then, and then I've more
or less lived in somewhere in the state of Georgia,
um, pretty much ever since minus a few years
of, uh, uh, my graduate training and postdoctoral
work, which we can talk about. But to answer
the first part of the question about family dynamics
and growing up, I can share that we were all,
you know, very active in sports, very, you know,
physical activity and exercise, which is now
a big part of my life. That was a big thing for
us. But then I also, interestingly, at the same
time that that was true, I also struggled with
my body weight as a child. The Jenkins side of
my family, so my dad's side in particular, Very
traditional Southern upbringing, lots of great
Southern food. And this is the 80s and 90s that
we're talking about when, oh gosh, we're past
the initiation of the overweight and obesity
epidemic, but in the exponential growth phase
of that. And so I definitely got caught up in
that. And also my major impact for me is my grandfather,
my dad's dad died young of, well, it was mainly
from complications of smoking, but he had heart
disease. I think he survived at least one or
two heart attacks before the last one he did
not. And then he also had lung cancer and all
that from smoking. And so that's not a happy
thing to share, but it was, I remember being
very young being. you know of course sad about
all that i was closer to my grandpa but that
sparked an interest in health and fitness um
at a pretty early age and in physiology in particular
cardiovascular physiology which is what i ended
up focusing on primarily in my um you know my
graduate school days and as an exercise physiologist
eventually so Oh, gosh, yeah, there's a lot I
could share about the childhood years, but we
can keep going. No, I mean, this is what's interesting,
because normally what people experience in the
younger years, they really do factor into choices
and passions as they get older. When you reflect
back now, what was the kind of nutrition that
you were served in school? Oh, in school, it
was, oh, gosh, it's processed on processed foods,
which I'm not. complete uh anti -processed food
zealot by any means but uh that was you know
very um calorie dense but nutritionally poor
uh food for sure and this and listen i grew up
in a at least middle class and then later on
very upper middle class frankly affluent area
and it didn't matter the the uh the quality of
the food was it was not not great it was not
great So, but we did have, we had good food at
home for sure. You know, mostly whole foods.
A lot of my mom and my dad both cooked quite
a bit of food at home. My stepdad's a lousy cook,
but he did, he did a bunch of other good stuff,
but that was not one. But, you know, always grew
up eating, you know, for the most part, very
healthy food. So yeah, the school's disaster.
I just learned recently from one of the guests
that currently at least, the food that's served
in our schools and prisons, there's two parallel
and similar paths, are technically expired foods
that these processed food companies sell for
a lesser price to those. So not only are our
children getting shit food, but they're getting
expired shit food, which is even worse. Yeah,
I didn't know that. And that's today. Wow. That
sounds like a stat from the era that we're talking
about, the 80s and 90s. If that's a 2025 statistic,
that's concerning. Absolutely. Well, you mentioned
about being active. What were the sports and
exercise that you were playing and doing back
then? Well, as a kid, mostly... one thing my
parents were really good about and i think about
this a lot now because i have a i now have a
three -year -old and so starting to think about
sports for him uh the mantra was exposure to
everything um i played uh baseball basketball
i never really played football other than just
like yard stuff but um you know most team sports
i doubt it was for at least a season or two uh
but the real um uh in in my youth like physical
activity exercise experience wasn't really so
much from this from sports as much as it was
i got very very into um first it was weight training
and this would be categorized today as like traditional
uh bodybuilding style weight training again 19
we're talking like 1998 1999 uh 16 years old
i got a membership with the local uh with mirrors
and free weights. And I was that kid, the high
school kid doing curls in front of the mirror.
And I loved it. I absolutely fell in love with
that. And then around the same time, maybe a
couple of years, but still in high school, I
got into mountain biking. A buddy of mine in
the neighborhood had a mountain bike and he was
really into it. We were good friends. And one
time I borrowed his little sister's bike and
we went in the mountains of North Georgia, Okay.
Depending on where you're located, that may be
loosely defined as mountains, but they were mountains
to us and definitely some steep grades. But yeah,
that's been with some breaks here and there throughout
my life. That's been a lifelong, at least hobby.
I raced a little bit in college for a few years.
I did a little, so modest competition history
there, but those two, man, I just, I couldn't
get enough either of. Weight training or mountain
biking, this is in the early days. And that's
been more or less, again, a lifelong thing. What
was it that helped you turn the corner from the
weight being challenging to the fitness path?
Yeah, let me think about that. It was probably,
it was in early high school. I think I just kind
of decided I didn't want to be a pudgy kid anymore.
Coming out, you know, it's pretty common kind
of coming out, coming out of like the, that prepubescent
phase where a lot, a lot of boys, I know I did
tend to pack on a few extra pounds. And I just,
I don't know. I don't, I don't remember the exact,
if there was an exact thing. I remember, I do
remember one kind of thing was my old, my stepbrother
I mentioned. was so he was three years older
than me he was in high school playing football
and in the weight room a lot and he got very
strong and really muscular really fit and i wanted
to be like him i wanted to um so i would have
been like 12 or 13 when i i remember the first
time i was i uh lifted weights in the basement
of my of that house that we lived in and it was
really fun and all that but what i will never
forget was just the extreme soreness that um
it persisted like the next day it was just shocking
and then the two days later even it was even
worse and it was probably four weeks before um
or four weeks four days before i felt somewhat
normal again and i from what i understood and
this is this was internet existed but it wasn't
like i could go on and look up the late onset
muscle soreness and learn about it but it's just
the way that i think my stepbrother my stepdad
with the way they explained to me he's like yeah
that's that's the essentially they were right
this the um that means your muscles are going
to get stronger they got it they're damaged they're
going to heal and you're going to get stronger
i was like that is the coolest thing in the world
let me do it again and so um got really into
it and then kind of the nutrition piece like
as i gained muscle i remember it was gaining
muscle the nutrition piece uh fell into place
at that time it was very well known and very
well understood that eating more protein means
you gain more muscle so i became obsessed with
like lunch meat and uh gosh this is also Again,
high school boy, voracious appetite, ate my poor
mother out of house and home. She couldn't hardly
keep the pantry and the fridge stocked. And I
remember one time my younger stepsister, she
was going into the cupboard looking for a snack.
And she was, I can't remember what snack she
was looking for, but it was something I had already
eaten. She just looks at me, she goes, why do
you have to eat everything? So you eat everything
in the world. So anyway, that was what we're
talking about. It's like the nascent days of
my, again, lifelong fascination with nutrition
and fitness. When you were in high school, were
you already thinking of following that educational
path or was there something else in your mind?
At high school, I had no idea. I knew I wanted
to go to college, but I had no idea what I wanted
to do or study. I think I started. I know that
I started college as a political science major
just because I enjoyed social studies and high
school government classes and stuff. And that
lasted all of about three weeks. All it took
was the first political science 101 class to
know that, okay, this is fine, but I don't want
to study this for all four years. Um, so I, uh,
at this point, I remember being in the dorm on
my, uh, gigantic, you know, uh, huge old school
PC with the, with the, you know, the monitor
that was like, weighed like 4 ,000 pounds. Uh,
it's doing a deep dive into the websites of all,
you know, when I went to university of Georgia,
which fortunately for me, that was a. you know
a large land grant institution with lots of majors
available like i wasn't at a small liberal arts
school with just you know relatively smaller
selection so i was just like looking through
everything that seemed interesting to me and
i was i was looking for something in you know
the fitness or nutrition i came across exercise
science um exercise and sports science and i
was like that's what i that's that's what i'm
trying to read about learn about all the time
anyway um i didn't i had no idea even when i
started on campus that that was an option that
that was a major but i came across it just searching
and so yeah that's what i that's what i switched
to and stayed stayed with it so i went and did
uh sports science and exercise sports science
and fitness evaluation in university of north
london and then just recently a few years ago
finished off my bachelor's at uf and that was
exercise physiology yeah when i reflect back
The problem that I had, in at least my personal
experience, was it seemed like it really groomed
you to stay in a lab rather than to leave and
be a coach or some of the more hands -on things
where you're able to move the needle on your
own performance and then also help people in
the gym, on the field. What was your experience
educationally as far as the academic side? It
was almost exactly that. You know, it's a really
cool major and a cool degree. And there are certainly
programs around the country, around the world
that are very effective at training trainers
and training fitness professionals. But for the
most part, the field is quite academic and that's
cool. But so like for me, for example, it was.
And that's the track that I was on. So it was
a good fit for me. I liked the idea of I knew
from when I was a freshman in college that I
wanted to be a professional researcher, which
was, you know, kind of unusual. But I just happened
to have that exposure. I had a fantastic professor
who. was very open to undergraduates doing research
in the lab. And I saw that and I was like, I
want this guy's job. All he, you know, what he
likes, what he seems to do is walk around and
ask people questions all day. It's, you know,
students and, and invite academic discussion.
I loved it. I was all for it. So it was great
for that. But to your point, it wasn't ideal
for training, you know, learning things that
are actually help. if you're a personal trainer
or a coach your client or your athlete in the
gym on monday morning necessarily um so i've
i mean there's again i don't want to speak in
absolutes there's definitely spaces for that
and it's every program is going to be different
but you mentioned uf which is a very also a very
academic institution uh and that that department
in particular is excellent academically and some
of the best research in our field I'm familiar
with some of the vascular physiology that's come
out of VUF. It's absolutely incredible, but it
wouldn't be a great fit for at least that particular
program, that particular lab or whatever. It
wouldn't be a great fit at all for somebody that's
trying to dive deeper in the coaching space.
Yeah, we had one semester where basically it
was a prep class for the NSCA CSCS. That was
phenomenal, and it was a hybrid class. Actually,
I think it was a remote class. really well done
you know all the content was there but then yeah
you go into some of the other ones and it was
so myopic that you were like i understand the
idea the concept but where's the application
to your regular athlete that's right that's right
and it became so i remember i taught a um so
now we're going to jump ahead to when i was a
professor at uga for nine years um i taught a
graduate course on exercise metabolism and it
was a required Course for our, the students in
the master strength and conditioning specialist.
So it was a non -thesis track. It was purely
basically for coaches. And I ended up changing,
I kept the concepts the same, but when I inherited
that course from the faculty member who taught
it before me, it was all research. It was all
readings. It was all, again, it's purely academic.
But after like a semester or two of teaching
that course, I was like, I got to change this
to make it more applicable to the. to our clientele,
basically to the students. And so it became,
I mean, it's still very much grounded. Those
students were doing a lot of reading. So I tried
to like, I tried to thread the needle as best
I could. It was, you know, if you're going to
have a master's degree, then yes, you need to
be an intelligent and educated and professional
consumer of research. So we're going to use our
course readings to teach you that skill. But
I totally changed the, like I wasn't having people
memorize the biochemical pathways anymore because
you're not going to do that for a client. we
will have a good understanding of the the energy
systems the metabolic energy systems that tend
to govern exercise different types of exercise
performance and then yeah and they did a lot
of really cool i'm remembering now it's been
a while but they did a lot of really cool group
projects on um okay this is they would pick an
athlete or a particular sport and do like a case
study and um identify like one thing that did
was pretty cool was like i want you to identify
the third or fourth place finisher in this olympic
sport Talk to me about why aren't they the first
place? Can you come up with a physiological reason
why they're maybe not the top person? That created
a lot of discussion. But so anyway, sorry, tangent,
rabbit hole. But yeah, this is a challenge for
the universities where, yes, the people like
yourself who want to level up their game with
their education, their credentials. You go look
in the ivory tower, you're not going to find
a lot of times a lot of applicable stuff, even
if you do get the nice letters behind your name
and all that. I think this is why we're seeing,
I just saw an article recently, a lot of the
Gen Z generation are going into the trades. And
I think the reason is you can look online and
for the same reason that a lot of people aren't
going to the fire service at the moment, you
can now research all the bad side, all the diseases
and the mental health things. when they look
at your average degree um you know they say okay
it's tens of thousands of dollars and you get
a piece of paper it doesn't guarantee you a job
versus the trades obviously it's you know a more
intense version of education and then yeah you've
got the school set skill set excuse me and you
leave and i think that maybe is is the future
of higher academia as well is to start bringing
back some of that you know hands -on real world
elements so that if someone is going to be in
an academic facility for two or four years, that
when they step out the back door, that they do
have a track to an actual profession. Absolutely.
And yeah, listen, I'm all for higher education
when it makes sense. Talking to somebody with
a doctorate degree, was a professor for a long
time. But I'm thinking about thinking about my
son when he's, it'll be, who knows what the landscape
is going to be like in about, you know, 15 years
or so when he's making that decision, but I'm
not necessarily an advocate for everybody to
go to college anymore. And, you know, if you
ask me that probably 10 years ago, maybe 15,
20 years ago when I was in it, like for sure,
that's what everybody used to do, you know, but
completely not the case now. Cause I mean, I
would say I would actually, even in, even by
the time students would get to me so in the undergraduate
program they were in their junior senior year
i remember seeing thinking wow this college may
not have been for this person they really need
to be you know a trade might be a better fit
um and that might have been smarter for them
you know so it's a challenge for sure no 100
while we're on the subject of still in college
and obviously i'm sure you're interacting with
a lot of athletes during that time One of the
observations, and I talk about this all the time
on here, but I think it's an important topic
to bring up. When I first moved to America, after
a while, I kept bumping into what I call Uncle
Ricos. So these guys were either side of 30 -ish,
very deconditioned by this point, and every single
one of them had a story. I would have been in
the NFL, NHL, NBA had it not been for my, insert,
horrendous career -ending injury here. And I
remember thinking, what are they doing to children
in this country? And then you live here now,
my son's 18 and my stepson is 24. So, yeah, I've
been more exposed to it now. But I realized that...
In the UK, at least when I was young, and obviously
now you can tell by my face that was a long time
ago, we didn't play sports at a super high level.
We didn't do a lot of strength and conditioning
and training. We just played. And then by osmosis,
the kids that were really good, they would find
themselves in the training teams that sent you
to Manchester United or whatever your sport was.
But everyone else played sport a lot. But then
when you graduate school, you saw people keep
playing sport, you know, local leagues and pub
leagues and all that kind of thing. As I was
more exposed to athletics in America, what I
realized is that a high, high level of performance
was squeezed out of these high school and college
kids at the detriment of their wellness and longevity.
What is your perspective of that now with this
pretty, you know, interesting veteran lens that
you have? Oh, well, I wouldn't say that. I'm
going to answer your question, but with the caveat
that we're not in my real area of expertise at
all. But I think my opinion, my sense is that
there's an over -specialization in sport and
culturally. So I should just say over -emphasis
on this idea that kids need to specialize in
a sport at a young age, like you said. try to
peak for performance in high school. And I think
there's a lot of negative consequences to that.
One of which is the propensity for injury, the
increased injury risk that comes with it that
you're talking about, which that can come from
many things that either overuse injury in a particular
set of movement patterns for a particular sport
or a particular position in a sport. Or on the
off chance that you say you're a baseball player
and then you pick up, you're playing a game of
backup or pickup of football in the yard and
you're not used to twisting and turning and doing
all those dynamic things, then that's when you
snap your ACL or whatever. Well, that's because
it's a novel movement, right? And there's lack
of physical preparation for that kind of demand.
The other... Negative side effect that I think
you also touched on is that, you know, we don't,
after we, and I give my friends a hard time about
this all the time. It's like, yeah, athletically,
this is my neighbors next door or whatever. Yeah,
you peaked in high school. You know, this whole
phenomenon of peaking in high school or maybe
even in college and then kind of hanging it up
and not really continuing to play, continuing
to participate in physical activity in a more
general sense. Well, that's one of the biggest
reasons for physical inactivity and quote -unquote
age -related declines in health and physiological
performance. And so culturally, that begins,
I think, with what we're talking about, which
is the – well, there's multiple reasons for the
lack of physical activity, lack of health -related
behaviors, but I think there's a certain subset
of our culture is significant. a group of folks
where this, what we're talking about is applicable.
My own father is another example. He was an athletic
man growing up and played football, played all
sorts of sports, was a very strong man. But then
after high school, he didn't do much at all.
And yeah, that's another reason for how I am
the way I am. Pigeon swings one way and then
sometimes goes the other way with generations.
Yeah. Anyway, I hope that answers your question.
I think it's a significant thing. Yeah. No, it
does. I think this is a powerful conversation
as if the way that we're, you know, again, squeezing
that performance at the detriment of the student.
then we're not only setting them up for failure
with the injuries, you've got also the psychological
burnout. But then, you know, because you've driven
them so hard, you've really just kind of squeezed
the love of sport, the love of play out of them
as well. So you look at some of these other healthier,
you know, nations around the world where adults
are still playing and they're still playful.
It's not about winning. It's not about the trophy.
I feel like we need to kind of circle back round
to where the middle ground is, because even listening
to the people that do work with incredible athletes,
I hear it over and over again. The best athletes
are also multi -sport athletes, as you said.
The guy that can play baseball, but also football
and soccer and basketball. Now that creates not
only a high performer, but a well -rounded athlete
that hopefully will carry on playing sport after
they graduate. Yeah. For my son, I want him to
get exposure to everything. But gosh, there's
a few sports that tend to lend themselves well,
just observationally. Soccer and track and field.
Folks who I've seen that I've known over the
years that were involved with those in their
youth, there's almost always a physiological
and fitness -related advantage if they continue
with it later in life. I've never known anybody
that was a good runner when they were a kid.
Yes, there are some injury things with running
and overuse and all that. Gosh, soccer seems
to have... an athlete develops an athleticism
that uh can carry forward into many other things
kind of have like a ripple effect so i i say
that i never i didn't start running until i was
almost 40 and i've never played soccer uh but
i'm so i'm just like i call it call it regrets
i don't know um that i wish i had well it's never
too late because i just started playing with
a group i think it's been two years now and i'm
51 So just pick up League on a Sunday, and it's
so much fun. I'm sure it's awesome. I'm sure
it's really fun. So, yeah, definitely going to
enroll my son Camden in soccer for the four -year
-old league next year. And so I'll try to pick
it up with him. Let me start with the four -year
-old level. Work your way up. Yeah, work my way
up. If I can display competency there, I might
gain a little bit of confidence to start playing
with some friends. So going back to the educational
side, I know that you were a vascular cell biologist.
Now, talk to me about how that applies in elite
performance, but did that also take you down
the vascular disease path as well? Yeah, so how
to describe this succinctly? Yeah, I've probably
got that language of vascular cell biologist,
also vascular physiologist. I always had this
intense interest in mechanisms by which exercise
and nutrition could prevent or potentially reverse
various types of cardiovascular disease. That
was my area of study, my area of research. I've
also had a longstanding interest in the vascular
consequences of metabolic diseases like type
2 diabetes and insulin resistance. And so, again,
that was the academic stuff. This is in the academic
world. I wouldn't say that those areas necessarily
parlayed into any kind of like coaching or work
that I've done in the industry. Other than, I
guess there's a couple. One is, well, I got into
nutrition coaching. while I was still a professor,
it was kind of like a side thing, side gig that
became, well, when my son was born, it was, it
escalated to like a full -time job kind of thing.
So I had two, I was a professor and a nutrition
coach and I couldn't keep doing both. So I decided
to go all in on nutrition coaching and resigned
from my position at the university. And then
it was after several years of doing the nutrition
coaching thing that i recently last couple years
got linked up with my current role at rapid which
is the biomarker analyst the labs analyst and
so to answer your question finally the kind of
like hearkening back drawing back from a lot
of both content and way of thinking from my academic
days in translating art my main deliverables
to our clients, which is basically to interpret
various biomarkers from blood, urine, stool,
and saliva from all these various tests that
they do and identify what are their key physiological
constraints, what's going on in their bodies.
Can I identify anything from that? expansive
look under the hood of their of their body basically
and um maybe correlate with their symptoms whatever
it is that issues they may be having or things
that they want to work on and so um that is bringing
me back to a big compo like so we work a bunch
of different things right but uh things like
lipids uh you know cholesterol ldl cholesterol
hdl cholesterol the whole array of all of that
various inflammatory markers metabolic markers
like fasting glucose hba1c insulin levels etc
um that's all very that that all that content
all that stuff is very much in my wheelhouse
in my background and so um it's a really cool
opportunity for me to be able to um kind of get
back into the into the literature in that way
um and then also Instead of teaching in the university
classroom, which was awesome, which I love that
and I miss that, I have this belief that coaching
and teaching are basically two words that mean
the same thing. They're synonyms. And so through
my coaching role, I'm actually teaching clients
a lot of things about physiology, but in a manner
that's helpful for them. It's interesting. When
I was younger, I think people really believed
that you couldn't, reverse disease you know if
you had diabetes if you had you know um vascular
disease then that was it that you were doomed
to be on these pills and just waiting one day
to croak and then the the older i get and the
more i'm exposed to and some of the documentaries
that forks over knives and you start saying okay
wait a second you know yeah if you go back to
eating the way that humans were supposed to eat
there is a good chance that you can reverse even
some of these cancers so as you started kind
of diving in the research and doing your own
talk to me about that element you know how reversible
are obviously not the super acute but you know
the early stages mid stages of these chronic
diseases that so many people are told in our
doctor's offices are irreversible that's right
um i've been like so i've in my academic career
and also you know coaching it as well i have
lived through the a big transition on this particularly
on um Type 2 diabetes. When I was in school,
I learned that type 2 diabetes was irreversible.
And then various medical guidelines and position
statements and sort of diabetes -related governing
bodies for that aspect of the medical community
have walked that back and said, you know, within
these, there's diagnostic criteria for for diabetes
hba1c above um uh was it is it six percent now
okay now i'm blanking uh but is that whatever
that the threshold is um it is uh reversely yes
you can when you're above that then it's a positive
diagnosis for type 2 diabetes uh but then with
lifestyle and uh with well there's multiple ways
to do it but uh mainly lifestyle good diet more
physical activity you actually can move the needle
and get below uh that the the diagnostic criteria
so um yeah that's it's absolutely uh some things
can be are reversible uh and there's also like
in the setting of atherosclerotic cardiovascular
disease it's tough to reverse that without pharmacologic
therapy but with significant nutritional intervention
of weight loss, uh, that you can at least at
the very least have plaque stabilization. And
some, some studies do, do promote plaque regression,
um, with exercise alone. That was one of the
things that we looked at quite a bit. Can you
reverse an atherosclerotic plaque? Can you, can
you make an atherosclerotic plaque smaller with
just exercise? The answer seems like probably
not. Um, you can certainly stay at one of the
mechanisms of. uh, the vascular benefits of exercise
in that context is that you could stay help stabilize
a plaque. So a plaque can become less prone to
rupture with, uh, with exercise, but you can't
really reverse it. But anyway, yeah, it's certain
diseases. Um, as a big, as a, that's a big question
of mine always is, can you, are these diseases,
are they really irreversible? Um, and the answer
is no, it's in fact, some of them are, are reversible.
You can, you can quote unquote cure them. So,
um, I think that's really cool. No, I do too.
Another thing that seems to have changed as we've
evolved is the conversation from plaque to more
like inflammation. So rather than there actually
be just all these fatty clots sort of floating
around just waiting to break off, that the lining
was actually more inflamed than anything else.
So what have you seen as far as that kind of
metamorphosis of the understanding of the physiology
behind heart disease? Yeah, so there's, I mean,
there's a lot of, there's different types of
heart disease and different types of vessel wall
pathology. Inflammation is a big component of
pretty much all of it. So the conventional thinking
of how atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease
works is like an ischemic atherosclerotic cardiovascular
disease is where the plaque builds up. continually
progressively over time and it gets thicker and
thicker and thicker and the lumen the the diameter
of the artery gets smaller and smaller and smaller
and eventually it gets too small and blood can't
go through it anymore anything downstream of
of that artery of that blood supply yeah because
subject to lack of blood flow and eventually
tissue death and if that's a coronary artery
then that's a big problem right And that does
happen. I'm not saying that doesn't happen, but
there's a lot more to it. To your point, it's
not just the narrowing of the artery. It's not
just the lack of blood flow in that sense. But
it turns out that much more of the prevalence
of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease is
actually where the lumen diameter hasn't really
changed that much, but the plaque is building
up progressively on that. And there's hypertrophy
of the plaque, essentially, such that the wall
is getting thicker and thicker and thicker. Again,
the lumen's staying about the same size, but
there's this buildup of lipid deposition and
nasty things like immune cells, which are very
much inflammatory in nature. When immune cells
take up residence in the vessel wall, they kind
of create this microenvironment of inflammation
that begets more and more inflammation. It's
a feed -forward thing. And the dangerous thing
about these plaques, and by the way, this is
called outward remodeling rather than inward
remodeling, which is the first scenario. Well,
the dangerous thing is that these plaques, in
stages of advanced inflammation, they can become
prone to rupture. And when they rupture, it's
a thrombotic cleavage event where basically a
blood clot breaks off and flows downstream. And
then that's what actually causes the acute event
where at first it's okay. It can flow through
the vessel. But what happens in the arterial
tree? Well, as you get further and further branched
out, the vessels get smaller and smaller and
smaller. And eventually that thrombus will become
lodged in an artery or arteriole where it cannot
flow anymore. And that's when we get the massive
event. And so that understanding, sort of new
understanding of the pathophysiology of The outward
remodeling and the lumen staying about the same
size and the thrombotic event being the main
event for the heart attack, that was pretty revolutionary.
This occurred probably in the 80s and 90s, but
still it's taken a long time for that knowledge
to become more mainstream. And it may actually
even be new for some of the listeners hearing
this. If you don't live in that world, it may
not be something that... you're necessarily aware
of that more of the, and I'd have to look at
the numbers, different studies show different
numbers, but the prevalence of ischemic events
like coronary artery events that occur due to
plaque rupture and the thrombotic event that
I'm talking about is something like. I don't
want to say specific numbers, but it's the vast
majority, the vast majority, as opposed to that
progressive narrowing of the artery. So that's,
so yeah, that's, I mean, this is kind of like
the biological stuff, but anyway, that's to,
to answer your question, inflammation is a huge
part of that. And it turns out from a, okay,
what, what, what can we do with this information?
Well, that's one of the reasons for take, if,
if blood work shows. a significant inflammatory
signature, or even something like a gut health
stool analysis shows a significant inflammatory
signature, well, there's a lot of reasons that
we want to address that and reduce inflammation
and get inflammation something that's managed.
And I say to get rid of inflammation altogether,
inflammation when dosed appropriately and administered
appropriately can be a very powerful adaptive
signal. And it's an important part of immunity
and of host defense of fighting off foreign pathogens,
but we don't want it to be running rampant in
your coronary arteries. Absolutely. I want to
get to kind of some of the reasons that we're
even here now as far as the nation's health.
But one more area when we're on the diabetes
conversation, I've had a lot of people talking
about recently is Alzheimer's being termed as
type three diabetes. So talk to me about the
nutritional element of improving the risk for
some sort of neurodegenerative disease. Yeah,
so I've definitely I've heard that. for quite
a while now. Oh, gosh. Who is the guy at Emory?
Not far from me. I think he coined it. But in
any case, it's essentially a problem of excessive
glycation and the attendant inflammation in the
brain is Alzheimer's. It is very much linked
to dysregulation of blood glucose. insulin resistance
and all that so yes a major mechanism of neurodegenerative
disease and again another reason to be paying
attention to our glucose regulation and our uh
you know glucose homeostasis so absolutely well
before we dive into what you are doing now when
you were doing the research when we look back
at decades prior what has changed about nutrition
about again because we alluded to play sports
etc activity of the the general population and
then what has this uptick of obesity actually
look like and and diabetes and these other diseases
yeah so that what are the major contributing
factors to type 2 diabetes and kind of what's
changed um so my sense of what has changed is
we've kind of come full circle back to um the
importance of just maintaining a healthy body
composition number one um there's been there's
a lot of debate and i'm not sure on your podcast
what kind of conversations you've had around
this but gosh there was a there's a period there
where the there was this hyper i mean okay there's
a there can be a hyper fixation on sugar and
don't get me wrong sugar excess of carbohydrate
intake as as a part of it can absolutely be a
part of and it almost always is a big part of
the development of type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular
disease that being said it's not the the the
current understanding one that i a view that
i have is that it it's not only about sugar it's
not only it's never about any one thing um the
what were the a big driver for a lot of health
related variables just getting maintaining a
healthy body composition and a big component
of that relates to uh just fundamentals of energy
balance you know we get to the really really
basics of like thermodynamics as it applies to
the human body energy in if it's in excessive
of energy expended then there will be a net accumulation
of body weight and unless there's a lot of strength
training going on it's probably going to be body
fat And that is the main driver from a physiological
standpoint of multiple pathologies. And because
of the inflammatory component of excess body
fat and inflammatory component of certain foods
that are commonly consumed to create that caloric
surplus. So has that changed? None of that has
really changed, but the focus on those fundamentals.
has been kind of like shifting over time you
know it's there's been lots of distractions with
stuff both in the research world and certainly
in the mainstream like consumption of it all
culturally though like as far as external influences
what is what are the factors school food fast
food inactivity etc what are the factors that
have changed where in the 50s and 60s americans
were still very healthy Fast forward to the 80s,
90s and where we are today. Now we've got 70
% of the country is obese and 40 % or excuse
me, 70 % are overweight and 40 % are obese. So
environmentally, what are the changes that we
need to identify and reverse to create an environment
for health rather than disease? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
The change in the environment is tough. I think
at least on the. folks that I work with and talk
to. And it's, it's just having a, an improved
awareness of the environment that we're in. Um,
you know, it's, we're in that quote, unquote,
obesogenic environment. We're in an environment
that where there's an abundance of food and,
and, uh, and abundance of opportunity to move
as little as possible, or that we're discouraged
from movement and discouraged from work. And
so. For me, I have to engineer that stuff into
my life rather than just do it out of necessity.
So that's something that's changed a lot. And
then two, culturally, we already talked about
a lot of it. Culturally, we're not really at
a societal level funneled into a direction that
promotes a lot of physical activity and call
it balanced eating or eating in a manner that's...
consistent with our physiological needs. We're
certainly not really, we're not thinking about
a lot of the other big movers like sleep or stress
management, those which are also really huge
pillars of health as well. And so, yeah, as far
as how to affect change, the conversations around
like societal level stuff, it gets me like, I
guess maybe a little bit. anxious and easily
depressed because it's hard to think about that
but um that's such a big issue but on an individual
level and in the in your small circles of influence
which is what i try to operate in and that includes
what would i do for a living um then again the
awareness of our environment and being proactive
about engineering those changes into your own
life and it's into that and that has ripple effects
on the family too right But so what does that
look like? Well, for me, train exercises are
non -negotiable. It's the first thing I do when
I wake up every morning. And sometimes it's twice
a day when I have time. In fact, I worked out
this morning at 830. And when you and I are done,
I'm going to use the daylight we got left to
go knock out some track type interval running
workout right here on the street. I would just
run up and down my street over and over again
for my 400 meter repeats. Yes, my neighbors think
I'm crazy. But, and then, yeah, it just takes
being measured with your nutrition and all of
that good stuff. So yeah. And it's, at the end
of the day, it's, it's an education problem.
I think not so much of like, we know that excess
calorie intake is, is bad. I don't mean education
in that sense, but education with individuals
that we work with. Okay. Like what are some habits
when it comes to education? It's like habit formation
and lifestyle change that are actually going
to become. And become something that we can build
a lifestyle around. I've said this on here many
times. What really made me angry was we had no
better opportunity to finally turn this around
than COVID. You know, here's this virus that
sweeps through. It's, you know, unless you're
a complete denier, it's very evident that if
you are obese, if you are a smoker, if you have
pre -existing conditions, you are much, much
more likely to die from the virus than if you
are a healthy person that's exercising and eating
well and getting outside. And we had a captive
audience for a year plus where you could have
put all kinds of information out there. You could
have revisited what we serve in our schools,
bolstered PE programs, given incentives to local
farmers to create organic food again. And none
of that was done. So we had the perfect opportunity
to make a huge dent, which spanned both political
sides of the aisle as well, to be very clear.
And nothing was done. So I think this is a...
such a huge disservice because we have created
an environment, as you mentioned, for ill health.
It sets you up for failure unless, you know,
you have the kind of upbringing like I did where
you grew up on a farm and therefore you had that
baseline before you kind of found yourself in
modern society. Everyone else, if they've grown
up and processed food and, you know, TV dinners
and fast food is your norm and you don't have
to do PE anymore, you know, I mean, we've created
such a terrible environment, but then... factors
into you know military recruitment first responder
recruitment so um this you know there was an
opportunity is what i'm saying and we completely
blew it yeah i don't disagree with that at all
in fact i strongly agree and you're reminding
me of one of the greater phases of frustration
that i had there were many as a university professor
but it was um you know i was running a lab with
the expressed purpose it was like in our mission
statement on the door of the lab basically it
was prevention and treatment of chronic diseases.
And all the stuff that everybody was dying from
during COVID, I had spent my entire career researching,
you know, how to stop those things. And the frustration,
the frustrating thing was that we, when we were
doing the return from COVID, the university,
and in some ways I understand the abundance of
caution here, but they just like would not let
our studies proceed because of, it's impossible
to do an exercise study and be socially distanced.
And, you know, capturing spit in a plastic tube,
you know, in a metabolic lab was not exactly,
you know, deemed favorable during the midst of
a worldwide pandemic that we'd never seen before.
But like we had absolutely had opportunities
to make progress there that absolutely were missed
for sure. Just before we go into rapid, you touched
on the word sleep, which is my trigger word,
because I come from a profession that's probably
the most overworked, underslept population, but
also responds to everyone's worst day. It's the
most insane, you know, double edged sword, if
you like. Talk to me about your perspective.
You mentioned it as far as a pillar of health,
as far as sleep and performance. If you study
that at all with the athletes and then sleep
and, you know, um chronic health like the the
longevity yeah um it's more the second one that
i would say i've worked with the most is sleep
and just general health uh but can speak a bit
to the to the first on performance but uh oh
gosh it's it underpins almost everything so i
always if you think of the three big pillars
uh sleep nutrition and exercise in my opinion
And I'm an exercise guy. I'm trained as exercise
physiologist. I'm all about the fitness stuff.
But I would put exercise as a distant third place
to the first two. And I can never really pin
down whether sleep and nutrition that are most
important. But they're both absolutely critical.
I think it depends. I think the answer to that
is wherever it is that you have the greatest
need is the most important for you. But like
for me, my sleep, not because of... um line of
duty or anything not certainly not professionally
but just for lack of uh well we cannot be perfect
right uh my sleep is a disaster uh it it's gotten
a lot better it's got a lot better in the last
two years as i've been more aware of it but before
that it was just something i was like yeah i'll
sleep when you're dead kind of like you know
nose of the grindstone work hard that kind of
thing and that's also i run into that a lot in
my uh with my clients um oh goodness what doesn't
it affect it we talked you talked about neurodegenerative
diseases it's one of the major mechanisms for
either being susceptible to or resilient against
that any measure of cognitive function cognitive
performance is going to be affected by sleep
metabolic health is many of our hormonal pulses
throughout the day and throughout the night are
governed by or essentially operate on a circadian
rhythm type of cycle and that is completely driven
by sleep and sleep and sleep and awakeness and
so in this disturbances and that can have real
and profound metabolic effects so and regulation
of inflammation so sleeping is one of the the
one of if not the most anti -inflammatory physiological
states that we're ever in in our lives and so
when we lose that then we create a pro -inflammatory
environment essentially so yeah it's it's huge
it's huge absolutely which is why i think sadly
you know it's the elephant in the room or the
herd of elephants as i say with first responders
and we die of everything so it's like well if
you're not sleeping it's just going to amplify
whatever the weakest link is in your chain yeah
and i don't know the solution to that i mean
are you talking Particularly people who are on
shift work, it's something to just kind of be
aware of. And I'm not an expert on how to optimize
sleep for those individuals. That's a large part
of your audience, I understand. The short answer
is I'm a big fan of napping when it's needed
and to just optimize sleep hygiene within your
constraints. whenever you have the opportunity
to sleep, take it and, and maximize it and do
all the things that you can do to optimize it
for what it is for sure. Yeah. Well, but the
fire service is scheduled. I mean, they work
56 hours a week, you know, they're understaffed
because as I alluded to, people don't want to
do this job anymore. So now they're filling in
vacancies. Now it's an eight year work week.
So. The way we can make a massive dent is to
actually give them the rest and recovery between
each shift, the 72 -hour period that we need
to get as close to baseline as you can, having
been awake when everyone else is asleep. But
instead, we have them working twice as many hours
as the person in the grocery store. So it's insane.
So as you mentioned, you were in the academic
space for a long time. What made you go into
rapid health optimization? And then let's start
talking about what you guys offer. Sure. So what
may we link up with rapid? Well, as I mentioned,
I think I mentioned this earlier, I was a professor
for quite a long time. And then about halfway
through that part of my career, I started nutrition
coaching just as a kind of a hobby is how I used
to always describe it. I would work with clients.
It was all via email online. in the evenings
rather than like watch television. When I started
coaching, I would tell the story. When I started
coaching, I was in the middle of the Game of
Thrones, I think season four or five. And then
I immediately replaced that time with coaching
and then I've never finished the series. So,
and I'm fine for that. I didn't really need to
pick that up again. But then that led to, so
this is the story of the exodus from academia.
That job started off with five to 10 clients
initially, and then eventually around peak post
-COVID when there was that greater awareness,
I had over 100, the most I ever had was around
150 clients, which was, that was like too many.
I started missing emails and making mistakes.
Scaled that back a bit, but still had a, you
know, call it give or take 100, 120 clients.
uh right around the time my son was born three
years ago in spring of 2022 and i just couldn't
keep that going okay so uh went all in on the
coaching and then kind of uh over the next couple
years would pick up various kind of like consulting
things here and there and i would always just
kind of have an eye on what else what people
were looking for what they needed and uh dr andy
galpin one of the founders of of rapid. And now
my, one of my two bosses, um, he posted on his
Instagram, Hey, we're looking for somebody with
this expertise to do some, um, some coaching
and consulting for us. And so I, I hit him up
and Andy and I had known each other 15 years
or so we had gone to grad school at the same
time. I was at the university of Maryland when
he was at ball state. And, um, we had a lot of
parallels in the ways that we would think about
physiology. He's a muscle physiologist. I'm a
vascular physiologist. So we didn't do work on
the same kinds of things, but like our, our approach
to physiology in general was similar. And I always
liked his work and he had done super well with
when one thing Andy's done extremely well is
communicate science on social media and to, to
the general public, to the masses in a very effective
way as somebody that's working in the academic
space, which is. That's a rare and difficult
thing to do. And so anyway, I was like, oh, Andy's
looking for somebody. Let me talk to him. And
so I got on with Rapid. This was early last year.
Started doing some consulting work for them.
And it's similar but different role in April.
It was last fall, about a year ago now, that
I started the transition to my current role,
which is, again, is the labs guy, the labs analyst,
which my other boss, Dan Garner, that's his domain,
his, his bread and butter. He was the original
labs and he still is the, the, the head of that.
Uh, but he's doing less work with the clients
in the day to day and doing more like higher
level business things. And so he's, he was looking
for somebody to, to step in and do that so that
he, so that he could, um, do work on the business.
And so I was like, yeah, Hey, I would love to,
to do that. I think I've got the right background
for it with the, you know, with all the physiology
and everything and the educational piece too.
And so, yeah, it's been since February that I've
been in the role. And the role is screening each
client's blood work, urine, stool, and saliva.
We look at somewhere around 500 biomarkers for
their biggest physiological constraints. And
another way we describe them is performance anchors.
So a physiological system can only perform. to
the extent that it's constrained. And so rather
than try to make somebody a super high -charged
athlete with crazy supplementation, which supplementation
has a role for sure, but the approach that we
take is like, all right, what is holding this
person back from living up to their true physiological
potential, as we call it? And I do that from
the hidden side of things. That's all the biomarker
work. So for a lot of folks, it's something to
do with gut health. It may be the inflammatory
story, which those two tend to go hand in hand
for sure. It's different for each person. Micronutrient
status is a big thing. Lipid profile, you name
it. Toxic burden. whatever it is. So we do quite
an array of testing to get as complete a picture
for each client as we can. When it comes to gut
biome, that's one that I haven't found the perfect
supplement yet to really make. I'd actually say
there was one I had, what was it called? Body
Health had one called Gut Restore that I found
actually worked quite well. But what do you normally
suggest? Obviously, I would say it's out of whack
is not a very technical term. What's wrong with
which gut bacteria and which one is dominant?
But as a general rule, what are some of the pre
-probiotics that you would suggest or use to
get someone's gut health to move towards normal
again? Well, first and foremost, we take a food
-forward approach, meaning, yes, there will be
supplements to answer your question. biggest
lever to pull when it comes to gut health is
just eat more fiber um and that's what the the
the beneficial bacteria in the gut actually need
and and use to do a process called fermentation
uh where they when they ferment they produce
something called butyrate and among other among
other things but the butyrate producing bacteria
they need the fiber to to do that and it's the
um that butyrate turns out to be the major fuel
source for the colonocytes the cells that line
the inner wall of our intestine and when gut
health is there's a dysbiosis which is a fancy
word for when there's an imbalance in the gut
microbiome there's either too few or too little
activity of the good guys of the commensal bacteria
and an overabundance of the bad guys the potentially
pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria when that
happens then there's essentially a lack of fuel
availability for the cells that line the inner
wall. And lack of fuel availability, just like
in any other cell of the body, is a state of
cellular distress. And that's one of the root
causes of inflammation in the gut. And it turns
out that 70 % of the immune cells in the body
are housed in the GI tract, which is a wild statistic.
Some studies suggest up to 80%. And so going
back to answer your question, what's the best
way to move the needle in all these things? Again,
eat more fibers. The target for men is somewhere
in the ballpark of 30 to 35 grams of fiber per
day. I think the average intake is under 10.
So that's a big lever to pull right there. We
can go a long way to restoring microbial balance
and addressing GI symptoms just by that. leafy
green vegetables, various colors of all the vegetables,
and maybe a fiber supplement to start of getting
that target is difficult just from food sources.
But then there's other supplements that help
quite a bit. Glutamine is a go -to, and that
is something that will support the mucosal lining
of the gut. uh integrity of the of the gut barrier
is the glutamine is a big part of that and that
can be calming and soothing and then um the rest
of it it depends on other what other findings
we might have besides like a dysregulated gut
microbiome or any kind of gi health issues there's
certain targeted supplements that kind of go
along with different issues so for example if
somebody's got elevations in blood glucose which
tend to cluster with a distressed GI system,
and especially with dysbiosis, then a product
called berberine is a go -to that's got antimicrobial
effects and some insulin sensitizing effects
can help with blood glucose regulation and homeostatic
control. So that's just a couple of supplements.
There's others, but yeah. You mentioned also,
I think you say toxic load. Is that the term
you used? So people listening, we are absolutely
dripping in all things carcinogenic. So what
are the analyses that you do on those and what
are some of the effective methods of removing
the metals and some of these horrendous things
that we find ourselves exposed to? Sure. The
ones that pop up the most on the screens that
we do are And before I get into it, I should
say that these are the ones where the evidence
isn't quite as strong in the sense that there's
not like really clear diagnostic criteria. And
the science on these is good enough for us to
include in our analyses, but we're not as confident
as maybe like some of the blood markers that
are really cut and dry and clear. So there's
that caveat. But that being said, see a lot of
folks flagging for elevations in metabolites.
of mtbe which is uh basically an organic compound
that is found in gasoline and is environmental
pollutant basically and the other would be metabolites
of styrene which comes from plastics and these
are these can be problematic for multiple reasons
but they just if nothing else they put strain
and stress on our body's detoxification pathways
particularly liver detoxification And that's
a big drain on the glutathione system. Glutathione
is really important for a lot of things in the
body. Mitochondrial function is their most powerful
antioxidant in the body, or among the most powerful.
And so that can lead to other problems when present,
which they often are, like, again, dealing with
inflammation and cardiovascular support and so
forth. Whenever we, what we do with my approach
to dealing with toxic load is not, well, if it's
styrene, that's an easy one. Most of the time
people are heating up their food in plastics.
And so we just switch everything to glass. Don't
need to make a big deal about it, but highly
recommend using glass storage for food containers.
And if you're going to reheat food in the microwave,
do it in glass, not plastic. And then two, with
the organic solvent stuff, I mean, that could
be something as simple as you pump gas on your
way to the clinic when you got your blood draw
done. And or if you live in an urban environment
or occupationally, if you're out in a, it's been
a lot of time in a police car or in a fire truck
or in a fire station, it's going to be difficult
to avoid the exposure. But what we can do is
shore up our body's defenses against that. So
we supplement with. either glutathione directly.
There's certain products out there that do a
good job with that, but a better approach a lot
of times is a product called N -acetylcysteine.
It's a precursor to glutathione. It gets converted
to glutathione in the body very readily, very
effectively. And so we just kind of run people
through, usually it's about a month or so of
supplementation to specifically promote excretion
through those pathways. There's obviously a spectrum.
target audiences when it comes to this technology.
I think it's very exciting. I was talking to
Josh Clemente from Levels about the autonomy
that this blood work and apps and coaching can
give an individual so they're not finding out
how they're doing every year when they go to
a doctor, that they can have this ongoing ownership
of their own health. What are the kind of groups
that you're kind of helping with this. You've
got obviously the billionaires and the bespoke
ones that they have. I know Levels is all the
way down to like $40 a month, for example. What
is that group that you guys are helping? Historically,
it's been that very high net worth. It began,
as I understand it, before I was with the company,
but primarily with elite athletes. that dan and
andy would be working with and they just started
scaling up that service from the elite you know
the ufc fighters nfl major league baseball golfers
they started scaling that up but to not to athletes
but to like executive people of similar you know
financial means honestly and then um that's most
of the clientele in the company is is still kind
of that group um There are different tiers where
it's not necessarily the ultra, ultra expensive,
but still quite expensive packages. But the newest
one that if you don't mind that I'll mention
is something called, we're calling Optima Muscle.
And I have to say, I'm personally not all that
involved in this program, but I can speak to
it a little bit. It's essentially the thesis
of it is, the essence of the idea of the offering
is that Muscle, having muscle on your frame,
the extent to which you do or do not is a major
determinant of longevity and not just longevity,
but like quality of life and also the susceptibility
or lack thereof to disease. So everything we've
been talking about is having more muscle mass
is and functional muscle mass as well is. It
turns out to be highly anti -inflammatory. If
inflammation is a concern, it's great for function.
It's great for quality of life and the ability
to do things like play, like we were talking
about before. And so the way it works is clients
will get an MRI scan, actually working with a
company called Springbok. And this MRI scan assesses.
I don't think it's quite every single muscle
in the body, but near as much as every single
muscle in the body. And looks at size of each
muscle relative to population norms. For myself,
middle -aged, 40 -something -year -old average
white guy, how do I stack up in that group? And
then also, one of the cool things it looks at
is relative imbalances and asymmetries. And then
so clients will be given and have the opportunity
to work with a coach, I think if they want to,
on an individualized training plan to address
whatever that analysis is. And I don't know,
I'm not here to necessarily, totally. promoting
on making people aware of it. But to the point,
I don't know, I don't know pricing structure.
I don't know any of that kind of stuff. Uh, but
I would say the folks are interested in that.
I would just do a Google search for rapid health
optimization .com. And that program's due to
be launched here in the next few weeks. Um, and,
uh, that information will be on that website
in the near future. So I know you've worked with
elite athletes and also, as you mentioned, a
lot of people in the corporate space, you hear
the phrase, you know, that, that, the wealthy
spent the first half of their life accruing wealth
and then the second half spending it trying to
get their health back. What is your perspective
on that? Oh, definitely. I've seen that. Definitely.
I've seen that. I also see I'm encouraged that
I'm encouraged by the number of clients that
we see who are obviously very wealthy, very successful
in their whatever their line of work is you know
got a lot of investors and real estate folks
and c -suite types and entrepreneurs there's
a large swath of these individuals who are also
they're they're high achievers in every area
of their lives and come to a program like ours
because Because they're already pretty dialed
in in fitness and nutrition. They're just looking
to pull all the levers they can. They want to
leave nothing unturned. And they've got the means
to do that. So I'm super encouraged to see that.
Because what you just shared, James, is the typical
scenario where they go all in and neglect their
health and their family and everything else for
the relentless pursuit of whether it's wealth
or just, you know. being a workaholic. That's
certainly still there. Absolutely. And we do
have some of that, but I'm encouraged by this.
That is an encouraging shift that I'm seeing,
at least at this, at this level, a lot of folks
who are, and maybe they've, they've, they've
had that in the past, but by the time they're
coming to us, they're like, okay, yeah, I've,
I'm actually already pretty well optimized. Let
me just optimize even further. So, but just to
finish the answer to that though, I could speak,
I mentioned being overweight as a, as a child.
Um, I would say I had a brief six year period,
um, when I was in first was my PhD and then my
postdoc where I would say that I did exactly
what you just shared was I didn't get wealthy.
Don't get me wrong, but I went all in on my education
and became a complete, uh, just very, very like
obsessed workaholic and to the detriment of my
health. And so it was the next, I'm still on
the, now that was 12, 13 years ago that I turned
the corner on that, but from ages roughly 27
or 28 to. No, no, no, no, that's not right. 24,
25 to like my early 30s. I was what I would refer
to as an exercise philosopher. I would study
exercise quite a bit, thought about it, wrote
a hell of a lot about it, published quite a bit
on it, but didn't do it as much as I did the
bare minimum for sure. And so that was the other
phase of my life where I actually struggled with
weight and body composition. I was a very unhealthy
assistant professor when I first started that
job. Yeah. Not the way to do things. No, absolutely
not. And the thing is, again, understanding the
ultimate currency. And in my profession, I talk
about this a lot. The ultimate currency is time
with your family. And if you want to extrapolate
even more, the ability to play with your spouse,
with your children, et cetera. So that overtime,
those crazy work weeks, they're not worth it.
They're never, ever worth it. What's exciting
is I hear, and again, we're choosing from a much
smaller section of society now that are able
to be soldiers, firefighters, cops. But I'm hearing
over and over again that the fit candidates of
those professions are in incredible shape. And
not just, as we said, squeezing out performance,
but they understand mobility and mindfulness
and breath work and ice baths. So we have a lot
of information. We have a great environment.
So how do we push the walls back? and start capturing
that 70 % and make it 60 % and make it 50 % where
now all the areas, whether it's, you know, what
we've discussed today, the CrossFit community,
the Spartans and Tough Mudders and, you know,
all these other kind of movements that have really
forged community and wellness and health and
strength and endurance, and now kind of push
that out to the rest of society. Yeah, absolutely.
I think, I mean, it's one of the benefits of,
The fitness, you mentioned like CrossFit and
some of those things. That's the training methodology
that I follow for the most part. I'm a member
of a CrossFit gym. Work out with a couple of,
shout out to my buddies, Logan and Zarb. They're
police officers with Georgia State Patrol. And
I work with at least one, a couple of firefighters
as well. Dakota, if you listen to this, I'll
send this to them later on. I think they'll appreciate
it. But I talk about what you just shared with
them quite a bit. Well, I actually asked the
police officers. I said, so are the other guys
and ladies in your cohort, are they like you?
Are they into fitness? They're like, oh, not
really. No. And so I don't know. I don't know
necessarily where I was going with that. But
I think I can speak just from seeing those guys
and how they. how it impacts them and their profession.
And I think I've never talked to them about it
in great depth, but I'm sure that it's helpful
for their mental health to be part of a fitness
community and have that be an outlet. So a lot
of times they'll come in after. The only time
I'll beat those guys in a workout because they're
both fitter than me is if they're coming in after
like a 12 -hour shift and they're just doing
it real quick before they go home and go to bed.
But, yeah, it's a good outlet, I think, coming
off like a hard shift or just dealing with taking
all the things that challenge your mental health
and physical health and all your resilience,
taking that in stride just to shore up your own
fitness is a big deal. It's a big deal. There's
some anecdotal evidence, but that's something
I've seen for sure. 100%. I did CrossFit since
2006, still about. About two years ago, 18 months
ago, we shifted to Wolf Brigade programming.
So it's more focused on, they've got maces and
heavy kettlebells. And our coach now is Colombian
and he's an absolute phenom, Esteban. He wins,
you know, he's one of the best in the world.
So he's kind of slowly pushing some CrossFit
stuff back in. But it was interesting because
when I came off shift, I used to have the mentality
of I'm just going to sweat off the stress, you
know, 24 hours, 48 hours without sleep. And what
I learned, and Jeff Nichols actually was someone
who helped me kind of have this realization,
is that there's a time and place. And if you're
doing some complex WOD with snatches, maybe sleep
deprivation isn't the time to do it. Probably
not the right time to do that. You're just going
to get more frustrated and more stressed. That's
right. Knowing when to dial it down. Yeah. Oh,
that's it. So 2006, man. You're an OG. I started
in 2015. So this is coming up on 11 years. um
and uh and then i do i it's kind of like the
base of my i think of the base of my fitness
but i also do a lot of other things i'm also
a big runner um mountain like i said mountain
biking crossword i would say helped me get back
into it facilitated getting back into mountain
biking after several years off because i kind
of i had the fitness there uh but then it was
uh the thing with mountain biking is now i'm
older less fearful, a lot more fearful, a lot
more, uh, cautious when I'm out on the trail
and, you know, not so reckless as I was when
I was like 18, 19 years old. Um, I don't either,
I don't need to fall down the side of a mountain
or hit a tree or something like that. But anyway,
yeah, it's good stuff. Absolutely. All right.
Well, I want to throw a quick closing questions
out before I let you go. I know we're mindful
of your headphones, not running out of battery,
so I'll keep it quick. Hopefully they're okay.
Yeah. All right. The first one, is there a book
or are there books that you love to recommend?
It can be related to our discussion today or
completely unrelated. Yeah, I got one right here.
Outlive by Peter Atiyah. If your audience hasn't
read this one, it's a good one. I really respect
a lot of what pretty much everything that Peter
Atiyah believes and has to say about a lot of
things we talk about, like longevity. So that
would be definitely one that I recommend for
sure. What about films, documentaries, television
shows? Oh gosh, you're asking the wrong guy about
any of that. Well, no Game of Thrones isn't going
to be your answer. No, I don't really watch TV.
I like movies, but I don't really watch them.
I watch a lot of YouTube, but that's my brain
off time. That's cooking content. Um, so let
me, let me put it this way. If that can be an
outlet, this is how it's an outlet for me is
kind of a creative outlet and a somewhat mentally
stimulated. I'm not a big fan of just complete
regularly scheduled, complete veg time. I'm just
not, um, this, and that might be me. You might
find some experts that disagree with me on that,
but, um, The veg time for me is still somewhat
stimulating, but like a different part of my
brain and a hobby. For me, that would be a whole
other podcast that we could talk about cooking
and like grilling meats and all that kind of
stuff. I'm all, that's my big thing. So that's
my downside. So if film, television, YouTube,
whatever it is, can check that box for you, then
I would recommend it. One of the people I'd love
to get on, and it goes back to what we serve
in schools, is Jamie Oliver, because he actually
did that in England. I thought about him as you
were asking me about schools. That's his big
contribution to, I think that's his biggest professional
contribution, what he did, what he tried to do
and what he, I think he was successful to a large
degree, was he not? I believe so. I believe so.
It's hard when you Google it to see, are they
still doing it? The internet doesn't quite understand
that. So I hope so. Yeah. All right. Well, the
next question, is there a person you'd recommend
to come on this podcast as a guest to speak to
the first responders, military and associated
professions of the world? If you can get them,
my boss, Dan Garner, would be an incredible guest.
And I can I can I recommend that to him, too.
He's I he I'll let him confirm this, but I believe
he has his experience with pretty much every
type of individual. And if he hasn't worked directly
with a lot of first responders, he will have
a lot of insights into optimizing, you know,
how to optimize your health within the constraints
of like being on a difficult sleep schedule and
shift work and all that kind of stuff. He will
have some experience, valuable experience to
share for sure. Brilliant. I'd love to get him
on if that was something we could make happen.
I had Andy on. It has to have been six plus years
ago now, so I probably need to get him back on
too. You could get him back as well. That'd be
the equally enthusiastic recommendation as well.
Brilliant. All right. Well, the last question
before we make sure everyone knows where to find
Rapid and yourself online, what do you do to
decompress? I just shared the biggest one. I
would say on a personal level is I cook. I love
cooking and eating. That's a big part of like...
And the thing that makes me really excited is
making it all work in a sense of like, I don't
feel, I don't want to ever, like I'm big on nutrition
and body composition and fitness, but also an
equal measure of love food. And so like having
those two gel is challenging, it's difficult,
but I feel like I've got a really good handle
on it. So I get really excited about that. And
so, um, yeah, I do that. The other thing, even
more than that though, that I do to decompress,
even though this it's also. A big effort. It's
just cliche, man, but playing with my little
boy. Can't beat it. It's the highlight of my
life, the thing I look forward to the most every
single day. It's decompression. At the same time,
it's tiring, but it's the best thing in the world.
It's not cliche at all. I think that's the problem
is that we almost frame it that way rather than
realizing that that is the most important thing.
It's the reason for everything else, right? Absolutely.
Quick question about the cooking. Is that something
you got into more recently or have you always
been into it? Oh, no. Lifelong. Lifelong. I started
cooking for myself in college. It was a complete
disaster. But just always, always enjoyed it.
Always loved it. And, yeah, experimented with
different things. Yeah, lately I've been trying
to master seafood, which is difficult. It's a
hard thing to do to cook a piece of fish. They're
very delicate. But getting there. We're getting
there. I cook, but I don't have a very wide repertoire.
And that's what I'm trying to do is learn new
recipes. But I think I've heard many people allude
to this. When you cook, I mean, obviously, firstly,
is the part where you just understand where food
originally comes from, learning about meats and
the vegetables and things, which I think we underestimate
how few people actually know that. Again, if
we're not educating in schools, we're not serving
real food, but also preparing. the body to eat
if you are going through a cooking process there's
things that are happening in our physiology that
are preparing us to receive that food if you
drive through into a mcdonald's and then 20 seconds
later you're ramming a big mac down your throat
then you know you're shocking the body basically
it is it is interesting i haven't seen a lot
of that but i completely uh that that seems like
that makes a lot of sense for sure um yeah you're
just as with anything most things in physiology
there's like a a priming component you know uh
and that makes sense that preparing food would
have a physiological effect absolutely i have
to look into that that's interesting stuff yeah
yeah no i mean anything about even just salivation
when you when you smell and there's there's things
you can observe within yourself okay i'm getting
ready all right well for people listening where
are the best places online to find rapid and
then what about yourself if they want to follow
you or reach out Um, so rapid, uh, would be just
rapid health optimization .com. Uh, their Instagram,
I'm going to type it in to my laptop here to
make sure that I get it right. Um, it's a difficult
one and maybe we can, I can send it to you. We
can paste it into show notes or whatever, but
it's called RTA performance lab. That's on Instagram.
Um, R E R a, sorry. Okay. A R E T E performance
lab. That's an, all of that is all one. all one
word um that is and i th can you still hear me
james with my i think okay i got one got one
left maybe you can hang on um so uh that's their
instagram uh but their rapidhealthoptimization
.com uh is the also a good place and then for
me personally i am dr nathan jenkins on instagram
and that's pretty much my only social media presence.
So yeah, lots of fitness stuff, food things,
and goofy videos of me and my son playing. Brilliant.
Well, I want to thank you so much for being so
generous with your time and coming on the Behind
the Shield podcast. It's been an amazing conversation.
Very unique perspective between, as you mentioned,
the very academic lab -focused lens that you
had, and then now what you're doing with these
biomarkers and helping these high performers.
So thank you again for coming on the Behind the
Shield podcast. Happy to do it. Really enjoyed
it. And yeah, I hope this was valuable for your
audience. I really enjoyed it.