Latest / Thrive A/F (After Forty) / Lever 3: Nutrition - Simple Rules for a Complex Food World | Thrive A/F Ep. 4

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Lever 3: Nutrition - Simple Rules for a Complex Food World | Thrive A/F Ep. 4 · Thrive A/F (After Forty)

• Keith: All right, welcome back. Episode four, Thrive AF, Thrive After 40. I'm Keith, one of the hosts of the podcast. I'm here with my good friend Lou. Lou, say hello. Back again. Lou Fratto: Hey guys We're here we survived another one another week Keith: Indeed. The fans have been clamoring for it. So we had to get back on. And ⁓ indeed, indeed. ⁓ great to be here with you. ⁓ today's topic is gonna be the third lever from your book, which is called Thrive. don't you give the full title of the book? Lou Fratto: Beating down the door. ⁓ so it's ⁓ yeah, specifically Thrive a physical therapist guide to longevity. So it's Keith: There you go. I should know that by now. ⁓ Lou Fratto: Yeah. Maybe you should read the book. I'll send you a copy. Keith: Come on, man. I got a copy. I want to get an autographed next time with C though. ⁓ yeah, but today's today's episode is gonna be about nutrition. So big, big topic. But before we get into that, I have a surprise for you actually. And I did not prep you with this. So we hit a little milestone. We actually have some comments on our YouTube videos. So we are gonna I'm gonna read them. Lou Fratto: ⁓ sweet. ⁓ awesome. Whoa. Wait, c can I warn you real quick, I have a very thin skin. Keith: Well, it's only two. So we're gonna do a live reading of the comments, and hopefully you haven't seen this before. So the first one is from a ⁓ a viewer or a listener named Regina Timberman. And Regina says, Congratulations on your new podcast. It is awesome. So thumbs up. And this is ⁓ these are specifically on the ⁓ episode about mindset. So that's the first one. The second comment that we got, great podcast. Lou Fratto: All right, all right. Nice. All right. Keith: Good info and stories, very entertaining. Then it goes on to say, as far as the singing, I'm glad Kenny I'm glad Kenny Rogers passed away peacefully a few years a few years ago because that version of The Gambler would have killed him. Lou Fratto: Nice. Keith: And that comment is from my actual brother. Yes. My brother back believes. Lou Fratto: That's great. Brad, thank you, Brad. Thank you for bringing me get ki leave it up to the older brother to to ⁓ keep keep me grounded, you know, because I honestly was gonna go to some auditions, but no no. ⁓ yeah, so not in danger of losing me to a cover, Kenny Rogers cover band or anything like that. Keith: Yeah, I thought that was fun. No, not yet. Not yet. But we are going to try and get that that karaoke session in next time we all get together. And I will tell you that Brad's got nothing to really holler about when it comes to singing, because I take road trips with him and I have to listen to him sing Bruce Springsteen's songs and other stuff. So he he's got not much to speak about when it comes to that. So don't don't pay too much attention to the criticism. ⁓ Lou Fratto: Yeah, hey, let's do it. Ne next time I see him ⁓ at at at our old ⁓ college I'll ⁓ I'll get him to sing. Get him to do some karaoke. For sure. Keith: Yeah, we'll get them on tape. There you go. All right. now we're gonna go into the actual meat of the episode today. So nutrition, a huge topic. Really, I mean, ⁓ books and movies and documentaries and ⁓ podcasts, ⁓ obviously just something that touches ⁓ many aspects of life across all different ages and and everything. So we're going to do our best to talk about some of the highlights from the book, ⁓ some of our own feelings about different aspects of nutrition, why it's important, why it's difficult, ⁓ or, you know, maybe simple yet not easy. ⁓ but why don't you ⁓ start off and kind of talk a little bit at first about how you approached it for the book and and who some of the influences were that we took from. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Well, so that's a good segue to to the disclaimer, and that is that ⁓ this is meant for educational and ⁓ informational purposes only and hopefully entertainment purposes, ⁓ just keep that in mind. I'm not a nutritionist, I'm not a doctor. ⁓ so I so I approached it carefully, you know. ⁓ I don't want to sit there and prescribe a certain type of meal plan or tur certain type of nutrition for somebody. And so I tried to keep it as broad as possible, but also stick with the science. But that'll probably be a topic we talk about, how the science is very tricky with nutrition. And you know, that's how I approach it, is okay, what Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: they, you know, whatever meal plan or nutrition plan that you ascribe to, whether it's vegan or vegetarian or keto or, you know, paleo can get very militant about it and they can really dig their heels in and get very dogmatic and to the point where they sort of might even ignore new research that comes out that might contradict what they think. ⁓ Keith: Yeah, yeah. Lou Fratto: You know, th there are certain things that everybody does agree upon, no matter what w which one of those they so I tried to stick to that, you know, stick to the what that kind of thing. Keith: Yeah. I mean, that's really good and a good point that you know there's so much ⁓ advice and so many studies and so much research and science, but it also feels like sometimes it just goes back and forth, you know, on a particular thing. Like, is coffee good for you? It's great. ⁓ no, it's bad. ⁓ no, it's great, but you know, or is are eggs good for you? Is this good for you? And it's like to me, it has been really difficult to zero in on like. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: some of those core concepts of, you know, nutrition, I guess balanced nutrition, you know, and not get caught up in whatever the latest fad or science is along the way. So I know that's Lou Fratto: Yeah. I know it's really hard and it's frustrating, you know, because one minute you're doing this and then the next minute you do that. And it's hard to stick to all the rules because if if you stuck to every single thing that you hear, you know, what are you going to eat? You know, so ⁓ but Keith: Right. Lou Fratto: But also everybody's different. Everybody responds differently. It's what do they call it? Biogenetic diversity. You know, we we are you and I are gonna probably respond differently to different types of foods. And then we might even respond differently as we age, you know, than we did when we were younger. So it's it's a changing ⁓ variable thing that's you know, well, I could I know my wife and I, we tried vegan for a while and her Keith: ⁓ you know. Lou Fratto: blood numbers, you know, her cholesterol and her triglycerides were cut in half when we did it. Mine did nothing. My mine mine were a little bit elevated at the time and they didn't go down at all. I think actually they went up a tiny bit, you know, so that's a perfect example. Keith: Yeah. one of the things we wanted to we we've sort of got into this already, but that conflicting advice on nutrition ⁓ and the fact that underlying that, and one of factors I think what makes it so challenging is ⁓ this nutrition and food production is big business. So, do you want to talk about that a little bit and kind of maybe the complexities that it introduces to something that Lou Fratto: Yeah. so that's kind of a multi part question. But the just from a big business standpoint, ⁓ you know, to be fair, we have gotten a lot better at feeding a lot of people relatively inexpensively. You know, so we're Keith: It's just really at the end of the day about what we put in our bodies. Right. Lou Fratto: We've gotten better at that, really good at that, I guess you could say, you could argue. ⁓ but it's at the expense of quality, you know, so we can feed people inexpensively and also ease of with the ease of preparation. So it's easier to prepare these kind of foods, but but the quality is is not really where you want it to be. So the so it's a business, you know. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Right. Huge business. And that's aga I I guess, you know, the point I was making earlier about the fact that it it's such a multifaceted topic where Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: It's got economics wrapped into it. It's got business. It's got public policy. It's got advocacy and so many other things that make the food landscape really challenging for us to navigate in a lot of ways. Cause it's not just as simple as, you know, maybe the way it used to be where you're eating a lot of stuff that was more locally produced. Or, you know, it's opened up a lot of options for us to get things from different places because we have a really good Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: logistic system that move food moves food around. ⁓ but it's also introduced some things that maybe aren't aren't as healthy for us for sure. Lou Fratto: Yeah, and ⁓ help me out on this, or correct me if I'm wrong, but The government subsidizes ⁓ you know, corn and soybeans and I'm not sh I forget what the other one is. I think it's three main things. And so they subsidize it, helps the farmers out, I guess, and everything and helps us feed a lot of people, but but then again, that that's why we may be overusing these products because they're inexpensive and you can put they're fillers, you know, you can put ⁓ in and use ⁓ for everything, you know. So it's it's a t I don't I don't know the answer to Keith: Yeah. Yep. Yeah. Lou Fratto: How to fix that or Keith: No, I mean, obviously we're not going to come up with the, you know, like I said, there's books, there's podcasts, there's movies, there's every kind of, you know, theory around what we need to do. But maybe we can get into talking about some of the things that we as individuals can control, you know, to some degree. And, you know, some of the ⁓ some of the things that you put in the book and also have have kind of talked about in the past, or maybe some of the things not to eat might be one of the things where you focus in on versus Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I think there's more power in, you know, you should there are certain things that you should eat for sure, you know, that that have kind of been shown to be be healthier. But there's also things that everybody agrees upon that you shouldn't eat. And when I say everybody, you know, most of the Keith: specifically what to eat when it comes to a dietary prescription. Lou Fratto: the experts that again they could ascribe to a different diet, but they agree upon what you shouldn't eat. And you get more bang for your buck by avoiding the poisons, so to speak. ⁓ you know, and I when I say poison, obviously you're not going to die right away from eating this stuff, but it kills you slowly ⁓ over and years, you know, decades. ⁓ And so ⁓ the best example I could think of was like let's say you ate really ⁓ unhealthy fast food every meal of the day. obviously you're not going to die right away from eating this stuff, but it kills you slowly ⁓ over and years, you know, decades. ⁓ And so ⁓ the best example I could think of was like let's say you ate really ⁓ unhealthy fast food every meal of the day. And then you went home and ate 200 blueberries. Well, you know, the blueberries aren't gonna make up for the unhealthy fast foods as much as if you Yeah, And then you went home and ate 200 blueberries. Well, you know, the blueberries aren't gonna make up for the unhealthy fast foods as much as if you Yeah, Keith: No. Antioxidants don't don't work that way. No. Antioxidants don't don't work that way. Lou Fratto: as much as if you just didn't eat the fast foods, you that you get more bang for your bucket by doing that. So I was gonna say should talk about those things that, you know, ⁓ everybody agrees upon avoiding. Keith: Right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so you had talked a little bit about the the SAD diet, and that is something that I wasn't really familiar with. ⁓ and I honestly forget what the acronym stands for. So do you want to talk about that a little bit? Lou Fratto: Yeah, so it stands for the standard American diet, you know, and it's basically the you could call it the Western diet. And what's interesting is that even though nutrition is very hard to study, but ⁓ you can track the spread of chronic diseases ⁓ right along with the tr the spread of the Western diet. ⁓ you can take communities that were ⁓ Keith: Okay. Lou Fratto: you know, that that maybe are way up north, like the Eskimo communities, and they eat a lot of fat because they eat seals and stuff like that. And then you can go down to like South America or Central America, whatever, and they eat maybe a lot of carbs. And then you can even, there's another kind of maybe tribal tribe that eats like mostly meat. And none of these populations had ⁓ have any kind of chronic diseases like we do. Keith: Right. Lou Fratto: But again, if you spread the Western diet to these areas, they start getting the chronic diseases. And so that is sort of it's it's impossible to ignore. You know, and so some of the things that that that are included in that are like processed foods, you know, the factory farm meats and the bad fats, you know, the seed oils and stuff like that, which we we could definitely get more into. Keith: So kind of relates to what we talked about that our food system is more geared towards producing things in high quantity, hence the processed foods that have longer shelf lives and, you know, are a good source of calories to keep us alive, but not necessarily the things that maybe make us thrive. And there's been an over ⁓ an overindexing in those kinds of foods becoming a core part of our diet versus something that should be more like the very, very small portion of of what we typically eat it on this ⁓ standard American diet. Lou Fratto: Yeah, I mean, and it's hard. I mean, both my wife and I work and we get home, you know, after being at work all day, and ⁓ it's hard not to just prepare something that's ⁓ eas already halfway prepared, you know, processed, I guess, or to go to the store and get something that's already pre-made and packaged. Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: And this is interesting because we you know, I knew we were gonna talk about this topic, so I was more aware of it. But I walked into a ⁓ small market that's a one-off market, and they're a very good market, and they have a great reputation, they have great stuff. And I walked in and and right right as I walked up, there was some pre-packaged ⁓ tuna salad that they had made there at the store, and then they packaged it in plastic. And there was also some egg salad that and I picked it up and I looked at the back and the number one ingredient was soybean oil, you know, just boom, right off the bat. And it was like, you know, why? You know, why darn. So I, you know, I said, well, I got to practice what I preach and I put it back. You know, and then last night I went to a bigger chain grocery store and ⁓ I I really like taboole. So they had a prepackaged plastic thing of taboole, which is a Mediterranean salad if people haven't had it. And my daughter likes it too. Keith: Yeah. That is stuff. Lou Fratto: And ⁓ I picked it up and looked at it and number one ingredient was ⁓ sunflower oil. So I put it in the cart and I walked around and I did my shopping and then I kind of was like, ⁓ you know, I gotta practice what I preach and I put it back, you know. So it's like the stuff is everywhere, you know. ⁓ let me look at the statistic here. 20% of our calories come from 20% of the average person's calories in the United States come from soybean oil alone. Keith: Yeah. Twenty percent of the calories, wow, come from soybean oil alone. Wow. That's wild. So it is truly kind of in everything. Lou Fratto: Yeah, for the average American. Yeah. Yeah. And so the question is, why are those oils bad? ⁓ and a lot of this process stuff, ⁓ somebody said, I think it was Brian Johnson, and that's B R I A N Johnson with her he's the CEO of Heroic. ⁓ and I want to give credit to Mark Hyman, Michael Pollen, and Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey because I studied a lot of what those guys wrote and they deserve to credit for a lot of this stuff. ⁓ Keith: Right. Lou Fratto: But like our food has changed more in in l in the last hundred years than it did the hundred years hundred thousand years prior to that. And and our bodies just aren't haven't there aren't evolved to handle that stuff. You know, it's with the industrial revolution. And so seed oils, you know, they have to heat it up super hot. They have to crush the heck out of it and they have to add chemicals to it and all this stuff. And it just it just Keith: Right. Lou Fratto: It's not like olive oil where it's we've been pressing that for thousands of years, you know, and extra virgin olive oils, okay, that's okay to eat. It's actually healthy. But the seed oils are not, they have too many omega-6s in them versus omega-3s. And the proportion or the ratio should be about one to one. And what the average person in the United States gets is 16 to 1. Keith: Yeah. Right. Yeah. Lou Fratto: omega sixes over omega-3s and omega-6s are inflammatory and omega-threes are anti-inflammatory. So we're flooding ourselves with inflammatory omega-6s with all these seed oils. Keith: So seed oils is just one though aspect of kind of the way that we have to treat or make our food in order to have it fit into this, you know, system that we have created, unfortunately. But, you know, again, it's like a system this big and and with this much money and and trying to feed this many people. It's like we're not going to be able to break down. Like, we can talk about some of the issues, and some of them are well known, some of them maybe not. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: As well known. But I think it goes back, you know, one of the points that you were making, and I've heard this several times on multiple different sources, but is the way that the food system has evolved versus the way that we kind of evolved as humans. And it's like a mismatch between we've spent most of our evolutionary term trying to maximize the amount of calories that we can get that are available because for a good portion of that time food was hard to come by. And now we live in a world where food is. can be relatively cheap and calories can be relatively cheap to get. And our lifestyle and the fact that we don't, you know, we're not doing industrial jobs for the most part anymore is really causing a lot of these chronic issues that we're seeing is like this mismatch between the way that we're supposed to, I guess, be consuming new, you know, and getting our nutrition versus the way that we are now. And it's like there's so many of those little factors where Again, it takes something that should be relatively simple. ⁓ we need to eat to live, ⁓ but makes it really complicated when you start to try and do the right thing, like your example of going to the grocery store and picking up what you think is a healthy food and then realizing that, you know, that you you really weren't achieving what you were what you were hoping to do ⁓ because of the fact that, you know, the way it was produced was just so weird. It's really, really difficult. And it that's what makes it so complicated and such a problem for so many people, I think. Lou Fratto: It is. It's so hard. It is. Everything's confusing and it's and the stuff changes and it's it's so hard. It's very hard. I've and look, I'm not saying I'm perfect. And you know, ⁓ like we talked about before, it's that 80 20s what you shoot for, but But if if you can't go from zero to a hundred and just one fail swoop, but just try to make little changes here and there and kind of inch your way up to that eighty s somehow, you know, but it's tough. It's really, really tough. And you don't even if you were able to get to eighty, you don't want to go above that anyway, because you still want to have fun, right? I mean, I'm I'm not gonna go to my friend's birthday and refuse a birthday cake piece of birthday cake, you know, just cause I'm stuck on the, you know, that sugar's bad for you. Keith: Yeah. Right. Right, right. Well, maybe we can talk a little bit about some of the good things that you can, you know, that you feel like are fairly consistent or fairly common that we can try to do. And then we can talk a little bit more about like our personal. I know I have a personal ⁓ things that I struggle with as well when it comes to being consistent with the way that I eat. But maybe first you could talk a little bit about some of the things you identify as like. Try to do these, you know, smaller or maybe simple rules or or simple things that you can do that that might make some improvement. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah, so I kind of I think I lean towards the functional medicine guys what they and gals what they you know promote. And so they say, you know, pretty much 75% of your plate should be filled with vegetables, you know, and kind of the more the greater the variety, the better. And then you can have a small amount of meat, you know, and I guess the true Mediterranean diet, you know, they they didn't eat meat every night. You know, they kind of treated it as a special occasion, you know, but if you do eat it every night or when you do eat it, it should be not a huge piece. It should be more the the the condiment part of your meal and the vegetables should be the main part of your, you know, part of your meal. ⁓ and then Keith: Yeah, Lou Fratto: And you can use fruits for dessert, you know, because they do still, you know, have some sugars in them and stuff. So use those as a dessert. And and then eat ⁓ good fats, you know, so olive oil, extra virgin olive oil, avocados, you know, fatty fish, that kind of thing. Those are really healthy. And then don't eat too much, you know, try to slow down so that you can give your stomach time to tell your brain that you've had enough food. And I like what the Japanese do. They Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: They stop eating when they're eighty percent full. And there's there's a Japanese name for it. I've I'm sorry that I don't have it right off the top of my head, but it's in the book. And so they stop when they're eighty percent full. And then research also has shown that if you eat on smaller plates, you'll tend to eat less too. So stuff like that ⁓ is what you can do. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. What about like stretching things out a little bit more instead of ⁓ I I don't know if this is in the book or not, but having like three big meals a day if you have maybe two and a half or you know, a smaller meal here and there, but you intersperse it with something that's a little bit healthier in the morning, late morning or afternoon or even after dinner sometimes. Lou Fratto: Yeah, I don't know that I talked too much about that or that I could respond too much on that. But I they do have research that shows that ⁓ if you eat healthy earlier in the day, you tend to do better. You know, you tend to I think eat less, I think it is. ⁓ but it's and I and I'm kind of guilty of not doing that. I do intermittent fasting, you know, so I don't even eat till like twelve or one o'clock, you know. But I think ideally what I would should do is shift my fasting window so that I end up Keith: Okay. Okay. Yeah. Lou Fratto: eating earlier during the day, but still do the fasting. But there is research to show that eating earlier during the day is healthier. And definitely definitely and this sorry, that's a buzzer. This takes us to a little bit on the sleep lever is you definitely don't want to eat right before you go to bed, you know, two to four hours before you go to bed. And that's a whole nother topic. Keith: I mean, I'm it blows my mind to think about how we used to eat when we were young. The eating at half a pizza at eleven o'clock at night, or even worse, going to a restaurant, you know, a greasy spoon or something after going out. And we lived like that for quite a few years. And, you know, I think about that now, and I'm just like, it would kill me for three days. Lou Fratto: Yeah, yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, and and I know. And our stomachs were a little tougher back then, but still I remember having a lot of gastric problems even back then and just I don't know if I just ignored them and or didn't put two and two together, but Keith: Yeah. Yeah, it's like, why do I feel so bad? I had half a pepperoni pizza at eleven thirty. And then no breakfast. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Hey, I have a so speaking of co hey, listen. Speaking of college, I I had a trivia question for you, a little surprise for you. So remember the summer that we lived together. We we shared an apartment together. Remember that? It was one summer. And actually, remember the TV we had? It was this, it was the old iteration of a big screen TV. Keith: Okay, hit me. Yeah. Yes, we s did we just borrow it from the fraternity house or how did we give Okay. Lou Fratto: Yep. They well, they they needed a place to store it and we were happy to do that. And it w and our living room was really small and this TV took up like most of the living room. So it was but we had fun with it. ⁓ but that summer, I guess because I had a little more time on my hands, is the summer that I bought my first real true nutrition book. Do you remember that? Or do remember what the book was? Keith: No, I don't, but I do remember another piece of trivia from that time that I'll get you after you finish your story. Lou Fratto: What? ⁓ all right. Now maybe it was because I was we were rooming together and you had a positive influence on me. I say, you know what? I gotta buy a nutrition book. Keith: I doubt it. I doubt it. I heavily doubt it, but go ahead. Lou Fratto: I had gotten most of my nutrition ⁓ knowledge, if you will, from reading like muscle and fitness before that, you know, and I can't speak whether that stuff was scientific or not, or if it was just bro knowledge. I really have no idea, but but but this book was actually a legit book written by a legitimate scientist. I'm gonna I don't have the book, but I printed the copy of the cover. And this is Eat to Win. Yep. Keith: Okay. Eat to win. Okay. Yeah. I mean, the nutrition bible, sports nutrition bible. That looks familiar. I can't say that I remember you having it in the department, but I'll trust you. I'll take your word for it. Lou Fratto: This was the book. I don't think he would have let me read it to you. Keith: No, we didn't have a book club or anything, as I recall, that summer, but Lou Fratto: I'm surprised I did any reading at that point, but but it did I you know what it did for me though? And and you know, this is old stuff. I mean it was written what what is that like 37, 38 years, I don't know, 40 years ago. ⁓ and obviously the stuff's you know, the knowledge has changed. And I think he's even come out with addition new additions to kind of modify based on the science and everything. But but what it did was it really got me thinking that about how what you put in your body. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Lou Fratto: ⁓ can affect you immediately, like how you feel, how your brain works. That was the first time and because this was geared towards new sports. And so I was reading it thinking, okay, how can I perform better in sports? and it just got me thinking along those realms, like, wow, what you put in your body really affects you right away. How you feel, how you perform. And he this book, this book was responsible, and I got this off of ⁓ Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: the internet, but it said it was responsible in large part for the carbo loading, you know, before like a long endurance event. So like, you know, so Keith: ⁓ yeah. ⁓ yeah. Yeah, that's interesting. Which I'm sure there's mixed mixed science on now in terms of carbo loading for big events. But I've read some stuff about like ultra marathoners and things that they do. But that is interesting. So my piece of trivia, do you remember that one of your pieces of advice, not advice, but telling us all that you thought that you could live on pizza and salad? Lou Fratto: Yeah. Right. No, I don't remember that. Keith: You went through a phase where you were trying to find the perfect pizza. You were trying to find the perfect pizza in Gainesville and you were very particular about it. And you would get a pizza and a salad. And then you said, I could live on pizza and salad. And you said it more than once. Lou Fratto: ⁓ my wow. Yeah. Well that that is the now, so that just shows you that hopefully I've learned a little since then, but but from a from a taste standpoint, absolutely. I love pizza and I l still love salads. My friends make fun of me. they call me Salad Lou. I mean, I did they tease me all the time. I still love salads and and ⁓ boy do I love pizza. ⁓ man, that is a weakness. Keith: Well that and that to like brings up a another point I wanted to touch on was I feel like we all you mentioned that we all have a different sort of biochemistry makeup essentially. And I also feel like we all have probably our own food kind of weaknesses, where with some people it's sugar, right? Or it's sweets, or it's ⁓ sugary drinks or something. But then like for me personally, I could walk by that stuff pretty much all day. Like if I were to go to an event where there was a buffet. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah. Keith: and it had pizza and hamburger and you know something fried or whatever. Like that's where I'm going. And there's other pe and then and then there's a dessert table over here. I could probably skip that d I could walk by that dessert table all night. But that's not the same as it is for everybody else. So I think that also makes it a little more complicated where you gotta figure out like what are my weak points? Is it barbecue and you know? Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: onion rings or ⁓ you know, some unhealthy snack that I really like or is it sugar or is it sweets? I mean everybody's got their own thing and that also I think is why at least to me like super strict diets have never really have have never really worked for me because everybody's different, you know. Lou Fratto: Yeah. No, and I'm my even though I love pizza, my my ⁓ weakness is sweets. I mean, if I eat eat something like chocolate or something like that, I literally can just feel the pleasure centers in my brain just going off, you know? And if I I may not even crave some of that stuff, but if I eat one, then I've gotta have four or five or you know, whatever. It's just it's bad, yeah, it's totally addictive. But what I do notice is Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: ⁓ if I break out of my routine of those, like let's say maybe I've gotten into a bad habit where every time I come home, I I don't know, I don't know, I eat a sweet ⁓ you know, some chocolate or something. ⁓ and that's not to say that, you know, then there's gonna be people who will say, ⁓ dark chocolate's okay. And I'm just saying though, if I I have to stay away, because one one piece of chocolate is not enough. And, you know, so I have to have 10. But ⁓ if I stay away from it for like a week, then I don't have. Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: Then I can then it seems like I've broken the chain of addiction, so to speak. It's it's weird, yeah. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've also found at least for me, like I'm able to maintain strict dietary regimens for short periods of time, but it's not I don't feel like it's a long term path to success. And that may be another individual thing where I do know some people that have maintained, you know, either because it's a health thing or maybe they've got dietary restrictions and they don't have a choice, but they're able to maintain it. But for me, like there's been points in my life where I've gone really hardcore on a couple of weird Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: you know, diets and ⁓ and that I've seen success, but then I get to a point where I feel like I'm comfortable and then I start slipping. And then it's just not something that so I've tried to focus in on on like you hit on, I think in the book, or what are some of the, you know, two or three things that I might be able to do with my diet that keep me on track. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: You know, so salads is a great example. I've been, you know, I want to talk about this more in in another episode, but trying to institute, you know, making my own salads for me and my wife every day of the work week, ⁓ when when we're home and things like that. Or for breakfast, you know, trying to at least get some protein, some carbohydrates, piece of fruit, you know, whatever, and in and and get away from things, other things that maybe aren't so healthy. and I know that you have gone through, ⁓ like you already mentioned, you were vegan for a while. How do you feel about, you know, the ability to stick with something that is super restrictive versus just trying to like, like you said, hit that eighty percent revolution? Lou Fratto: No, I agree with you. It's super hard and I I've failed at it too. And I but I've tried a lot of different meal plans or diets, whatever you want to call them, because I like to experiment and see how I'm gonna react to it and see number one, can I even do it? And then number two, how am I gonna react? And ⁓ you know, meaning I get my blood tested or whatever, and I say, ⁓ wow, my cholesterol went down eating this stuff and went up eating this. But ⁓ Keith: Yeah. Right. Lou Fratto: But I have and I and I have to apologize to my friends and family for dealing with me over the years because, you know, we would go when we were vegan, our friends, you know, they would have us over and they would make vegan, you know, if they had chili, they'd make a vegan chili for us. And so it's like, you know, they really tried to support us. Then I was ⁓ keto, really strict keto for a while. And ⁓ and I remember they were have they had chips and salsa. And for me, they had ⁓ pieces of celery to dip in the salsa, you know, so they Keith: Wow. You have good friends. You have good friends. Lou Fratto: They really tried to support me. Yeah. I I I gotta thank them. They really supported me over the years of my my craziness with my diets. But it just gets where it's impractical, you know. I mean, and maybe if you stayed in your house and did nothing, you could do it. But like for instance, vegan, when we were vegan, ⁓ it was years ago and there wasn't a lot of options at restaurants. There's more now. And so we would go out to eat and s and there just wasn't an option. And then so we Keith: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Lou Fratto: We compromised. We said, Okay, we'll be vegan during the week and not vegan on the weekends. And then that just that worked for a while and then it just didn't work. And, you know, and so it's it's really, really tough. I I it's it's hard. So th like you said, just shoot for maybe, you know, some form of just making progress in the right direction, you know. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. All right. There were a couple things I wrote down, or that you wrote down actually that I want to touch on that'll be maybe maybe a little more like rapid fire. So we talk about. So ⁓ Michael Pollan, that's one person that you mentioned, and I've I've also read his book. He has a pretty ⁓ good rule. Maybe it's the one rule that people can follow. And Can you talk about that a little bit? Lou Fratto: Yeah, so it's probably paraphrase this, but it's eat real food, not too much, mostly plants. And that's a great that's the great rule for it. That kind of summarizes everything right there. You know, he also says Keith: Yeah, it goes back to that plate that you were talking about where you're filling it hopefully mostly up with vegetables, some protein, maybe some healthy fat and not too much. Yeah. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah, he ⁓ he also says if it's made in a plant, don't eat it. If it is a plant, eat it. Keith: Yep. Those are such good little, I mean, encapsulations of taking again, like something that should be pretty simple, but it's complicated, but trying to simplify it. And, you know, instead of having to like do things like stripped calorie counts or maybe some of those stricter diets things, if you can if you can try and live that you know, the challenges though, again, like getting that healthy food, shopping for that healthy food. Healthier food is typically exp more expensive than than unhealthy food. So like there's so many other factors that Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: take something that seems like it should be so simple and can make it a little bit difficult. ⁓ okay, longer shelf life equals shorter life. Is that something you came up with or something that that you like ribbed from somebody else? ⁓ it is? Okay. Lou Fratto: Yeah. No, no. That's Michael Pollan. That's Michael Pollan. Yeah. Super smart guy. I think he's associated with Oxford, Harvard, and UC UC Berkeley, I believe. I mean he's yeah, he came up with that. He deserves credit for that one. That's a good one. Keith: Yeah. Yeah, that is a good one. So is the one about the third grader? Lou Fratto: Yeah, if a third grader can't pronounce the ingredients, it's probably not something you wanna put in your in your body. Keith: Makes a lot of sense. But I got a lot of stuff in my in my pantry right now that I shouldn't be putting in my body if I were to follow that rule, unfortunately. Yeah, it is. Especially like you said, if you don't live by, you know, if you're not a a hermit living by yourself, you've got kids, if you've got, you know, family that is around, like everybody's got their own, you know, personal things that they like and they want. And there are convenience factors as well. So unless you're like just a literally a solo person or somebody that's Lou Fratto: Yeah, I know. It's hard. Keith: partnered with somebody who's who's also willing to go like super strict, it can be a little bit difficult. Lou Fratto: Yeah. And you still, you know, you gotta live. ⁓ and ⁓ but one thing, it's easier to have ⁓ try to have your willpower at the store rather than at your house. So when you're in the store, don't buy the stuff so it's not in the house. If it's in the house, man, it's so hard to not eat it. Like if you got this big old pint, I guess that's not that big, but if you got a big old container of ice cream in your yck. Keith: Yeah. Court. Call it a court. Lou Fratto: Court in your freezer. I mean, ⁓ man, it's so hard to not just walk over there and just, you know, dig into it. But if it's not in your house, then Keith: Yeah. Well, there was something I heard, and I'm not sure if it was Michael Pollen or somebody like that, but it was about shopping. And it said, try to concentrate most of your shopping on like the perimeter of the grocery store if you can, because that's where they keep the the meat and the cheese and the vegetables and you know, even some of the frozen stuff that's probably a little more healthy. But that interior of the grow of a typical grocery store is where everything is on the shelf and it's meant to have super long shelf life. Lou Fratto: ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Keith: And it's another like little rule, maybe that you can try and think about when you're doing that. Stay out of the stay out of the aisles as much as you can. But it's hard. ⁓ my gosh. That's the worst. God forbid that you ever walk into a Costco hungry because not only will you walk out poor, you will walk out with two shopping carts full of ⁓ of stuff. So Lou Fratto: Yeah, yeah. And don't go to the grocery store when you're starving. ⁓ right. Yeah, and you'll probably stop at every one of the little people there that are giving you free, you know, stuff. Keith: Yeah. And get a Costco hot dog on the way out, which is probably the best it's probably the best deal around though, when again when you get right into it, but Lou Fratto: And that's not. Yeah. It tastes great. I have to say. Costco does an awesome job. The the food is good and they actually have good stuff. I like their stuff. It's really good. Keith: Yeah, they do. I mean, we go there. Yeah. I mean, you know, the shopping piece, ⁓ I can do a whole and I probably will at some point, maybe in a in a different episode, talk a little bit about, you know, what I some of the things that we try to do when it comes to shopping. But we're very fortunate too. I mean, let's just face it, like when I say we like me and you and people like us, I don't know what it's like where you live, but I've got so many options around here. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah. No. Keith: To shop at smaller farmers market. We have a giant farmers market. We have all the usual grocery stores. We have specialty stores. And it's not that way for a lot of people. And it kind of goes back to the food system and the economics piece. There's there's a lot of places where people don't have the kind of choices that we have. And it sucks because you know, again, like you you think about the population, the the the huge population in the United States and Lou Fratto: Yeah. Keith: There's just a lot of people that ⁓ their choices are limited and their dollars have to stretch really far. And unfortunately, you know, our our system is not really optimized to take care of some of the people that probably need it most. And that's just, you know, it's obviously not something we can solve, but I think it's worth being aware of the fact that it's not always that people don't want to do the right thing. ⁓ sometimes it's really, really hard or even impossible to do the right thing. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah. If you're working like two or three jobs and you just don't you don't have time to come home and cook from scratch. You maybe you are gonna stop at like a quick, easy, convenient place. I but some one of these guys, I don't know if it was Michael Pollan or something, but he said that they actually make more in the gas stations in the ⁓ store, the little store area than they do by selling the gas. And it's cause, you know, it's so convenient. You walk in, boom, grab a little pre-made sandwich or whatever. Keith: Right. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. Yeah, gas is a lost leader for gas stations for sure. All right. We've gone 40 minutes and talked about a lot of stuff, but we haven't even scratched. I mean, honestly, like this topic is just so deep and so broad that I think we're gonna have to do our best to cover some of the, you know, some of the the things. Is there anything from that you remember from the book? Lou Fratto: Okay, I've been even. Yeah. Keith: or just in general that you want to impart before we maybe move on to talking about synergy and and and and levers, and then maybe close out with a few closing thoughts. Lou Fratto: Yeah, I guess that just remember that the the things that to try to limit is again, if you if you can't do everything that we've talked about, and that's like you said, only scratching the surface anyway, at least try to start limiting some of the stuff that just we know is really, really bad for you. And that would be like the refined sugars and the flours, you know, the processed foods that are in boxes and pre-made and all that. If you can just start maybe eating a little bit less of of that. That goes a long way, especially sugary drinks. Sugary drinks are the really, really bad, you know. Keith: Yeah, one of the things we started doing or I started doing for our family was just buying ⁓ flavored like seltzer water, you know. And then that got pretty expensive because we weren't buying sugary drinks or drink mixes. And then ⁓ you know, I have two kids and they were just, you know, pounding now these ⁓ these these seltzer waters, which is great, but it was also pretty expensive. So we actually got one of the soda soda stream machine. Lou Fratto: Yeah. Yeah. Keith: And I was kind of resistant to that, but it seems to there's a little bit of effort involved to actually make the soda and ⁓ it kind of it kind of calmed them down a little bit, but yeah. It's just like the monster energy drinks that I see them picking up at the grocery or at the convenience stores. It kills me. But they're young, they'll they'll learn why. That's not probably not a sustainable thing, but Lou Fratto: Yeah. Blows you down a little bit. Yeah. Right. Yeah, but we get away with it now, you know. But the a little trivia fact that ⁓ in the seventeen hundreds, people ate an average of five pounds of sugar per year. Now it's a hundred and fifty pounds per year. Yeah. Keith: ⁓ my god. Just picture that as bags of sugar lined up. I mean I'm sure somebody's done that graphic. That is crazy. Lou Fratto: Yeah. 150 pounds per year for the average ⁓ person in the United States. And yeah, it's just so sugar is just I mean it but it tastes so good, but it's just so and you can't feel it killing you, but it's doing it slowly. I guess you could say. Keith: Yeah. Indeed. Yeah. All right. Well, those are good, good little rules. Do you want to talk about ⁓ synergy and synergistic levers? I know you had something that that you had jotted down that you might want to talk about. Lou Fratto: Yeah, you know, w I don't wanna lose sight of you know, eating a meal with friends and family, loved ones. I mean, that is probably one of the most one of my most favorite things that I that I could ever do. I mean, when I tell people sometimes, you know, my what is your hobby? Well, it's eating out with friends and family or eating at somebody's house, my house, whatever, friends and family. ⁓ I have to say we don't eat as my house as often as we do our friends. Our friends are very ⁓ Keith: Yeah. Lou Fratto: They they are very great great hosts and great cooks, much better than me. But I love nothing more than that. And there's even good statistics where, you know, families that have more meals at home have a lot that, you know, their teenagers have a lot less problems and and and so synergy is, you know, yes, we're getting the food, we're eating, ⁓ but it's also helping us with ⁓ with reform good relationships and keep good relationships and enjoy ourselves and You know, we shouldn't lose sight of that. Keith: No, I totally agree. Something about also just the preparation of food. Like if you have friends over and you are preparing a meal kind of together and then eating and enjoying that meal, I think you're right. Like I'm looking forward to when we talk about relationships and how they impact our health, because you're right. Like that has become something that we went through a period of time where it was really difficult to have those kind of in-person interactions. And I'm really, really one of the things that I'm focusing on or that we're trying to focus on is is getting back to social because it's doing social things and being very intentional about it because it's a critical part of our health and happiness overall. So Lou Fratto: Yeah. Good one. Keith: All right, so my little synergy thing I'm just gonna touch on is ⁓ nutrition and habits, which is something that we haven't ⁓ talked about yet. So I'm actually gonna save the deeper conversation for when we talk about that. But I was ⁓ you know, for me it's like if you can combine habits and routines with nutrition and find little things that you can do creating a filthy food habit that is gonna remove barriers or speed bumps to eating healthier. then I think the reas or the the the benefits from that are almost exponential. So ⁓ you know just trying to figure out when's the best time to shop, what my shopping habits might be, what are some things that I can that I like and my family likes, you know, really thinking about ways that you can remove maybe some of those little barriers that keep you from eating healthy is a really powerful combination. But I'll go deeper into that in the episode where we get into Habits and routines, which I think is one of the ⁓ final ⁓ one of the later levers of the book. So I'm looking forward to that conversation. Lou Fratto: Yeah, just what I know from what you've told me, you guys seem to do an awesome job of that, like preparing the stuff ⁓ ahead of time and stuff like that, which is I know I should do more of that. I think that's you're gonna have a lot to say about that. That's really good. Keith: Yeah. I mean again, I've been really fortunate that I've had the time to do some of the stuff that ⁓ that I have been able to do just because my life situation. But you know, ⁓ we'll see. We'll talk a little bit more about it when we get in there. So cool, man. I guess the other thing, I guess the other thing we should do since it did launch was just go ahead and promote the fact that we do have a substack now. I was gonna save it for this. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Lou Fratto: Perfect. Yeah. What is that? Keith: It's been an interesting ⁓ yeah, it's been an interesting thing to kind of spit up. But essentially it's a you know, a newsletter or and a website that we have at thrive-af.com. And I'll put a link to that in show notes and maybe in the actually in the episode I'll flash it up here. But that's where we are creating stories and we're gonna be writing articles. And if you sign up for it, you can get weekly updates and also be notified every time that a new episode of the podcast launches. ⁓ it's totally free. It's just another way to connect with ⁓ with what we're doing and ⁓ we're excited to try and keep it going at least weekly at this point. But we've actually gotten some interest not only from us but some other people that want to contribute to it. So that's what we're really hoping for. I think it's ⁓ I think it's a really cool way for people to get engaged and we can kind of grow the group or the community that ⁓ are contributing to all the stuff that we're doing. So Lou Fratto: Sounds great. I can't wait. I want to hear some stories from other people, other folks, how they're triumphing through life. You know, I've already got a couple people in mind that have great stories. And ⁓ and it I want to see a time when you and I are we're not contributing the stories of everybody else is, you know, because I want to hear about other people's stuff, you know. Keith: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was a big part of your book. I mean, storytelling was kind of the foundation of what you did when you had all those health heroes in there. And it was really powerful because it's just real world examples of people putting this stuff into practice. Lou Fratto: Yeah. True. Keith: So hopefully we can keep that going. Keep it going. All right, brother. It was good chatting with you. So again, we I didn't I didn't practice the sign off. Lou Fratto: Right. Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, likewise. Second time in a row I forgot to look at it. What was it? Something like Can you can you even get us started on it? I'm like Keith: Yeah, and I didn't even print it out. The the other okay, until next time. Lou Fratto: Be brave. Keith: Well that's what you said last time. And that was wrong. I thought it was keep well, I know the last part was it was keep thrive, keep growing, keep thriving at it. Lou Fratto: I know, I'm stuck. I'm s stuck on that one. Keep growing. Keep thriving. Thrive AF. I don't know. Keith: Got it. Perfect. Flawless. Lou Fratto: Hopefully peop people that watch this are very forgiving. Keith: Yeah, I'm sure they are. All right. That sounds good. Thanks, Lou. We'll talk to you later. All right. Bye. Lou Fratto: All right, until next week. All right. Thanks. Thanks, Keith.