The Dr. Gabrielle Lyon Show

Mark Bell on Fat vs. Carbs, What’s Really Making You Fat?

80 min
Apr 28, 2026about 1 month ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

Mark Bell, elite powerlifter and entrepreneur, discusses how strength training extends beyond the gym to encompass functional fitness, longevity, and mental resilience. The episode explores misconceptions about weight loss, the role of muscle as a critical organ system, and emerging trends in peptides and performance-enhancing drugs, while emphasizing personalized approaches to fitness and nutrition over one-size-fits-all dogma.

Insights
  • Strength training's primary benefit for longevity is preserving force production and explosiveness—abilities that naturally decline with age and directly impact quality of life, not just aesthetics
  • The 1970s low-fat dietary guidelines were created to address heart disease but ignored that 80% of that cohort were smokers; this policy shift inadvertently contributed to the obesity epidemic
  • Peptides and performance-enhancing drugs are gaining adoption because they produce immediate, visible results that people can feel or see, unlike supplements; this drives adoption across demographics
  • Sustainable behavior change requires finding what people genuinely enjoy doing rather than forcing adherence to optimal-but-miserable protocols; consistency over years matters more than intensity
  • Modern sedentary lifestyles create an 'exercise deficiency' that requires artificial intervention (gym training); humans evolved to move 5-7 miles' worth of activity daily
Trends
Peptide market expansion: Triple agonists (redotrutide), BPC-157, TB-500, and mitochondrial-targeting peptides moving from niche to mainstream adoption across fitness and medical communitiesGLP-1 medication rebound effect: Post-discontinuation weight regain becoming a recognized issue, paralleling historical patterns of diet failure and raising questions about long-term pharmaceutical dependencyFunctional fitness over aesthetic fitness: Growing emphasis on movement quality, force production, and real-world capability rather than muscle size or gym lift numbersPersonalized medicine framework applied to fitness: Recognition that optimal training and nutrition vary by individual physiology, genetics, and preferences rather than universal protocolsChildhood physical culture normalization: Parents increasingly prioritizing early-life movement exposure and strength development as foundational to mental health and confidenceMovement pattern training gaining traction: Rope flow, mobility work, and multi-directional movement becoming integrated into strength programs to prevent injury and maintain longevitySaturated fat re-evaluation: Questioning of arbitrary 10% saturated fat guidelines as medical intervention rather than universal dietary recommendation; context-dependent approach emergingMuscle as organ system narrative: Shift from viewing muscle as cosmetic to recognizing it as critical for metabolic health, CNS robustness, and disease prevention
Topics
Strength training for longevity and functional capacityMuscle as a metabolic and neurological organ systemPeptide efficacy, safety, and adoption trendsGLP-1 medications and weight loss rebound effectsAnabolic steroid and performance-enhancing drug utilizationPersonalized nutrition and macronutrient optimizationFat vs. carbohydrate in modern diet and weight lossExercise deficiency in sedentary populationsMovement quality and mobility trainingChildhood physical development and parental responsibilitySaturated fat guidelines and cardiovascular healthBehavioral psychology in fitness adherenceSupplement efficacy and blood work optimizationFunctional vs. aesthetic fitness outcomesCentral nervous system training and force production
Companies
OneSkin
Skincare brand using OS-01 peptide technology targeting senescent cells for longevity-focused skin health
AMP
AI-powered resistance training system that adjusts sets and reps in real-time based on user resistance
Branch Basics
Plant and mineral-based cleaning products designed to reduce chemical exposure in the home
Body Health
Essential amino acid supplement brand (Perfect Amino) for post-workout recovery and muscle preservation
Costco
Retailer mentioned as source of high-fat meat products (80/20 ground beef, rib eye steaks)
Planet Fitness
Gym chain where Mark Bell observes users with apparent performance-enhancing drug usage
People
Mark Bell
Guest discussing strength training philosophy, peptide trends, and fitness misconceptions across decades of experience
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon
Host conducting interview and providing medical/nutritional perspective on fitness and longevity topics
Stan Efforting
Professional who analyzed Mark Bell's blood work and recommended supplement protocol based on lab results
Naoudi Aguilar
Credited with developing innovative cable and twisting movement techniques now adopted across fitness industry
Chris Bell
Produced 'Bigger, Stronger, Faster' documentary on anabolic steroid use; mentioned regarding family dynamics
Andy
Mark Bell's business partner who co-founded Power Magazine and trains alongside him
George Hackenschmidt
Credited with popularizing the bench press and hack squat in early 20th century
Leonidas
Dr. Lyon's 5-year-old son used as example of movement development through outdoor activity and minimal screen time
Quotes
"Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never strength."
Mark BellOpening philosophy
"Nothing feels like taking testosterone. Nothing feels like injecting Trenbolone. And some of these peptides that are coming along, they're not always going to be felt, but they're going to be seen."
Mark BellMid-episode discussion on drug adoption
"The best thing for Americans is just not to overeat."
Mark BellLongevity discussion
"I think we're meant to move. We're creatures of the sun, we're creatures of the light, we're creatures of outside either evolving through cold or either evolving through heat."
Mark BellExercise deficiency discussion
"It's not about the end result. It seems to be about following what you're interested in and following the next best thing, but not necessarily this is the goal."
Dr. Gabrielle LyonDiscussing Mark Bell's philosophy
Full Transcript
I didn't really realize there's so many different versions of strength. Strength is never a weakness. It's weak, this is never strength. I mean, there's a lot of different versions of strength. I was mainly thinking about powerlifting, bench squat, deadlift. Just going to the gym and doing something on gymnastics rings or somebody doing calisthenics, pull-ups. I was thinking about my version of strength. You've been very involved in bodybuilding. There's a lot of discussion on anabolic steroids. Is there still the same drug utilization? There's more people on drugs than ever. You know, whether it's a housewife or whether it's a nanofil football player. The thing is, why are people feeling like they need it? I do think that we're going to see more and more peptides. But then the question is, is there a risk? Are they aegis? Peptides, when it comes to these drugs, you actually feel them. You don't feel protein powder. You don't feel collagen. Creatine might be something maybe you feel a tiny bit. But when it comes to these peptides, when it comes to these drugs, nothing feels like taking testosterone. Nothing feels like injecting TrendBalung. And some of these peptides that are coming along, I think, they're not always going to be felt, but they're going to be seen. But you've been coaching people. You've been involved in the nutrition space for decades. What do you think the biggest mistake is? In terms of longevity, maybe the best thing for Americans is... Most people think powerlifting is for a certain type of person. A certain size, a certain age, a certain level of crazy. Mark Bell has squatted over 1,000 pounds, bench-pressed over 800, and spent over three decades learning what the human body is capable of. But what he has found working with athletes and beginners alike is that the same principles that build world record strength are the exact same ones that build longer, healthier, and a more capable life. Today, we're going deep on what strength training and just what overall strength means and the impact it has on your body and how to train more efficient and why muscle is not just something you see in the mirror. But it might be the single most important organ. You're not paying enough attention. Mark Bell, glad that you are here. Thank you. Your motto, which, by the way, I wish I had come up with, is strength is never a weakness. I think it's important to be strong, to acquire strength takes a long time. But over the years, I guess something that I didn't really think about originally, because I was thinking about my version of strength and I didn't really realize it was really important. I was thinking about my version of strength and I didn't really realize there's so many different versions of strength. Somebody doing something on gymnastics rings or somebody doing calisthenics, pull-ups. I mean, there's a lot of different versions of strength. And when I phrased that, it said strength is never a weakness, weakness is never strength. I was mainly thinking about powerlifting, bench squat, deadlift, just going to the gym and being a meathead. But I don't think the gym is a great place. It's great to go to the gym and have all your stuff kind of be there and spend an hour there or 45 minutes, however long you can delegate to do that stuff. But I also think that it might be more helpful for people to realize that there's a gym kind of all around us and you can do step-ups and stairs and all kinds of stuff in your home and all around if you open your eyes up to it. One of the ideas or the goals people have, we were looking at some of the statistics, and we pulled this statistic that 42% of Americans say getting strong is their number one fitness goal in 2026. Do you think that they're getting it wrong? Buy a slingshot. No, I think they're on the right track because I think that strength connects to your brain a lot differently than... I mean, there is mind-muscle connection. There's definitely a crossover between bodybuilding and strength training. So it's not like bodybuilding or sets a 10 or sets a 12 or even sets a 20. It's not like they don't impact your central nervous system, but most of the attributes that we lose as we get older are... You lose a lot of explosiveness. You lose the ability to produce force. So if we were to evaluate someone at 70, we might say, oh, wow, look, they can walk and they can walk a few miles. That's awesome. That's great. They get up and down the stairs. Okay, that's pretty cool. They get in and out of their car really well. But that's still all normie stuff. That's still all normal people stuff. What can you really do regardless of your age? I'm not suggesting that someone at 70 just go out and try this randomly, but you should be able to get on an assault bike and produce some watts. How many watts? I don't know. It depends on the sex of the person. It depends on their strength levels, it depends on previous training and their body weight, because a bigger person is going to be able to get on the assault bike and really crank it up. Your ability to produce force, your ability to throw stuff, your ability to throw a punch, swing a baseball bat, throw a ball, throw, sprint, jump. We lose all those abilities. People that are sometimes even just over the age of like 40 or 50 really struggle just to even just to jump at all. They might be like, well, I don't know. Just to do a pogo hop, just standing and jumping, just landing on your own feet, barely leaving the ground. They might think like, hold up a second. I don't think that's safe for me. I think strength is really important. The thing for those people to look at, that 42% that has their goal to be stronger, it's cool if they're thinking about doing more weight with a curl or a deadlift or something like that, but hopefully they're thinking about strength maybe more overall rather than just some arbitrary lift in the gym. Because those numbers, you talk with like grapplers or fighters or something, they'll tell you or football players, they'll tell you usually the strongest guy, the weight room guy. He's not like, quote unquote, functionally strong a lot of times. So hopefully you're thinking about strength in many different ways because there's many different ways to do it. I've heard you say that most people leave muscle on the table. And what I'm also hearing you say is that potentially we're over indexing our focus on strength. The gym is awesome and I encourage people to go to the gym and I like that idea of people working out. And I think the typical kind of bodybuilding workout or the typical strength training that is usually talked about is a giant pool to dump all your overeating and all your carbohydrates into. So it can really help make up for some things. And by building some muscle mass that also helps build a better metabolism. And those are things that we should probably work on for basically as long as we can, try to hold muscle mass into later years and stuff. But again, if you just go back to the brain and you go back to how many people are suffering from things like dementia and those kinds of things. And I don't really know the stats. I don't have any real information on it. But I'd imagine if you can run a hundred meters in like 15 seconds or something like that or run a 40 in even like six seconds. That would be highly unlikely that your brain would be deteriorating because your central nervous system is really strong and robust. There's a lot of other stuff you can do. There's like coordination, there's juggling, there's all kinds of stuff that you can do to challenge your brain, troughs, word puzzles and things that are like more relaxed that aren't necessarily geared towards strength. But I think that strength is where it's at. I mean, just this morning I heard a woman talking about they tested these women and they got they saw a profound impact on the growth of their brain. And then I wrote like, oh, my brain must be out of control because. Well, I mean, you have a dumb job is not accurate. Right. Because so I've seen some of that data. Well, it can be. So here's where it can be, though, is because the person that is the jock, that's probably where they spend the majority of their time. So they don't they don't maybe have to be as academic. And so they chose not to be, but it doesn't mean that they are forever locked into. And you can say the reverse about someone that never played a sport, just because he didn't play a sport when you were 10 or 12 or 15. Doesn't mean that you can't later on in life become an athlete. And right now for me, like I've been an athlete my whole life, but I feel incredible with the stuff that I'm doing. I feel great to run and walk and work on jumping and throwing and all these aspects of strength that I wasn't working on for a good 20 years span because I was primarily a power lifter. Thank you to our sponsor, OneSkin for sponsoring this episode. If you've ever felt burnt out from skincare too many products, too many promises and not much to show for it, you're not alone. What finally made sense to me about OneSkin is that they're not focused on surface level fixes. They're focused on changing how your skin functions over time, which is incredibly valuable. Their products are powered by a peptide called OS-01 designed to target senescent cells, the aging cells that drive inflammation, thinning skin and loss of resilience. I've noticed improvements in skin texture, hydration, and I've talked about this before, especially under my eyes, which has always been a problem area for me. And right now I'm using their eye cream, broad spectrum face sunscreen and topical body supplement. This is skincare for people who care about longevity, not just quick cosmetic wins. You can get 15% off OneSkin by going to oneskin.co and using the code DrLion. That's 15% off OneSkin.co and use the code DrLion. Well, you went from professional wrestling. What was your tag name? Smelly. Was it really? It's just my nickname. That's where that came from? Well, no. My brothers, I had two older brothers and they made fun of me as a kid and I was just always playing outside and loved doing all that stuff. And so with them being older, you'll get there with your kids. No, they're already there. They were more into hygiene and I was a smelly little kid. I didn't want to take a shower. You went from, I said that's true. It's smelly. Well, we'll talk to Chris. Chris Bell about that and probably come up with another nickname for him. You went from professional wrestling to elite powerlifting to you now are an entrepreneur have been an entrepreneur for a long time. Is there a through line to all of that? I had the motto. My brother always thought this was great was to never show up on time. Terrible. I didn't show up on time here today. I was a little bit. You did get lost. I mean, as side note, I don't know if you got lost. Mark and I, for you guys listening or watching this, Mark and I have been good friends for a very long time actually going on. It's over 10 years now. Can you believe that decade? Oh man. And I went to the Bell family reunion with my family. I did forget diapers. This was I think when areas was little and Mark's like, okay, well, I'm going to go for a walk. And we were going to all do something after and two hours went by. I think we went on three hours later. I was gone for a long time. And then you came back and just today is we're podcasting in Houston. I thought, I'm just finishing up with a patient and I don't know. Text me. I got lost. 15 minutes after the time we're supposed to start the podcast and you're like, that's okay. I've gotten lost. Well, I get lost sometimes just in my own thoughts. Like I love going on walks. I do it all the time. I try to get over 10,000 steps every day. Sometimes I'm a little overzealous and get like 15 or 20. I know your dad walks a lot. Yeah, he's here. Can't wait to go walking with you. I love, you know, just walking to places or sometimes just even just going on a walk. But I very rarely will bring headphones with me. My phone is with me. So I might mess around on my phone a little bit. But for the most part, just working on being more comfortable with myself and just being in my own head. Many people will say, okay, I want to become this. I want to do this. I want to become this. And again, over the years, you and I have known each other for over 10 years. I don't experience that with you. It's not, it comes really from a place. Again, this is just my own experience. And I'm curious because I think it can benefit myself and the listener is it's not about the end result. It seems to be about following what you're interested in and following the next best thing, but not necessarily this is the goal. I'm going to hit the goal. I'm going to do this. I'm going to drive forward. Yeah. Follow what you're interested in. Period. That's pretty much what it is. And again, I have, I grew up with great parents. And so I owe it to them that they provided a life to where I could even think that way. Because some kids have just such a poor upbringing that they, you know, are worried about their parents beating them or their parents neglecting them or X, Y and Z. So I grew up in a really, it wasn't just my parents either. It's my, my, I have great grandparents. I have awesome aunts and uncles and I have a huge family as you got to see many of them both sides of my mom's side of the family had nine kids and my dad's side of the family had nine kids. And they grew up down the street from each other. So it was, as you can imagine, you know, Christmas and Thanksgiving and all that stuff was, was a big deal. And so I was able to, I guess, maybe dream a little bit more than some other people. Maybe don't have the same, the same opportunity. So I feel, I always feel like I have to mention that because I'm grateful for that. And that, that gave me the, the opportunity to kind of think the way that I think. But yeah, I just mainly follow my interest and I sometimes forget that I sometimes forget that powerlifting was just something that I did. It's not, it's not necessarily, it doesn't necessarily define everything about me. But it is something I love. It's something I did. It's something I excelled at. But I also was never really trying. I just happened to start it when I was really young. And then so by the time I got to be, I started when I was 12, by the time I got to be like maybe close to 30, you know, sometimes people would come into the gym. People would ask me for like a meeting because I started doing like business stuff. And I was like, okay, let's meet me at the gym. That's what kind of business was that? That's from the same shop or something before that? It just might have been like Andy and I, we started a magazine a long time ago called Power Magazine. And we had that magazine for like five years. So one of my friends, he wanted to advertise in there. He had a local business and he wanted to have his business, you know, grow. And so I was like, oh, let's talk, you know, and so just little things like that were, I was just like, oh, it'd be easier for you just to meet me at the gym because that's where I'm always at. And just the way my brain works, I'm like, well, I'll just be like in the middle of working out. It won't be any big deal for me to like chat with him a little bit in between my sets. But at that time, I think I was doing 500 pounds on the bench for like sets of five. You know, I go do a set of five, get all cranked up, get all fired up. And you know, you get like kind of emotional or at least I do, I'd get like, I'd get intense for a little bit and I'd go lift and I'd just be normal and talk to him. And he's like, I've never seen anything like this. This is, this is crazy. And he's like, he's like, what are you doing? I was like, oh, I'm just, I'm just working out. So I have to remember that with a lot of other things that I do. And I think that is kind of the through line is that it's been helpful for me to not try too hard. When I try, I tend to make things, I tend to be almost worse at them rather than just doing what I enjoy just for the sake of enjoying it, just for the sake of liking it. Sometimes once something becomes a thing to me, then it gets to be thrown off track somewhere. I don't know where, I don't know where, but it's like, like getting into like a little zone with something and feeling really awesome about it. And then all of a sudden, not being as excited about it. It is, it's counterintuitive to the things that you hear out there where it's set the goal, attack the goal, go after it and just grind, regardless. Well, when you talk to clients, you try to help them with their goals. But a lot of times you're probably trying to say, actually the goal that you have in mind isn't even necessarily in your best interest. Let's go over this and let me explain why. And here's, here's a direction you might want to consider a little bit more and then probably go. Oh yeah, I don't really know why that was a goal. Sometimes they really don't know. It's just something they heard or something they maybe feel pressured they have to do. Running is the greatest example ever. I got to run because I need to lose weight. Oh, that's awesome. You, you're identifying that you want to lose weight. Well, did you know that one of the worst ways to lose weight is probably through running? Not always and not for everybody. Some people that have a history of running, some people that are efficient with running, sure, they can probably, if they were running in high school and college or something like that and they're now 40, they want to knock off 20 pounds, they probably still have a capacity to run decently to where when they run, it doesn't have such a negative impact, doesn't alter their hunger so much that they overeat. But for me, when I was doing the Boston Marathon with my husband, with your husband, who's also doing Boston again. As part of my training for that, I went from 230 to 240. Because I was running more and more and more and more and my appetite just went shh. And obviously it wasn't intentional. I was thinking like, hey, when I go do this marathon, it'd be way better for me to do it lighter. I was gaining weight in like a 12 or 16 week timeframe. Now I can run efficiently enough with my heart rate where it's not through the roof to where running does have a nice impact on me. But anyway, just back to the main thing there is that we need to be able to sort of define, you've got to define words and define what you're actually trying to do. And for me with powerlifting, it was like, I think the sport is cool. This is really fun. I understand that this takes a really, really, really long time to be strong. So I'm not going to try to do anything all in one day. And if you apply the same thing to weight loss, I've lost 110 pounds. And people are like, how long does that take? I'm like, it took 12 years. Like it's taken a long time because you have to get to a certain length of time to know that it even works before you gain the weight back. And we're seeing that a lot with the GLP ones, where there's these massive rebounds and people gaining weight back. So even the word work, I tried that diet, it didn't work. Like hold on a second, let's talk about, let's try to define what the word work means. You said you lost 20 pounds and you did the diet for three months, but the diet stopped working when you stopped the diet, which is of course, that makes sense. But also, we do need to review and try to figure out why did you stop the diet? So maybe that's what you meant by you felt like the diet didn't work, is the fact that you're no longer doing it. And that's the real key. How do you find something that you can lock on to and do day in and day out? What are the, what are the, you want to find the shit that's easiest to do, not the stuff that's the hardest to do. What do you mean by that? Find stuff that's really easy and simple and repeatable. And then add a little bit to your day with just a little bit of walking. We know that a little bit of walking isn't going to do anything in the beginning. It's not going to do anything. But what if you stay consistent with it for a long time? What if while you're doing some walking, you're also working on other aspects of your fitness and you're doing all of that over and over and over again. But if you're like, that's Monday, that's it. No carbs, go into the gym every day. There's a level of neutrality and it sounds like they're, and I don't really want to use this term, but it's not balance. It is not all in, but not all out. It's, yeah, I guess it is more neutral, right? It's efficiency, you know, like, you know, the best way to continue to spin plates, like if you're spinning a bunch of plates is, you know, turn the plates to where they're plastic. So if they fall and they don't break, you just all of a sudden they're going to start working out on Monday. Yeah, so the 40 year old who is listening to this and they've never worked out a day and they're thinking, okay, I'm going to start. What I'm hearing is strength training and cardiovascular, because of course this is the items that they've always heard about. What would your advice be to the 40 year old who's never trained? Why don't you review the things that you think you're interested in? What do you like to do? Oh, I've always loved to go to the gym and train some arms. Oh, you don't like training legs? No, I hate training legs. Guess what we're not doing? We're not training legs for a little while. At some point we're going to have to train some legs. It's just like church. I'm going to bring you in on Sunday and then when I bring you in on Sunday, I'm going to tell you about Wednesday. And I'm going to tell you about the Bible study. And we're going to be communicating all the time about Jesus and about the Bible and all that stuff. So I think that's the way that fitness needs to be presented. It's like how to just get the person in the door. My brother-in-law recently, he tweaked his back a little bit and he just started getting excited about running. And I was like, oh man, we're going to lose him to running because he is a former distance, a miler swimmer in college. And so he has a proficiency just like Andy. I was just thinking about it. That this crazy endurance tank where they can just go and obliterate themselves. But he got hurt and he was like, man, my back, it's really bugging me. And he went to run the other day and it kind of bothered me again. I said, do me a favor, just don't run. And he was kind of like, he knew that was the right answer. But he's like, no, I want to run. And people want to run slower and stuff. I'm like, no, just don't run. Just walk. And then so he went and did a couple of workouts. He was walking and he discovered he put the treadmill on an incline and he had these killer workouts because he was walking at like 3.6 or 3.8 miles an hour and the treadmill was at like 10. That's actually still really intense. So it's intense. It's difficult. All the qualities that you're looking for, your heart rate goes to almost the exact same spot as if you're doing some crappy jog if you're not efficient as a runner. And so I think those are the things that you do. There's little small tweaks. And then just the other day, he's like, oh, my back's a lot better. I said, hey, why don't we go on a run? And we did a run walk where we went. I've done those with you. Yeah. Yeah, we went the same, almost same exact trail. We went like three miles. It's manageable, right? I hate running. Yeah, I hate running, but yeah, it was. Thanks to one of the sponsors of the show, AMP, because I can walk two doors down and get a great workout. And if you've ever walked into a workout and thought, am I lifting too heavy? Am I not lifting enough? Where is the weights? I can't find anything. And is this even working? You are not alone. Seriously, the uncertainty is one of the biggest reasons why people do not see results and they stop. Strength training is an essential daily routine. And AMP was founded to introduce it into everyone's life, home, and ambition. That's exactly why I've been using AMP. What makes it different is it removes the mental noise. AMP AI uses your resistance to adjust sets and reps in real time so you are always training at the level that your body needs. No second guessing, no wasted time. And by the way, it has everything that you need. Your body responds to progressive stimulus. And you need to do that correctly. You don't want just random workouts that you find out online or you find online. It mounts to your wall, takes up almost no space, and gives me access to hundreds of movements from strength training to high intensity work. I am telling you, I love this technology. It is beautiful. It is on my wall. And it is a system that meets me where I'm at regardless of the day. If I need some recovery, it's there. If your goal is to build muscle, get stronger, no more guesswork, and be consistent, go to amp.ai. Check it out. That's amp.ai. Training should be effective and it doesn't have to be complicated. It makes me think of the time when I was at Super Training. You and Naissima were there and you were, what I thought we were going to do was a tricep extension. And I don't know what, you took the rope and you guys were, let's just say it was not a form or it was almost a interpretive dance move. And it was outside of the scope of any, it wasn't even in the what not to do. And you said to me, Gabriel, well I'm training patterns. Your body can move all these different ways. Yeah, I love exploring different things. Some of what I was doing on that particular day is from a guy named Naoudi Aguilar. He's the biggest heel in the fitness industry pretty much. Everybody has their own thoughts about him. But I've always thought that he has a lot of brilliant techniques and I don't care who somebody is and I don't care a ton about my personal views or anybody else's views on what a particular person does outside of the information that I'm trying to glean for myself, for my own selfish reasons. He has great information and I think he does great things. And so I just adopted some of them and I found them to be really powerful. Now you start to see like there's more people doing twisty stuff on Instagram. I think, you know, I think people owe it to him. He's not the only guy to ever take a cable and twist with it, but he's done a lot of great things with that. One of the things that he talks about is he talks about increasing your capacity for just being able to move properly. And what he considers to be proper movement is just your gait, just like walking. So you know a lot of lifters, you know a lot of former military, you know people that parachute out of planes and stuff. And those people that do those activities for a long time tend to, you tend to stiffen up. And even just with like bodybuilding movements and stuff, you can stiffen up over the years. So we're like, hey, this, you know, this kind of training is really great. And then you go to turn around and walk and you're kind of like moving like a robot, your hips and your, like we certainly don't move, don't move like a gymnast. You don't move necessarily like a dancer. I'm not saying that everyone needs to be able to move that way. But oftentimes we end up with symptoms. Sometimes we end up with our backs hurting, our hips hurting, our knees hurting. And again, those other sports gymnastics and they all have their fair share of injuries. But being able to move properly and being able to figure out ways of decompressing your body, I think is really important. So most of what you do in the gym is going to be kind of compressive. It's going to be things that are going to strengthen ligaments, tendons and so on. But a lot of times they're also, it could be in some cases at the sacrifice of movement. And you would think, oh, if I just do things with a full range of motion that I won't really lose those abilities. But sometimes you still do. I've always squatted to parallel or slightly below parallel. And then I, you know, I have issues with my mobility. Like it just, my mobility has never been very good. I've always been pretty tight and that's probably why I chose powerlifting in the first place. But anyway, I do some of these things, rope flow and some other things that people might see me do. I do these as a practice to work towards being able to move better. Do we have it wrong in the way that your medicine is interesting? It silos things. And part of training, I think this idea of muscle as this organ system is it's very siloed. We do bench, we do squat, but there's not much thought into what's outside of that. It's training the muscle group as opposed to training the pattern per se. I think we do have it wrong a little bit. In this case, we already have, we already have bodybuilding, we already have powerlifting, we already have Olympic lifting, we already have CrossFit. And we can't help to continue to identify the way those people look. And we have like an obsession with that. I think we do have it wrong in the sense of like isolating muscles and things like that. It might be more helpful from the beginning if we just had an understanding that if I do this all the time, always and forever, without integrating something else into the mix, I could end up feeling worse and exercise is supposed to mainly help you to feel better. So many people, they really, really love lifting and they love all the different stuff I sell, the slingshot and the elbow sleeves and knee sleeves, but they're outfitted head to toe. They got the knee sleeves on the elbow sleeves and they can't do anything in the gym without all that stuff on. Because it hurts? Yeah, because they're in pain. Like their body is, and pain is a weird thing because the way that your body moves, they don't always go together. There's people that are super flexible, they're in pain. There's people that are really tight that are in pain. Neither one is great, but being somewhere in the middle is usually better. There's a lot of things that we identify with our eyes that are hard to put into words, but when you see someone that's really aesthetic, it's like beautiful to you and you can't really tell 100% what it is. It's not, the person isn't always heavily muscled, the person isn't always, you know, 6'5". Some of these things might be true sometimes, but it's not always the same exact things. You just watch someone walk and you're like, the person, when they walk, they walk really nicely and then maybe they do a movement where they jump up on something to do it smoother than everybody else. To each their own, you know, if you want a body build, then body build and do it to your best, to your ability and all that. Same thing with powerlifting, but it would probably be wise to think about an exit strategy out of it as a way to do it. Out of it at some point, because how long are you going to do it for? I mean, you could do it your whole life, I guess, if you really wanted to, but is it going to compromise your life? Are there training modalities that you think everyone should be doing? Beyond, say, powerlifting, which obviously not everyone should do, but strength training, are there things like, I mean, again, I've seen you do flow, I've seen you over the years experiment with many different things. I think there's a lot of different things you can do. I don't think there's any one thing that anyone particularly needs to do. I also think, like, in terms of longevity, like, maybe the best thing for Americans is just not to overeat. I'm not a fan necessarily of, like, you know, making yourself super hungry. I actually think that there's more on the other side of that. There's more on the side of move more, eat more, but not everybody is going to, like, gravitate towards that because that is a time commitment to be able to move a lot. Training is fun, mostly, and if we are thinking about all of the different modalities, it takes a lot of time, right? You're waking up and you're doing maybe some cardio and then you're doing some training and then maybe you're going for walks and then maybe you're doing some rope flow. I mean, at the end of the day, how many hours, for example, how many hours a day are you moving? I move all day, pretty much every day except for, like, stuff like this where I've, you know, even my podcast is standing. Yes, I know. I'm standing on a box, but it's fine. We had to boost you up a little bit. Yes, we did. Yeah, just moving all day. It's like my go-to. But I also can understand that I could simply just probably eat a little bit less and probably have similar results with maybe less movement. Is there a minimum effective dose of movement? No, because it changes all the time. So there is a minimum effective dose, but then it goes up. Because that's the way your body works. Your body kind of needs more stimulus as you continue to go. But I do want to add to this a little bit. I think no one really has to do much of anything when you talk about longevity. The problem is just modern times. So we're talking right now about moving all day. Well, that's what we would have normally done. I have these numbers in my head. I don't know where they came from, but sometimes shit just pops in my head that I can't explain. But I've always felt that everybody within normal age ranges, like 18 to 70, has like five to seven miles of stuff to do every single day. Doesn't necessarily mean you need to walk five to seven miles, but you need to do the equivalent of something that would equal that every day. Otherwise, I think that's where anxiety and I think a lot of things stem from that. I think a lot of things get created from that because we're meant to move. We're creatures of the sun, we're creatures of the light, we're creatures of outside either evolving through cold or either evolving through heat. So as crazy as it sounds for us to talk about just training all day or having businesses and having different things that provide you a life to where you can just go train whenever you want and you can dedicate a ton of time to it. A ton of time has to be dedicated to it somehow since that's our biology. I didn't make that up, I didn't do that. It's a bigger power than me. Designed us that way. We're supposed to move a lot. We're supposed to be outside. If you go and examine some animals, you know, just walk through some of these parks and you just birds are inside by mistake. You know, like we are different. We do need like shelter. It's helpful, but we have like everything is cushioned. Everything is, so even just sitting, you know, even mobility drills, like you don't need to do mobility drills. You want to move the best mobility, the best mobility drill you'll ever do is just to sit on your own floor sitting. Why is that? Because when you sit, because it's not, yeah, getting down, getting up, it's uncomfortable. Like it's comfortable at first, right? And then you sit for a few minutes and you're like, oh, my butt cheeks fall asleep. And then you got to kind of move to the other side. You got to move the other side and you got to, you know, move. Like for me, because I'm not like super mobile, I don't have as many options as far as sitting goes. It's like you'll see people sit and they're like, we'll be up here. And the more options that you have, the better off that you are because you can kind of keep moving. And even the floor, just while you're watching TV or something like that can be a form of exercise. So in modern times, we need artificial exercise, which is the gym, which is fitness. That is, that's really well said. And I've never heard of artificial exercise. It makes me also think about an exercise deficiency. We have to remember that exercise, like all of exercise is made up. The bench press, for example. You know this, your audience already knows this, George Hackensman. He's the one that made the bench press famous. He also made the hack squat famous. That's why people probably heard that name before. But yeah, all the exercise in the gym, they're all made up lateral raise, all these different things, lat pull down. There's even machines for a lot of stuff, right? Then there's people that are nutrient deficient. There's people that are exercise deficient. But the exercise deficiency just comes from the fact that in modern times we don't really need to exercise. I don't have to go and do that. When the kids are moving while they're young, and we've seen that, and then it's like we move less as we get older, part of what you have said is that we don't have to move as much. Totally agree with that. But there's also been a lot of stigma around all of this stuff. So for example, kids shouldn't train when they're young. I don't know if you were kids trained, if you've thought about that. But what I've seen is, you know, Leonidas is five, and I just watch him continue to move well. I can't wait to see him. He's like the best. But because we don't do electronics and we do a lot of outside time, I'm watching them move and develop as opposed to some of his classmates who I know are not nearly as active or on an iPad. And it just makes me think of this next generation, because if we talk about exercise deficiency or artificial exercise, I don't know if we have a choice. I think it's incredible to try to start your kids off as best that you think that you can in terms of physical culture. I have a huge advantage. You know, it might sound mean or callous, but if you're fat, it's very limiting. You know, if you're a 12-year-old boy and you weigh like 150 pounds or something, yeah, maybe you're playing football or maybe you're doing some of the other stuff that a bigger person would do. But you're confident in yourself, and it just wrecks a lot of things. It also might make you more shy. Like it just causes too many problems. So as a parent, you're the one driving to the store. You're the one buying the groceries. You're the one paying attention. And it doesn't mean that your kid has to, you know, only eat chicken breast and broccoli and rice. It doesn't mean your kid has to eat like a bodybuilder or anything. But you should just teach them about nutrition and teach them about trying to get fruit around them, try to get lean meats, vegetables, try to get good choices around them. And then also they can still have their normal kid stuff. But this idea that like forcing a kid to do something as bad, maybe unusual, isn't correct. It's actually like the opposite. Because in today's culture, we don't have the kids do enough stuff physically. But yeah, physical activity, you know, both for male and female, it's obviously, it's tremendously important. And I think that parents should not only encourage, I think they should force. I think they should force their kids a little bit when their kids are young, when appropriate, you know. As your kid gets older, you know, then as they get older, you might want to give them options. You know, now, okay, you can play one of these three sports, but I'd like you to play some sport during some part of the year. And they might say, oh, it's too much. I don't have time for my friends or, okay, reasonable. It sounds like we can have a discussion and try to figure out what you can play or do. But even aside from a sport, there's nothing wrong with a kid getting on a treadmill. There's nothing wrong with a boy or girl. There's nothing wrong with a 11-year-old girl being on a treadmill. That doesn't mean that somebody fat shamed her or somebody's being cruel and saying mean stuff. It means they care about her and they want to see when she's 14 or 15 that she has a lot of great opportunity. Yeah, it's much more difficult. I imagine if a child is not fit when they are younger because, you know, you hear the kitchen be lifting weights and all of that, that's not evidence-based. But I also believe that you should, for lack of a better word, force your children to be active because if they get to 10, 11, 12, and they are surrounded by a culture that is very sedentary, it's going to be much more difficult. Think about, you know, as we were growing up, it's much more difficult to break these habits when you're in your 30s and 40s. And beyond that, it is to be forced to make your bed, to do these things so it becomes ingrained. And that, I suppose, would make many people outliers because what's considered normal is here's the iPad, here's some Cheetos, and go ahead, get after it and play these games. When it comes to nutrition, you've written a book. It was a... Jack-in-Tan. We had Jack-in-Tan, Carb Wars. I still have that book. Oh yeah, War on Carbs. War on Carbs, Carb Wars, Carb Aside. I still have that book. You're in a militia. It tastes very funny. Is that even still available? Shooting donuts? I'm not. Okay, we got to link it because it is pretty funny. This episode is sponsored by Branch Basics. One thing I've become much more aware of over the years is the impact of the environmental chemicals on our food and also inside our home. If you're a frequent listener, you know we spend a lot of time talking about nutrition and muscle health. But beyond that, we should be thinking about what we're exposed to every day through things like cleaning products. Now, I started using Branch Basics when I was pregnant to, of course, limit my exposure to harsh chemicals. Their products are made with plant and mineral-based ingredients, and their premium starter kit uses a single powerful concentrate that can replace almost everything in your home. From laundry detergent to bathroom cleaner, and even get this produce wash. I like that it simplifies my cleaning routine and removes any concern of exposure for myself and my little ones. If you're also worried about the chemicals you are using in your home, I suggest you try Branch Basics. You can get 15% off the premium starter kit at branchbasics.com with the code Dr. Lyon. Again, that's 15% off branchbasics.com with the code Dr. Lyon. The best part is your pictures. But you've been coaching people, you've been involved in the nutrition space for decades. What do you think the biggest mistake is? For weight loss. How about that? Well, I'll give it a specific target. Most people want to lose weight in the first place because I think they spent too many years eating too much fat. When you look at a donut, there's sugar in there. There's a ton of sugar in there. But they couldn't even pack a donut with enough sugar. It just would turn into something else for it to equal out the amount of calories that come from fat. Rib eye steaks and the different foods that we have in modern times, they're not real foods. They are manufactured foods. So we might want to say, oh, I'm only eating single ingredient food. It's like, yeah, you're having single ingredient food, but that's a rib eye from Costco. And it has 60 grams of fat. If somebody's going to have 60 grams of fat, that's the equivalent of probably what they might want to consider having for the whole entire day. Or if it's a bigger person, maybe they can tolerate a little bit more. I think fat is a real, is a bigger problem than is understood. And I think a simple way for people to lose weight would be if they turned all of their meat into being as lean as they can possibly handle without, without them thinking it's disgusting and without ending up binging. Because if you don't have any fat in your diet, there's going to be price to pay at some point. It's going to wreck your hormones, first of all. And secondly, it's going to make you tremendously hungry. So I'm not advocating for no fat. But I think that the carnivore diet, keto diet, the Warren carbs, a lot of those diets, they took some of the carbs out and you replace it with some fat, which is normally fine when you're on a lower carbohydrate diet because you need some form of energy, right? But just in modern times with the standard American diet, I just think even though they don't eat enough protein, we know that protein is a big factor too. For the amount of protein that sometimes Americans are trying to consume because now the word is out. Finally. People talking more about protein. I feel like that door is not, yeah. It's good. Now I can move on. So people are understanding and they're, at least they're in the ballpark. At least people are talking about, like maybe they're not eating as much as we would still like to see them eat or whatever, but they're getting better. But you have to be careful with protein because protein and fat come together. And again, in modern times, so if we were going to hunt something, and it was like a long ass time ago, normally the meat that you would get, it would only have so much fat in it. There would only be so much availability of fat. And you could say, oh, you know, they killed a buffalo and they got to liver and they got, yeah, but it's like, to harvest the whole thing and to do the whole entire act is like, it takes a lot. It takes a lot of manpower. It takes a lot of calories burned. There's a lot that goes into all that. But now you can just go in and grab 80, 20 ground beef from the store. And the only way that that would make sense to eat is if you were somebody that is on like a carnivore diet or a ketogenic diet. It's a very delicate balance. Americans consume 1.1 grams per kg, which is good. I mean, you and I would like a little bit more. I would say that the ideal range would be 1.2 to 1.6 grams per kg. And then if we recognize the importance of protein, which we do, it does become tricky because there is this fat issue. And I spend a lot of time thinking about this. So the 10% saturated fat has not changed from the guidelines. And we're not talking about the guidelines per se, but that number, 10% saturated fat was pretty much plucked out of thin air. Right? Americans consume around 11% saturated fat. Maybe in the 70s, I think it was around 15. But the other component is it is total caloric density, right? What you're saying, and it is much easier to over consume, especially if animals are bred to be more sedentary. They have more intramuscular fat, intramuscular fat. And so we're eating essentially a sedentary animal. Right. And it becomes challenging. And I do agree with you, typically choosing a lower fat option is great. And I have one other thought I'll share with you that some people, so for example, if this idea of saturated fat should be less than 10%, let's just say, which I don't think that that is true for everybody. That recommendation is really a medical intervention. Here's what I mean. If someone has, and I won't go off on this tangent, but I just want to mention, if someone has an LDL cholesterol greater than 130 milligrams per deciliter, that would indicate treatment. That's 25% of the population, which means 70% of the population doesn't have a LDL cholesterol problem. Right. But we're making these recommendations, again, with saturated fat, and it's more of a medical intervention. So is it a medical intervention or is it a dietary guideline? And then with carbohydrates, not everybody has a car problem. Right. But if someone has elevated triglycerides when they're not moving, then maybe we have to address carbohydrates. So it comes down to personalization, but also over total caloric load. Yeah. And also, what does somebody like? What do they like to eat? What do they like to do? Yeah. What you like, I think, is a little bit of a heck of, you know, obviously, you'd be like, well, I love donuts or I love cookies. And that'd be great if you could eat those often. But realistically, you have to keep an eye on foods like that just again, because they're so easy to overeat. The overconsumption thing is a huge factor. I didn't know it was 10%. That's actually really interesting. They believe that's like hunter-gatherer. That's about how much saturated fat they would get. You know where the initial studies of saturated fat came out of? And I just recently learned this. In the 1970s, they were trying to address heart disease. And they were doing that with this idea of go low fat and reduce cholesterol. In the 70s, and you know, heart disease takes years to develop, what you didn't hear about. And so then they created the free guy pyramid because of heart disease. But I don't know if you knew that almost 30% of the population was smoking. You know, when we talked about in the space, I was talking about smoking. In the cohort that was born in 1920, so if you go from 1920 to 1970, that's what, 50 years? So people in their 50s now having heart disease, 80% of that group of smokers. But that's never discussed. And one of the number one contributors to heart disease is smoking. So they created the food guy pyramid, they reduced fat, increased carbohydrates, and what happened? Everybody became obese right now. 74% of Americans are either overweight or obese. That's pretty crazy. That's insane. And this was the origins of that were to address heart disease. But no one talks about smoking. Like the elephant in the room that it's, we forget about the past and then look at the present as if it's in isolation. Makes me really think about now the era of GLP ones. So the people have born 1920, 80% were smoking, 30% of the population in the 70s, they were smoking. GLP ones and the GLP medications. I wonder how many individuals will eventually be on them and if it's going to be a smoking issue, meaning are we going to find something for the longest time? And I thought that it was benign and listen, I understand the GLP ones have been around for 20 some years. So I mean, I think, you know, the future is full of drugs and there's they can solve a lot of problems for people. And if they can solve the intermediate problem of solving something for now, I think a lot of people are okay with that. There's still a lot of lawsuits and stuff like that. People are like, Oh, I didn't know what's going to do this or that. We're still going to run into a lot of that. But the big pharma has deep pockets and they already understand that's the price of doing business. And the drugs will get better. They'll have different versions of them. And I think in terms of what you're seeing in the peptide space and what you're seeing in the bodybuilding space and bodybuilders using performance enhancing drugs, utilizing steroids and being on steroid cycles is just going to be like it already is common. It's already happening. Steroids are interesting because of the altering of your hormones and obviously there's peptides that can do similar. Things they can alter your hormones, but they don't seem to shut you down the same way that testosterone can for for a man type thing. So I don't know. I just think we're heading in some interesting times where I think we're going to see more and more people gravitate towards that because it solves a problem pretty quickly. It helps people to instantly look look better. What's actually going on? I don't quite know yet, but what I'm hearing from most people is like there have improved blood work and things like that. But I don't think blood work is like the answer to everything. But I just think around the corner is just more and more and more drugs. What kind of peptides and for those people that don't know you and are being reintroduced to you. When you say peptides, what are you talking about? Everything from copper peptide to BPC to TB500 to redotrutide or trisepotide. So everything from the GLP-1's to the GLP-1, 2's and 3's and they believe that redotrutide is like a triple agonist. That one helps with hunger signaling and so on. And then there's all these other ones that people believe can help your mitochondria be more efficient. There's some that people think can help with your insulin sensitivity. And there's supplements that you can take too that do certain things like that like berberine and things of that nature. It's supposed to be able to help a little bit with insulin sensitivity even supposedly help a little bit with cholesterol and maybe heart disease to some extent. So yeah, I just think that that's the route we're going and I think that more things are going to be made that way because there's a lot of money to be made. The peptide company, a friend of mine started one up and he was just telling me some of his numbers and I was like holy crap. The thing is, is why are people feeling like they need them? And I think people feel as if they need things because their lives are not engineered in a way that is as supportive and as healthy as they could be. That being said, I do think that we're going to see more and more peptides come out. Again, we don't have a ton of data on their efficacy in humans. I mean obviously this is just a broad statement. But then the question is, is there a risk or the address? I mean someone might think like okay, well this one's associated with thyroid cancer, right? But they're like, but I'm fat and I don't want to be fat anymore. Like I want to move on from this and I'm stuck. You know, I feel like I need help and there's some people that, I don't know, maybe they just, for whatever reason maybe they can't turn the corner that way. And then maybe these drugs can assist or help them to go in the right direction. And then maybe if they do end up with the cancer they're like, well, it got me 15 or 10 good years where I was able to live my life differently than the way I was when I didn't like myself as much. I mean who's to argue with that? I don't know. So it's just, yeah, it's interesting times, hopefully people will try to research stuff the best they can, but that's really hard to know if you're researching things because so many people are tied to these things financially. Like hey, this works really great. This is what I did. This is what I took. And you're like, okay, well that worked for now. That was like a 12 week thing that you did. But what's the ramifications of that 12 years from now? You've been very involved in bodybuilding, right? It's kind of you've been in this space. You've watched this, obviously your brother produced bigger, stronger, faster. There's a lot of discussion on anabolic steroids. Again, it carries a really heavy mark just from use because of abuse. Is there still the same drug utilization now? I'd first off say that there's more people on drugs than ever, whether it's a housewife or whether it's an NFL football player. And one of the reasons why is I think that a lot of these drugs are working. Supplements, we said earlier, define the word work. You don't feel protein powder, you don't feel collagen. There's so many of these things you don't feel. You feel nice, then. You feel that for sure. Centrally and arginine. Yeah, I make sure. A nice pre-workout stack, yeah. Beta alanine, you feel that. Make you all red. Terrible. But people don't really believe in stuff that they can't feel or see. There's all these things that are messing with our biology, blue light, Wi-Fi, all these other things. They barely believe in it. They don't want to believe it because it's too much for people to dive into. They're just kind of sweep it all into the rug and it's not harmful. Non-native EMF, but it's a thing. But when it comes to these peptides, when it comes to these drugs, you actually feel them. Again, creatine might be something maybe you feel a tiny bit. If you've been natural your whole life and you throw in a couple scoops and you take it for a few weeks, maybe you feel like a little boost from it. But you're not really going to feel, nothing feels like taking testosterone. Nothing feels like injecting trend below. Nothing feels like, and some of these peptides that are coming along, I think they're not always going to be felt, but they're going to be seen. So you look at yourself in the mirror and you go, holy shit, this is really making a big difference. And recently in Davis, there's a planet fitness that opened up over there. And I have gyms everywhere. I have a gym in my house. I have two gyms at my house. I have a gym at my studio. But my son and I still go to planet fitness every once in a while. And when I'm there, it's obvious of the people that are like, they're using a little bit of stuff. They got a little extra, they got a little extra something going on on the side just because they, they're just like in slightly better shape. The only other people that you see that are in like amazing shape like that normally are people that are in their 20s. And so, yeah, I think that we're just going to continue to see more and more and more of it. And hopefully it just gets refined and hopefully we figure out ways to make it safe so people don't get hurt or sick or killed. You know that feeling after a really hard training session where the last thing you want to do is sit down and eat a full meal? Yeah, I get it. And I'm not about forcing down a steak when my body just isn't ready for it. But here's the thing. Intense exercise and really all exercise is catabolic, meaning it increases muscle breakdown. So to protect my muscle and build new muscle and recover, I consume essential amino acids around my workout. This helps with the recovery. Body health, perfect amino helps me hit the protein threshold I need to stimulate muscle with minimal calories and not a huge digestive burden like a large sink. The workout was the hard part, but the recovery doesn't have to be. Head to bodyhealth.com and use the code LION20 to get 20% off your first order. That's at bodyhealth.com and use the code LION20. It's unfortunate that in medicine we're always trying to fix a problem as opposed to how do we optimize a result? If that makes sense, for example, and I don't know if you've thought about this, I'll just throw out their LDL numbers. It's an LDL number to not have heart disease. But what about the LDL number to have good energy, good brain function? We don't actually know those numbers and maybe because it's an arbitrary target. Well, and sometimes those LDL numbers are from people that have already had events. It's like, well, you're trying to keep it really low for someone that already had a heart attack. That's totally understandable, but maybe not everyone. Right. And we don't have these targeted numbers because it's the way in which we frame things. You know, it's like exercise. You go, you do your resistance training, you do your cardiovascular activity as opposed to this idea of thinking that we have artificial constructs of how we have to engineer our life so that we can reach some baseline level of fitness to not have an increase in mortality. I believe that you are always thinking about and curious about the next new thing. Do you think that there's the next new thing? Well, we're getting close. I think with cancer, there's the guy from UCLA who believes he created a vaccine. I do think that it's great that we continue to learn more and the studies and stuff I think sometimes are as much as they are off and as much as you can probably take almost all of nutrition science and probably just throw it in trash can. Not all of it. Well, because a lot of it, I don't think it's really gotten us anywhere. I mean, it's like stuff that your great grandma would, you know, your great grandma would be like, hey, like, don't eat too many of these, right? Like she would just know, right? But I agree. It's not all ingest. I think it is helpful and it helps us get closer. But I think usually what we learn from a study is, oh, we should actually try to set the study up this way. And then you get closer with each study afterwards. Like, oh, it would have been better if it's conducted this way. A collective body of research is I think really what you're getting after. One of the other things is supplementation, right? And you're not again, we've been friends for a long time. We've gone through. Oh, I have a whole room of supplements. Yeah. You have your in fact, it has its own area. You should probably name that area. Yeah. Daisy guards the supplement. Yeah. But have you experimented with anything that you think really works? And I recognize that this is more anecdotal, but you're always looking, you're always thinking about these things. 12 years ago or so, I got some blood work done. And then I had Stan Efforting read it. And Stan's learned a lot too. I love Stan. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. Yeah. And Stan's learned a lot too. And Stan's learned a lot too. And Stan's learned a lot too. And Stan's learned a lot too. And Stan's learned a lot too. And Stan's learned a lot too. And Stan's learned a lot too. the supplements, otherwise it doesn't seem like it makes sense to continue them. So I take the supplements that he suggests, do a couple other things that he suggested, just maybe be more cognizant of sleep and just trying to value my sleep a little bit more along with a couple other things. And then I took those supplements, got retested, and sure enough my labs were way better. And so I'm like, damn it, now I have to do this. So that's why I take, I don't know, I take like, some days I might take like 40 different things. Oh gosh. Other days I might just take like 10 or five. But it's like magnesium, vitamin C, like it's just stuff that, and I don't take all of them all the time because sometimes I'm like, my diet already has that or like vitamin D is something I go back and forth on all the time, but I'm like, I'm tan at summertime or the sun's coming out. I don't think I really need vitamin D, but then when we're, we don't have as much sunlight and stuff like that in Sacramento then I'll maybe take a little bit more for a little while. But yeah, just trying to go not based off of my thoughts or my feelings, just based off of mainly my blood work. Supplement wise, you know, I don't, I mean, I just believe in the stuff that I have, you know, I have the steak shake and the total carnivore and those things and those have titrated into them, basically multivitamins because it has organs, has liver, kidney, heart, spleen, pancreas. And all that stuff. And I take those daily, but that's not something that you're, I don't think it's something you're necessarily going to really like feel or you're not going to be like, oh my God, I benched, you know, 40 more pounds or something like that. Those are just, it's just protein powder, you know, and I've always liked protein powder. It's just a way for me to kind of control my sweet tooth. But yeah, in terms of, and then in terms of the peptides though, I do like some peptides. I've used MOTC, I used TB500 and BPC, but those two, I didn't really feel like it, I couldn't really tell if it did much, but I did tear a hamstring not that long ago. I know you had a hammy issue a while back and it seemed like it did help for my hamstring to heal faster. So that was kind of cool. Like it healed up and maybe about five weeks or so, as opposed to it maybe taking a little longer, but I don't really have a test. So it's still, so it's still to be determined. So MOTC for some of you who's listening to this, it's been around for actually quite some time. One of your family members came to see me and we were talking about it and that was over 10 years ago. Oh yeah, it was a long time ago. Yeah, MOTC for a mitochondrial function. Right. TB500, people will say tendon and bone for recovery, BPC 157 is another peptide that's good for depending on how you take it, stomach, joints, recovery, they call it again like you said the Wolverine stack. I tried to copper peptide, but it just seemed to hurt more than anything. And then Reddichruteide is one that I've also used. I started using that about three months ago and so far I like it a lot. What do you notice? Just the food noise. You know, people always talk about food noise like just having cravings and things like that. So that's a lot less. Sometimes though, in a bad way, it makes me not want to eat. So I need to just figure out, I guess like the right dose for me. It seems like everyone's a little bit different on that. And then some of my blood work came back better on Reddichruteide. My like fasted glucose, a couple of things like that were just small, small improvements, but improvement nonetheless. So I'm interested to kind of see, you know, how that will kind of continue. Over the years you've been in fitness since you were 11, probably before that. Circling back to 2026. Are there any major myths that you were like, man, I got this wrong? Static stretching? I think like kind of on that topic of stretching, I think that that is maybe like if you think about a lot of sports where stretching is like, it's like part of it, like gymnastics comes to mind like stretching hasn't really ever been like a huge part of anything that I've ever done, even though I did do some track and I did football and stuff. It wasn't like a concentration, but as we're saying earlier with our kids, like if stuff is normalized for the kids, if it's normal for your kids to, you know, learn how to climb a rope or do a bunch of crazy stuff in the backyard, throw the football around with your husband, tackle each other. If more stuff is like normalized, then it's easier to do. And I think for myself with something like stretching, it would be, that would be great if that was like more normalized for me to do. So I'm trying to figure out with everything, you know, how do I just simple things like setting up my living room so that's easier for me to get on the floor just so there's like not stuff in the way that I have to move out of the way. Like you don't want any hurdles, you know, and I think something that I wasn't necessarily wrong about, but something I think that everyone can kind of take from this show is have a kettlebell on your living room. And I don't mean that you necessarily literally have to have a kettlebell on your living room, but have stuff that's in close proximity that you can just get to so that you can practice some of these things often. So for me in my living room, I have a bunch of different things for like myofastral release, just these different balls and different things like that that I like roll on. So like I'll watch TV and sometimes I'm just, you know, sitting on the floor. Sometimes I'm like rubbing on something to try to like get something to recover. And Andy will do it too. Like we're both in fact, when we were on vacation, like not too long ago, everybody was making a big deal because her and I were on the ground. Like, why don't you guys take the couch? We're like, no, we don't want to catch. We like, we like on the ground. And so things like that, I just, I, oh, I've been aware of them and I know that I've, you know, should have been kind of like working on some of those things, but. Do you think you can catch up? No, not really. I think I'm, well, I could, I could catch up, but then I would, that would mean that I would have to stop doing some of the things that I like to do because your body won't, your body won't really won't change. You know, it's not going to change massively unless you massively change what you're doing. So I'd have to, for me personally, not maybe not for somebody else, but for me personally, I'd have to basically stop lifting, stop lifting and just work on mobility all the time and have that be my new, have that be my new training. And then I would, might be able to put my shoes on easier. I wonder if there's a mobility set point. There seems to be a strength threshold. I wonder if there's a mobility set point. I think when it comes to exercise, I think it's easy to think that everyone has like free will, but I think we have something that's more like boxed. It's boxed free will. So boxed free will would be like you enjoy exercise every day because you're you, I enjoy exercise every day because I'm me. But what if my, what if my power of the career, what if it ended by me breaking my leg? Okay. And I'm 330 pounds. And then my leg doesn't really work as good. I kind of have just like a little hitch, a little limp. Well, then maybe I would never have been able to get back to this because I have that physiology. Now I, I'm more limited. So then you end up with this kind of like, you end up with these, you end up being like stuck in a box. And even with, even if your thoughts, if I said, Hey, you know, think of, try to be as creative as possible you can and do this search on your phone. Just pick whatever you want to be creative. You can only be so creative because it's a byproduct of everything you've done in the past. It's a byproduct of all these different things. I grew up where I didn't feel like I was smart when I was in school and had some struggles in school. And so what I build myself up and bigger. You've always been petite, always been a smaller person. So you build your muscle up and have some tattoos, right? So there, there, we think that we, we think that we're like, we're free, but I think that we're, I mean, that's just kind of goes back to what, what we're talking about, about stretching and stuff. Why is my body tight? It's tight because I don't want to stretch. You know what I mean? Like I don't, it's not, it's not something that calls to me. I mean, I do stretch, I do some mobility stuff, but I don't do a lot of it because my body doesn't love it. And that's the same thing that we might get frustrated with a family member or friend. We're saying, Hey, you really got to, you know, you really got to do something. You got to start moving. We got to start getting you to do this. And we don't understand why they don't want to do that is because they, they have their own, but then you have to figure out like, okay, well, what's within that box that we can sort of unlock? It's personalized nutrition. If you take the framework for personalized nutrition, this is personalized physicality, the movements, you know, there's a ton of variability in the human body. Like you said, I'm petite, but jacked and you, you know, or you might be not so petite and jacked, but all kidding aside, your movement patterns are perhaps some way because that's the way in which you would gravitate. So that's the thing that you do. Conversely, the things that you don't do, like ballroom dancing or I don't know yoga, although you might be doing it later with the kids. Maybe don't do it for a reason or those that are hyper mobile. So maybe there's a inherent wisdom potentially tend to like things that you're good at too. Right. So if Mark tried this dance, I'll probably be like, no, because I know I'm going to like look foolish or whatever, or maybe I don't have problem with doing it with you and your kids because we all know each other. Right. And we all look foolish together. Yeah. And then maybe I saw you guys dancing the other day. That's what I brought it up. That's great. I mean, we do at 5pm, we do a dance party every, every day. We have to get creative and movement. I was thinking about this as a parent, you know, we've got Father's Day, we have Mother's Day, all these things. The best gift anyone could give us as a parent is healthy kids. Yeah. How do we get our children healthy? And I've come up with this idea that there should be a parent playlist. The songs are embarrassing enough that your kids are interested. So we have a really into Paula Abdul right now, but only partially because we've been watching zombies. That's right. If you've you're going to get a dose of zombies shortly, but we're the top gun song track. It's so nice. Yeah. And it's embarrassing enough where they're interested, but then they want to do it. And this is kind of the way in which we get them moving and create a culture, a movement, culture within that. I love that. You know, and I want to go back to that word we said earlier, force, you know, like some people might be like, this guy's a dick, talking about forcing his kids to do stuff. You know, I'm the least likely person to force my kids to really do anything. I don't I don't necessarily believe in forcing anything yourself or necessarily in most cases forcing people to do stuff. But you think about with your kids, you are forcing everything. You're just forcing them to sometimes just put on clothes every day. You're just there's certain things you're like. I mean, it's against the law for your kids to not go to school. Like so they get they get forced. They're either homeschool like there's some type of schooling is going to happen. Like they're forced. There's some situations in life where you yourself might need to force yourself to do certain things and you yourself might need to force your kids to do something. It's it's protection, really. You're you're you're trying to I think ultimately with your kids and it's not the same for everybody. It's not everybody wants to have kids, but you're trying to make great parents is ultimately what you're trying to do or try to make your son or daughter be strong with what they do and it might be harder for them to be strong if they're if they're behind, you know, if they're behind physically, then maybe they didn't really develop the way they needed to mentally. And so you're hoping that they have a good mesh of both because if they don't if they don't feel smart, that's going to show. And if they don't feel strong, that's going to show. And so you don't want it's hard balance, right? Because like every kid is something every kid is too skinny, too short, too tall, too big, too fat, too what you know, insert whatever word. So you can't really necessarily protect them for everything. But what if you're a kid that's undersized? What if he knows Jiu Jitsu that might have him be a little maybe he's not, you know, going around hurting anybody, but maybe he's like a little bit more confident. Maybe the bully at school goes to push him and he just pushed them back. That's the end of it. Because he's like, oh, I can't really. Oh, I can't pick on that kid. I'm not sure why he's a lot smaller than me, but I wasn't able to pick on the way I wanted to. Mark Bell, thank you for coming on the show. And I just want to end with one thing is that if you are listening to this show, I would encourage you to go back and listen again, because there's two ways to take Mark. The words at which he's saying through the lens of physical strength, and I want you to listen to the episode one way through that. And in addition to listen to it one more time through the lens of mental strength and just something bigger than ourselves. So thank you so much for coming on. I appreciate it. Thank you.