WEBVTT 1 00:00:03.760 --> 00:00:04.780 Hi, my name is Chris Burris. 2 00:00:05.021 --> 00:00:09.703 I'm a longevity expert and the chief scientist at a lab focused on a longevity molecule. 3 00:00:10.183 --> 00:00:14.685 My primary focus is to help people live longer and better lives with science. 4 00:00:14.845 --> 00:00:19.427 Make sure to subscribe and share so you and your friends can live longer and better. 5 00:00:19.487 --> 00:00:23.449 Well, actually, so you and your friends can live beyond the norms. 6 00:00:24.205 --> 00:00:28.429 what's wrong with the strategy of kind of just willpower and just motivation? 7 00:00:28.909 --> 00:00:43.162 Well, one of the, one of the things that we see with a lot of the hard chargers that we work with is they've, they've used this level of grit and determination and sort of this grind mentality to get to a certain level in their life, right? 8 00:00:43.202 --> 00:00:47.406 Like they put their head down, they've crushed in business for a certain number of years. 9 00:00:47.806 --> 00:00:49.067 They've built a family and, 10 00:00:49.961 --> 00:01:03.112 On paper, they're doing great, or maybe as far as the bank account, they're doing great, but when they look in the mirror, it's certainly not reflective of the person that they want to see or who they really identify with. 11 00:01:03.152 --> 00:01:08.516 They think that they can use this level of grit and determination and grind to... 12 00:01:10.197 --> 00:01:13.779 get healthy again, to get lean, to get strong. 13 00:01:14.040 --> 00:01:24.406 And unfortunately, that's just not how the human body, I mean, it does work to some degree, but in terms of the psychology of behavior change, that's just not how things work. 14 00:01:25.226 --> 00:01:28.108 And that's typically the conversations that we have around 15 00:01:28.548 --> 00:01:32.289 You know, oftentimes when they come in, they've tried a number of different diets. 16 00:01:32.369 --> 00:01:36.769 They, you know, they've done the aggressive things because that's what they think they need. 17 00:01:37.149 --> 00:01:41.970 That's what they kind of want in terms of their, their type a all in mentality. 18 00:01:41.990 --> 00:01:43.050 Like, just tell me what to do. 19 00:01:43.411 --> 00:01:44.011 I'll do it. 20 00:01:44.091 --> 00:01:44.911 No nonsense. 21 00:01:44.971 --> 00:01:53.972 I know what to do, but yet they continue to reinforce the same yo-yo cycle of like, they'll do great for a few weeks or a few months, or maybe even a couple of years. 22 00:01:54.372 --> 00:01:55.433 But then they're like, you know what? 23 00:01:55.873 --> 00:01:57.753 I just don't want to do keto anymore. 24 00:01:58.033 --> 00:02:15.472 Like I got some progress, but then the second I stopped doing it, I started to gain the weight back because I wanted to go have brunch with my kids, you know, and family, or I want, you know, to, and I need to be able to entertain for work, or I'm just traveling so much internationally that it's just not realistic for me to do. 25 00:02:15.492 --> 00:02:15.592 Yeah. 26 00:02:16.849 --> 00:02:20.870 And so it's absolving that sort of overly restrictive mindset for one. 27 00:02:21.450 --> 00:02:25.852 Two is acknowledging that it's not about self-control and discipline. 28 00:02:25.992 --> 00:02:29.013 It's not just about white knuckling it harder and longer. 29 00:02:29.473 --> 00:02:32.874 It's acknowledging that that's a finite resource. 30 00:02:33.794 --> 00:02:42.239 And if we have, you know, we all have this sort of willpower and self-control battery that gets depleted day by day, week by week. 31 00:02:42.860 --> 00:02:50.925 And this is what we see with most people is they're able to white knuckle it for a certain period of time, after which there's just comes a point where there's like, screw it. 32 00:02:51.685 --> 00:02:57.888 And so instead of that, we help them acknowledge that there doesn't have to be this dichotomy. 33 00:02:58.448 --> 00:03:05.732 It's just learning how to live in the gray of like, how do we enjoy the things that we want while being an adult and taking ownership over it? 34 00:03:05.932 --> 00:03:07.653 If you want to drink alcohol, that's fine. 35 00:03:07.693 --> 00:03:16.937 But how do you do it and not, you know, overindulge and then end up making poor food choices and then letting it slip into the next day and the next day and the next week? 36 00:03:18.018 --> 00:03:18.218 Um, yeah. 37 00:03:18.638 --> 00:03:29.730 And those are the skills and the tools that we help our clients infuse so that we can objectively control for calories, for training volume, for sleep quality, for overall movement. 38 00:03:30.671 --> 00:03:34.975 And so it's really that, you know, that mindset shift and perspective shift there. 39 00:03:35.696 --> 00:03:35.976 Yeah. 40 00:03:35.996 --> 00:03:39.140 Because there is a thing called decision fatigue, right? 41 00:03:39.200 --> 00:03:41.242 Or kind of willpower fatigue and anxiety. 42 00:03:42.043 --> 00:03:52.507 If you're using all your willpower at work because you're a business owner, then you have less of it when you're sitting at the dental table or whatever and focusing on this ability to be the gray area. 43 00:03:52.847 --> 00:03:55.147 It still is the boring work that you need to do. 44 00:03:55.608 --> 00:03:57.688 But, hey, don't don't. 45 00:03:58.508 --> 00:04:06.071 There's a big difference between looking at is like I can never do that again versus I can do that sometimes and I can do it responsibly responsibly. 46 00:04:06.564 --> 00:04:23.771 Well, the biggest thing is helping people acknowledge that it's sort of this identity change around the people that rely the least on self-control and discipline are the ones that put themselves in situations that don't require as much self-control and discipline. 47 00:04:23.791 --> 00:04:30.454 So you can imagine if I'm like a recovering alcoholic, but I'm spending every afternoon and evening hanging out in the bar. 48 00:04:31.334 --> 00:04:39.861 That's going to be a very precarious position to be in, yet that's what we do from a nutrition and exercise standpoint is we say, I'm going to get healthy. 49 00:04:40.061 --> 00:04:41.222 I'm going to start exercising. 50 00:04:41.362 --> 00:04:42.563 I'm going to start moving daily. 51 00:04:42.883 --> 00:04:44.824 I'm going to start eating healthier foods, yet… 52 00:04:46.267 --> 00:04:49.269 Our significant other doesn't do any of those things. 53 00:04:49.329 --> 00:04:53.711 The people that we hang around with, our family members, our friends don't do any of those things. 54 00:04:54.051 --> 00:05:02.456 The circumstances and situations that we put ourselves in constantly lend itself to me having to say, no, no, I can't do that. 55 00:05:02.516 --> 00:05:03.236 I can't do that. 56 00:05:03.296 --> 00:05:04.157 I don't, you know, I'm not. 57 00:05:04.597 --> 00:05:09.259 And so when you're constantly battling that, it's just a matter of time before you're going to crash and burn. 58 00:05:10.119 --> 00:05:14.081 So that lends itself to like, well, what do successful people do? 59 00:05:14.641 --> 00:05:16.882 They surround themselves with people who exercise. 60 00:05:16.922 --> 00:05:18.943 They surround themselves with people who eat healthy. 61 00:05:19.243 --> 00:05:22.904 They put themselves in situations where they can reinforce those decisions. 62 00:05:22.964 --> 00:05:27.266 Instead of happy hour, we go do morning near afternoon hikes. 63 00:05:27.626 --> 00:05:32.208 We go on trips and we're physically active instead of lounging by the pool and drinking cocktails. 64 00:05:32.268 --> 00:05:32.468 Right? 65 00:05:32.528 --> 00:05:35.691 Like those are all the things in the mindset shift that needs to happen. 66 00:05:36.512 --> 00:05:37.934 Yeah, no, it makes sense. 67 00:05:37.994 --> 00:05:40.276 It's, you know, a couple of things there is one. 68 00:05:40.376 --> 00:05:44.921 I'm sure one of your kind of guides is, hey, let's get all the junk out of the pantry, right? 69 00:05:44.941 --> 00:05:48.465 Like that's got to be one because then you have to make less decisions. 70 00:05:48.485 --> 00:05:50.627 You have to say no less often if it's not there. 71 00:05:51.322 --> 00:05:54.244 Um, and, and so that's, that's really important. 72 00:05:54.465 --> 00:05:57.747 I have to imagine some clients come to you and they get it and they're like all on board. 73 00:05:57.767 --> 00:06:08.916 Do you have some like tough clients that you really, you know, had to pull out every trick, anything that you could share with us about how you were able to kind of finally get them over the hump? 74 00:06:09.496 --> 00:06:11.758 Uh, does anything come to mind when I, when I share that? 75 00:06:13.139 --> 00:06:14.040 Yeah, to some degree. 76 00:06:14.080 --> 00:06:17.443 I mean, I've had a couple of people like when we really break it down. 77 00:06:17.563 --> 00:06:19.244 So, so first and foremost, um, 78 00:06:20.557 --> 00:06:31.346 More often than not, stagnancy exists because we're just not aware of how things are adding up. 79 00:06:31.706 --> 00:06:41.554 In other words, someone is not seeing progress in terms of scale weight change or body composition isn't changing. 80 00:06:41.574 --> 00:06:44.897 And they're frustrated about the lack of progress. 81 00:06:49.962 --> 00:06:58.971 how their weekend behaviors are different than their weekday behaviors or how they're just not being nearly as physically active as they think they're being. 82 00:06:59.512 --> 00:07:05.618 Or they might be tracking everything around their calorie intake, but they're not accurately tracking everything. 83 00:07:05.638 --> 00:07:11.645 They're just guesstimating everything without realizing how significant those calories can add up. 84 00:07:12.185 --> 00:07:17.491 So I think, you know, generally speaking, that's usually the biggest limiting factor. 85 00:07:17.812 --> 00:07:22.838 And it's helping people acknowledge, like, where are the blind spots that we might be missing? 86 00:07:23.238 --> 00:07:27.644 And how can we really hone in on those so that you can truly can budget effectively? 87 00:07:28.064 --> 00:07:31.989 And we can truly understand the repercussions of the decisions that we're making, whether it's 88 00:07:32.289 --> 00:07:35.851 you know, a glass of wine, that's not five ounces, it's eight ounces. 89 00:07:35.891 --> 00:07:44.176 And if I'm having multiple of those, you know, multiple times per week, or it's not, you know, half a cup of ice cream, it's actually a cup of ice cream. 90 00:07:44.236 --> 00:07:54.642 And, you know, some of those little things that end up being really big things like that's, you know, usually at the, at the root of where stagnancy lies. 91 00:07:54.702 --> 00:07:55.243 However, 92 00:07:56.270 --> 00:08:04.424 There's definitely circumstances where, you know, we get with clients where it's, you know, we're certainly referring out for diagnostic testing. 93 00:08:04.444 --> 00:08:05.927 We're looking at comprehensive blood work. 94 00:08:06.301 --> 00:08:11.203 We're looking at hormones and there's hormonal deficiencies that are absolutely contributing. 95 00:08:11.223 --> 00:08:18.765 It might be a good segue into kind of talking about men and women in their 40s, 50s and beyond around where some of those stagnancies lie. 96 00:08:18.825 --> 00:08:27.068 But that's where we do have to truly understand hormones and blood sugar regulation and inflammation and cardiovascular health because I've had guys where... 97 00:08:27.708 --> 00:08:35.892 you know, when we can optimize for hormones because they're, they are doing everything right, quote unquote, right in terms of their nutrition and their training. 98 00:08:36.232 --> 00:08:45.317 And then we, we can optimize for hormones working with a qualified practitioner and clinician and that's putting, you know, putting fuel on the fire. 99 00:08:45.717 --> 00:08:51.740 I did have one client recently where he was experiencing some stagnancy over, you 100 00:08:52.620 --> 00:08:55.982 six month to year period of time kind of doing everything right. 101 00:08:56.002 --> 00:08:57.162 But his sleep was terrible. 102 00:08:58.043 --> 00:09:04.706 And, um, he was in a position where he was kind of having to wake up every few hours to, to adjust something. 103 00:09:04.726 --> 00:09:12.290 He was in tech and his position relied on him to like do something on the computer every few hours. 104 00:09:12.830 --> 00:09:20.674 So he was getting this interrupted sleep every single night, which was killing him to say nothing of the fact that he's 55 year old male. 105 00:09:20.694 --> 00:09:20.754 Um, 106 00:09:22.134 --> 00:09:27.496 kind of experiencing andropause or a decline in male hormones right in this juncture of life. 107 00:09:28.076 --> 00:09:42.322 And so his position shifted and he started getting an uninterrupted six to eight hours and the scale just precipitously dropped with no other changes in training and nutrition, which I thought was absolutely fascinating, but not surprising. 108 00:09:42.562 --> 00:09:42.762 Yeah. 109 00:09:42.962 --> 00:09:43.182 Yeah. 110 00:09:43.282 --> 00:09:47.143 No, sleep is so very, you know, one of the absolute pillars. 111 00:09:47.644 --> 00:09:53.365 You talked a little bit about testing and like, you know, Hey, is it a, is it a cup of ice cream versus half a cup of ice cream? 112 00:09:53.806 --> 00:09:55.546 Uh, do you play around with CGMs? 113 00:09:55.646 --> 00:09:57.487 Is that a standard practice of yours? 114 00:09:57.507 --> 00:09:58.687 You know, it's not a standard. 115 00:09:59.047 --> 00:10:00.348 It is not a standard practice. 116 00:10:00.368 --> 00:10:08.810 I'm not opposed to it, but I, I am opposed to with the type of clients that I work with, um, not using more data than what we 117 00:10:12.141 --> 00:10:13.522 you know, make informed decisions. 118 00:10:13.562 --> 00:10:21.045 And more often than not, we're in positions where we're not nitpicking over the types of carbs that they're consuming. 119 00:10:21.525 --> 00:10:34.631 It really becomes a lot more around just the lifestyle behaviors of planning and preparation and, and, and, and, you know, prioritizing protein and can they get their training in and are they moving enough and are they optimizing for sleep? 120 00:10:35.511 --> 00:10:39.353 Um, there are certain situations, but it's not a common practice for me. 121 00:10:40.690 --> 00:10:49.159 Do you recommend, what's your stance on kind of long, steady state cardio, like if it's a half marathon or a marathon? 122 00:10:49.179 --> 00:10:51.601 I'm sure, you know, you're dealing with, you know, high performers. 123 00:10:51.941 --> 00:10:53.063 Some of them love this stuff. 124 00:10:53.323 --> 00:10:57.747 Do you have feelings about, you know, triathlons and half marathons? 125 00:10:58.488 --> 00:11:06.312 I mean, I guess it depends what the goal is, you know, if it's just to bucket list type, you know, check the box. 126 00:11:06.632 --> 00:11:07.232 Okay, fine. 127 00:11:07.272 --> 00:11:17.757 If it's like I want to do this to get healthier, I'm going to do this to lose weight, then we have a problem because, right, that's where exercise just is not a good weight loss tool. 128 00:11:18.497 --> 00:11:19.338 And for exercise. 129 00:11:20.038 --> 00:11:33.471 For people that are already experiencing a lot of stress to go out and add an extremely stressful event, depending on how hard they're pushing themselves, that's a challenging situation to be in. 130 00:11:33.511 --> 00:11:35.653 And I don't think it's going to be super productive. 131 00:11:36.525 --> 00:11:43.251 I literally just coached a friend of mine who actually kind of went through a very kind of depressive phase. 132 00:11:43.671 --> 00:11:48.615 And he was the kind of guy who would go out and do two mile, two hour, you know, long form. 133 00:11:48.635 --> 00:11:58.283 But he was he was describing a story kind of last last time he worked out was he did a two hour bike ride and then was up snow skiing, you know, cross country snow skiing. 134 00:11:58.863 --> 00:12:04.667 And I was like, I think your challenge is like the exercise you were doing, which was good for you, right? 135 00:12:04.687 --> 00:12:07.429 It is very good for your mental well-being. 136 00:12:07.449 --> 00:12:08.810 It was too much. 137 00:12:08.870 --> 00:12:13.574 It was actually another, it was an entire additional stress that you needed to back off of. 138 00:12:13.654 --> 00:12:16.636 There's benefits, but the devil's in the dose, right? 139 00:12:16.756 --> 00:12:25.803 And so we know how beneficial exercise is, moderate to intense forms of exercise to a degree, at which point beyond that, it becomes immunosuppressive. 140 00:12:26.803 --> 00:12:39.154 And so what we don't realize is we, you know, if we go out and we push it beyond 60 to 90 minutes at a, at a significantly high intensity for us relative to our VO2 max, we can actually be suppressing the immune system. 141 00:12:39.555 --> 00:12:49.484 And so you couple that with the fact that we're not sleeping enough, we're eating garbage food, we're drinking alcohol, and we're potentially in this position where our, our immune system is constantly being suppressed. 142 00:12:50.659 --> 00:13:04.168 And so I am 100% a huge advocate of least effective dose, especially in the initial stages is we just want to be able to apply enough stimulus to get the adaptation that we're looking for. 143 00:13:04.228 --> 00:13:13.854 And when, you know, with the types of people that I work with, that's really a huge opportunity because in their minds, they think I have to do all of these things. 144 00:13:13.874 --> 00:13:15.295 I have to train five days a week. 145 00:13:15.535 --> 00:13:17.476 I have to go do these long bouts of cardio. 146 00:13:17.496 --> 00:13:19.077 I have to really restrict my diet. 147 00:13:19.117 --> 00:13:19.798 And they don't. 148 00:13:20.198 --> 00:13:33.330 Like because they haven't done very much, um, we can get a lot done with a, a, a fairly low level of intensity, which is extremely motivating. 149 00:13:33.550 --> 00:13:35.111 And then we can ramp up from there. 150 00:13:35.151 --> 00:13:37.393 So it might just be like two days of strength training. 151 00:13:37.713 --> 00:13:43.058 It might be two days of some zone two or lower intensity, longer duration training. 152 00:13:43.318 --> 00:13:50.662 cardio to help improve aerobic capacity, which is going to go a long way towards improving a lot of other markers of health and inflammation. 153 00:13:51.902 --> 00:14:01.908 Get them feeling better, get them sleeping better, bump up energy, put them in a position where they can start to eat more of the right things, digest their foods better, manage blood sugar better. 154 00:14:02.528 --> 00:14:04.589 And, you know, things kind of snowball from there. 155 00:14:04.829 --> 00:14:08.291 I hope you enjoyed this episode of the Live Beyond the Norms podcast. 156 00:14:08.832 --> 00:14:10.593 Make sure to subscribe and follow. 157 00:14:11.213 --> 00:14:18.598 Also, make sure not to be that guy, the guy sharing this podcast with people who are not interested in living beyond the norms. 158 00:14:19.299 --> 00:14:31.287 If you would like to learn more about the ESS60 molecule, the molecule responsible for the single longest longevity experimental result on mammals in history, a full 90% extension of life, says, 159 00:14:31.367 --> 00:14:33.449 visit myvitalc.com. 160 00:14:34.010 --> 00:14:37.153 That's myvitalc as in carbon.com.