Creating A Personal Framework for Longevity:  Escaping Chronic Disease, Optimizing Your Body, & Living Beyond The Norm with Elias Arjan from Healthspan Productions. EP 004

[00:00:00] Stephen: All right, Elias, welcome to the podcast. 

[00:00:04] Elias: All right. Awesome to be here, Steven. And we're in person, which is nice. I do so many of these, you know, virtually, so it's great to be in the studio with you. 

[00:00:11] Stephen: Yeah, I appreciate you coming out. I mean, obviously I know we're doing something together this weekend, but to get, to have someone come here and, and talk, I mean, last night we talked for hours, right?

[00:00:22] Stephen: We probably could have 

[00:00:23] Elias: just turned on the Yeah, we should just turned on the mics. Like that would've been perfect. 

[00:00:26] Stephen: Yeah. But I'm really excited to have you on a podcast because I view you as a longevity philosopher, and you're someone who thinks critically about longevity. And I would like the, , the listeners to understand the power of putting longevity, which includes, in my opinion, anti-aging and increasing your health span.

[00:00:49] Stephen: And we'll talk about that stuff. But putting this stuff into a framework where it allows you to. Strategically go after it, but it also allows you to see the, the hierarchy of what comes next and in order to matriculate to the next level and take care of your fundamentals. You know? I mean, do you see yourself as 

[00:01:11] Elias: someone that, yeah, I mean, you said that to me and I kind, I kind of like it.

[00:01:14] Elias: I don't think the, I don't know if that's a. Uh, a job title that you're gonna find anyone sort of advertising, but I'll take it. Um, I think it's a cool idea, and I guess you're right. I have spent a lot of time thinking deeply about this and I, uh, often talk about that. I spent sort of the last two years post pandemic sort of traveling around through a lot of different conferences and speaking to all of the thought leaders and kind of analyzing not only the longevity space, but the adjacent spaces.

[00:01:41] Elias: So look, looking even at like corporate wellness and, you know, uh, medical treatments and all of these different, and trying to come up with, like you said, a framework that kind of talks about where. The world is, um, so I guess in a way that is kind of like a philosophy or, uh, I've done some analysis that I haven't really heard anybody put together in a framework, so I think that's what you want to get into, right?

[00:02:03] Stephen: Yeah. , maybe if you could just kind of tell us what is the current state of all the stuff that you've, you know, you've gone all these conferences and you've, , looked at the landscape on so many different levels. What, how would you explain where we're at and what is coming? 

[00:02:18] Elias: So I think, you know, people have heard, you know, the occasional like Forbes article or they see something pop pop up on like Apple News.

[00:02:25] Elias: You know, like, you know, aging is a disease that's gonna be cured. And, and I think there's a lot, I think that the mainstream has the idea that that's maybe, you know, hyperbole. Right, like that people are exaggerating the potential outcomes of what's gonna happen in longevity. Um, and there probably are some people promoting it because it's obviously their focus and their business model as well.

[00:02:47] Elias: But the reality is, is we've never had the opportunity that we've had for the quality of interventions, uh, that we have now, which a lot of you already talk about on this podcast. You know, all of the things like the peptides and just understanding how to optimize our exercise so that we extend that health spend.

[00:03:06] Elias: So there's a lot of, a lot of new information. So the way I usually break it down, at least at the first stage is that you have your behaviors and then you have your interventions and the behaviors are the things we know, right? Get, get enough sleep, exercise, dial in your nutrition, uh, deal with your mental health so that you're, you're in a positive mental state.

[00:03:27] Elias: I've added two more into that standard four, which is also, um, reintegrating with nature. Right, because for tens of millions of years, these organisms, these 40 trillion cells that we are, uh, were hunter-gatherers. So we're, you know, our, our system is trained as hunter-gatherers. And now in 150 years, we've come so far from nature that there's a lot of disease that's coming from that disconnection with the natural world.

[00:03:55] Elias: And so we can talk about that if you wanna go into like circadian rhythm, and I'm sure you've talked about that on that podcast. So just to finish this off, reintegration with nature and then also the quality of your relationships. And I think that's actually undervalued to a large degree. People think that they don't realize that it's not only important for you to have good relationships for your mental health and just to be a happy person, but it literally impacts how long you're gonna live.

[00:04:22] Stephen: Yeah. It's funny because when I look at the way I've gone about all this stuff, I a little bit neglected that part, cuz to me I looked at, I underappreciated relationships and community. I, I appreciated the nature aspect cuz I, I, you can feel that it, to me it was like every time I went out into nature I was like, I just feel better.

[00:04:48] Stephen: But selfishly, it's one of the reasons why I started this podcast cuz I said I want to connect with human beings. I don't want to be sitting in front of a computer. You know? Cuz when you decide to all of a sudden start being somebody who's doing this full-time and putting out content and trying to help people with this stuff, you're confronted with the fact that now you're in front of a computer a lot.

[00:05:14] Stephen: Right. And this podcast has just been, I mean, I wanted to help people, but at the same time, selfishly was like, I. Desperately need more connection. 

[00:05:25] Elias: Right. And, and people, like I said, I think really undervalue actually the largest study, the long, the longest longitudinal study in history has been the Harvard Longevity Study where they analyzed all of these Harvard students and they followed them throughout their entire life.

[00:05:42] Elias: So it's been going on, I think 60 some, maybe 70 years. So a lot of them, you know, have, uh, even passed on. And they've actually even asked some of their, I believe, their children or relatives to continue reporting on behalf of the grandparents that they were measuring. And one of the things they found was that when, for example, I'm sure you've all heard these stories, you know, if a couple is married and one of them dies, the spouse dies very quickly thereafter.

[00:06:06] Elias: Yeah. Right. Or if there's a divorce, and it seems to impact men even more than women. But if there's a divorce and the man is left alone later in life, he just dies. Like, he just has no reason maybe to live anymore. He doesn't have that support around him. And he just goes, so y you know, they, you don't think, you know, you, you don't wanna say like, he died of loneliness.

[00:06:27] Elias: But literally that does seem to be a potential thing. And then if you look at the fact that our society, you know, even with the younger generation loneliness and, and sense of feeling alone is, is becoming a pervasive, um, experience of modern humans because we're isolated, we're in our computers, we're in our little, you know, coves of, of, you know, we, we sort of, you know, stayed at home a lot more, turned our homes into these like cocoons.

[00:06:54] Elias: And so if you do wanna live a long life, don't undervalue relationships. You're fortunate because you're what I would call an internal referencing person, which means that you're able to stay at home. Have your home gym work out and train really hard on your own. A lot of people won't do that. A lot of people need to go to like a CrossFit gym where they're surrounded by people egging them on to get them to train hard.

[00:07:20] Elias: So, you know, you have different types of people as well. So if you're more internal referencing person, you may be able to maintain a healthy lifestyle, a little more isolated than others. But some people, like, you know, left to their own devices, they're on the couch, you know, eating a, a tub of HOAs. Right.

[00:07:36] Elias: And that's, that's what they're, that's where they're gonna go. Like, that's their default state. 

[00:07:41] Stephen: Yeah. Yeah. And no, it's a, it's a, it's a good point. I, I have a lot of gratitude for that internal ability to be self-motivating. , I think the most connected I am with myself. Is when I'm in isolation and doing things for my health, like sitting in a sauna or working out or like learn, like diving into things that, , change and affect my physiology.

[00:08:09] Stephen: I just, I feel it feels so normal to me cuz my whole history, if you think about it, like being an athlete, starting as a kid was like this solo thing of going to the gym. I didn't even, I I, my coaches, I had to, I motivated them to train more. I told my coach when I was. , 13, 14 years old, I said, we gotta start coming in on Sundays.

[00:08:34] Elias: Well, I mean, Stephen, you're an outlier. Okay, buddy. You're like an outlier. But, but here's, you know, like there's not that many people who, you know, have like an ingrained program from childhood to sort of operate and manage their own performance to such an elite level, right? You're, you're an elite group, you know, in that sense of you've developed that skill.

[00:08:53] Elias: So a lot of what I'm trying to do is, you know, get everybody to understand what it would take to live a hundred healthy years, because we know that's a potential health span for every human on this planet. With the right optimization strategy again, coming back Yeah. With the right behaviors, because you can't, you can't expect cell cell and gene therapy to answer all your problems if you eat crap and never go to the gym and never work out.

[00:09:17] Elias: Right? Yeah. So that's not gonna work. Um, but it's like I said, you're, you're a unique case, right? You know, so, so I think a big part of what I'm trying to do is see how do we make longevity more accessible, you know, for more people, because a lot of people still see it as like an elite opportunity, or they think it's very abstract.

[00:09:36] Elias: Like, it's like, oh yeah, I'm gonna go to some clinic and they're gonna, you know, manipulate my cells or gimme these weird injections, which, you know, you do, you do peptides, right? Yeah. So those injections are real, but, but I'm trying to under figure out how do we get more people and understand that this is an option because.

[00:09:54] Elias: The standard state of Americans right now and, and globally it's growing as well, is basically chronic disease. Like that's becoming now the, the baseline of our society, and that's really not okay. 

[00:10:09] Stephen: Yeah, I, uh, I I did wanna just close the loop on, on, on me real quick that, you know, because it is a double-edged sword when you are the way I am, because it can be isolating, right?

[00:10:19] Stephen: And it kind of goes back to that connection and, and really wanting to interact with people like you that are, have a, a, a common, we have a common theme in life, right? Right. But at the same time, I think we're, you and I are like a good sort of puzzle piece fit for each other because you, you have this ability to help me learn at, at a, a level that , is broader and , encompasses more, , of the population and the demographic, whereas sometimes I can be a little bit more.

[00:10:50] Stephen: Maybe unrelatable in a way, right? Because of my nature. , but , I am so keen on seeing people that have the ability to. To bring this longevity lifestyle to the mass populace. And I think that you are on the precipice of really being somebody who is, is engineering that, I wanna talk about a little bit about this, what you're doing now with this health span and, and again, how you talk about the hundred years of life, right?

[00:11:23] Stephen: And, and what your kind of, what your big push with that and what, what you're doing. Because I think it's, it's, every time I talk to you, I'm like, man, you're really doing some good stuff. 

[00:11:32] Elias: Oh, thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Well, you're part of it, right? Because I see you as being, you know, we're, we're building that sort of healthspan ecosystem, right?

[00:11:40] Elias: So we're calling it, um, the healthspan ecosystem to advance longevity. And the whole idea is to bring in. A lot of different players who can speak to the different pieces, right? So you have a great ability to talk around exercise, supplementation, peptides, and you've done n equals one on yourself, and you're a living model of, uh, uh, uh, an optimized, you know, person almost turning 50.

[00:12:07] Elias: I mean, any, any normal human would like, dream of having your, you know, physique and stamina and capacity, but you've worked very hard at that, right? So you, you, but that's great because you embody that model, so you become like the archetype of like, here's what you can do if you practice longevity at that level.

[00:12:26] Elias: And so that gives people something to aspire to. But again, like to me, I see that as a, as a, as a. Piece of the larger puzzle cuz we gotta reach everybody, right? So some people gotta have a different archetype to aspire to. And, you know, you, you gotta, it's gotta be inclusive. It's gotta include all of the different models to reach all of these people.

[00:12:46] Elias: Because if we're gonna get every human out of chronic disease into an optimized state, and then, because it's it, like you said, we can talk about that hierarchy, but it's not like you jump from Hagen das on the couch to, you know, super longevity, right? Yeah. Like there's a, there's a path that has to be, you know, you have to go through.

[00:13:06] Elias: And so we're building all of the different players, um, You know, you're gonna be one of our speakers at the House Band Summit, which is coming up in May. And that's an opportunity for us to start taking some of those thought leaders. We have right now, over 30 speakers coming and, uh, you know, from some, from all over the world.

[00:13:22] Elias: So there's people feeling the call, like you said, like you see that we're building something unique. So, so I, I'm really feel very fortunate and grateful to all of the people supporting this. And then now we're gonna start calling in and sharing the public, with the public what we've been developing with the brands, the speakers, the thought leaders, the scientists, the researchers, just putting it all together and then helping humanity.

[00:13:46] Stephen: Yeah, I think it's awesome, man. I'm really, I'm really excited for you. I told you last night that you're one of the most emotionally intelligent. People I've come across in a long time. Oh, and, and you have this, um, I think ability to see beyond the, uh, I think they're in life. There's these emotional constructs that we can get stuck in.

[00:14:09] Stephen: And , you have the ability to kind of look at it objectively and say, no, no, that's just this construct and I'm, I don't want to get caught up in that loop or something like that. I'm always trying to deconstruct when you say stuff and like, what is your.

[00:14:24] Stephen: Education in terms of understanding the way people operate, cuz you have some gift. 

[00:14:31] Elias: Uh, I think it happens like, well you were a kid and you were doing your gymnastics. When I was a kid, I literally kind of be quite honest. Like I felt like I was sort of an. Alien anthropologist dropped on this planet.

[00:14:45] Elias: You know what I mean? In some way, like, I just found myself watching, even in when I was in school, like the schoolyard behavior. You know, you had the bullies, you had the cool kids, you had the, the nerds, you know, you had all these, and I was just sort of sitting there watching all of this and sort of analyzing it.

[00:14:59] Elias: I ha I've always had a very analytical mind and. Um, and my parents were also unique. My upbringing was unique cause my parents encouraged me philosophically. So, uh, my father was a religion major, and so I was brought up with a lot of the different world religions. I was studying philosophy from essentially the time I could read almost.

[00:15:18] Elias: There's that philosopher. And so I think I've spent a lot of my life, kind of like you said, like with a philosophical mindset, trying to understand anything, any situation I put myself into. And then, you know, as I got older into my twenties, I even did things like I lived in a Buddhist monastery and I studied meditation, which is kind of the ultimate way to learn that objective self, right?

[00:15:41] Elias: So like you're in a situation, but instead of getting consumed by it, you, you step back and you observe the situation from that observer place and you say, well, what's actually happening here? Why am I having these emotional reactions to it? Because, You're, you're as a human being, your physiological system could, will be reacting, right?

[00:16:00] Elias: Like, you know, you feel a threat, you know, you get a hit of adrenaline, you're gonna react. But the meditation and, and the sort of Buddhist training tell, teaches you to step back from that and be more in that observer place. And I guess I've spent basically many ways my entire life in that place.

[00:16:18] Elias: Absolutely. I'm always observing things And so, like I said, when I go to these conferences or when I look into the longevity space, I'm participating, but at the same time I'm watching it from that observer place and saying, well, what's happening here? Who are the people? How are they interacting? What is the languaging that underlies this?

[00:16:37] Elias: And then even below that, like what is the belief system? People would have to have to believe that this is possible. Right? So cuz there's a lot of unspoken things that are, that are already assumed. And, and each, in each community. Yeah. 

[00:16:53] Stephen: Yeah. We talked a little bit about that. How there's this hierarchy of almost a belief of like, at the, at the tip top is the immortalists.

[00:17:03] Stephen: Right? Right. Like they're the people that are just, are like, I'm never gonna die. Right? Like, and, and there's a strong belief there, like a almost religious right? In the sense that, because you're talking about almost immortality, right? You're talking about, forever. And it is interesting that you can kind of see people like, where, how long they've been in this game, based on where they are in that hierarchy, right?

[00:17:27] Stephen: So do, do you wanna go into 

[00:17:28] Elias: that? Yeah. Why, why not? Because, yeah, so, so, so the little hierarchy that I've designed, and I gotta turn this into a graphic, I'm working on it. I, I was sharing this with you last night, um, because it's something that I've, I realized. So we have kind of the. If you look at the, the idea of sort of the longevity space in intersecting with humanity, right?

[00:17:49] Elias: So, so we we're going a little bit deeper. So you have at the lowest tier. You have people who will start with people who have chronic disease. Right? So right now, unfortunately, that's a very high proportion of people who are, you know, in a state of chronic disease, or you have actually even below that, you have people who are like pre-diabetic.

[00:18:07] Elias: So they don't have a chronic disease yet, but they're probably not in the best shape of health, right? So you have, so you have at the bottom, people with chronic disease, they're being kept, you know, I won't say alive, but they're kept functional through medications, through, you know, maybe if you have kidney dialysis, right?

[00:18:26] Elias: Like, like, and some of these are conditions that people unfortunately have developed just because of circumstances. So I don't want to start sounding like I'm blaming everything on behavioral choices. Yeah. But a lot of the chronic diseases are, you know, even the cdc, you know, lists that the majority of chronic diseases, whether it's pre-diabetes or, uh, sorry, diabetes or um, You know, a lot of cardiovascular conditions or even morbid, morbidly, morbid obesity or lifestyle choices, right?

[00:18:54] Elias: So you have that layer, um, of people who have chronic disease, and then above them you have people who are close to it. They haven't hit that yet, right? So they're pre-diabetic, they're at risk. I mean, there's one study from the University of Chapel Hill, North Carolina that suggests as much as 90% of Americans are metabolically impossible.

[00:19:16] Elias: Oh, oh my goodness. 90%. Right? And, and I would, I would estimate from, since I've gone keto myself, and I had to teach my body to convert from, you know, gly or glycogen, you know, uh, dependent is my energy fuel to keto. To kit ketones. You know, that was a big journey for me. Like it took me years to do that and, and I think very few people outside of the core keto people have done that.

[00:19:42] Elias: So most people aren't dual adapted. Like definitely because we're so, because you know that when I was, even when I was a personal trainer, we used to advise people eat every two hours. Remember that? Yeah. Advice. Yeah, totally. Yeah. You know, when we were growing up, like that was the advice for like fitness enthusiasts and that was what we told people to do.

[00:19:59] Stephen: Yeah. I mean, if you're gonna try to pack on as much muscle as possible, I think it's a good strategy to activate mTOR, like all day long. And , if you are doing the work right, and you're doing it for a specified amount of time, like you're, you're like, I'm gonna do three months of like packing on 10 pounds of muscle and then I'm gonna go back to.

[00:20:17] Stephen: You know, not eating like that, but people get stuck in that 

[00:20:19] Elias: forever. Well, also too, I mean, like, yeah, we, you know, we hear that that's the diet, you know, the, you know, the movie STAR did to, to get, be, you know, get beefed up for Thor or, you know, like a Marvel superhero character, right? Yeah. And you think, oh, well that's how we're supposed to do this.

[00:20:33] Elias: Right? But the reality is, is that most people, unless you're training that hard, like it doesn't make sense. So, so we're not dual adapted. So you have all these people who aren't technically have a chronic disease, but they're, you know, they could tip at any time and they will tip before as they get older, right?

[00:20:49] Elias: So that's the thing, like even if you're healthy enough, you know, in your. Fifties or sixties, something's gonna come up, right? Yeah. And so you're gonna spend those last 20, 10, 20, 30 years in some disease state, right? And that's, that's not what we want in the longevity space. So we want to get out of that, right?

[00:21:07] Elias: So we want to get out of that state where now you're optimized, right? So you're not at risk of chronic disease, you're in a really well optimized state, and you're at least gonna live the standard lifespan, and you're going to probably have a relatively normal decline, which a relatively normal decline still is not advisable.

[00:21:29] Elias: Right? Yeah. Because that's like starts at 35, right? Well, I guess, I mean, depending on the person, but I think the more severe. Things happen usually in their fifties, right? Like fifties is when people start to like, get those aches and pains. I can't go to the gym anymore, you know, I can't work out like I used to, you know, and people are starting to have problems.

[00:21:48] Elias: And then, you know, in their sixties and seventies, you know, they can't lift up. Maybe in their seventies they can't even lift up a bag of groceries anymore, right? Yeah. They can't walk unaided. They, they can't, there's a lot of things they can't do. And then, you know, people are dying. Typically the, the lifespan is, you know, somewhere between 75 and 79 for a minute.

[00:22:06] Elias: Women in America, yeah. So they're, they're, they're normal. That's normal. And then longevity is one step beyond that. So now you want to do the interventions, which is what you talk about a lot. So that from your fifties, that that health span, and that's the word there to me, that that word is more important than longevity, because that means that from the fifties on, you maintain.

[00:22:30] Elias: That optimal state beyond your fifties, into your sixties, into your seventies, so your health span is extended, but you're probably still maybe just gonna like do well and then hopefully you decline quickly and die. Yeah. Right. Yeah. That's kinda like the optimal goal from that extended health spann space.

[00:22:47] Elias: Then the next tier is longevity, and that's when you start saying, well, not only am I going to be optimized, and not only am I going to be healthy into my seventies, but I'm actually gonna live beyond the norm, which means that I'm not gonna die in my seventies. I'm gonna live to a hundred years old.

[00:23:04] Elias: Right. Yeah. That's what I'm aiming for. That's where I, I am trying to live now myself and, and sort of advocating for this idea because now we know we can do the interventions. We come in, we extend that lifespan or that he, that health span into the seventies, and then using the technologies and the interventions that are available, we can actually even extend that health spann and lifespan to about a hundred.

[00:23:29] Elias: And then the next tier is super longevity, is the people who are talking about curing aging as a disease or at least treating it so that we can live now beyond what we have humans living, which is about 120 years is kind of like the current max. Yeah. And they're suggesting that maybe we could live 150, 200 years.

[00:23:49] Stephen: Yeah. Unless you go to Raad Fest they say 800 years. 

[00:23:52] Elias: Well that's the Immortalists. Okay. That's the next one. So we have, so we have longevity, then you have like super longevity and then that was the top of the pyramid of the hierarchy is the immortalists is that we will not die. Yeah. That we will contin.

[00:24:04] Elias: And that's Abi Gray talks about that is like longevity escape velocity. Have you heard that term? Yeah. Yeah, I have. Yeah. So, so that's kind of the idea that you right now, if you can optimize your longevity in health enough to live safe. Well optimized for another 20 years. Now, within the next 20 years, maybe with AI and all these new technologies, we're gonna figure out a way to extend that life.

[00:24:31] Elias: Another 50, you know, 20 years in 20 years. So then all of a sudden you live another 20 years, the technology evolves and then it just keeps evolving. And as long as you can keep alive, you could live indefinitely and you achieve longevity, escape velocity. Yeah, 

[00:24:45] Stephen: I think I've heard this many times.

[00:24:46] Stephen: It's like, if you can just stay alive long enough that eventually these technologies, cuz it is gonna be based on some sort of tech, you know, or, or biotech, uh, will come along to allow something, you know, and then you. They're probably gonna have to have enough money. Right. And the balls to, to actually do some of that stuff.

[00:25:07] Stephen: But we see some, I mean, I interviewed, you know, Paul Tozer, it was my first podcast, you know, and I met him at, uh, Rapfest, and he, he was doing gene therapy and plasma exchange. He was, and I was like, man, you are doing, like, the stuff that we, we thought was still kind of fiction, 

[00:25:23] Elias: you know? Yes. That, that's the key thing for people to realize.

[00:25:26] Elias: It's not fiction anymore. Yeah. It's 

[00:25:27] Stephen: not. Just to offer, anyone who's listening to this, they go, okay, well everything just made sense that, uh, that you're talking about. And that's interesting. And so what would I do in each one of those categories to matriculate and scale up to the top

[00:25:44] Stephen: and maybe we can Yeah. Kind of throw some ideas on the table. I mean, I, I think at the base of the triangle, if you want to call it that, is sleep. Nutrition, exercise. I call it stress management and subjective wellbeing. So that's gonna be how well you have dealt with your trauma in life, right? How well you're dealing with stress in the moment.

[00:26:07] Stephen: And then also adding good stress, right? Sauna, cold therapy, like building resiliency, right? And then in that category would be love, community, and friendship. So that's, it's a rather big category. 

[00:26:18] Elias: It is, you know? Yeah. Yeah. And then the nature I said, I would also add to that. Yeah. So you have those four, and then I would add, and then you add nature, and then you add community.

[00:26:26] Elias: And then, so you have six things that you already need, and that's what you need to do, like you said, to get rid of the bottom. If you're in that chronic disease state, you know, a lot of time it's because like we said, it's lifestyle choices, right? Yeah. So it's, it's that diet not exercising enough. Being too sedentary, and, and how do you get out of that lifestyle?

[00:26:44] Elias: Well, part of that is have people that inspire you, right? Um, I mentioned this to you the other day, but I remember when I was a personal trainer, I had a, a. And again, it was probably just genetic. But I had a guy who looked healthy. He was in his mid forties only and he had had a minor stroke, like, like not nothing severe, but he had had a minor stroke.

[00:27:06] Elias: And I had been training at that point I was a relatively near personal trainer, but I had trained a, trained a couple dozen people and when this guy came in, he was motivated. He was like, he had his notebook and every word I said, he was writing down like gospel, I will eat this. I will work out like this.

[00:27:23] Elias: I, cuz he was motivated. He had two young children and he was like, I want to live for my family. Yeah. And that guy was not going to fail. Like I looked at him and I said, this will be a person, like of everybody I've trained up until this point, this guy will be training 20 years from now. Like he's still gonna be coming to the gym.

[00:27:42] Elias: So you need to find a reason. And a purpose and a drive and a motivation that gets you out of that bottom state. And that's really important. I think that's often missing because it's not just willpower in that sense, like, you know, you're lazy, whatever. It's more that you know, you're not inspired by something or you need to find where is that drive inside of you to get out of that state of chronic disease to move up and, and start doing those behaviors.

[00:28:12] Elias: Cuz everybody knows what we need we're supposed to do. Yeah. 

[00:28:15] Stephen: Yeah. I completely agree with you. I always say it starts in the mind, everything starts in the mindset. So I, I I call it motivation or mindset. And anyone that is great at anything, they have a particular mindset about it. That, uh, that's what I talk about a lot is how to.

[00:28:36] Stephen: Link health and longevity with your deepest purpose. Yeah. And for a lot of people, it's their family. Mm-hmm. And their kids. And so how do we do that? I, I love the five why's, you know, why do you wanna live a long time? Why do you wanna be healthy? Right. You know, and if you keep asking them why, and then they say, well, I wanna do this.

[00:28:56] Stephen: And you go, well, why do you want that? And you keep asking them, eventually they will get to something that is real. Right. And powerful. And they'll be like, and they'll feel it. Yeah. And that's when you're like, that's, that's where you wanna build your motivation. 

[00:29:10] Elias: That's your, that's your seed that you need to nurture and grow.

[00:29:13] Elias: Yeah. From Right. So you need to nurture that idea and, and, you know, cultivate it. And wa cuz it is, it's like a seed. It doesn't, it's not just gonna sprout and suddenly turn into a tree. Immediately. It's like, okay, you have a seed of what's gonna motivate you, but you gotta cultivate it. You're gonna fall off the wagon, you're gonna miss the gym.

[00:29:32] Elias: You're gonna have days where you don't eat perfectly. I mean, you know, especially when someone hasn't already spent. A lot of their life with that foundation. Like, you know, someone like yourself who, who has such a strong foundation of discipline and training and commitment to health and longevity. You know, when we gotta look at the sort of normative groups, you know what I mean?

[00:29:53] Elias: Like what do you take, like you said, if you're dealing with somebody who's already made a lot of lifestyle decisions that they're in a state of chronic disease, how do you get them to the next tier? So instead of being, you know, in type two diabetes that they are, you know, coming out of that now. And, and there's a lot of groups that have done this.

[00:30:08] Elias: I mean, the ketogenic diet is something that has been incredibly, you know, pretty much you can now, we know that for most people, not everyone, cuz sometimes type two diabetes has other factors, but for most people, type two diabetes can be treated and, and, and, uh, you know, it's not a chronic disease that you have to live with taking insulin for the rest of your life.

[00:30:29] Elias: Yeah. 

[00:30:29] Stephen: It's not like type one Yes. Where your pancreas is not working. I, I would also include in that base, the base, protocol. Managing your environmental toxic load because we're living in a sea of toxins. Plastics, herbicides, pesticides, parabens, fallates, heavy metals, and I think having some strategy, your light, your water.

[00:30:51] Stephen: Yeah. Your emf like all these things are just, gumming up your network. I, I truly believe in my heart that a, a lot of the metabolic chaos that we see, There is a percentage of that that is attributed to toxic load because the liver can't process all those toxins. So it goes, and what it does, it stores it in fat and says, I'll get to this later.

[00:31:14] Stephen: Yeah. And you find that, I think, sitting in a sauna it starts to shed some of that, you know, that stuff will, the toxins will just come outta you cleaning up your personal care products and you'll start losing weight. You really will, because you're not holding onto those toxins.

[00:31:28] Stephen: You're getting rid of 'em. But, but 

[00:31:30] Elias: there's a co there's, there's a balance there, I think as well though, because, um, you know, a certain amount of those environmental stressors are essentially, essentially like hermetic stressors as well, right. Like we're living in, I, I think, I feel like a lot, the only reason I'm pushing back a little bit on this is because I feel like I see so many health influencers on Instagram sort of overplaying that as being.

[00:31:54] Elias: Like the reason everyone's sick. Right? And they're just sort of pl put, trying to put a lot of the blame and then they're attacking, you know, the, the cosmetics industry or, and I'm not saying that, you know, there isn't toxins and cosmetics and there isn't toxins and are cleaning products. And of course you need to get rid of all those.

[00:32:11] Elias: But you know, if you were, I mean someone like yourself who trains as hard as you do, if I three, if you suddenly started using some bad cosmetic products, it's not gonna affect you. 

[00:32:22] Stephen: Right. But I'm also, the exercise in and itself is a detox. Right, exactly. So 

[00:32:27] Elias: that's what I'm pointing at is the fact that don't.

[00:32:30] Elias: You know, I think that can often, I mean, it's an important factor. Yes. But, you know, I, I just don't want people to think that that's like, you fix that and then everything is gonna fall into place. That's just a piece of the puzzle. Yeah. And, and I feel like, like I said, I'm seeing a lot of health influencers because we've entered this era of, you know, I don't know, division and like attack communication.

[00:32:53] Elias: So people are using that toxic load to sort of just attack industry and attack the world. And it's like, yes, that's a factor, but let's, let's not overstate that factor. So, so that's, I just wanted to add that in. 

[00:33:06] Stephen: Yeah, no, thank you. I have you read the book, estro Generation? 

[00:33:09] Elias: Yeah. Okay. Well this is something that is a little more interesting.

[00:33:12] Elias: I think the estrogenic. Uh, plastics and the estrogens. So things that are, I mean, I, I told you my story myself, like when I, cause I, I tried vegetarianism because again, my Buddhist training was to practice a hsma, which is do no harm. And so the Buddhist taught me that, you know, I shouldn't be killing other animals for my benefit.

[00:33:33] Elias: So I decided to go vegetarian. And what I didn't do was look at my genetic profile and my microbiome profile and my blood work, and I just said, oh, I'll go vegetarian because of moral reasons. And I ended up putting on weight a lot of visceral fat. Not crazy because I still was exercising and managing it.

[00:33:55] Elias: But when I shifted into keto, I mean, my body and my mind just went into a level that I just ne I feel better, you know, in my late forties and now is 50 year old man than I did in my twenties being a vegetarian. Yeah. So all of those, and, and, and I told you that, you know, one of the things I tried when I tried to go vegan was all of the sori replacement products.

[00:34:17] Elias: Yeah. So I had like sori milk and sori like egg replacements and sori cheeses and sori meats, and I ended up getting memory tissue Oh gosh. As a man because of all the estrogen. 

[00:34:30] Stephen: Yeah. And for mam, you're talking about man boobs. Right. 

[00:34:34] Elias: I got, I basically started, but it wasn't just man boobs because man boobs are just sort of like that.

[00:34:39] Elias: Like there was a little bit of fat on the chest. It was literally like, there was tissue, there was like, like adipose tissue developing, like just under my knees. My god. Oh. 

[00:34:46] Stephen: So they were like perky.

[00:34:52] Elias: Oh my goodness. I mean, it freaked me out. I was like, oh my God, I gotta get off this diet now. Yeah. You know, and, and, and that was a real, so yes. Okay. There's definitely. You know, factors there, but it, it's that combination too. Like, you know, you mentioned EMFs, like I know for myself, I've tested it. EMFs don't seem to have much of an effect on my physiology, right?

[00:35:16] Elias: Yeah. And so there's some people that are hypersensitive. 

[00:35:20] Stephen: Yeah. It's like almost like a, they have like an autoimmunity to it, like, 

[00:35:23] Elias: yeah, yeah, yeah. So, so you have to just look at that. So I have, I'm more hypersensitive I to carbs than I am to EMFs. Interesting. 

[00:35:30] Stephen: Yeah. And I, I, 

[00:35:31] Elias: yeah. So I could probably be in like an ocean of EMFs, like in New York City, living in an apartment with like all of those wa routers around me.

[00:35:38] Elias: I'd be fine. I'd, as long as I'm following the rest of my, my nutritional and fitness practices, I'll be fine. Yeah. Whereas somebody else goes into that space and they're gonna have major health issues. 

[00:35:48] Stephen: Yeah. I mean, it's interesting cuz I, I wear the EMF underwear and I have, a Blue Shield thing that basically emits a signal that my body resonates with so that the e it doesn't resonate with the E M F I.

[00:36:03] Stephen: I have a strategy. Right. And sometimes I'm really good with it and sometimes I get lackadaisical. But I'm always cognizant of it. But I remember I went to this trip to Iowa. In the middle of nowhere to, for a coaching competition and it, I slept. Yeah. Unbelievable. Yeah. And I thought it has to be the emf cuz I live in Los Angeles and I did, I came back and that's when I got that Blue Shield device.

[00:36:30] Stephen: Mm-hmm. And I did a radio tower search, you can do it online and put in where you live. And I had over a hundred of these towers around me and I got that device and I started sleeping better. And I thought interesting. You know, and I, I, I think it at some level, if you can just add a little bit of mitigation for me, I don't want my balls to get radiated because I like testosterone, I like to.

[00:36:56] Stephen: Keep muscle on. And so for me it's a small price to pay to at least keep those things from being, radiated. 

[00:37:03] Elias: I, I guess I just want to put those on the hierarchy of like, needs, right? So like, if you're, again, that's something where you're getting into those upper higher levels of optimization.

[00:37:13] Elias: You're dialing in these very specific details, right? So, yeah, it's a good point. You know, so if you're not dealing with you, you know, start, start with the big, the big items in the bucket, right? Yeah. Get to the gym. You know, or exercise, move the body. Right. Don't be sitting at your computer for eight hours a day.

[00:37:30] Elias: Like, that's way more important than wearing EMF underwear. Yeah, no, I couldn't 

[00:37:35] Stephen: agree more. You know, so, so unless you have a wifi router, right? Under your Yeah, yeah. As and a chair. 

[00:37:40] Elias: Right. But I've, but even that's proximity. If you've ever done an EMF tester, like, unless you're touching it, like even your phone, right?

[00:37:47] Elias: Like if you put your phone on a speaker and you, if you're touching your phone, it's, it's going into your body. But if you just have it sitting on the table talking on speaker, it's, it's, it's really proximity. Like, I've done the science and I've measured this and, and I'm sorry, but the EMF one is, again, I feel like the health influencer space has just like blown this up.

[00:38:08] Elias: And it's, it's like I'd rather hear people talking about, you know, Sugar. Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. Right. Like sugar consumption, like that's what's killing Americans. Yeah. Is sugar consumption. It's not, let's not get lost in the weeds here. Right. And start talking about EMF mitigation strategies, people spending thousands and thousands of dollars on EF mitigation strategies and then having fruit loops for breakfast.

[00:38:32] Elias: Yeah, no, I, I, I agree with that. And so that's my problem is like, I feel like a lot of people get lost down these different rabbit holes, especially online, the way it's structured, and it's like, yeah, what's, what's killing Americans is sugar. Yeah. Poison. It's sugar. It's sugar, poison. The amount of sugar that is being consumed, that's the problem.

[00:38:49] Elias: Right? Uh, the lack of activity, right. Sitting at a desk for eight hours a day, eating, you know, these are the things that are killing people right now. And we're not, you know, there, there literally should be laws. I mean, you know, if you, if you're already familiar with the work of like Dr. Robert Lustig, you know, who wrote Fat Chance and the Hacking of the American mind and has been sort of talking about the toxic potential of sugar for decades because he was a pediatrician and all of a sudden he saw Mor morbidly obese 10 year olds coming into his practice, you know, like 20 years ago.

[00:39:23] Elias: And he said this shouldn't be possible. And then he realized that the amount of sugar these kids were consuming so early in their life was literally changing the nature of how their organs and body operated. Yeah. You know, because it was so toxic. That's the problem. Yeah. Yeah. That's what we should be focusing on, not getting into the weeds of all these stupid little things that all the health influencers are 

[00:39:45] Stephen: selling.

[00:39:46] Stephen: Yeah. No, it's, I mean, look, the problem with sugar is that it's so prevalent and it's in everything, right? That it's accepted. Like it, it is just, you don't even think about it anymore. But once you start eliminating sugar or you start roping, reigning it in, right? You realize like, oh wow, weight is so easy to modulate and control.

[00:40:10] Stephen: Yeah, absolutely. It's insane. I mean, it is so inflammatory and it is, I consider it poison and, but I have a sweet tooth like I do, so I have to give myself a little piece of my dark chocolate or do whatever. But I, I will say this one thing cuz I have this philosophy and I would like to, I, I, I'm careful about talking about it too much cuz I don't want to.

[00:40:33] Stephen: Piss anybody off. Mm-hmm. But I think it should be discussed, and I wanted to see what you think about this, because getting back to that estro generation, all of a lot of these things in the environment are are xenoestrogen. So they are essentially, the body thinks they're estrogen and they latch onto an estrogen receptor.

[00:40:55] Stephen: And if anybody knows how testosterone works, basically you make testosterone and then some of it gets aromatized into estrogen and it's a feedback loop. And then the hypothalamus will say how much estrogen is present. If there's too much, I'm not gonna make more testosterone because if I make more testosterone, it's gonna aromatize into estrogen.

[00:41:20] Stephen: But what's happening is, is that all these environmental toxins are being processed and latched onto estrogen receptors in the body. So now, Why is te are testosterone rates plummeting globally? Why are we having so many gender issues right now? And I always tell people, you know, cuz I talked to my friend about this and he didn't believe me.

[00:41:45] Stephen: And I said, look, when it's your, when your wife, it's at time of the month for her. I said, does she act a little different? And he said, yeah, of course. And I said, that's hormones. They drive behavior, right? If I gave you testosterone, you would start behaving differently. You just would. And so imagine if you're going through puberty and you've never had an urge because you, your body never made an ne testosterone.

[00:42:14] Stephen: To actually differentiate your male characteristic. And so what are you going to do in terms of your identity of what gender you are? You're probably gonna choose in some way what is socially acceptable. There's gonna be some confusion and least. And so I look at this and I go, why is nobody talking about this?

[00:42:34] Stephen: Why is this not something that at least, is brought up that maybe there's some underpinning that is going on rather than viewing it as just this, look, I have, I want rights for everybody. I never think about something is right or wrong with what somebody is or what they are.

[00:42:53] Stephen: But I look at this and I say, when you look at the testosterone rates, something is happening and where does. Looking the other way. 

[00:43:03] Elias: I mean, I mean, you make an interesting point and I think it's, uh, like you said, it's a, it's one that nobody wants to talk about. Um, because this whole idea around, um, I guess gender identity has been framed as a social and ethical and moral conversation, right?

[00:43:21] Elias: So it's been framed that if you are a understandable. Conscientious, sort of kind person. This is how you're going to allow for people to make their own decisions. Right. Which is, which is true. That's what we should do. We should allow, I I'm actually a bit of a, uh, you know, a, I'm a bit of a libertarian in my mindset.

[00:43:41] Elias: Like, I think people should be free to do whatever they want. So I really don't care what people do. Yeah. Like, I mean, do whatever you want. Yeah. As long as you're not harming others, go for it. Right? Like, go as far as you want, as long as you're not har harming others. Like, I celebrate you. But what you're talking about is that, could this be framed as a, as a health concern?

[00:43:58] Elias: And, you know, I saw a statistic that, um, I went and had to look up because I was like, this can't be correct. And it said that the average 21 year old male today has the same levels of testosterone. That is 70 year old male had in the 1990s. That's right. Yep. And I was like, that can't be correct. Like that's got, I mean, how would those, because again, if anybody, if you don't already know, like your testosterone levels just go so high as a teenager into your twenties and into about 30, and then from about 30 they sort of gradually declined when you're 70.

[00:44:33] Elias: I mean, your testosterone levels are just like a fraction of what they were when you were 20 in your twenties. So we're saying now that a 20 year old year old male in 2023 has the testosterone levels of a 70 year old male in the 1990s. I mean, that's an astronomical drop. And, and, and what you're talking about, um, is, is the cause potential causes of that should be a call to arms for scientists and researchers to analyze this.

[00:45:01] Elias: Should, should start be, uh, talked about regardless of. Your opinion on gender identity? This is a completely different issue. Yeah. Like, let's frame this as a health issue, right? Like, let's people free to do what they want, but why is this happening? Right? I think it's the bigger question is why is this happening?

[00:45:18] Elias: Why are we seeing, uh, hormonal dysfunction, which is what it is in the younger populations? Cause it's, it's, it's seems to be disproportionately affecting young males for sure. Um, but even young females we're seeing this. But I think it even ties into, like I said though, uh, uh, what sugar consumption could even pot, like there's probably a multitude.

[00:45:40] Elias: Environmental toxins, sugar consumption, stress levels, uh, lack of, of, um, Motivational systems, um, circadian rhythm, dysfunctions rhythms, like, you know, being on your blue light on your phone. These kids are up all, you know, up all night. So like it, it's death by a thousand cats, you know? Yeah. And, and, and that is ultimately what's driving, I think in some ways, most of the chronic disease, most of the health conditions is, we can't pinpoint it and say, well here's the cause, here's the problem.

[00:46:10] Elias: Like, cuz that's our, that's our, that's our magic pill fallacy. This is the other thing. You, you talked about my philosophy, right? So I just wanna come back that one of the biggest problems we have in the health space is the magic pill fallacy, which is that here's the cause EMFs are the cause, estrogenic things are the cause.

[00:46:28] Elias: Let's fix that one thing and everything else will fall into place. It's a complete fallacy. We've been indoctrinated with this idea because of the way our medical model has been operating, which is the idea that, oh, I have a disease, I take this pill, right? And now I counterbalance that's not how health works.

[00:46:47] Elias: Health works that you have a 40 trillion celled organism. Every human is 40 trillion cells with a different microbiome, different genetic makeup, different mental orienta, different psychometric orientation, different blood chemical orientation, like all of these different parameters. And then everyone's this bio individual.

[00:47:08] Elias: And then you have to look at what are all the different levers that you have to adjust for each individual to get that person to optimal health. That is such a complex conversation that nobody wants to do it because it's too much. It's easier to say, take this pill. Yeah, do this one thing. And so then you have everybody becomes the evangelist for their offer.

[00:47:34] Elias: And, and so then you have all these people following, like, oh, I'm following this influencer and they told me to do this, and I'm, I eradicated all the EMFs and like I moved to Iowa to live in the, you know, the, the, the farm, you know, where there's no EMFs because that's gonna make me healthy. And it's like, yeah, but you know, you could have done that in LA in my opinion, at least, unless you were EMF sensitive.

[00:47:56] Elias: Actually, let me just caveat that there are some people that again, will be, these certain factors will be hyper intense for them, right? So maybe that they are hy you know, some young men are probably heavily reacting to that estrogenic load and, and has to be completely cut out before they could do anything else.

[00:48:13] Elias: But that's the bio individual 

[00:48:14] Stephen: piece. Yeah. This is why I put getting out of the sick care system and getting into a functional medicine or integrated physician, I. As part of that base thing with the sleep, the exercise. Because wait, if you go to the doctor now a tr in a traditional medical system and they look at your testosterone, let's say, or, or it could be your blood sugar, your hemoglobin a1c, right?

[00:48:40] Stephen: What happens is, is the blood testing is on average of the values for what wear is and what is normal, right? Right. So testosterone levels used to be around eight, 900 years and years ago, and now they're normal is 500, but that's normal and they won't do anything for you. And then the fact that the pharmaceutical industry and the insurance companies own the healthcare system, you can be a pre-diabetic.

[00:49:09] Stephen: But you can be one number, you can be a, what is it? One 20, I think is, is, is, um, I forget the numbers for, for being pre-diabetic versus diabetic, but you can be one number below it and they can be like, we can't do anything for you. Right? But as soon as you cross that threshold, okay, now we're gonna put you on something.

[00:49:27] Stephen: So you can't optimize yourself when you are beholden to a broken system. So I always tell people, you gotta get outta the sick care system. You're gonna have to pay out of pocket probably, you know, there's some insurance stuff you can do, but you need to get to a doctor that is outside of that framework in functional or integrative medicine that will actually optimize you at it based on your levels and bringing you up to what are optimal levels.

[00:49:57] Stephen: Not avoiding just, let's just barely keep you away from disease. 

[00:50:02] Elias: Right. There was a, um, uh, a philosopher called Jay Krishnamurti who said, it is no measure of sanity to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society. And what I hear you saying is that there is no measure of health to be normal in a sick society.

[00:50:23] Elias: So when you look at those blood labs and they say they're normative, Right. That's not a measure of health, right? That just means like, oh, you don't have a disease yet. Leave. Right. That's, that's the medical model. It's like, oh, you're not, you're pre-diabetic, but, uh, you know, you're not diabetic yet. Go. Yeah.

[00:50:38] Elias: And then they wait and it's like, oh, guess what? You know, this, this year's medical checkup you qualify now is a diabetic. Here's your insulin prescription. Yeah. Right? And like, that's, you know, why didn't you say like five years ago when you're resting blood sugar, your, your, your fasting blood sugar level was so high.

[00:50:56] Elias: Why didn't we go, Hey, this is not good. Like, this is not optimal. Because we, we look at disease not optimization. And, and, and I think all of us and probably everyone listening to this podcast are trying to think more of that optimization category. And I think your, to your point as well, the challenge is now is to be even a person doing that, you have to kind of, to some degree opt out of the system.

[00:51:21] Elias: Yep. Have the, have the income, the resources, and the mental capacity. You know, to go after optimization and longevity and, and it would be my wish to give that to as many people as possible, but the reality is, is most people are struggling to pay their bills. Like they can't afford all organic food. I mean, I'm sure you and I share this, I mean, the amount of money I spend every year on food Yeah.

[00:51:47] Elias: Like is is insane. Yeah. Because I, you know, I, I, I, I'm keto now, so I left my vegetarian lifestyle behind me, but I'm only going to eat regenerative meats from, not from factory farms. Right. And so that costs me a lot of money. Yeah. And so you have to have that if you're gonna go down this optimization path.

[00:52:07] Elias: Yeah. 

[00:52:08] Stephen: But I look at it in the long run, you're saving a lot of money because that stuff is gonna cost a lot to when you're broken, you know, and if you can cook too. I think a lot of people just eat out everywhere. And, and that's, that's a good point. 

[00:52:20] Elias: Yeah. You know, you can, you can focus it. So that you, you can, you can still eat relatively healthy, even on a budget, but you have to cook and you have to put in the 

[00:52:30] Stephen: time.

[00:52:30] Stephen: Yeah. And, and back to the mindset, you have to demand a standard for yourself really, at the end of the day. It's like, if you're always looking for an excuse to say, uh, look, if you eat better and you do these things that we're talking about, you're going to feel better. You're gonna look better, you're gonna have more energy, you're gonna be more productive, you're gonna be better at what you do in everything in life, right?

[00:52:55] Stephen: So you, it should be inspirational for you to go, Hey, Next year I should be better than who I am today in terms of my profession and what I do and my purpose in life. Five years from now I, in 10 years from now, I should be accomplishing that big, huge goal in life that I had that probably has some sort of windfall of financial, you know, something, it's, it's like, you know, that's why I like this stuff, cuz I always tell people, I say, look, you try some of this stuff and it can change your perception for life.

[00:53:31] Stephen: And in that perception, maybe it gives you more positivity. Maybe you had more energy, maybe that stress just rolled off your back and all of a sudden you, I always told them like, take some of that positivity that came from it and take a little dividend of that and now invest it into the next thing. Let that have an effect and keep doing that.

[00:53:51] Stephen: And all of a sudden you'll have a hundred habits that you don't even think about. That are automatic, like brushing your teeth that serve you and create this wave that you ride where you just feel great and things seem to get better and better. Like I honestly, I can't believe it. I'm almost, I'm getting close to 50, I'm 49 change.

[00:54:16] Stephen: And I go, I, I, if you would've told me I could still work out and feel and have, I have no joint pain. 

[00:54:22] Elias: Like, yeah, me, me neither. I'm 50 and I'm going to the gym and I'm lifting the heaviest of my entire life. That's 

[00:54:28] Stephen: awesome. Because you, it's the sugar, the sugar inflames the joint. I 

[00:54:32] Elias: can't believe it. Yeah. I, I I, I, I love what you just said.

[00:54:35] Elias: I just want to pause for a minute and say, I love what you said and this is why you're such a great coach, cuz that was such a great sort of motivational soliloquy there that I'm 100% on board with is Thank you. And, and, and I, I would also just, you know, to add to it, uh, a personal story for myself is that, I talked about how I was vegetarian and how I realized that was really detrimental to my health.

[00:54:59] Elias: And so after 24 years, I decided to start eating red meat. I wanted to eat regenerative meats, you know, because again, I was doing this for moral reasons. I didn't want to kill animals. It was one of my driving factors. I also thought it was the healthier choice. So I started going onto this, started testing keto diet red meat.

[00:55:15] Elias: I had, I didn't realize this, but because of the carb load that I had as a vegetarian, it was creating emotional dysfunction and disregulation. So when I started to be able to operate on ketones instead of glucose, my mental focus and even my emotional state shifted. I didn't get the self-doubt that I was having as a vegetarian.

[00:55:44] Elias: I know this will sound very weird to people, but I mentally saw the world differently. And I think sometimes that's an underestimated piece to what you just said. It's like if you start down this path and you start adding these things in, there's a multiplier effect at some point where all of a sudden it may become a lot easier than you think.

[00:56:05] Elias: It's just that initial pushing the boulder uphill, that's so hard to get to for most people. But if you can stick with it and you can get that boulder part of the way, you might find that there's a tipping point that all of a sudden something happens and now it becomes really easy to go to the gym, becomes really easy to eat that way you like you said, you start performing better, so you start making more money to be able to afford more interventions and next thing you know, you're at this tipping point and you're just off.

[00:56:35] Stephen: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then going to the doctor. Is fun, because most of the time, let's be honest, you know, you go to the doctor and it's like, oh crap. Well what, what are you looking at today? You know? But now I look at it now and I mean, I, I talk about Sandra Kaufman was here and she laid out all these needles cuz she was gonna inject me with exosomes and I was tickled, you know?

[00:56:58] Stephen: Whereas in the past I'd have been like, oh God, I'm gonna get stuck with that stuff. That's scary. And I'm not, I'm not trying to telling people that they should, be willy-nilly about injecting themselves with stuff. But what I'm saying is when you invest in yourself and your physiology, it affects every facet of your life.

[00:57:20] Stephen: And we live in this house, this body, you cannot escape it. It. So my opinion is why not make it kick ass? Like, why not? You know what I mean? Like, right. Why not? Because I, I wanna ha, I wanna be that guy, not because I want to have people perceive me as that guy, but I wanna be the guy who can take advantage of every opportunity and had the energy to bring a fun attitude and a positive attitude with it.

[00:57:51] Stephen: And I just find that the stronger and healthier I am, the more I enjoy life, and the more that I have resiliency for just situations that in the past would've really drained my energy. You know what I mean? 

[00:58:06] Elias: I, I feel like that kind of takes us in a way, kind of, um, yeah, there's, there's kind of like a circle there because I.

[00:58:14] Elias: It's like the, the whole journey has to begin, like you said, with that kernel of passion for life, right? Yeah. Like if you have a passion for, like, I, I mean, you and I want to have sup like longevity because we love life so much. We want to live, yeah. So if you don't have that passion inside of you, or you have been able to nurture it, you know, you gotta find that fire that is like, I want to live, I want to be part of the world.

[00:58:39] Elias: I want to be contributing something. This is what I want to be doing. And like, I'm not going to let anything stand in my way. And if one of the things standing in my way is that I have no fatigue, I have too much fatigue. I have no energy because I'm carrying all this, like I'm carrying as a guy, you know, at my age I'm carrying this big gut around and it's like I just wanna flop on the couch.

[00:58:57] Elias: You know? I need to have a reason to like overcome that. Right? And so that's really, I think still that. You know, that's still the seed that has to come. Yeah. You know, you have to find that first, because once you find that, then you may start along the path and like you said, to, to come back to, just to add one thing to that.

[00:59:16] Elias: So you find that that fire and then you go, well, what do I do now? You don't need to go and hire personal trainer and buy all this equipment and start like doing all this EMF mitigation stuff. Like just go and say, I'm gonna do like the a hundred pushup a day challenge. Right. So I'm gonna get up in the morning and I'm, if you can, can't even do one pushup, do one, and then every 15 minutes try to do one pushup and just do that every day.

[00:59:41] Elias: And next thing you know, you'll get up in the morning and you'll do five pushups. Yeah. And the next day you'll get up in the morning, you'll do 10. And next thing you know you're doing a hundred pushups a day. There's no gym needed, no membership, no money, nothing. You just get up and I do, I do 10 minutes, 10 pushups when I get up.

[00:59:57] Elias: And then at two, an hour later I do another 10, another 10. And I work myself up to doing a hundred pushups a day. And I, I, I'm sure you've seen like there's stories of, you know, even journalists who tried to do this and they literally transformed their bodies in six weeks. Yeah. They had a hundred pushup a day challenge.

[01:00:14] Elias: And that was it. Like they, they sometimes didn't even change their diet. Yeah. Because what 

[01:00:17] Stephen: you're actually doing is, it's not even about the pushups. You're getting leverage on yourself. You are saying, I can make a decision and do it. And, and then all of a sudden you feel good about that decision and then you go, well, now I'm having lunch.

[01:00:30] Stephen: Well, maybe I'll be a little more discretional about what I put in my body. And then you start feeling better with that. And then it just keeps rolling. So the whole key is to start the fire, just spark it up it's like with lifting weights. You have to progressively load weights, right?

[01:00:44] Stephen: That's how you get stronger. Five pounds one time, oh, and then 10, and then the next time you work out 15, the next time you work out 20, next thing you know, you're like, shoot, I'm lifting 150 pounds on this thing. Do the same thing with your health. He's just kind of progressively, load this stuff.

[01:00:58] Stephen: And I, I will say this cuz we're, we're getting, about the time here on this. This has been awesome, by the way. I love chatting with you about this because I feel that you have such an elegant way I kind of am a rambler. Like, and, and, and then these things will come outta me that I'm like, oh, that makes a lot of sense.

[01:01:13] Stephen: And then you will cobble it into this, this framework where it's like, yeah, that's, that's the way I should have said it, you know? But I, I will say this, I like what you just said, and I'm gonna add my little piece to that. So just start with something simple and get the fire started, and then try to figure out what's the thing that's gonna kill you first.

[01:01:36] Stephen: Everyone has in their genetics that thing. They, they don't, they don't process carbs very well. They don't process fat very well. They have a history of Alzheimer's in their family. Figure out what that one thing is that if you were gonna live to 120, this thing would stop you. Right? Right. Cuz that's your bottleneck.

[01:01:57] Stephen: If you can learn that early on enough, by doing some testing and figuring that out, if you can go after that and be a student of that and really try to take ownership of solving that problem, rather than just feeling entitled like, gimme my pill and feeling like there's nothing I can do about it. I, I think that that alone.

[01:02:22] Stephen: Can automatically increase your, your longevity in life. Right? Because you're going after the 

[01:02:27] Elias: bottleneck. Yeah, I like that. Because, um, that gives you also like a target, right? And that also applies the, we didn't talk about the quantification stuff very much, but that's the whole. One of the big pieces here that we can now apply the scientific method to our health management.

[01:02:44] Elias: So you don't have to just shoot in the dark, right? You can, you know, there's these, you can look at your genetic profile and you can say, oh look, you know, this is, this is, I have this. And people, again, just so you know, like I've heard people say they're afraid to get the genetic test because they don't want to know.

[01:02:58] Elias: But what you need to understand, what everyone needs to understand is that just means you have the predisposition, right? Your genes are not your destiny. Your genes are expressed from the environment that turns on and off the gene. So if you have the predisposition and is, to your point, Steven, you say, I'm.

[01:03:17] Elias: Not gonna let that thing limit me. So I know I have the gene. I know that my family had Alzheimer's. We have a system of, we have Alzheimer's. Alzheimer's is now being called type three diabetes. Yeah. So what does that mean? If you have a history of Alzheimer's in your family, that is suggestive of the fact that you probably don't metabolize sugar that well.

[01:03:39] Elias: And if you, if you live a life of high sugar consumption, you are very likely to develop Alzheimer's. So if you don't want to turn that gene expression on, then you know, consider going on a ketogenic diet severely limiting your, your carb and sugar consumption and you're way less likely to have that gene expression.

[01:04:00] Elias: So you have to, you have to apply the fact that there's now scientific tools at our disposal. That we can figure these things out, find out what's the thing that's gonna potentially kill me first. I kind of like that, you know, like, like fight back against the, uh, you know, what's gonna kill me first, uh, you know, basically tell death to go to hell 

[01:04:21] Stephen: and, uh, yeah.

[01:04:22] Stephen: Give the middle finger to, to death, you know? Yeah. And, and 

[01:04:24] Elias: say, I'm gonna, I'm not gonna let you come from me and, uh, figure out what that is and then start, you know, rallying against it. Right? 

[01:04:31] Stephen: Yeah. And it has a pre-built motivational purp in it, because, like you said, the guy with the stroke Right.

[01:04:37] Stephen: His mortality Right. Gave the idea of that, gave him that motivation. So going after the thing that's gonna kill you first should. Probably spark that in you and give you a little more gasoline to, to drive to figuring out how you can go about it. Well, you need, 

[01:04:55] Elias: there's two main motivational drives just to finish this as the philosopher here, right?

[01:04:59] Elias: You have the towards and the away from. So you're talking about the away from is like, I want to go away from death. But the, some people are more driven by the towards, which is the idea of that guy with the stroke. Yes, he was afraid of the stroke, but he was more driven by, I want to be here for my wife and kids.

[01:05:18] Elias: That was a bigger, uh, motivator than just death itself. But if you can find both, Right. Then you're really, really, you know, so what is it that you wanna get away from, and then what is it that you want to go towards? And if you find both, then that's how you find the spark in the fire. 

[01:05:34] Stephen: Yeah, I love that.

[01:05:36] Stephen: Well, I think that is a nice way to, uh, put the cherry on top of this podcast, uh, Elias. I'm excited that I get to spend the rest of the weekend with you because I, I love chatting with you and I. Completely appreciate you being on the podcast and sharing this information, and I'm happy to shine a light on you anytime.

[01:05:55] Stephen: I look forward to having you back and hearing about, the great things you're doing in this space. And thank you for doing what you're doing in this space. Oh, 

[01:06:03] Elias: thank you, Steven. I mean, thank, thank you as I said, for being that model of, uh, you know, the HyperFit 50 year old man now, now, meaning you have to have a challenge because we're, I'm just a little bit ahead of you, and now we have to still be super healthy for the next 50 years together so we can hold each other accountable.

[01:06:20] Elias: Yeah, 

[01:06:20] Stephen: maybe we can do a podcast 50 years from now. That's right. Awesome. Well, thank you everyone for tuning in and we will see you on the next one. Have a good one.