Episode 186 - Over/Underrated Pt 2. - David Goggins, 80/20 Running, Single Leg as MAIN Squat, Keto Diet, Creatine Loading, Circuit Training, "Protein" Processed Foods, Melatonin & More!

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What's going on guys? Welcome to another episode. I'm Kevin Smith. This is going to be as promised a part two of Overrated Underrated Last episode. I had a really good time going through a few and there were some that required a little bit more in depth explanation, so I kind of took that opportunity to do that, but this time I'm going to try and no promises, but I'm going to try and go through a little bit more and not spend quite as much time on at least most of them. Some might be a little bit more nuanced and require [00:00:30] longer explanation, but anyway, just got back yesterday from an impromptu trip up to Boston for the unfortunate reason that my other grandmother passed away. If you guys have been following along two months ago or so, sometime in August, I want to say it was like mid-August, like two and a half months ago, my mom's mother passed away and this time last weekend, my dad's mother passed away at 99 years old.

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[00:01:00] Although it was an unfortunate reason to go up there. It was nice to see family members and friends and honestly met a bunch of people that I didn't know, but that knew my grandmother. She definitely touched a lot of lives. She was this absolute specimen of a human. She would until she was 95 or 96 maybe. So like three, four years ago, she would go to an Alzheimer's home and take care of people that were 15, 20 years younger than her [00:01:30] and she would be their caretaker at 94, 95, 96 years old, and she would do that voluntary. It was not for money or anything like that. She went to church every single day. She was a very, very devout Catholic and just always had people over at her house. She was always very great hospitality. She's got nine kids, one of them passed away. My dad's second oldest brother passed away a few years ago, but eight of them are still living, including my dad [00:02:00] and most of them live pretty close to her.

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I think my dad lives the furthest away out of anyone other than his oldest, oldest brother who lives out in California, but my dad's like two hours away up in Maine and the rest of 'em live within five, 10 minutes. Some of 'em are even walking distance, so there's always people going over to that house. And anyway, yeah, she lived an awesome life and it was nice to celebrate that as well as just see some people I haven't seen in a while. So we are back in North Carolina. [00:02:30] I am in the midst of a 750 carb grams of carb high carb day. So I've only had one meal thus far with like 120 and many more to come. So I've been on a pretty low carb, low calorie. If you're watching, you can probably see in my face I'm a little bit lean or a little bit skinny looking, and that's because I'm just super lean right now.

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I'm probably around 8% body fat and I'm probably going to get down to seven-ish before I stop, hang out at maintenance there for a little while and then go back into a modest surplus, [00:03:00] try and put some muscle back on and not look quite as emaciated, but sometimes, especially as you get older. But for me, I just have always had a relatively skinny looking face. Not skinny necessarily, but you can see my cheek wounds, you can see my jaw, you can kind of see lines in my face when I get really skinny or when I get really lean and that's where I'm at right now, but I feel amazing. I don't really feel like I'm in a deficit. Once in a while I get a little hungry, but days like this are always nice, 750 grams [00:03:30] of carbs and I'm keeping protein pretty low, keeping fat very, very low just so it's not a calorie load, it's a high carb load.

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I'm going to be in a calorie surplus, but not by as much. If I eat my usual protein and fat, then it would be way higher. And the main reason we do this is a couple of different things. One is to kind of keep the metabolism from adapting for basically if you're in a deficit for a longer period of time, metabolism slows [00:04:00] down and adapts your neat non-exercise activity. Thermogenesis or your unintentional movement you do throughout the day will inherently decrease unless you're very intentional about it, which kind of doesn't make it neat, but whatever. That's kind of semantics and also your workouts start to suffer a little bit. Mine feel pretty good, but sometimes I feel a little bit flat and for the rest of the day today, tomorrow and the next day, so basically halfway through the week and [00:04:30] I do another high carb day.

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Usually I do one every five to seven days, so it'll kind of last me throughout the next few days and then I will go back, I'll be back at my normal macro intake, calorie intake for the next few days and then we'll do another high carb day. So kind of a little bump. The only thing, the only downside besides having to remind yourself to eat very frequently because if you eat too infrequently, you're just going to have massive boluses of carbs, and I don't like that. I just feel tired after, [00:05:00] but if I keep everything to 80 to 120 grams of carbs per feeding, I feel pretty good. So that is one difficult part, but the next day is also kind of tough because it increases your ghrelin and decreases your leptin, which are the two hormones that are kind of responsible for feeling hungry.

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That's ghrelin and leptin is responsible for making you feel a little more full and it'll also just kind rev up your overall metabolic rate. So I will at least last weekend when [00:05:30] I did it, I was very, very hungry the next day. It was manageable. It wasn't crazy, but definitely noticeable and honestly, the day after, I was pretty hungry too. It was not as bad as the first day after, so two days after, I was pretty hungry too. Wasn't as bad as the first day after. So anyway, looking forward to the rest of the high carb day today, and without further ado, let's get into some overrated underrated. First one is creatine loading phase. I would say that's overrated only because [00:06:00] it just makes such a tiny difference long-term. The thing about creatine is you should take it just forever. You don't have to cycle on and off.

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You don't have to do eight weeks or 12 weeks. It's not a PED like that messes with your hormones or anything like that, or your body just gets used to it and you have to resensitize yourself. In fact, it's pretty much the opposite with creatine. Creatine takes a while to build up, which is kind of the reason for the loading phase, and then it kind of peters out. But essentially you are going to spend a little bit [00:06:30] more money on creatine because instead of taking five grams a day for the entire duration, you have whatever creatine supplement you have you're taking. Depending on the protocols, there are different creatine amounts that are recommended, but you're probably taking 15, 20, 25 grams per day for a few weeks to saturate your muscle cells a little bit faster than you would if you just did five grams a day.

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It would still happen, it would just happen a little later because you're taking a smaller amount, which is pretty easy to understand. [00:07:00] But because of that, you're spending more money and it's not by much of course, but it's something that creatine companies definitely market because it helps 'em sell a little bit more in the margins. It's not really by much, but if you think about selling it to hundreds and hundreds or thousands of people, and if most of those or some of those people do the loading phase and some don't, or more of them do the loading phase, yeah, you're going to sell more long term. So it's overrated for that reason. And it's also overrated just because like I said, you're going to take it every day, so [00:07:30] it doesn't really matter whether it saturates fully three weeks from now, three and a half weeks from now, two and a half weeks from now, it's going to saturate fully anyway.

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And also one of the things that you could potentially run into is some GI issues from taking bigger doses of creatine. So I guess if you really want it to saturate in two or three weeks instead of three or four weeks and you are willing to spend that extra money on that and take those high doses and potentially have some GI issues, it does not happen to everyone but some [00:08:00] people then fine, but I think it's overrated because you should just take creatine and on a net macro level, it doesn't really matter that much. It's not like you're going to make these crazy crazy gains in two and a half weeks because it's saturated faster versus three and a half weeks or four weeks because it's saturated a little bit slower. That's not how creatine works. It's a very, very subtle minor thing. If you go back to last episode I talked about creatine itself, overrated versus underrated, so you can learn more there.

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So loading phase overrated. Next one, overrated [00:08:30] underrated. 80 20 on zone two versus zone three to four or higher intensity work for conditioning overrated because everyone, no matter what if they're doing any sort of conditioning, especially running conditioning, thinks that this applies to them. Not everyone, but everyone who is not quite as experienced or as informed or as educated on the matter, they see 80% of your stuff should be low intensity, 20% should be high intensity and no matter what they're doing for training, no matter [00:09:00] whether they're trying to just get better at running, no matter whether they have a base built, no matter what they're doing for lifting as well on the side, potentially they just stick to 80 20 and in that case, it's definitely not a very sound way to approach it. Here's the thing about 80 20 is originally that was designed for high level runners who are running inherently high mileage.

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So with running typically intensity is going to be more fatiguing and harder to recover from than volume [00:09:30] lifting's kind of the opposite. Usually there are of course definitely nuances and there are limitations to it, but generally for running, if you run a lot of miles and of course work up to that, don't just start running a ton of miles, but if you run the most at a low intensity or zone two, then you can get away with slash recover from more running miles per week. Whereas if you ran most of those or a good portion of those at a higher intensity, whether it's a tempo [00:10:00] effort, zone three, zone four threshold effort, sprints, things like that. So that's kind of where it originated from. Here's the deal, most people are not high level runners and also a lot of people who are running these days, especially people who listen to this, probably no one listening to this or very few people listening to this are just runners.

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They probably have other goals too, whether it's military selection or military fitness maintenance or just being generally well-rounded, strength conditioning, [00:10:30] mobility power, and pretty much everything in between. So it applies even less to those people because they're not running as much anywhere close to as much as someone who is just running and is really serious about it and wants to get really good at. So if someone like that were to split their runs into 80% low intensity, 20% high intensity, oftentimes it would not be enough high intensity stuff to actually make the progress that they're most likely looking to [00:11:00] just because of you're just limited by how much you can adapt in a given amount of time or a given mileage per week, especially if most of it is low intensity. Generally low intensity stuff is to build the foundation and when you are doing any sort of speed development phase, it's to maintain that foundation and also allow you to run more miles because even low intensity miles, if you do enough of them, they can translate into better general performance.

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Most people are not trying to get [00:11:30] really good at zone two running. They're trying to get good at a 5K or a five mile or a two mile or a 10 k half marathon. The zone two allows them to run enough miles to basically fit in all of their intense stuff and also get enough mileage per week to perform really well and be able to last later in those runs and kind of hang on and recover from running because it's just a high recovery burden type thing of the impact. So you add lifting and other things to that, then [00:12:00] you're kind of a lot more limited to how much running you can do per week. You'll naturally have to cut it down, but also assuming someone has a solid base belt, there's nothing wrong at all. In fact, every single one of my hybrid programs even definitely my running program, which is kind of a hybrid, more of a running biased hybrid program has way more than 20% high intensity stuff and way less than 80% low intensity stuff.

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It's probably 65, 35, [00:12:30] maybe 60 40. So the reason I do that is because there's other things that people have to train for and we don't just have unlimited time a and recovery capacity. Additionally, it's overrated for even runners because most runners, especially higher level runners, but even just people who like to run recreationally and like to compete, but they're not maybe high level, most of them, especially during a pre-race phase or a prep phase and not an off season or base phase, [00:13:00] people like that usually do higher percentage than 80 low intensity and lower percentage than 20 high intensity. So it may be 85, 15, it may be 87, 13 for some really high level runners who are doing tons and tons of mileage. It may be something like 90 10 or 92 8 or something along those lines. So generally it's okay to, it's an okay heuristic to be like, okay, most of my stuff, a little bit more [00:13:30] of my stuff at least should be low intensity, especially if I'm running a lot, but it's definitely not something to get wrapped around the axle about and feel like you have to be exactly at that 80 20 because it's just not the case for most people, almost regardless of goals.

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Yes, some people it may happen to work out that way, but it's usually not going to be, it's usually going to be a little bit higher intensity if you're not doing as much running and vice versa. If you're running a lot of mileage, it might be a little bit lower percentage or I don't even know what higher, lower [00:14:00] percentage of intense stuff and higher percentage of easy stuff. So that is my thoughts on that one. Next one, overrated, underrated, David Goggins. Okay, so David Goggins is partially overrated, partially underrated. I think that his message in regards to mindset and not being soft and staying hard and doing things you don't want to do, challenging yourself, forcing yourself to get way, way, way outside your comfort zone, not making [00:14:30] excuses, all the mental stuff that he speaks of is super underrated for certain people, such as people who are not really type A.

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So honestly, most people listening to this, it's probably overrated for you to listen to all those things. You probably need more chill in Zen and you need to probably stop doing so much and stop going so hard. That is one of the main reasons it's overrated for certain populations. Highly, highly, [00:15:00] highly underrated though for more laid back type B people who are, they just need kind of a kick in the ass. Then again, not everyone responds to that type of motivation, but I mean that's kind of on them. Goggins has changed a lot of lives for the better. So in that case, that population, he'd be underrated for regardless of your population, regardless of the type of person you are. Though his fitness advice is highly overrated. Please do not listen to his actual fitness advice. Don't try to [00:15:30] emulate his training because at best, at very, very best you're going to overtrain like crazy and make nowhere near the progress that you could make if you follow his protocols or follow his advice.

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At worst, you're just going to hurt yourself honestly, you just are. I mean, look at him. He's hurt himself a million times. He continues to go through it, which I mean all the power to him, great if you want to do that, but other people following his stuff are just bound to hurt themselves and they're not going to really make, they're not [00:16:00] even really going to be able to do all the things that he recommends, like, get up, go early, go run long ass distances, go train. Don't take no for an answer. Don't settle if you're injured. It's kind of hard to do all that stuff. So I would not take that advice whatsoever. But his mindset advice for certain types of people is great, and I honestly have nothing but respect for him. He has a lot of haters, but you're going to have hate when you're that type of person.

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Also, you're going to have hate regardless when you put stuff out on the internet, no matter what, people are going to not enjoy [00:16:30] what you have to say, especially if it doesn't align with their views or values, and especially if they're the type of person who's really easily offended and looks for things, literally actively sits on the internet and seeks ways to get offended throughout the day and let people know about it. You got to let people know and you got to let people know why you're offended. So that is my thoughts on Goggins and I think he's very valuable for some people, but definitely don't listen to his fitness vice advice or if you're prepping for a fight, don't hire him as your [00:17:00] coach because we all saw what happened. I can't remember the guy who hired him. I'm not really super into fighting, but I know this guy was really well known for his conditioning especially, and Goggins kind of helped him with his prep and he just gassed out in the first round because he was probably just way, way overtrained and his body was probably just in a very stressed out state, which is not ideal going into what would be a very stressful event, a fight MMA fight in front of thousands, probably millions of people that are watching on [00:17:30] tv.

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So that is Goggins in a nutshell, in my opinion. Next one, heavy single leg squats as a primary leg movement. That would be overrated for sure. Single leg movements in general are not overrated. I would say they're kind of properly rated, but having a bilateral squat as your main movement would be ideal. You can just produce so much more force from a bilateral squat than you can with a unilateral squat. It's more stable and it is more [00:18:00] of a compound lift, and depending on what you're doing exactly, if you're doing a barbell squat or a front squat, it's more of a compound lift. It works more musculature than a single leg squat, which is not always a good thing or a bad thing, but it is a thing. And generally you're going to want a for every body part pretty much that I can think of.

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Every movement pattern, at least you're going to want a bilateral main bilateral movement for arms curls, doesn't really matter as much like the dumbbell curls versus barbell curls, single arm [00:18:30] tricep push downs versus whatever, double arm, not as important, but for the main movement patterns, squat, hinge, vertical horizontal press, vertical horizontal pull, you're going to want a bilateral main movement pattern. Generally speaking, I would say maybe a pull down might be one exception, which I won't get into the reason why it's kind of complicated, but because of that, having that as your main squat movement, especially for a long period of time, you can definitely go through blocks where you do mostly unilateral work, especially if you have one side [00:19:00] that's very lagging behind the other side and it's giving you issues whether it's pain or performance issues or even if it's visual and you want to kind of catch the other side up, then going through certain blocks of unilateral only training is a good idea.

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But for your main movement, just in general, your main squat movement, I would suggest having something that's bilateral so you can really work on that rate of force production and really get that systemic signal to your body to really grow and create [00:19:30] a really good hormonal environment for growth. So it does not have to be a barbell squat though. It doesn't have to be a barbell back squat. Front squat doesn't not even have to be a free weight squat. You can use a machine, it'd be totally fine. So most people, if they search hard enough and if they care and if they put enough time and effort into it, can find a squat that they really, really like. Even if it's not a barbell squat, even if it's not a free weight squat, maybe for you it's a belt squat or a pendulum squat or a hack squat or a leg press or anything along [00:20:00] those lines, that's totally fine, but I highly recommend for your main squat movement, something bilateral, but absolutely consider I would include almost for everyone no matter what, at least one unilateral squat per leg day or if you're doing two leg days throughout the week, maybe one of those has unilateral or two, and then unilateral hinges are also great.

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They're definitely not quite as effective as unilateral squats just because of the balance component and the lack of exercise [00:20:30] selection, but they are also very beneficial but not quite as beneficial as having a main squat bilateral and then throwing unilateral squat or multiple squats in as your assistance lifts. Next one is going to be barefoot shoes. I would say barefoot shoes are, this is a little bit biased because I love barefoot shoes, but I would say they're underrated overall in the barefoot shoe niche community where everyone is just a minimalist [00:21:00] across the board, probably not just with their shoes, but those type of people that are just minimalists in general. In that case, they're probably properly rated or maybe overrated, a little bit excessive, but in general, they are definitely underrated, like more people, way more people could benefit from them than people who are benefiting from them.

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And it's probably because a barefoot shoes in general, this is definitely changing now, but barefoot shoes at least used to look pretty goofy, pretty [00:21:30] ugly, not great. So that's one thing too, just lack of education to the general population, which gen pop people who do some walking or do some light exercise just for health could benefit from wearing barefoot shoes, not just like switching completely to barefoot shoes in one day. That's how you kind of get hurt. Even if you're not running, you can still hurt yourself doing that if you're not used to it, but they could absolutely benefit for a number of reasons. One, your standard shoe is going to [00:22:00] have a lot of downsides to it. Certain things, yes, like a running or certain sports, you probably want a sport or shoe for that sport, but something like just walking around throughout the day and lifting weights, just living your life in general, you are really not using the small little intricate muscles of your feet, your soft tissue, tendons, ligaments, fascia in your feet are also feet area, feet, ankle [00:22:30] are going to be weaker because they just don't get as much stress, they don't get as much challenge and therefore they don't adapt because adapting requires a little bit of a stress, and yes they do.

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It's not like they're just lying dormant, but when you have barefoot shoes that are allowing your feet to really splay and grab the ground and feel the ground, it is a lot more beneficial on activating all those little areas that you don't really think of. Additionally, the shape of your foot will change over time if you [00:23:00] just wear standard shoes. When I first started wearing barefoot shoes, switching from regular shoes that I'd been wearing my entire life, all my toes were really, really scrunched together and I would have to manually grab with my hands to split them apart or put toe spacers in. Now when I am standing up and I look down, there's a little bit of space. I have naturally very skinny feet and very long skinny feet, so they're always not going to necessarily be like a caveman foot that's super spread out, but they actually have [00:23:30] some space in between, and I can without using my hands, without using toe spacers, make the spaces bigger in between them.

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Almost like going like this, like this with my hands. So I liken wearing a standard shoe for your entire life, almost like wearing a mitten for your hand. Think about how much less dexterity you would have if you lived your entire life in a mitten. Really not ideal. And it's similar with shoes, of course, we don't use our feet for fine motor movements and dexterity like [00:24:00] we do with our hands, so it's not quite as detrimental not to have dexterity in your hands, but it's still a kind of just like an overall indicator of the fact that your feet are not living up to their potential function-wise and strength wise, durability wise, toughness wise. That's another thing. When you first go to barefoot shoes, you're probably going to notice that the bottom of your feet are very, very sensitive, for lack of a better term, a K, a weak wimpy [00:24:30] to whatever you step on.

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I remember going from regular shoes to barefoot shoes, walking on paths behind my house. Most of that path is sand, so it's not bad sand, loose packed, hard packed, but there are some patches of rock slash pebbles that I have to walk over, and the first few times I did it, I'm like, oh my god, this is almost not doable because my feet are just not accustomed to this type of stress. Over time, you start to find that your feet get way, way tougher, stronger. [00:25:00] You start to feel, at least for me and a lot of people, because your feet are kind of the first part of your kinetic chain that is your connection to the ground and your kinetic chain by the way, goes all the way up through your head. Having a strong and functional and capable and resilient and durable first part of your kinetic chain, which is your feet, is potentially going to make your knees feel better, it's [00:25:30] potentially going to make your hips feel better.

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It's potentially going to make your lower back feel better. Even believe it or not, sometimes you can have a foot issue and throughout your body you compensate so much in so many different ways that your shoulder hurts or your neck hurts, your upper back hurts. Sounds a little crazy, but it's a real thing. So I would say overall underrated just because not a lot of people know about them other than people just in the tight knit fitness communities that kind of talk about this kind of stuff, and a lot more people could benefit from them than are [00:26:00] benefiting from them right now, and for that reason I would say underrated. Next question, high protein marketed versions of food. For example, Kodiak cakes, protein, pasta, et cetera. I'm going to say overrated for the most part because generally when you're eating these foods, you could just have a side of protein that is probably going to be higher quality protein.

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For example, maybe a Kodiak cake has 12 grams of protein, and I don't know what the macros are, [00:26:30] but say it has 10 grams of fat, 12 grams of protein, and 20 grams of carbs per serving. What you could do is just take a regular pancake or however you want to make that pancake, that way it's just carbs the way that pancakes are intended to be, and then have some eggs and egg whites on the side for the protein, it's way, way higher quality protein. I'm not sure what protein they use specifically in Kodiak cakes as far as quality is concerned, but for the most part those things are not going to be anywhere close. Usually it's like plant protein [00:27:00] or sort of a lower quality protein than animal protein, which is pretty much any other protein. So for that reason, I would much prefer doing that and anyone who's health and fitness conscious would probably do that as well.

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Not always. I mean people are going to go for Kodiak cakes because usually they're a little lower carb, they are well marketed like you said in the question, and sometimes it's like, oh, I could just have these and they taste better and there's not as many carbs, not as many calories maybe, although I would argue that [00:27:30] Kodiak cakes are probably much higher calorie per serving than a regular pancake would be just because it's got fat and it's got protein in it. Whereas normal pancakes usually have very little fat depending on how you make them very little fat, they're almost pure carbs. Not saying pancakes are super healthy or anything like that depending on how you make them, but in general, just kind of a comparison. So usually people are going to have some protein on the side and same with protein pasta, that was the other example you used.

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Why not just put some meat sauce, some ground beef, some lean ground beef in your meat [00:28:00] sauce and have pasta with meat sauce that way. The pasta is just a, it tastes better. Usually the natural versions or the original versions of these foods are going to taste better and they're going to have better texture and probably potentially maybe easier to make. But B, just adding some protein to the side, some higher quality protein than what's in there. Definitely beef is way higher quality protein than whatever type of protein they use in pasta. I guarantee it. It's probably a plant-based protein and it's really not that much either. That's another thing like 10, [00:28:30] 15 grams of protein in one serving, unless you're having more protein on the side or unless you're having more than one serving, is still not enough to fully benefit from the muscle protein synthesis signal.

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Generally that takes 30 to 40 grams per feeding, so you're going to want to shoot for that every time you eat anything if you want to actually benefit from it. Protein wise, maximally shooting for 30 to 40 grams of protein is a good idea and typically these things may have a little bit more protein than the original version, but not by much, not by enough for it to just be good on its own without [00:29:00] adding to it. So for the most part, overrated. I will say underrated probably for people who just refuse to eat anything other than processed foods and naturally people who are like that are, which is a ton of people, not a lot of people listening to this, but just people in general, general population, a lot of people do eat like that and therefore they really don't have anywhere near enough protein to even be healthy.

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They probably get the recommended daily allowance, which is very, very low. [00:29:30] I can't even remember what it is, but it's something like 0.3 to 0.4 grams per pound of body weight, which is like half what I recommend for muscle building and muscle maintenance and just being generally healthy and vigorous. So for those people, it's probably a little more beneficial than eating the regular version. It might be a little bit more satiating because there's more protein in it, but for the most part, nothing wrong with eating these things, but I personally would much prefer to have regular oatmeal and eggs [00:30:00] on the side or another type of protein on the side, or like I said, pasta with meat sauce or the ice cream stuff like high protein ice cream. I'm sure some of them taste good, but if I'm going to have ice cream, I'm just going to have regular ice cream, maybe a little bit less of it.

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I'm not trying to get my protein, daily protein topped off from ice cream. Not to say that that's not okay. You absolutely can do that, but that's kind of the way I look at it. So for all those reasons, I would say overrated, but also not useless for everyone and I would say for a small percentage of [00:30:30] people, maybe even a bigger percentage of people in general, just not people listening to this, it would be underrated slightly because it would allow them to get some more protein in even if it's not perfect. Next one, melatonin. Melatonin overrated. Not because it doesn't work, it can work in certain situations. I'll get into here in a second, but the way people use it and the way people approach it and honestly part of it's not even their fault because of the dosing makes it overrated. So two big issues [00:31:00] with melatonin that are related to dosing.

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One most melatonin that you get unless you get it from a very highly level company or if you buy it online, but if you get stuff at the grocery store or whatever, it's going to be way, way too high a dose for it to actually do what you want it to do. Melatonin should be used in very low doses. It depends on the person, depends on their size, depends on how often you use it, it depends on the use case, but something like 0.2, five, 0.5, I would say max one milligram of melatonin [00:31:30] would be a more reasonable dose, a more effective dose. Most of the things you buy at the store are like 3, 5, 10 milligrams per one little pill, and that's just way too much for anyone and it's not even going to work as well at that high a dose. So if you can find a lower dose version of melatonin, then that would be recommended if you want to use it.

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But additionally, people use it every single night. They will use melatonin, they pop it like candy, it's like time to go to bed. I'm going to pop some melatonin. And [00:32:00] that is also not really that great of an idea either because your body produces this stuff naturally and it's not like testosterone where you are producing natural testosterone. Maybe it gets low, you go on TRT and then your body just stops producing testosterone while you're on TRT and it may restart over time if you go off it, but usually T RT is for life. Melatonin is not like that. Your body's not just going to stop producing melatonin at nighttime and make you reliant on using it, but [00:32:30] it can decrease how much natural melatonin you produce or the time at which you produce melatonin. It should be produced at a very, very specific time. Melatonin helps you fall asleep, so ideally you want to produce it as you get closer to bedtime.

(00:32:47):

Also, people use it as almost a get out of jail free card, except it's not that for terrible habits before bed. So the best way to maximize your melatonin production is not to take melatonin, it's to do [00:33:00] the right things throughout the day as well as before bed. So consistent sleep and wait times huge. Your body will start producing melatonin at about the same time every night because it gets used to it getting outside in the morning, exposure to sun sometime after sun comes up, give your body a sleep need, go hard during the day, cognitively, physically, whatever you're doing that day actually get fatigued so your body wants to sleep and that's a less talked about sleep strategy, but it's definitely important if you just sit around and do nothing all day, [00:33:30] you're probably not going to sleep anywhere near as well as you could that night.

(00:33:33):

Being mindful of your caffeine, being mindful of your alcohol, having alcohol too late, too close to bedtime is going to reduce your sleep quality. It's going to mess with your melatonin production and you may fall asleep quickly, but it's not because you're actually falling into a real sleep. It's kind of a sedation effect from the alcohol, caffeine, having that too late in the day, that can also kind of throw your sleep off quite significantly different for everyone. But generally I recommend at least eight hours between your last [00:34:00] caffeine and before bed, but ideally, really focusing on the last hour before you go to bed is going to be huge for melatonin production. So computers, telephone, tv, anything that has blue light coming off, it is going to blunt your melatonin production. Yes, even if you wear blue light blockers, blue light blockers don't block all the blue light, they're still going to let some in.

(00:34:23):

So yeah, you're probably going to produce some more melatonin, but probably not by much, especially because there's a bunch of [00:34:30] other things people do or a bunch of aspects of these entertainment devices besides blue light that can throw your sleep off. If you watch the news, you're going to be stressed about the news. If you are debating with someone online, you're going to be thinking about that, you're going to be a little bit stressed out even if you don't feel it, you're stress hormones are going to kick up and cortisol, the main stress hormone competes with melatonin. You want cortisol to be very low at nighttime. You want cortisol or melatonin to be at the right levels, not very high, but at the right levels just like every other hormone has a [00:35:00] Goldilocks effect. Too low is not good, too high is not good, but to go back to the evening activities, if you're looking at social media, you are getting all these little dopamine hits, all these little dopamine hits, and that is going to increase your stress hormones as well and make it harder for you to fall asleep because your body's just not going to produce the right amount of melatonin at the right times in the right quantities and you're going to struggle with it.

(00:35:22):

So that is one major reason that it's overrated. Additionally, going back to dosing, there was one study [00:35:30] where they took a bunch of popular melatonin brands and actually tested it to see how much melatonin was in each serving, and some of them were something like a hundred times more melatonin than is ideal. So if you are someone who takes say five milligrams of melatonin per night and you happen to have one of those brands that is potentially a hundred times higher than what you think you're taking, you're taking 500 milligrams of melatonin [00:36:00] and melatonin does have a relatively quick half-life, depending on if you're using the immediate release or more extended release, but 500 every single night, it's probably going to be always in your system. You're probably always going to feel drowsy. That's just of course one example, but there were a bunch of dosed melatonin brands that are very, very popular that a lot of people use and this study does not get brought up.

(00:36:25):

Honestly, I don't exactly know when it was or who did it. It's been a while since I've actually seen it, but it does not [00:36:30] really get brought up all that much. I can try and find it and put it in the show notes after this if you guys are interested in looking at it, but it's definitely not just unique to melatonin. There's a lot of supplements that pixie does things or usually they put less than what is on the actual supplement facts or the ingredients list because it's cheaper that way, but sometimes they accidentally or they just negligible, negligible, I don't know, negligible put way more than is [00:37:00] necessary or some of the pills may have the right amount, some of the pills may have more, some of 'em less, so you just are kind of throwing your body for a loop. So all that being said, yes, overrated for those reasons.

(00:37:10):

But all that being said, melatonin can be very beneficial when using the right dose at the right time. So melatonin is great for changing time zones, getting your body used to a new time zone. You take melatonin at the time that you need to go to bed if it's way off from what your normal time is. If your body's not going to naturally your pineal gland, which is the [00:37:30] part of your brain that produces melatonin, is not going to produce it at that time because you're not used to going to bed at that time. If you take it, you're going to get a little bit of a bump, a little bit of a boost, it's going to help you fall asleep for the first few nights. So is it going to be a major, major thing? Most likely not, but it can definitely help. That would be the main use case I would recommend for it or a periodic use when you just really need to dial back and go to sleep or say maybe one night you are going to bed a couple hours earlier than you usually do just [00:38:00] because you have to maybe get up super early.

(00:38:01):

That can be a solid use case for it. Shift work can also be, especially when you're first transitioning into shift work from being awake during the day and sleeping at night. Once that becomes the opposite, then using melatonin for a little while to get your body used to the new schedule can help, but just popping it like candy, popping super high doses or thinking that it's like this necessary thing that you always have to have in order to sleep. And that's another thing, the psychological dependence, not addictive, but a lot of people [00:38:30] are psychologically dependent on it such that if they go a night without having access to their melatonin, they're just going to psych themselves out and not sleep well, and that can be problematic to rely on things like that even if it's not super dangerous. Melatonin is not dangerous, even if it's not physically addicting, it still is not ideal to have to rely on something every single time to go to sleep, which is just a natural human function, especially rely on something that your body already produces if you just let it and you do the right [00:39:00] things.

(00:39:00):

Also using it, that reminds me, using it for that free pass from doing all the things you're not supposed to be doing before bed is another contributor to the fact it's overrated. So melatonin overrated. Next one, weighted circuit style training. So circuit training, going from exercise to exercise to exercise no rest or very minimal rest is very overrated. Very, very overrated and so many people use this for achieving a certain goal and usually that goal is to get toned. I'll [00:39:30] talk about what toned is here in a second, but it is the worst thing you can possibly do. Probably not the worst thing, but one of the worst approaches as far as fitness is concerned, fitness and body composition changes are concerned because basically what it is is because there's weight involved and some lifting and some muscles and also low rest, maybe some of the lifts involve some cardiovascular output.

(00:39:55):

They're both kind of involved throughout, and the problem with that is [00:40:00] these adaptations are so different from one another, very, very different. It's kind of sending your body these mixed signals and you're going to get less of a strength slash muscle building stimulus and also less of a cardio stimulus than you would if you did them both separately, and that's what I would recommend to most people. Now, circuit training can be if you're training for something like the RPFT or if you're training for something that involves back to back to exercises with not much rest, then of course [00:40:30] specificity still reigns supreme and you should at least do that sometimes. Not every single time you train, but most people do this, like I said, for body composition, getting leaner, getting toned, getting toned is not really a word, but basically what people are saying when they say they want to get toned is they want to be lean and muscular.

(00:40:48):

Lean and muscular, not necessarily big and jacked, especially because women use this word more often than men do. They don't want to get big and jacked typically. They do this so that they can build long and [00:41:00] lean and slender muscles. That's not how the human body works. You can't just lengthen your muscles. You are born a certain way, you can make them bigger, you can make them smaller, but you can't lengthen them. You can't change where they insert and originate in certain joints from training, let alone anything else. So typically people will use it for that reason when if they wanted to get actually toned, a k, a lean and muscular, they would be so much better off either just lifting [00:41:30] and just staying active throughout the day. You don't even have to do cardio. Number one is to make sure that you are in a calorie deficit in order to get there, not necessarily maintain there.

(00:41:40):

You can be at maintenance, but in order to get there, of course you have to be in a calorie deficit, but lifting weights is going to provide the muscle aspect of the toned look and eating the right amount of calories, the right amount of protein, and the right amount of the other macros for your goals, your size and your [00:42:00] situation is going to take care of the lean part. Cardio is very healthy. I would not recommend anyone just not do cardio no matter what. I think cardio can benefit pretty much anyone, but doing cardio for that reason. Getting leaner is something that works for a little while for a short period of time. If you're about to step on a bodybuilding stage or if you're about to go on this trip or if you're about to do a photo shoot, you want to be super peeled to the bone.

(00:42:26):

Doing cardio for a few weeks, leading into that in combination [00:42:30] of course with a calorie deficit can help augment the fat loss just a little bit more. But using it, relying on it to get lean long-term, your body just adapts to that over time and you're going to burn fewer and fewer calories. It's going to be stress you out more and more and more. You're going to have to eat less and less and less. It is not a good place to be. So in this case, the person would be better off doing maybe a little bit of cardio, an hour a week, maybe two hours a week, split into three, four sessions, mostly low intensity, if not all low intensity for some people [00:43:00] and lifting weights and just watching their diet. Then they would be trying to just blend it all together and feel like they're doing the best of both worlds.

(00:43:09):

Honestly, you're just getting the subpar stimulus of both worlds. It's not exactly doing what you think it's doing. Most people who do a bunch of circuit training don't really end up looking all that different. Of course, if you do a bunch of circuit training and you clean up your nutrition, you will get leaner. You probably will. You'll definitely maintain more muscle that way than you will just doing cardio, [00:43:30] but you still will lose some strength and muscle just because it's not enough of a stimulus. You're not actually training anywhere near failure and therefore you're not getting much mechanical tension and you are not resting anywhere near long enough because you just have to, if you aren't resting between sets a bunch of different exercises, you can't kind of by definition go hard on those sets. And in this case, since it's a bunch and it's a longer duration, think of like an F 45 style class.

(00:44:00):

[00:44:00] You have to pace yourself even more in order to be able to hang on and do it the entire time. So that means you have to go even less intense every time you do a lift or an exercise. So very, very overrated. And I would say for the most part, unless of course like I said, you're training for something that involves something similar to circuit training, most people shouldn't even do it at all. It's a waste of time for a lot of people. Or I would say you could consider strongman work, carries drags poles and things like [00:44:30] that to be more of a circuit. That is another exception, especially for guys prepping for selection. But I just like strongman workouts in general makes you just a more capable human being, but that's like once a week maybe for some people, depending on their goals, it's not just going to the gym every time and doing circuit training.

(00:44:46):

You probably feel like it did a lot more than it did. And that's kind of something that makes it even a little bit more in the overrated camp because people feel really tired, really accomplished, they [00:45:00] might feel really sore and they might sweat a lot, which gives you the illusion that you're doing something really, really good and believe me, this is better than sitting on the couch and doing nothing and not training at all or just being very, very inactive, but it is nowhere near, you're putting in way, way, way more work by circuit training than you otherwise could by watching your nutrition, lifting weights properly close to failure, resting between sets, compound lifts, main muscle groups, main movement patterns, and being [00:45:30] generally active, maybe doing a little bit of cardio, you're going to look way better. You're going to look way more toned and you're going to feel way better.

(00:45:37):

You're going to be healthier, and it's also going to be way less grueling to do it that way. Even if it seems like it's less grueling and it's therefore not working as well, it actually is going to work better. So this probably doesn't apply to a ton of people listening to this, but if your wife or if someone you know is trying to get lean or toned or whatever they want to call it, [00:46:00] definitely play them. This clip, and you don't have to take my word for it, but you can look online, you can ask chat GBT, and I'm sure that they will say something similar. But yeah, in general, overrated. Next one, energy gels. So what he's probably referring to is runner gels, so little packets of carbohydrates that you consume during your run. And I would say unless we're talking about the running community, in which case they're probably overrated, but in general, probably most people listening [00:46:30] to this as well as people who like to run, but they're not super duper fanatic about it, but maybe they have to do it for their job.

(00:46:36):

Underrated, very, very underrated. Not necessarily the energy gels themselves. It does not have to be a gel. It could be a gummy, it could be liquid carbohydrates, it could be fricking candy. Any sort of intro workout sugar that keeps your body from tapping into glycogen sooner and or maintains a solid level of glucose in the bloodstream throughout your [00:47:00] training that your body uses for energy is highly underrated because most people just don't really think of it. Or they'll bring one for a three hour run and they'll have one halfway through. You may as well not even bring that. Yeah, it's I guess doing a little bit, but really not all that much. Continuous intake of carbohydrates, especially for anything longer slash high intensity is going to be massive, especially too, if you are a bigger individual and you want to kind of maintain that size, but also you want to improve your cardio, you don't want to lose [00:47:30] a bunch of muscle.

(00:47:31):

You don't want to just feel skinny and struggle to recover and maybe beat up all the time. Having that steady calorie intake in the form of very fast digesting easy carbs such as energy gels and the other things I just mentioned is huge and having more of it than probably what a 115 pound runner would take in per hour. If you're a 240 pound male and you are following general intro workout nutrition guidelines, say for [00:48:00] a typical runner who's 130 pounds and all they do is run really not that much muscle mass and you're eating about the same during your run or your ruck even worse, you are definitely leaving some potential performance on the table because there's just so much more of you to soak up that fuel and your body holds so much more glycogen, and there's just more to circulate around your body.

(00:48:24):

So increasing it, not necessarily doubling. So if you see 130 pound [00:48:30] elite runner takes in 80 grams of carbs per hour, I would not double it. There's a limit to how many grams of carbs you can take per hour, but something around a hundred, maybe one 20 working your way up there, maybe not going straight there easing into it so your gut gets used to it so you don't give yourself all these GI issues would be a really good idea. And I talk about this quite often. I really talked about it a ton when I was prepping for my ultra back in last winter in spring, and I haven't talked about it much recently, but having some sort of continuous intake of carbohydrates, [00:49:00] whether it's every 20 minutes, every 30 minutes, you could go every 45 minutes, but usually 20 to 30 minutes. And then just dividing however many carbs per hour, you're looking to take that every 20 minutes.

(00:49:11):

Say you're looking for 75 grams of carbs per hour at the 20 minute mark, you take 25. Most of these gels are conveniently about 25 grams of carbs, 40 minute mark, another 25, 60 minute mark, another 25 boom, you hit your 75. And [00:49:30] just that simple act of making sure that you're taking in that continuous carbohydrate, the easy digesting forms, you can't just do this with any carbohydrate. It's got to be very low fiber, really, really fast, digesting really, really what's called fast gastric emptying in order for it to work really well without slowing you down and weighing you down and making you feel terrible or making you feel nauseous or giving you the shits. It is super-duper underrated and you're missing out if you're not, again, don't feel like you have to get the gels. They can be [00:50:00] pretty expensive, especially the better tasting ones and the more effective ones.

(00:50:04):

Candy can work some sort of liquid, whether it's tailwind or even some watered down Gatorade. It's totally fine, but something, definitely consider something, especially if you are just trying to perform better and recover better, because these things will help you perform better and recover better. Next one, egg whites. Oh man, this one's tough, tough, tough, tough. I'm going to say egg whites are properly rated because [00:50:30] some people overrate them, some people underrate them. I would say they're overrated. In the case of people just eating egg whites for their protein for breakfast and not adding at least one egg, preferably two or three to the mix because the cholesterol and the fatty acids in egg yolks are highly, highly beneficial for especially cholesterol is kind of like a steroid hormone, so it can help you build more muscle. And also eating the yolk in combination [00:51:00] with the whites, even if it's way more whites in way fewer yolks, enhances the muscle protein synthesis effect of eating that protein combined with the fat of the egg yolks.

(00:51:11):

So in that case, they would be overrated. They are underrated. However, because a lot of people, I talk about this quite often, especially if you are after performance, a lot of people eat a ton of fat, whether they know it or not. And if you're having 5, 6, 7, 8 eggs for breakfast, nothing wrong with that inherently, [00:51:30] but it's going to be pretty much a one-to-one fat to protein ratio in eggs. So you might be getting six grams of protein, six grams of fat per egg. So if you have say, 60 grams of carb or 60 grams of fat allotted to you to eat that day, so you have enough room for of course your protein as well as eating high carbs to fuel your performance and you eat six eggs for breakfast, six full eggs, you're getting more than half, you're getting about 36 grams of fat.

(00:51:59):

So it's more [00:52:00] than half of your fat allowed for the day all in one meal, which is again, not the end of the world if you have a plan in place to kind of keep your fat low for the rest of the day and still hit your other macros, but it's just worth considering. Whereas you could get great effects, great benefits from having say two eggs, so that's like 12 grams of fat total. And then adding a bunch of egg whites. Normally what I do for breakfast is two whole eggs and one cup of egg whites, and that comes out to be, I think like 40 grams of protein total, [00:52:30] but it's only like 12 grams of fat. Whereas if I had four or 5, 6, 7 eggs, I would just have way more fat and way more calories. You still get the benefits of the absorption that I talked about earlier, as well as the cholesterol benefits from eating, even if it's just a couple eggs with your breakfast.

(00:52:46):

So for those type of people, and there's probably a lot of people listening to this that this applies to, they'd be underrated. Yes, of course you could get protein elsewhere. You could have a protein shake on the side. You could have two eggs with a protein shake on the [00:53:00] side. That's fine. But I really like a big portion of eggs personally and a lot of people do. And when you make these adjustments and increase the ratio of egg whites to egg yolks, it can still taste really good. It can still be like this big, visually appealing plate of eggs and it's got way more protein without adding too much extra fat. So in that case, they'd be underrated. So overall, because some people overrate them, some people underrate them, I would say they're properly rated, but I highly recommend eating egg whites. I eat them [00:53:30] every single day.

(00:53:31):

And also just in case anyone's wondering, because I've had people ask me this to eat egg whites, you don't need to take a full egg and pour the white into a pan or pour the white into a measuring cup or whatever, and then toss the yolk. You can buy liquid egg whites on the side. It's way more cost effective. You don't actually have to throw out these valuable egg yolks. Of course, if you're in a pinch, like the other day I was at the airport and we went to the Delta lounge and [00:54:00] all they had was scrambled eggs, which was probably like fake eggs, and they had hard boiled eggs. So I had two hard boiled eggs and then I grabbed three other eggs and just ate the egg whites. That's of course an exception. If I were eating my own eggs, I wouldn't do that.

(00:54:14):

But just to give you a little bit of an example. So overrated plus underrated equals properly rated. Alright, we will do one more. The keto diet. The keto diet is highly overrated because a, people think that a lot of people don't [00:54:30] do it properly, but say you do do it properly, which is very high fat, moderate protein, very low to no carbs. I think it's under 50 grams of carbs per day, and a lot of people will do really, really high protein, a little bit less fat and really low carbs, and it's not quite the same. You don't get the same ketosis effects or ketosis benefits that you would from actual keto, and you could be potentially missing out on some valuable micronutrients depending on [00:55:00] what you're choosing. Not the end of the world to do for short periods of time, but usually having tons and tons of protein, decent amount of fat and low carbs is not super sustainable.

(00:55:10):

It can be just food for thought, but if you do it properly and have, I think it's like 70% fat, 20% protein, 10% carbs or something like that, I could be off on those, but somewhere around there, then it can be beneficial. It can put you into ketosis. So being in ketosis essentially means your body is using a fuel source other than your [00:55:30] recently consumed carbohydrates or your stored carbohydrates in the form of glycogen for energy. So it is a very smooth and a very, I would say, steady. So it doesn't go up and down and up and down like it can sometimes when you are eating a lot of carbohydrates energy source. So a lot of people will feel like they have very good mental clarity. They'll feel generally good throughout the day instead of feeling ups and downs of [00:56:00] frequent carbohydrate intake. But also there's a downside because ketones are not a very efficient fuel source for any sort of training, any sort of higher intensity training.

(00:56:10):

Lower intensity, yes, higher intensity stuff, not necessarily. Generally you're going to want stored glycogen from carbohydrates, just your macro carbohydrate intake, and you're going to want circulating glucose as well. That's going to give you more immediate energy and it's going to work way better for anything intense. But you can also consider, and some people do do this, [00:56:30] they'll eat keto parts of the year and they will time higher carb days or higher carb parts of a day around their bigger training sessions as well as around their races. So there's a very well-known, at least in the ultra community runner named Zach Bitter, and he is well-known for eating very low carb. I'm not sure if he's full keto or just low carb. I'm pretty sure he is keto most of the time. But when he has his bigger, longer training sessions or multiple training sessions in a short [00:57:00] period of time or when he's going out to run his actual races, I think he just beat his own record for fastest per mile pace over 24 hours.

(00:57:09):

It was something insane. It was seven, it was either over 24 hours or over a hundred miles, but I think it was over 24 hours. It was something like seven 15 per mile, which is absolutely insane. But anyway, he will strategically consume high carbs on those days. So his body's really, really receptive to those high carb intakes. However, [00:57:30] he's more of a unique case. He's more of an exception than the rule. He's definitely an exception, not the rule. Most people and most high level athletes, most people listening to this, most people who are training for multiple different things, and I would say almost everyone, unless of course you have some sort of autoimmune issue that restricts you from eating too many carbs, most people listening to this that are into well-rounded fitness, hybrid fitness, tactical fitness, whatever you want to call it, selection prep, would benefit from eating a lot more carbs and not being in ketosis.

(00:57:58):

The thing about keto is it [00:58:00] originated as a treatment for epilepsy or a way to manage epilepsy. So when you're running on ketones, you're less likely to have seizures. And absolutely that is the case. If I had epilepsy or if someone had epilepsy, they'd probably benefit from a keto style diet. But for other people who don't have those issues and also have interest in maximizing their potential muscle gain, maximizing their potential athletic performance looking better, honestly, you're going to just look better when you have [00:58:30] carbohydrates, when you have muscle glycogen, when you're on keto, you're kind of just going to be flat. And yeah, I mean for some people, if it helps them lose weight, if you're really overweight, you go into keto and you lose weight, then it's very good for you. That's awesome. It's not the only way you could have lost weight, but it's absolutely fine if you like it.

(00:58:47):

But if you are already lean or maybe you want to get a little more jacked or maybe you want to lift and gain strength as well as improve your running at the same time or rucking at the same time in almost every case, [00:59:00] again, aside from the potential autoimmune issue, you're going to be better off eating plenty of carbohydrates. Honestly, really prioritizing carbohydrates. That doesn't mean eat no fat, it just means limit your fat so you can fit more carbohydrates into your diet. So I would say overrated because a lot of people think it's this really, really magic thing and more people than should be on it are on it. And also people usually don't follow it correctly. And lastly, actually, this is not going to be lastly, but it's going to be a next thing. [00:59:30] Generally speaking, there's nothing wrong with trying diets out to see if you like them, but a lot of people go into keto expecting to do it forever, and they realize how in most cases, unless you're really, really strict and really, really on your game, it's pretty unsustainable to do forever.

(00:59:46):

Oftentimes, when people get back into eating carbs, a the floodgates open and they just go to town on whatever carbs they possibly can find, whatever they've been thinking about for months, however long they've been doing keto and just looking forward to eating carbs again, which [01:00:00] honestly is not really the right way to approach it. You're supposed to just stay on keto or reintroduce carbs, very, very minor and subtly and gradually people go to town and they feel terrible. Your body's just not used to processing all those carbs. So you feel terrible. You look super bloated, you gain a bunch of weight and you increase your inflammation, and it's just not a good look. It's not a good feel, and it's not really all that great for your just quality of life. So that's not to say that you need to follow keto forever. You can absolutely [01:00:30] slowly and intentionally increase your carbohydrate intake after being on keto for a while.

(01:00:36):

But a lot of people don't do that. And additionally, once those floodgates open, oftentimes it's open for several days, maybe a week, maybe longer than a week, really, really hard to stop eating carbohydrates once you go really high on carbs. I was talking about a little life update at the beginning about how I, after my high carb days, I'm just super hungry. That absolutely can happen too when you go from keto to just smashing a bunch of carbs. [01:01:00] So additionally, the last thing before we end this episode, a lot of people will approach keto in a way that I was kind of talking about earlier with the Kodiak cakes and the protein pasta. They will go for keto processed foods, but oftentimes it's super duper high in fat because it's keto. Keto is supposed to be high in fat, but they will go eat more calories from a pint of keto ice cream than they would from a Ben and Jerry's just because it [01:01:30] says keto on it.

(01:01:31):

And yes, not everything is about calories, but when people approach keto, especially less informed people, especially dabbler who are just trying it out, they oftentimes don't understand that you still have to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose weight. So just switching to eating a ton of fat and a little bit of protein without watching your calorie intake is not enough. You actually, if you want to lose weight and or maintain your weight, you have to be in a calorie deficit slash maintenance to maintain it. Even [01:02:00] if you're on keto, even if you're fasting, even if you're on whatever diet you can possibly think of, a calorie deficit is necessary. For all of those reasons and probably some more I'm not thinking of right now, I would consider the keto diet overrated. And yeah, that's it guys. I am losing my ability to formulate coherent sentences. At least that's what it feels like to me. So we're going to wrap this one up. Thank you so much for tuning in. Appreciate the contribution to this. And until next time, Terminator route.