Protein obsession
– What if the diet that was born in gymsand swept across everyday America is also causing diabetes,cancer, and dementia to sweep across America?You know the diet, because it’s allabout protein for our muscles.It’s an American obsession.Ever larger portions of proteinare at the center of our plates.Bars and shakes are flying off the shelvesto get us to hit our protein targets.Classic foods like Wheaties are protein fortified now.But what if that’s not working for us?How would we know?Friend of the channel, Miguel Ramos,is 40, and isn’t deficient in musclesAnd our comments section noticed. He’s got guns.Members of his gym noticed too,and asked about his diet.His reply is simple:he follows the evidence for whatmakes us healthy on the inside,and the outside takes care of itself.
Miguel’s Crohn’s Disease
He came to his diet after a longstruggle with Crohn’s disease.- I spent years going to different cliniciansand trying different medications, but I didn’t improve.Finally, after five years,I found a clinician who suggested that I change my diet.I thought I already had a healthy diet,but he directed me to the best available science.- Miguel made it his mission to learnfrom actual nutrition scientists,not fitness magazines or popular influencers,and his Crohn’s went into remission.We made a YouTube Short with moreof his story, which you’ll find below.So 27 members of his gym who looked healthy on the outside
5-week nutrition challenge
joined him for a five week challenge.Miguel drew blood at weeks zero and fiveand recorded blood pressure and weight.And he taught weekly nutrition classes.When Miguel told me about his plan for this class,I told him I didn’t think he’d see a big difference.Not with this group and not in five weeks.The group sounded mostly fit, slender and young.I thought he’d need to follow themfor 30 years to see a big difference.That’s why it took so long tofigure out smoking was harmful.Scientists had to follow smoking doctors for 30 years.The important context is this groupis part of a CrossFit gym which adopted the Paleo Dietin 2010 when it was soaring in popularity.It is an intuitively logical diet.Our muscles are meat, so to getripped like a horse or gorilla,it makes intuitive sense that to make the best muscleyou need to eat the best muscle.- I’m meat.- Yeah, right?Yes, exactly.- I want to be lean protein,so I’m gonna base my diet around lean protein.- Yes.- I’m not a tomato.- That’s why cows produce such quality beef, right?(laughs)Somebody’s gonna take that outta contextand blast it around the internet.It’s just my stupid sense of humor.- So this is a nutrition guide that is in this CrossFit gymand is definitely in a lot of other CrossFit gyms.- [Chris] Members of Miguel’s Gym walk pasta huge poster of the Paleo diet,showing meat at the center ofthe plate surrounded by vegetables,but no grains, legumes,and limited fruit.But anthropologists say our ancestors were more ofteneating tubers and honey than broccoli.- So we’ve got some honey, we’ve got some larva,and we’ve got some eggs, and we got the beeswax.This is more bugs than honey.Here we go.- It gets the man strong.- And wild animals that weren’tanything like modern beef, grass fed or not.But I told Miguel,it doesn’t sound like his friendsare eating cake or drinking Coke,and they’re eating some veggies.So they’re probably way ahead of the average American?Shockingly, at least to me,at week zero, six had hypertensive blood pressure,five had high fasting glucose indicating pre-diabetes,and 14 had high cholesterol.Let’s meet a few of them.- I’m in medical field, and so I’ve always felt like,oh, I know about nutrition.And then I had a physical in January this yearthat showed that I was pre-diabetic,and I had pretty high triglycerides,and it kind of shocked me, and I was like,I thought I was doing everything right?- I think I’ve always consideredmy diet to be pretty decent,but you know, heart disease,and high blood pressure,and things like that run in my family.- And I’m a coach as well at the gym.I have a dad who died of a heart attack,so there’s heart disease in my family.- How old was he roughly?- My dad was 63.I’ve had family with joint replacements, things like that.And so I’m in my mid forties and realizing like,hey, if I don’t make changes.- So I was just kind of getting to a point in lifethat I really wanted to see personal improvements.I felt like I was kind of gettingstagnant and just kind of in a plateau.- And what kind of cancer were you diagnosed with?- It’s a rare form of liver cancer.They told me at diagnosis that I had a 8%,8% chance of surviving five years.And then after surgery to take the tumor out,it had locally spread and they said,you now have a 3% chance.And I went, oh crap.- And this was how many years ago?- In September it’s gonna be 10.- [Michelle] Wow.- I see kind of the worst of the worst at the hospitaland know that these things can be prevented.I’m in like ICU.So I actually recently just appliedfor my doctorate of nursing,and I kind of wanna take this sameapproach of preventative health.It’s like, I’m just very passionate about it.What I would love to do is open upa clinic within this gym space,and of course we know nutrition is likethe biggest preventative health thing we can do, right?- I presented this to the gym owners here at CrossFit,Sandy – Caitlyn and Sammi.- For anyone wondering why Miguelis wearing those stylin’ blue gloves,it’s the day before we shot this,he was screwing a lid on a mason jar,and because he’s a beast, he shattered the jar,cut his thumb open, and he didn’t want togross you out every time you saw his hands.I guess there’s a downside to having great grip strength.(man grunting)- And when I brought it up, they said this is perfect,
The nutrition class
because they get asked about nutritionfrom almost every person who joins the gym.They said that they would love to have someonewho has a background in nutrition to teach that.We taught them for five weeks the basics of nutrition.And then at the end of it, we did another blood test.I also offered some things to help them along the way.One of the things I offered was a two week meal planthat came with 70 different recipesfor them to have for breakfast,lunch and dinner, and two snacks a day.So they had very healthy meals,and all they had to do is just choose from thislist of the things that sounded good.- He’s like a wizard with beans.He’s like a bean crafter.You’ve heard of witchcraft, but bean craft– [Friend] Bean crafter.What kind of bean dishes has Miguel brought?- I’ll let you serve as much as you want here, bud.- He’s the lentil king.I don’t even remember all the,I remember we did the, after the the open we did a potluck,and everyone has like, there’s like pizza and stuff,and then Miguel just has this crockpot full of– [Miguel] Beans and rice.- Yeah, I don’t even know what it was,but it was actually one ofthe better dishes that were there.- And then we provided the community for peopleto be able to talk to each other,support each other, post pictures of what they’re eating,and give each other advice.I have a bit of a confession to make.I love food.I consider myself a foodie and I love to cook.And to me, food has to have great flavor,great texture.And so many people, when they started this nutrition class,told me that they were worriedthat the food was gonna be inedible.But instead what they found is that the recipesI shared with them were not only fantastic,but in many cases better than what they were already eating.So I’m just gonna give you one exampleof one of the recipes that we provided.This is called roasted red pepper pasta.And it’s a very simple recipe.Even if you are a total novicein the kitchen, you can make this,and it is gonna turn out fantastic every time.Everybody in the class who tried itsaid that they loved this recipe,and it’s now on their regular rotation.The other thing that I provided was this food pyramid.You can see here that it’s calledthe whole food Mediterranean style diet.The reason why we teach a whole foodMediterranean style diet is the Mediterraneanstyle diet is the most studied diet,and it’s the most studied because it hasthe best results out of any of the dietarypatterns that have been studied so far.And we keep finding more and more things.Not only is it good for your heart,but it’s good for your brain, it’s good for your liver,it’s good for your kidneys.And the list just goes on and on, and on.And what’s great is if you reallyunderstand the science of nutrition,then you can determine what things make the biggest impactwhile making the least amount of changes.So what we teach is not extreme.It doesn’t mean that you have tocut out anything completely.It actually is pretty easy to do.And that was the number one thing thatpeople told me at the end of this,is they said,”Hey, I made some changes,but I also realized that I feellike I could do this every day,I feel like I can keep going.”And that was really important to me,because I want something thatis going to really promote health,but is achievable for anyone.- Was it hard to make the healthchanges that were recommended?- I wouldn’t say it was too difficult.It’s definitely helpful to have a friend.So I brought a friend with me to the class,and together we were able to really kind offigure it out together, which was so helpful.I’d recommend everyone have a partner,everyone have a friend.- When we started, I was 100% all in,trying to be completely perfect.And then I think I realized maybe that’s not,I can’t do that entirely.So I kind of take that 80-20% rule,and I eat really well 80% of the time,and really follow the program 80%, maybe sometimes more.And then that other 20, you know,I’ll be a little bit lax just to still be,you know, okay with some things when I’m out with friends.
The results
– So let’s talk about what these results were.I didn’t know if we were gonna see any results.This is a very healthy patient groupand I didn’t see anybody that fit the diet 100%.A lot of people were trying to hit 100%,but a lot of people were comingfrom a very different baseline,where they were eating fast food every day.And even those people who went from eatingfast food every day to eating fast foodonly a couple times a week saw huge improvements.- We recorded these interviewsthree months after the class began,and everyone came in for a third blood drawjust before sitting down for the interview.- And I have the results in,so you can pull up your phone and– Oh, okay.Okay!- Should I be happy, Miguel?- Oh, Miguel looks happy.So!Miguel is telling me that your non HDL cholesterollowered to the lowest risk category according to,Miguel wrote, “A really well done study by the Lancet.”(laughs) I love Miguel.- Yeah, I know the study.- Yeah, but your number specifically,if you wanna look at the three times it was drawn.So non HDL went from initially before the program,about 127 to 83,triglycerides from 224 before the program to 66 now.- Yeah, wow.That’s great, I’m happy with that.- Yeah.The glucose from 94 to 79, LDL from 82 now to 70.Yeah, that’s amazing.Tell me about your triglycerides.Did you know it was 224 before?- No, I always thought that I was the picture of health.You know, I can do 100 burpees now,yeah, so I felt like I’m fit.I’m healthy, right?- Yeah, before I cared a lot about macros.It was obviously a big part of it.You know, I was in the fitness space,and so macros is a big part if you’re trying to stay lean.I would try and get some sort of protein source,which is usually like a meat,albeit I’d cut out red meat a long time ago.So I mean, I think I saw some studieson red meat being pretty carcinogenic,and so relatively lean meats.But even then, still lots of meat,lots of animal products.My grandfather, he passed away at 56 with a heart attack.My dad, he had a triple bypass at 52.This has been a great experience,and what I came to find was that, yeah,I definitely wasn’t on the right track.I think my LDL levels were like close to 160.Brought it down after the course.My LDL levels came down to about 110,which is still room for improvementfor sure, but way better.My blood pressure was, I think it was 150 over like 98,or something like that.I know my blood pressure came down to about 120 over 80.So I think that’s exactly what you’d want, so.- Do you wanna hear your numbers?Okay, are you nervous?Okay, drum roll.Okay.You started at 219.For reference, you wanna be below 100.So that 219 was over double, right?- Yeah.- By the end of class, so five weeks,you got to 131, which was 88 points.Today, you’re at 117.- No way!- Yes.So you’ve come down a total of 102.- So I just have that last five pounds to lose.(laughs)- Well, let’s look at the numberssince you got tested just today.And did you already know the results or?- I do not, no.This is a surprise for me.- This will be exciting.Initially when you first started the class,your non HDL cholesterol was 136.- Okay.- Now it’s 99 about, so that’s a crazy drop.Triglycerides from 95 down to 79 today.Fasting glucose from 93 to 74,LDL went from 117 down to 83.- Check that out.- Yeah, below 100.That’s really good.And blood pressure, about the same it looks like,but that’s amazing, good job!- When I saw the numbers,that blows my mind that I was able to dramaticallyalter the course of of my life just by,you know, five weeks of being intentionalwith what I was putting in my body.- This was what blew my mind.I wasn’t sure if I was gonna see any improvements,and I feel like the improvements were spectacular.The first result that I want totalk about is how people felt,because that’s something that’s reallyimportant to everyone, is how they feel.And almost everyone in the classcame up to me and said that they feltsome sort of improvement in their life,whether it was more energy,less achiness, less swelling.And that matters a lot to people who are athletic.- I do feel a lot better in my body,and I just have a lot more energyto push myself in my workout.It’s hard ’cause I don’t have strict numbers of like,oh, I’m lifting heavier,’cause a lot of the athleticism I do is more low impact.I like to do yoga and Pilates,and that’s not necessarily performance based,but I feel a lot better in my movements and in my body,and it feels a lot stronger.And I get that’s not super quantitative, but.- Even though I’ve been doing CrossFit,I’ve done CrossFit for 12 years,pretty consistent mountain biker,road bike, things like that,my cholesterol’s been high.So when I started this program, my LDLs,which we were most concerned about, right,were 108.When I finish this program, they dropped down to 57,which most people can’t achievesomething like that with medication.I also just felt like I had more energy.I get sleepy pretty easily.But even if I have not enough sleep at night,which I’m not always great with,I still feel like I’m not getting the like,oh, I’m so sleepy.Like I had a lot more energy.I ski, and I was having like,especially joint pain in my left knee.But once I started changing the way I ate,I don’t have joint pain anymore. Really!I don’t have the knee pain.- So this skiing season, you were just like going?- Oh yeah.It was just like, oh,I’m not coming home and my knee’s not swollen,which I thought was a whole different thing.- I found that over 50% of people had cholesterolthat was above what’s considered healthy.Specifically we’re talking about LDL cholesterol.Your LDL cholesterol is an indicator of all-cause mortality.It can be an indicator of having heart diseaseand even things like dementia.- I know.The mention of LDL ignites a firestorm on the internet,with bestselling books saying it’s a myth.There is no doubt that heart diseasehas many other risk factors,such as high blood pressure, high fasting glucose,waist size, fitness,triglycerides, et cetera.But notice that LDL is trending with thoseother risk factors in this group as their health improves.And consider the source of the controversy.For example, Jonny Bowden,the lead author of “The Cholesterol Myth” book,got his PhD in holistic nutrition fromClayton College of Natural Health,a non-accredited distance learningschool that closed in 2011.He is not a research scientist.The most reliable data comes from research scientistswho actually conduct large long-term studies,and who are trained in how to determinecause from imperfect data.All data are imperfect.Doctors are my heroes,and they have guessed right five times in emergency roomsand brought me back from the dead,like the time my appendix burst outin the middle of nowhere when I was 27.But doctors are not research scientists,and they’re not trained in the science of causal inference,which takes years of graduate school to fully understand.That is why for every doctor whobelieves their diet is the one,there is another who believes the opposite.And that is why we interview scientistswho actually conduct rigorous studies on this channel.For them, there is almost no LDL controversy.So where did LDL end up with Miguel’s gym group?- At the beginning of class, 14 people had high cholesterol.By the end of class, only six people had high cholesterol.And of those six, almost everybody was getting prettyclose to having normal levels of cholesterol.The next result that I want to talk about is blood glucose.I have a hard time saying glucose.- [Michelle] Yeah, glucose is weird word.Glucose, glucose,glucose.- Glucose, glucose,glucose, okay.So we started out with five people with high blood sugar.At the end of class, no one had high blood sugar.And that’s the power of makingthe right changes to your diet.And these don’t have to be extreme changes.We also measured everyone’s blood pressure.At the beginning of the five week course,six people were in the hypertensive category.At the end of class, only one personwas in the hypertensive category,and they were on the edge.They almost made it to the non-hypertensive category.The last metric that we measured was weight.And weight is an interesting one,because that’s usually the first thingthat people think about when it comes to their health.People were really hyper-focused on their weight,and we wanted to get their focus off the weight.We wanted to have them focus onthe metrics that they couldn’t see.But it was really important I think to measure the weight,because people wanted it so much that we could show themhow their weight changed over the class.And on average, we saw that peoplelost just under a pound per week,and that is right in line with whereyou want to see a healthy weight loss.I really wanna stop talking about weightbecause this class was about overall health.And what’s great is that we have enough datathat we can calculate somebody’s risk of a heart attack,or stroke, or other form of cardiovascular event,and we can do that with everybody’s datafrom the beginning of class versusthe end of that five week period.And what is amazing is that over that five week period,we dropped everybody’s risk of having one of those events,that we can be pretty sure that we have preventedone heart attack or one stroke.And to me, that’s really incredible.That’s what this is all about,because I can’t think of a more scary hospital visitthan to take a loved one to the hospitalbecause of a heart attack or stroke.And some of those are fatal,and some of them are at least very debilitating.The fact that we probably preventedone of those meant so much to me.And I think it means a lot to the class,because we all looked around at the class at the end,and I had everybody think which one ofthese people that we’re surrounded by,which one of our friends here was the onethat we just prevented to have a heart attack or stroke.And to me, that really hit home,because I care about every singleone of these people in this class.So this video has really become a lot more personal to me.As you may have noticed,I got a haircut because I was at a funeral.The funeral was my dad.And you know,he died of complications from a surgery from diverticulitis,and diverticulitis, especially in his case,was caused from poor diet.I wasn’t expecting this.And losing a loved one is dramatic, it’s difficult.And this is why eating a healthy diet is so important.This is why I did this class.So hopefully we can,hopefully we can save some lives here.That’s why this matters.- I asked Miguel to record that,and it wasn’t easy because his dad died just two weeks ago,suddenly, way too young.
The diet
I have to hand it to Miguel.He proved me wrong with this class.Way wrong.A simple Mediterranean diet can make an amazing difference,even among slender, fit people.I should not have been shocked,because we have been reporting that countrieswhich teach the Mediterranean diet in schoolshave half the obesity rate of America,half the prescription drug consumption,half the healthcare costs, and live five years longer.But in America,profiteering influencers convinced Americans thatthe dietary guidelines Sweden invented,that worked so well there, are a scam.But, they say,we can save ourselves by buying their supplementsand following their special diet.Miguel’s Mediterranean pyramid is differentand fascinating in at least one way.The bottom of Miguel’s pyramid lets youeat as much as you want of veggies,fruit, beans,whole grains, and mushrooms.The words protein and carbohydratedo not appear on his pyramid.It’s simply focused on food, like the guidesin almost all of the healthiest countries.Miguel doesn’t even know how much protein he consumesbecause he doesn’t count it or think about it.He simply eats food.And if you want to eat only plants,just follow the lower two tiers.That’s what Miguel does.I rarely mention products on our channelbecause we don’t accept sponsorships,but sometimes I mention Ezekiel breadand wellbeing bars because I love them.So I will mention that Miguel has designedan online version of his class,and I’ll provide a link below.I notice several doctors are referringtheir patients to this course.Also Miguel asked me to clarify that not everyonewho eats a very healthy diet gets full remissionof their Crohn’s disease as he has apparently done.Can you imagine if America promoted the simple timelessprinciples of Asian or Mediterranean diets,as all the healthiest countries in the world dowith their dietary guidelines?I can hardly think of a greater cause to fight for,and that’s why I spend so much timeand money making these videos.And to the one country that decided it’s a scamand the scientists who promoted it are frauds,I have a simple question.How is the health of your country?