Saving Plants. Eating Cows. And Snacking on Fruit with Mr. Danny Vega

Another one is phytic acid, which we find in black beans and nuts.

SPEAKER_02: I don't know if anybody else got past the envisioning us buried in the sand and people trying to eat us.

But I'm I'm still kind of like I'm not sure what else he said, but I'm still just picturing me, people trying to eat my head, and I'm like, okay.

Hey, welcome back to the podcast.

This is my little corner of the podcasting universe here on the lowdown with Kevin Little.

And well, here in this little corner of the podcasting universe, we're kind of celebrating a big deal today because this episode marked episode 85.

Whoa, baby.

I don't know where you come from, but where I come from, 85 is a lot.

And to be honest, right now, what I'm thinking is I'm trying to stay focused on today, but I can't help but get excited with the thoughts of episode 100, not too far off in the distance.

But hey, we're not there yet.

So let's focus on today.

Let's get through today, and then we'll uh go on from there.

Because today we got something pretty awesome happening.

Because thanks to a fellow podcaster, his name is Adam with Podcasting Business School, which, if you are a fellow podcaster and you are not already following and listening to Podcasting Business School, well, I've just given you your next podcast that you need to go binge listen because Adam is dropping pure gold over on podcasting business school.

Now, the other thing that Adam is pretty phenomenal at is matchmaking.

No, he has not found me a wife yet, but I'm not gonna discount that he has that ability.

But so far, he's pretty awesome at connecting me with fellow podcasters or podcast guests who he just feels like would make a perfect match with me.

And well, one of those people is the guy who I have on the podcast today, and that is none other than Mr.

Danny Vega.

Now, Danny Vega, he's one of those guys who, when you talk to him, you can't help but get a little pumped up, a little energized, a little make you sit up in your chair, straighter, kind of flex your biceps, you know, uh, make yourself feel a little bit bigger than you really are, because he's got that persona about him.

And well, it's kind of well deserved because Danny, he's kind of got fitness running through his blood.

Starting out playing football as a kid to going on to breaking some state records in various types of athletic performances like indoor rowing and deadlifting and all kinds of stuff that just makes you be like, ooh, yeah, get it, Danny Vega.

And well, today I'm sitting down with him because we got him to slow down enough to sit down here on the podcast and share his story, but more than just his story to give us some motivation to maybe look at our own life and maybe make a change.

Because we're gonna talk about a radical form of dieting.

Well, radical in the sense that it goes against what we've always known, that infamous food pyramid.

Yeah, we're gonna flip that pyramid on its roof.

Because today, from the title of today's episode, you can see that we're gonna have a little bit of fun because I came up with a neat way to sum up the way in which Danny Vega is teaching us that him and his family eat.

And that is you're better off to save a plant and instead eat a cow and snack on some fruit.

So listen through today's episode, and you'll get to hear that part of the episode as we dive into that and give you some practical pieces of advice to help you along your journey in life, eating a little better, getting a little healthier, which just helps us live a little bit better, more successful life.

It just all kind of goes around and around, making this amazing little circle of life.

So without further delay, let's go ahead and get on with today's episode.

Of course, though, I do want to give a shout out to today's sponsor.

Coverflow coaching is something I designed to take what I do here on the podcast, which is meant to inspire you to a whole nother level.

Because as a transformational life and business coach, my aim is to empower you to take back control of your life, to use your past as fuel to ignite your way forward in life.

I'm a firm believer that life isn't something that happens to us, but instead happens for us.

And my job as your coach is to help you figure out what exactly that is, what it means, and how you can use it to propel yourself forward into the life you were truly fit to live.

If interested in learning more about working with me as a coach, I encourage you to check out the show notes where you can find the link, or you can always just visit heavenlowcoaching.com.

Danny Vega, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for having me, brother.

I know we had a few uh mishaps, so I'm I'm happy to finally be honest with you.

SPEAKER_02: Oh man, well, I'm super excited to have you here today.

And and man, I was trying to figure out do we do we start this episode off different than most and just straight up push away from the the chairs and just go ahead and and start doing some push-ups or something?

Because you, man, you you're the kind of guy who just gets me pumped up and and and feel like I need to be like lifting a dumbbell or something while I'm talking to you.

SPEAKER_01: Well, I appreciate it, man.

I think that's one thing that's pretty obvious when people talk to me, what I'm passionate about.

But, you know, for me, I I feel like it actually helps.

It's infectious, you know, like when a lot of people want to do when it, especially when it comes to health, they want to change things around, they want to do this and and they feel like, how am I gonna start?

You know, where am I gonna get the motivation?

And you know, someone like me is just like, come on, let's go.

I'm too dumb to know, to know any better.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man, I love it.

I totally love it.

Well, well, Danny, I would love for us to before we get diving into all the awesome stuff you're doing in your life today.

I would love to kind of get, you know, a little bit of your backstory because I know you you grew up in South Florida, correct?

Yep, yep.

Yeah, and and you got into sports and stuff at an early age with football.

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man.

I was from as far back as I can remember, I've been into sports and even building muscle, believe it or not.

Like I, you know, my parents were really busy.

I also had like anger issues when I was a kid.

I had to go to anger management, which was hilarious.

Okay.

And, you know, it's awesome because they they found football for me when I was nine.

And I started playing football when I was nine, but even right around that time, or even younger, like I said, my parents worked really hard.

So I was in after-school care every day.

And the the guy who took care of us at my public school, he he was a bodybuilder.

And you know, everybody was out there playing on the playground, and I'm like watching this guy do pull-ups, trying to copy him and looking at his, you know, bodybuilding magazines.

It's funny, I never done bodybuilding, but at the time I just was like, man, these people are so muscular.

I want to be like that.

And it never left me, man.

You know, I played football in high school, I did really well.

I was always just trying to find out how to get better.

And the athletic director, you know, I had an issue because I wanted to lift before school.

And he's like, Well, the gym's not open.

I was like, Well, give me a key, please.

And he so he gave me a key.

So I'd I'd go into the into the gym and and work out before school.

And, you know, in the summer, I would take out like a my dad had a big camcorder at the time, and I would film myself with my one of my close friends who was my teammate, and just trying to get better, man.

And um, one thing I'll be honest about, my my dad was, I'm so grateful that we never had much, but everything he poured into football.

Like he took me to all the camps, and so I was able to, I wanted to play college football, and I was the leading rusher in Dade County, and all these you know, schools, bigger schools were recruiting me, UCF, Missouri, Naval Academy, Rice.

And it's funny, like Columbia University calls me because my my quarterback sent him game film.

I didn't even know who Columbia was.

I didn't know they were Ivy League.

I when he called me, I thought it was, you know, from DC District of Columbia, you know, I don't know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And uh the the funny thing is, it was just Providence, man, because the guy who was in charge of recruiting the state of Florida was the running backs coach, and I was a running back.

So ended up going to Columbia, played football there.

I was the teacher's pet in the weight room, you know, my my strength coach, I loved him, and then he left me after my sophomore year, but I stayed in touch with him.

And then, you know, fast forward, like I said, I wanted to do something with I always, if you asked me when I was younger, when if you asked me what I wanted to do, I was like, well, I want to own a gym or something, you know?

And so here I am, Cuban kid whose dad didn't, you know, dropped out of high school at 10th grade, mom didn't go to college, and you know, their son ends up in an Ivy League school, and he tells them that he wants to be a coach now.

So they're like, oh, what did we do wrong?

And and I was like, you know, but I was like, I was determined, man.

I I was very independent.

My parents didn't really support me financially.

They just at the time they they paid for my cell phone bill, but everything else was on me.

And um, so I went to UF, uh University of Florida, and showed up at the weight room and was just like, listen, I'm getting my master's degree here.

I'd love to learn from you.

I'll be a fly in the wall, I'll sweep, I'll clean the mirrors.

And thank God he gave me a chance.

And, you know, eight months later, I was given a what do you call it, a promotion to go to the basketball facility and start designing programs for men's and women's tennis and men's and women's golf and start getting paid.

And, you know, we everything just worked out in such an amazing way because that year we won the national championship in football, and then we won the national championship in basketball.

And so when I was graduating, the assistant head coach gets the job at VCU, Virginia Commonwealth, and decides that he wants to take me.

You know, my my mentor over there recommends me.

Oh, wow.

I wasn't even at my graduation.

I finished, but I didn't go to the ceremony because I was in Virginia.

And so I I've always been into this field, you know, strength and conditioning, building muscle, nutrition.

But after a few years of that, I got out, I chased money for like 10 years.

I did really well as a medical device rep, but it was the ketogenic diet in 2016 that just well, I would go back a little bit to 2011.

We started doing CrossFit, and that reignited my passion for all this stuff.

And uh, but then 2016, ketogenic diet started it, and I was, you know, competing in powerlifting, so I had my body felt much older than I was, and I had to lose some weight because I had a knee injury, and man, I started that diet and it just changed everything for me.

It put me on a whole different trajectory because not only, of course, I lost weight and I looked better and all that, but the inflammation was gone.

My productivity that that year, that first year that I switched to a ketogenic diet, I won the highest award that you could win as a salesperson.

It was called the Pinnacle Award, it's top 7.5%.

And it was like greater productivity.

My brain, I mean, I had more endurance.

I did a half marathon for Christ's sake.

I like you know, I just I felt like the first time I got on stage to talk about this stuff, it was to talk about this.

It made it turned me into a superhuman.

And then I really started to realize how important your diet and your lifestyle is, not just to your health, but to your relationships, to your ability to gain new insights that you wouldn't otherwise be ready for because your brain is just it's stressed out, your your energy is gone, you know, you have like cravings and everything that you're dealing with is just reacting to everything versus basically maintaining a really healthy body weight with minimal effort because once you get fat

adapted, it's it's just it's it becomes easy.

You look the same all the time.

You don't have to diet and go up and go down.

And it's been six years of that, man.

So here I am now.

You know, I quit my medical device job in 2018, and you know, we started Fat Fueled Family, and and like I said, my two biggest passions are the performance side of things.

How can we optimize not only physical performance, building muscle, you know, burning fat, but you know, optimize your your brain and and your your mindset.

But then also we we do focus a lot on the family because a lot of the people that we end up working with, they'll get healthy and then they'll be like, wait a second, why are my kids still eating all this crap?

And then they don't know how to do it.

So that's that's kind of the other side of what we do.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, man.

Oh my gosh, I love that.

So talk about this like super amazing just progression through life that was so like kind of like smooth and effortless if you think about it.

Just you know what I mean?

Like how like it everything just like you know, sometimes like you wonder, like, am I going on the right path in life?

And sometimes you know, and sometimes like you have to be like, well, am I forcing it or is it just going naturally?

And and I listened to you and and I I go, it was all just natural, like total, like from just the natural flow going to Columbia and then transferring going to to UF and then just progressing and progressing with with you know your training and all of that.

I mean, so freaking awesome.

SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you, man.

I I think the man, I think about it and I and I don't know.

Obviously, I try to what I'm about to tell you, I try to relay this to other people.

And I think that's the magic pill is if you can get other people to think the way you think, because it all starts with the mind and and it starts with not having fear.

And so what do I mean by that?

Well, Columbia was the only university I applied to.

University of Florida was the only university I applied to.

And some may say, wow, that's really short-sighted, you know, like what about plan B?

I think we're obsessed with plan B and plan C.

So we we're constantly just dipping our toes into like five different areas.

We don't focus and put our heads down and focus on that one thing.

And because of that, we're paralyzed.

And so the first thing I would say is definitely take some risks, especially.

Look, I've always taken risks, and and as I've gotten older, what I have to lose has increased exponentially because, you know, being 2018, I was uh 37 years old.

I had just bought a built and bought a house in 2016.

I got a mortgage, and now I'm here I am leaving a medical device job, you know, good six-figure income with all the benefits and all the stuff to start a business online.

And, you know, so a lot of people would be like, man, that's really irresponsible.

But one thing I want to teach my both of my boys, I have two boys, is the the way the world is is kind of sold to us is such a it's such a lie, number one, because you know, we're told that we got to go on this particular track, we gotta go to school.

And granted, I went the traditional route.

I and I ended up, but you know, this is a whole different story.

But my boys, if they go to college, they better have a business plan written out for me because nowadays college is a different thing.

Like there's so many, we've our eyes have been opened to so many different ways to not only make a living, but to feel fulfilled and to live a life that you're that's not gonna look like a rerun every day, you know, because the most terrifying thing is to is to look back at your life and just be like, oh my gosh, every single day, if I put a camera in my living room, it's like the same habits every day, you know, back and forth in the same place and like the same route, go from this place to

this place.

And it just that's terrifying to me, man.

So that's the first part, you know, there's a lot of risk.

You know, we we're blessed to live in this country where, you know, things are different, they're not the same as they used to be, but we still have so much opportunity.

And it really does kind of put you in an environment where if you decide to go for it, within a few years, if you can, if you can really rough it out, because at first, especially if you're starting a company, you're just number one, you gotta learn how to run a company.

I'm still learning that that's crazy.

And then number two, you you're gonna have to go through the you know, the early phases where you're not, you're you're you're just trying to pay your bills, you're just trying to get some momentum.

But like, I think that's the biggest key, man.

And like just fail forward, you know, that that that that saying is so good because it's like, okay, we have a saying in my house, like winners don't lose, they learn.

You know, like you can, you can, you can lose, you can mess up.

And like, I think that's the biggest difference that I see now, especially with parents, is that they they're not allowing their kids to make those those mistakes.

And and me as a father to boys, I want to be able to tell my sons when they hit a certain age that they're men.

You're you're a man now, son.

You know, you you gotta pass on that torch.

It's such an important thing.

I read a book called Wild at Heart that that's really I read that before my my wife was even pregnant, and it was so impactful to me because it's like if you don't do that, then this false self starts to grow in your son, and and he's either he's either gonna become the tough guy or the weak guy or the womanizer or the guy who gets taken advantage of or the guy who focuses on, you know, it's all these false selves.

But the only way you can tell them that they're a man is you gotta they gotta earn it.

Because if they don't, then in the back of their mind, subconsciously, they're gonna know they didn't earn it, and that's gonna be a problem too.

So get your kids to take risks, you know, get them to do things that are hard and and start with small things and then incrementally challenge them more as time goes on and give them more responsibility.

The more freedom they have, the more, you know, ability to solve problems.

Like one of the things that I learned was from a guy that, because we we homeschool, and one of our favorite guys, his name is John Taylor Gato, he passed away like two years ago, and he said he was New York City and New York State teacher of the year, and he was doing everything that schools didn't want him to do.

That's why he had to retire.

Because he was like, get he was sending these kids out into the city and they all had their own curriculum.

It was it was wild, man.

But you know, if someone ever told him that they were bored, he'd tell them that means you're boring.

And so if my sons tell me that they're bored, I'm like, man, that means you're boring.

Go outside and go find something to do.

And the the way I know that it's working is the other day my son was in his room, and he's like, he's like, puppy, you know what I did?

I was like, I was bored.

And so I was thinking of something to do, and so I sat down in my room and I left.

Myself get really, really bored.

And then I had this idea to write this graphic novel, which is, you know, it's like he's he's 11 years old, so graphic novel.

But the storyboards were so cool.

Yeah.

You know, and and so that's the whole thing, man.

Life is uh life can be so awesome, but so many people they keep taking that step in the opposite direction, the wrong direction, and then they're like, Well, I can't do this, I'm in college.

And then it's like, well, I can't do this, I just started my job.

Well, I can't do this, I'm married, well, I can't do this, I have kids now.

The further you go down life, the harder it's gonna be to turn that around.

And so you might as well do it when you're young, you know?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.

I uh I love all the all the advice that you just shared.

And and and I can say that a lot of the advice that you speak of as far as talking to parents about their children, it's really advice for us as adults, also, because it's so easy to get stuck in the rut doing the same thing, you know, and and before you know it, you know, all this time's past and we can so easily look back on a section of our life and be like, I'm in no different place than I was 10 years ago, you know, and stuff.

And so I think that's such a vital just piece of advice and something to be conscious of what am I doing today?

What, what, what you know, next steps am I taking?

Am I planning out for the future?

Am I am I, you know, taking risks, getting excited about stuff, you know?

Because I I do think that is such an essence to life that so many of us could fall in a trap of not living, is not being excited for life and in the and excited to just keep expanding and keep getting better and and doing more.

SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh, yeah, man.

You gotta do what excites you.

I love that you said that because that that's what our school counselors, college counselors, that's the opposite of what they do.

They're like, what do you want to study?

SPEAKER_03: Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: You know, I was like, I don't know what I want to study, and then I'm looking at all these majors.

I I guess I'll be an economist.

You know, like it's like it doesn't make sense.

It's like, what excites you?

And then think a little bit deeper.

Like, what are your skills and how do they mesh with this passion?

What are the problems that need to be solved?

People need problem solved, they'll pay for it, you know.

So there's always a way, and we have an abundance of information.

I love that you said, you know, what am I doing today?

Because that's a huge part of it.

You know, you always want to start.

I mean, these things are available to all of us.

This type of information, like start with the end in mind, you know, go backwards from there.

Where do you want to be two weeks from now?

Where do you want to be a month, a quarter, a year?

And what are you doing every single day to get you there?

And and how are you keeping yourself accountable?

Those are all things that we can really just break it down, break it down until the daily.

And if you just do every single day what you're supposed to do, and you find ways to measure your progress, and of course, you can have a goal that let's say you want to accomplish it six months from now, but you may not have all the information, so you may not finish it in six months.

So, you know, if it's not due to like procrastination and laziness, then that's okay.

And that's why it's important to focus on the process rather than the result.

You know, being goal-oriented is yeah, it's it's awesome because you're oriented towards your goal.

But just to make sure, you know, I try to tell people this because this is this one I've learned just in the last four or five years.

Like, because I would get upset when things didn't go my way, and then I realized it was like, wait a second, having the will is not will is not about like willpower.

When I say will, I mean the ability to do the same thing every single day with no regard to you know how far you've gotten, because a lot of those things are out of your control.

But the things that you can control, man, like it's like I I get upset when I tell my boys, like, if you do this, this is not gonna happen.

And they start crying.

I'm like, what are you why are you crying?

I'm like, you're you know, you have a you have a choice over this.

It's like it's like they're they're they're quitting already.

Because it'll be something like, you know, you're not gonna be able to play if you don't pick up my garage perfectly because you you turned it into like you turn it upside down and they'll cry.

And I'll be like, well, wait a second, why are you crying?

This is completely within your control.

Go get to work, you know?

Yeah, you can play.

Um, so yeah, man.

Yeah, I totally agree, dude.

I I I think it's it's a simple one, but we're stuck, especially like you said, the adults, we're we're stuck with what's right in front of us.

But I got this month's mortgage to pay, I got this month's bills to pay.

And it's like, when are you going to, you know, like I think of that quote, like, you know, most men lead quiet lives of desperation.

You know, when are you gonna let that desperation get to the point where you're like, this is enough, man?

This is, you know, this is not good for me.

This is not good for everyone around me, my children, my wife.

I'm miserable.

It's coming.

And um, and nowadays it's it's more, I see it more than ever, you know, because we're more and more people believe these lies.

Uh, you know, it's it's a it's a manufactured reality.

You really can live the life.

Now, are you gonna have the ability to, if your goal is to is uh to drive a Maserati, then okay, then then maybe you do have to do certain things, but wealth and prosperity is is not defined by only material things.

Like, what if you're able to spend a specific amount of time a day, cover your expenses, be able to save a little bit, and spend quality time with your family?

Like, I'll take that any day over being rich, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_02: Yeah.

Oh, 100%.

100%.

Where does the sense because it's obvious that family is big for you?

Where does that come from?

Does that does that come from you're you know, all growing up with your mom and dad?

SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, 100%.

My my parents were that that's something that I got goosebumps right now, just thinking about it, because my dad was so good at this.

So, first of all, my dad had an addiction when I was a kid, and my mom, thank God, gave him a second chance when I was like nine or ten.

And and from that point on, you know, we were bankrupt, we didn't have money, but everything changed.

And he was always around.

And, you know, my dad, every single Sunday we had people at our house.

You know, our family was at our house.

And so I grew up real close with my cousins and and just doing stuff with the family, you know, like my parents would always like when when I was in high school, they they'd be like, look at these people, they're doing this, this, and this.

And it's like, you know, it's like they're not, they're not giving.

Now, granted, you have to, with your marriage, you got to spend quality time with your wife.

That comes before anything.

But it's it's one thing to do that.

It's another thing to kind of neglect giving your kids those traditions that that you then carry on.

Because if it's like really, really bad, where you don't get any attention, you don't get family at all, well, maybe that, maybe you you're you're able to be like, I don't know what this looks like, but I want to have a family because it was so bad for me.

And if you had a good a good example, like what I got, you want to continue that, you want to build on that, which is what we try to do.

But sometimes people are kind of in that middle space there where it's like it's just they don't know what it's the culture wasn't built, you know, and that's a shame because family is is the most important thing to me.

Like people, I'll talk to people because I don't I don't know a lot about investing and and all this stuff, but a lot of people they'll they'll start that conversation.

What do you think about crypto?

What do you think about this?

And and I'll be like, well, my opinion, wealth, the best type of wealth that's never gonna go away, is gonna be family, good community around you, like staying being connected to to friends and people around you that you see each other in person often.

And then, you know, of course, if you if you can build some skills, which I'm always trying to build different skills, that's that's the true wealth.

Because then if if anything happens, God forbid, you know, you you have skills, you have the ability to, and that gives you confidence, and then you're connected with people.

So yeah, families just um, it's definitely something we we had a different view of how it was gonna be, because we always thought we were gonna be traveling the world, which we did get to travel quite a bit with the boys up until 2020.

And then 2020 was the last year where we ended up because we wanted to show the boys, okay, because I I when I went to college, I I had a lot of guys that, you know, they had a lot of money, and they would tell me about we would do art humanities or music humanities, and they'll be like, oh, I saw that statue, or and I'm like, man, that's so cool.

Imagine it's a whole different thing to be able to see that in person.

And not only that, like being able to see people around the world and and know what they're really like versus what you read in a book, which might be a lie.

So um we always thought we were gonna take the boys around the world now, probably gonna do a lot of road trips.

SPEAKER_03: Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01: But yeah, 2020 was the last year, and we ended up going to Mexico four times because up until 2021, now after 2021, everything's different.

Now even Mexico's has been tainted.

But like in 2020, we were like, okay, we're going back to Mexico.

We went four times.

But bottom line, just being intentional, spending time with with your with your kids.

Like for us on Saturdays, we do the Sabbath, not for any reason other than like it's a day to be with the family.

It's a day since my wife and I both have online businesses, we disconnect.

It's been amazing.

We've been doing it for nine weeks now.

And and that alone is just that weekly amount of time to make sure that we stay connected with the boys.

So family's family's huge, man.

SPEAKER_02: Oh man, I I absolutely love that.

And and coming from from me, who that's what I say all the time is with what I've gone through in my life, you know, I realized more than ever before the importance of family.

SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you've been you've been really you I could tell but by what you told me, you're loved, and that's awesome.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.

So, so I would love for you to share with with me and those listening a little bit more about Fat Fueled Family.

You you mentioned it earlier.

What exactly is that?

SPEAKER_01: Yep.

So Fat Fueled Family started as a blog and a website.

Fatfueled.family is the website.

It's also our podcast.

And so I had started a podcast with my co-host and friend Brian called the Ketogenic Athlete back in 2016.

And it was literally two years of just hardcore ketogenic and ketogenic athletes and maybe some mindset stuff.

Like it was very niche in that sense.

Like, you know, we weren't talking about anything that wasn't, you know, either dealing with performance nutrition, low-carb nutrition, you know, performance in general, and getting the right mindset.

And then my wife and I, I'm blessed to have a woman who, you know, every weird new thing that I come across, I tell her about it and she's all all about it.

And we we go through these journeys together, we learn together.

And we really wanted to, we were like, man, there's so many things that we want to talk about, you know, when we have friends over and we show them like this is what we eat, this is what we eat for dessert, and they're like, Well, I didn't know you could do that with keto.

They're like, you should share that, you know, because for us, we've built these things in, and we have all these facets that that are so kind of like natural at this point that we just assume, you know, but a lot of people don't know how to do that.

So that was like for us, when we started Fat Fuel Family, we have five pillars.

So we have fitness, nutrition, parenting, education, and mindset.

You know, the education is kind of like our philosophy of education, you know, we're homeschoolers.

Parenting is just those two, if you want to do these things with your kids, you're gonna have to, you're not gonna hit them over the head with it, for example.

And so, you know, we we just started in the first couple of episodes, and we're at episode 174 just came out, and we only do one a week.

So it's been four years, man, of episodes now.

Well, not four, like three and a half, but and we won podcasts, keto podcast of the year in 2020 at the metabolic health summit, which was just such a an honor.

But we started the first several episodes, was like, okay, first thing, why are we doing this?

And we started to just name all these statistics about chronic illness and kids, you know, ADD, health issues, all these things that are popping up.

And then the then we we went through our parenting philosophy, we went through our education philosophy, we went through our nutrition, our fitness, all of those things.

It's like, how do we incorporate those all in this in this like magic recipe that that seems to work really well?

It's never perfect.

And then, of course, then you know, from a business standpoint, I was doing my coaching, I was putting out programs, and I I I had I had some pretty awesome programs that that did pretty well over the years, and now of course I started to do my public speaking in 2017 was the first time I got on stage, and it really started to pick up 2018, 2019, and of course, 2020.

2020, I only had one no two events, one in January and one in March, and then the world shut down, you know, and then so many things changed for us, and it it's obviously been very difficult the last two years, but you know, in a nutshell, Fat Field Family, we we talk about the things that interest us the most, the things that we're most passionate about.

People kind of know that we're weird in a lot of areas.

We do things very differently in a lot of things, we have very different beliefs.

And, you know, we we want to share them because there's a reason why they're so different, because nobody's talking about them.

Nobody shares, you know, for example, the the the homeschool thing, it's it's gotten more popular, definitely.

But even there, we don't even like the term homeschool because we're not trying to replicate what's being done at school, you know.

So it's like, you know, we show them how we homeschool.

And and so that, yeah, man, that's that's basically it, man.

Maura, of course, she she's always we're we're real crunchy.

So Maura will talk to the women, like, look, this is the these are the the the personal care products I use, you know, they're all natural, they don't have chemicals and and fragrances in them because a lot of those things are hormonally disruptive.

I'm big on geeking out on on all the stuff that'll optimize you, especially the brain.

I'm always obsessed with like things that can make my brain, you know, function better.

And then our boys have their own Instagram account, Fat Fueled Kids, and we'll share homeschool projects that we do with them.

We'll share what they're eating.

We haven't done that as much.

We used to do it a lot more, but you know, we we're still posting recipes there and things like that.

So that's basically all the things that Fat Fueled Family kind of stands for.

We we have we have a t-shirt store, for example.

It's not to make money, it's really that it's more of like um conversation starter.

So we have you know an anti-kids menu t-shirt that it shows like we cross out all the things in the kids menu and we show like what it should be.

So we're just trying to get parents to think about the things that we take for granted and and think about, man, that maybe that's not right.

Like maybe if I want to go to an Indian restaurant, why are they putting chicken nuggets and pasta and mac and cheese if I go to the Indian restaurant, if I go to the Japanese restaurant, if I go to, and it's like all the same menu items dumbing down their palettes, and they're never great food sources.

And, you know, so like we just try to tell them, look, this is how you, you know, this is how you kind of introduce this to your kids.

You know, you don't want to force them.

For example, our our family, we don't, I won't buy my kids junk.

Very rarely do I buy them something that's like bad.

But you know, if he earns his own money, he can go get get himself some junk food.

Now, if he does if he goes overboard, which sometimes they do that, like they'll they'll just recently they they just did like a lemonade stand and it was like four or five kids and they ended up making like 25 bucks.

So they they each made like five, six bucks, and and they go to the Walmart and they're they like get like bags of candy and they're just feeling terrible.

I'm like, well, it's you know, it's my my goal isn't to like make them perfect eaters, it's it's to to really help them understand that if something does go wrong when they're adults, that the first thing they're gonna do is not run to the to the healthcare system because that's the last thing you want to do.

It's gonna be like, man, what can I change in my diet and my lifestyle?

And because that's true health.

That's not sick care, that's that's getting healthy and not addressing symptoms the way we kind of do with healthcare.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, totally, totally.

So now with your kids, do you guys try to basically follow a ketogenic diet, the whole family?

SPEAKER_01: Well, the kids end up eating pretty much ketogenic all the time, most of the time, but they probably eat more of like a paleo diet.

And the difference is just paleo, to me, the perfect marriage is paleo with keto, because because paleo is focused on quality food sources, no junk processed food, things like that, no nothing in a box, no grains.

Keto can be focused on that, but a lot of people will just focus on keeping their carbs down and not focus on the other stuff, which is to me almost as important because a lot of the stuff that we eat is created in a lab.

You know, it's not even natural, and there's a lot of provable, scientifically proven downsides to that.

So, for example, the boys usually they'll have almost every day they're gonna have eggs for breakfast, chicken sausage.

We do that a lot.

And then my wife will make them paleo pancakes.

A lot of the time she'll make a bunch, like on Monday, and that'll last them like two or three days.

And then lunch is always the most difficult meal because they're either running around or or they're they're never home, you know?

And so they'll still have their chicken nuggets every now and then, but they'll be gluten-free chicken nuggets, you know.

It's more expensive to eat the way we eat, but we we'd rather we're not buying a bunch of stuff.

That's another thing.

We don't we don't really buy them a lot of stuff.

And we've we've actually a lot of people around me, of course, you can imagine, grandparents are like, Those poor kids, you're not getting, you know.

It's like come on, mom, he's not gonna feel loved by, you know, like another plastic toy.

He's gonna feel loved because we treat them well, we give them time, we teach them, and we we feed them well, and we and we do like to go on trips when we when we can.

So, so yeah, and then of course dinner, but these kids end up eating most of the time, yeah, completely ketogenic.

It's funny because I don't I don't force my kids to eat vegetables or anything like that, but like just today, I just remember this because it's so funny.

My oldest is such a weirdo.

He just like he just cuts up like green pepper and he's just eating it like in strips, you know, and and it's like it's funny.

We don't force it on them, but every now and then they're like, can we have some can we have some mixed veggies today?

I'm like, who are you?

So it's like it's weird, but you know, it's funny because like it comes in phases because sometimes it's it's so crazy.

The minute sugar gets into their life, they go on this like one-week rampage where it's like they want more and they and they eat it all, and then they eat more, and then it's like, okay, guys, guys, time to reel it back, you know.

You're you know, because we a lot of the time too, they've eaten, and I'll say this it's harder to do this when they've been eating a certain way for a long time.

I I will granted, I will say that the hardest group is gonna be your preteens and teenagers, you know, because they've got these habits.

And if you've been eating unhealthy for so long and you start to eat healthy, it might take a while at Very least, it may take a while for them to see what's happening just by the way you look and the way you feel.

And when they see, no, mom's serious, she's really not gonna buy chocolate chip cookies anymore, you know.

Like, and but it's really it's important not to force it on them.

But with us, since we started them both, like kind of this way, it's been a little bit easier.

We've we've had periods there where you know, I remember like when we moved to Tampa from South Florida, we were really busy, so we did like several months of like drive-thru, you know, like fast food.

And and we started to see things crazy.

My my youngest would get eczema, my oldest would have nosebleeds and and allergies and things like that, and and then we take them out and it goes away.

And they've been able to see that.

And so when they start to feel bad, like my stomach hurts or I have a headache or all this stuff, it's like, what do you think that could be?

And and they'll be like, Well, I did eat this and I did eat this, and it's like they are connecting these foods with, and and and it's easier when you're clean, you know, because a lot of people are like, What do you mean?

I I feel fine.

And then when they actually feel what fine feels like, they're like, oh, that was not fine.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So when you feel fine and then you you eat like that for a while and you put some some crap into your body, your body's like, no, but it's like when you eat it all the time.

I remember this because I remember like I would eat crappy, you know, and and I was just kind of used to that.

And, you know, now if I eat something bad, it's like I'd rather be sensitive to to crappy food than lose that sensitivity, you know, because your body's like, oh, I I give up.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, I totally, and you know, like what you were talking about like earlier is, you know, I I've heard I've heard like sugar compared to being like a drug.

And oh, yeah, it totally is, yeah.

And dude, it totally is, is because I'll do really good, I'll you know, be eating really good and stuff, but you know, I'll go ahead and have, you know, like like recently, we just got some Girl Scout cookies.

Make a mistake because you have a couple of Girl Scout cookies, all of a sudden you never eat cookies and now you're craving it.

You're craving it, and yet and yet you eat the stuff, it's so good when you eat it, but then you do notice you kind of feel like crap.

So then you go back and eat some more, and I'm like, I'm you're basically a drug addict, you know?

SPEAKER_01: Like Well, that's that's an actual scientific thing, man.

It's called the hedonic effect of of sugar, and it and it can last up to 72 hours.

So it's good to know because it's like, okay, if I eat this way, I'm probably gonna have cravings for up to three days after.

And so it starts to like the more you learn, the more you're able to be like, you know what, it's not worth it.

And I and I've I've gotten that from so many clients.

It's like, I tell them, like, look, I know this sounds daunting right now, but you're thinking of this with your current brain.

Your brain is gonna change, you're gonna get to a point where it's let's say it's been a month that you've been you've been eating healthy, and your brain is gonna tell you, man, I've been eating healthy.

I deserve that, and I'm gonna go for that.

And when I eat that, it's not gonna be the same.

And it's gonna be like now the next step is really getting that rewiring your brain to be like, it wasn't as good as I thought, you know, like and and there's with keto, what I love about keto is that it's a high fat diet, so it's full of flavor.

You know, if you like sweet stuff, you can you don't want to do overdo the the non-caloric sweeteners because you can blow it out in the bathroom and have some other issues there, but it really does, for example, like I always think of cheesecake because I'm a fan of cheesecake, and you can make some awesome keto cheesecakes.

The only difference is like instead of sugar, you're using like a non-caloric sweetener like stevia, and instead of like a bread crust, you're doing like an almond flour crust.

Tastes exactly the same, doesn't taste like a disgusting low-fat diet food, which is like the worst, most cruel thing to ever do to someone.

Because you're still using the same cheese, you're still using the same ingredients, you're just changing a few things.

And so, and your brain changes, you know.

So, like that, that's definitely something that I just tell people look, I know, like I said, I know it's gonna sound hard, just start putting one foot in front of the other and just string a couple of weeks together.

You know, once you get to that 11, 12 week mark, you're gonna just feel different.

You know, things are just gonna start happening.

Like I remember my first year, I would tell my wife, I would crack up, it's like, I've I've unlocked a new power this month.

You know, like when will I achieve flight?

You know, like it was so cool.

Like I would, I would, I remember, man, I would um I would park further away in the parking lot because I I had energy, I wanted to walk more.

Or I it would be three o'clock in the afternoon, and then you know, I'm a I was a medical device rep, so I'd be, you know, at a hospital like an hour and a half away.

And, you know, imagine stringing a bunch of days like this together when, you know, let's say it's 3:30.

Technically, you could just say, I'm gonna call it a day and drive home, or you make that extra call.

And that translates into better productivity because you got the energy.

You're not hitting that two, three o'clock slump.

You know, you're not a slave to your cravings, you can go longer without eating.

This one blew my mind when I'd be like, oh man, I didn't eat for six and seven hours.

How did that happen?

Like that was never, you know, because we used to go to like back in the day when the kids were younger, we would go to Disney and I would pack like four sandwiches, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna eat this one at 10, this one at 12, this one at 2, and then I would eat one at 10, one at 11, one at 12, and then one o'clock I'm starving, you know, and I'm like going somewhere over there because I was such a slave to my hunger.

And that's because of that blood sugar roller coaster, man.

Like you really start to realize like that's not hunger.

That's that's just low blood sugar.

That's that's this this crazy thing that you can bring it, bring it back down to like normal, and you start to, of course, you still enjoy food.

You know, I'm not gonna be one of those robots that says that that food is fuel, and that's it.

Food is fuel, you want to look at it that way, but sometimes you want to eat your mom's apple pie because it reminds you of when you were 10.

Sometimes you you had a bad day, and God forbid, you know, I don't like people to use food as comfort, but sometimes it's for comfort, you know.

But at the same time, overall, you're just looking at it different, you know, and and you're it just like one of the biggest things is you know, the average American gains like seven pounds a year, period.

Three years from now, you're gonna be 20 pounds heavier at least.

And so, man, that's like how do we slow that down?

And a lot of it is due because it's due to the the the sugar that we just keep on eating.

And the worst part is like we eat all this sugar, but a lot of the time we eat sugar with fat, which is like weaponizing the fat, you know, because eating a high fat diet is fine in the absence of sugar.

Now, with sugar, now we start to get diabetes, heart disease, all types of like autoimmune disorders, joint pain, and then you say, Oh, well, I'm I'm I'm I'm aging, but you're not.

It's not, you don't, yeah, we do age, but we don't age nearly as quickly when we when we treat our bodies right.

SPEAKER_02: Yes.

Absolutely.

Do you have any good resources, places to point people if they're interested in learning more about a ketogenic diet, you know, especially when you talk about compared with the paleo and stuff?

Do you have any good resources, places to send anybody to learn more?

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01: I would I would say if you're someone who likes to just like consume your information with podcasts, I would start with the first couple of episodes of our podcast.

Because we go from everything from, like I said, our nutrition to philosophy to even like how do you do, how do you eat out with your kids?

And like this simple things like, and even with yourself, you know, like how do you, because um, for example, with my group coaching, we we have like this battle plan workbook, and we say, okay, what are my danger zones this month?

This month, I have up to four danger zones that I can identify ahead of time.

And one of them is gonna be my daughter's graduation.

One of them is gonna be, you know, how am I gonna address that?

So being proactive, like I said, going to the restaurant, check out the menu first.

Keto is so simple, it it really is so simple.

It's just understanding eating a high, high fat, and I would say moderate to high protein.

I know that's not keto used to be moderate protein, low protein, but you got to remember also that was keto started in the 20s, in the 1920s.

Well, it's it's been around for much longer, but as a as a known diet, it started in the 20s to address epilepsy.

And so keto has been used for so many disease states that people eat like a therapeutic ketogenic diet and they don't have to.

And so, if you just understand our our our podcast is good.

Obviously, my group coaching and the new one that I told you about, it goes into that.

Like it's a module, there's courses.

So that's gonna be a good resource.

But just to understand this, if I if you want me to break it down real quick, like think of it this way: if you just had to like have a structure.

Okay.

Breakfast is gonna be, you never want to start your day with sugar.

You always want to start it with protein and fat.

It could be something as simple as eggs.

If you eat bacon, have some bacon.

You don't have to have bacon every day.

You don't have to have breakfast foods.

Like, I'm I'm a weird one.

Like yesterday, my son had salmon for breakfast.

You know, I'll have ground beef for breakfast.

You know, lunch, just a meat and a vegetable.

If you want to have a little bit of low sugar fruit with keto, it's you don't have as much leeway with fruit.

So you'll you'll you'll limit the fruit to things like avocados, berries, cucumbers, things that are that most people be like, oh, that's not fruit.

I'm talking about pineapples and apples.

Where are my oranges?

You know, but like, you know, veggies and and and a protein, it's very important, animal protein.

And then the same thing for dinner.

And of course, there's room for things like nuts, lower carb nuts, and you know, dairy if you tolerate it.

But that's pretty much it in a nutshell.

And nowadays, online, there's just so many resources.

There's just just keto recipes galore.

You know, there's so many things that didn't even exist when I started keto in in 2016.

So I would definitely say that.

I I would say start with our podcast, you know, beginning the first couple of episodes.

But my partner, his website used to have an awesome, I used to send everybody there, man.

But ever since he had to go back into the IT world, he let his his website die.

And I tried to go to it the other day because it would, it said start here.

And it just kind of gave you, yeah, you know, like uh maybe I need to put that on my website because I shouldn't I call myself a keto guy.

Maybe I should introduce people.

I don't know.

I'm just always talking about it, so I I hadn't thought about that.

But but yeah, man, that's there's no shortage of information.

It's it's pretty simple.

It's actually easier to me to eat a ketogenic diet, even if you're on the road all the time, even if you're traveling, because you could always just be like, okay, well, I either give me a cob salad with chicken or give me a burger without the bun.

And instead of fries, give me a salad.

You can do bunless things, you can you can do everything except just keep out the carbs, you know, like don't eat the wheat pasta, don't eat the bread.

There's a bunch of different breads now, though, that you can eat that are not made out of wheat, that they're lower carb.

Most of the time, they're obviously they don't have the gluten, so they're not going to be that same consistency.

But, you know, there's there's always sacrifices to be made for for other benefits.

SPEAKER_02: Now, all of that, I mean, super helpful, super awesome.

Now, what about though?

Because I think this is where it kind of gets a little bit confusing.

The incorporation of fats.

And so, like, we talk about, you know, the eggs or having you the meat and stuff, but are we adding fat or are we just getting fat that's in the meat already?

How does that work?

SPEAKER_01: That's a great question.

That's a good question.

That was another one that I remember I used to see a lot of people would just add so much fat.

And understand this like when you switch to a ketogenic diet, a lot of things are gonna happen.

You know, the first thing that's gonna happen is your insulin levels are gonna drop the first week or so.

And so when that happens, your kidneys, they basically they're signaled to start urinating.

So you start because for every carbohydrate that you consume, one gram of carbohydrates, your body kind of holds on to like three grams of water.

So when those carbohydrate stores start just you know being used as energy, then you you start getting rid of a bunch of it.

But the fat thing, I'll say this like you don't have to go out of your way to get a bunch of fat.

At the same time, understand that when you take carbs, which is right now, unfortunately, most people's primary energy source, it wasn't always that way, because back in the day, you didn't have a supermarket where you can have in-season vegetables year-round.

We can eat for winter year round now, you know, like whereas before it was like, you know, you had your you had your fall, you know, veggies and fruits in fall, you had some stuff in the spring and summer, but it's not like that.

So so because of that, remember that you're getting rid of these carbs.

You don't want to go low fat.

So you don't want to start eating chicken breast and egg whites, you want to eat the full eggs, you know, go for the ribeye.

I freaking love ribeye.

Have the 80-20 ground beef, 85-15 ground beef.

Don't get the 93-7 stuff.

You don't have to add fat to your meat, but the the biggest thing is, and and I wouldn't say this comes right away because a lot of us are gonna have to really resensitize one, our our palates and start learning to channel savory foods versus sweet foods.

But the other thing is we're gonna wanna just pay attention to our hunger signals because we're gonna actually get healthy, reliable hunger signals, whereas before you weren't, because you're just kind of a slave to your blood sugar.

And based on that, if you find definitely don't start a ketogenic diet.

I always tell people this, this is one that I say all the time.

Especially if you're a person who's used to tracking calories, don't start yourself in a caloric deficit.

You're already changing, your body's gonna have to adapt and learn how to use fat.

Again, how to you're gonna produce ketones, which is great, but your body's not gonna learn how to use those for a few months.

So the more fat you add, obviously the more raw material you have for your liver to produce ketones.

But I'm not the guy who puts like five tablespoons of butter in my coffee.

I do every morning, this is kind of like my morning thing is I I'll always have my coffee.

I'll put a scoop of something called Keto Brains in it, which is um small business that we love.

It's a brother and sister, we love them.

It's MCT powder, which is a really great type of fat.

It's got some other stuff like for your brain.

And then I'll do one tablespoon of butter.

I'll put the coffee with those two ingredients in my blender, blend it up, and and put it in a in my big metal cup.

And I don't do any non-caloric sweetener just because I I I've just gotten to that point.

And I used to be a sweet sky, you know, like I used to love cookies and and all that stuff.

And, you know, the first year I took advantage of all the keto recipes.

But as you go on, you know, your your palate changes.

But long story short, you don't need to add a bunch of butter to your meat.

You know, if you want to add butter to your steak, I'm not gonna take that away from you.

I think it's great.

I think it's also good if you want to add butter to your vegetables.

I would definitely say to cook the vegetables raw, eating vegetables raw is is not good to me.

I know that there's people who say that, but if you understand the way plants work, plants are not like any other creature on this on this earth.

You know, other animals have a bark or a bite or a or a coloration to protect themselves.

The only thing plants have to protect themselves is biological warfare, chemical warfare.

And so if you were planted in the ground on the beach, like and the only thing sticking out of the sand is your head, and you got all these people trying to eat your head, you're gonna have all these different ways to protect yourself.

And so when you have a lot of vegetables and plant foods have these chemicals that if you do certain things to the food, it really does cook out the chemicals.

One of those things is things like lectins.

Those lectins can be really bad, and there's certain foods that have high lectins.

Another one is phytic acid, which we find in black beans and nuts.

But if you soak your beans overnight, it actually soaks out the fight, the phytic acid.

And then if you cook your vegetables well, then there's less of a chance of doing that.

I had to mention that because as you go through things, it's it's unfortunate because some people are like, man, what am I doing?

I'm I'm doing all the right things.

I'm eating blueberry spinach and and you know these meats, and then it's like you find out that you're you're one of those people who don't tolerate those phytochemicals.

We call them phytonutrients, but they're really phytochemicals.

And you know, you didn't know that.

And you know, you can make other options that are still in the vegetable, you know, in the plant kingdom, or you can you can treat your food a certain way, but but yeah, you know, the fat, adding the fat, it's not something that you'd really need to do, especially if you're if you eat like chicken thighs with the skin on.

You know, there's a lot of good stuff in this, you know, we don't eat stuff on the bone anymore.

We have everything filleted and just like there's a lot of things, you know.

We don't have broth anymore.

Uh we do a bunch of broth.

Every Friday I make a big broth.

So I'm making one tomorrow.

I'll take a bunch of bones and I'll roast them for 20 minutes.

I'll put them in the in the big stock pot.

It's massive.

It's like, it's like, I don't even know, like 20 inches high.

And, you know, just take out all the nutrients from these bones.

And bone broth, it's got collagen, it's got gelatin, it's got electrolytes, it's got all this stuff, not to mention the marrow.

Well, that's the first thing I do, I scoop out that marrow when I when I roast it because it's so good for you.

So all those things, and if you're eating meat on the bone, and if you're eating red meat, which I think is so important to have ruminant meat.

Um ruminants are like, you know, the animals that chew cud, like venison, cows.

Well, they're not just chew cudd they they have a different, they they they ruminate, so they they have a different digestive system because they have the highest nutrients.

So God bless chicken and turkeys and and things like that, but they don't have nearly as much nutrients as lamb and venison and buffalo and and there's a reason.

I mean, you can kind of see it, right?

You look at that red meat, it's it's got more color in it.

There's a lot more in it.

And if you're just eating low-fat foods and a low-fat and low carb diet, you're gonna be real miserable real quick.

SPEAKER_02: Definitely, definitely.

Well, I don't know if anybody else got past the envisioning us buried in the sand and people trying to eat us.

But I'm I'm still kind of like I'm not sure what else he said, but I'm still just picturing me, people trying to eat my head, and I'm like, okay.

SPEAKER_01: Man, it's wild when you see what these plants can do.

Like, there's certain plants that have like two different chemicals in two different compartments, and when they're crushed together, it creates like a bioweapon, you know, like and the little critter that eats it, either all of these phytochemicals, some of them they'll they'll basically give you a reaction in your gut, a reaction in your skin.

Some of them will will actually cause like phytic acid, the one that I mentioned.

This is crazy.

How crazy is this?

This is like if you eat, for example, oysters, right?

Which is great.

It's got a lot of zinc in it.

If you eat oysters, your your blood levels of zinc go through the roof.

But if you eat oysters with black beans, the absorption of the zinc in the oysters goes down by 80%.

Wow.

And that's just one of the ways that plants defend themselves.

And it's so intricate.

And so, and the only way that you can know that is either just kind of read about those things.

Like there's a great resource that I'll, if you need me, I'll link it to you.

But Dr.

Georgia Eid, she is fantastic.

She's got a website called diagnosis diet.com.

And you go to that website, and there's a whole section on I want to make sure I'm giving you the right diagnosis diet.com.

And it's there's a whole section.

Yeah, that's it.

Yep.

And so she, if she go to food, it says uh vegetables, and she's got a whole section on vegetables.

And it's not to say that you need to stay away from vegetables, but you should be aware of all the things that vegetables can do to you, because they're they're not here to feed you and give you, they're not these like you know, benevolent beings.

They want to live too, and they want to protect theirs their young too, which is the seed.

That's why a lot of the most potent phytochemicals are in seeds.

You know, a lot of people have issues with the seeds of things, the husks of things, because that's like, like, for example, wheat.

If you look at wheat in the wild, you're like, that does not want to be, you know, you look at it, you know.

But like, you know, we we found ways to process it, but all a lot of the time we we we don't process all of it out, and and where we get these terrible conditions, you know, we get leaky gut.

So some of these chemicals attack the lining of your gut.

And for example, you'll eat some peanuts because they have some of the have lectins and phytic acid, and they basically get a hole in your gut, and and then those little chemicals from the peanut are no longer in your gut, and now they're in your bloodstream.

And now your immune system says, intruder, and then the next time you eat peanuts, your your immune system recognizes them again, and boom, now you got a peanut allergy.

Wow.

So it's like as long as you're aware of the possibility of these things.

There's 97% of plants are not edible.

97.

Whereas with animals, like if you do, I we have nutritionists and and uh registered dietitian friends, they do uh food panels all the time.

The MRT food sensitivity panel, that's the best one.

And we rarely ever see beef on there.

Like we'll see, we will see sometimes some fish, we'll see some, even Maura has turkey, for example.

She's sensitive to turkey, but most of those food sensitivities comes from, they come from plants and not really fruit.

Fruit is fruit is like, why do you think?

I mean, think about it.

It's it's so simple when you think about it.

Like fruits are sweet.

They want you to eat them.

Because back in the day, before we had garbage cans, we would poop and their seed would come out of our butt and they would continue their progeny.

Yeah, and it's like back through the circle of life, you know.

So it's like it's amazing.

And then when you taste certain vegetables, you're like, we our palates are are well developed and we like these bitter tastes.

So sometimes we'll eat something bitter, but a lot of the time that bitter is because there's some sort of chemical in there, and and the only way you would know is if you did a food sensitivity panel.

Sometimes people get their genetics read.

There's certain mutations that that we've been able to identify that like are like, okay, you can't eat this way because of this mutation.

For example, I don't want to get too in the weeds because I I know people, number one, aren't interested, but like some people won't do well with they can eat the high-fat diet, but they can't do butter and lard and and you know, bacon grease.

They have to do olive oil and macadamia oil, and and and so they got to do more monounsaturated fats versus saturated fats.

Some people, myself, I eat saturated fat all the time.

I love it.

And so those are things that I think look, the bottom line is I want more people to just think about them, their health, and take a more active role.

And you're you're never gonna do that if you're not like experimenting and being mindful and paying attention.

Like, like there is a better, a better life for you.

You're you have better health available to you, but you you do have to do some work, and I think it's important to learn a little bit.

You don't gotta be, you know, geeking out on this stuff like I do, but I think it's important.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely, definitely.

So this is basically how I've summed it up into something easy to remember.

Okay.

Save a plant, kill a cow, and snack on some fruit.

Yes, fantastic.

SPEAKER_01: Listen, I will, I will, man, that's perfect.

You know, I'm gonna put that on the website.

That's it, and I'm just gonna quote you.

SPEAKER_02: Yeah, save a plant, kill a cow, snack on some fruit.

SPEAKER_01: Perfect.

Yeah, people get complicated, you know, like they're what about intermittent fasting?

What about all this?

I'm like, look, just do it.

Eat three square meals a day.

I I have a client who just hit the 40-pound mark, man.

We he started with me in November and he's he's lost 40 pounds, man.

He started at 230, he hit 190.

And, you know, I gave him three meals a day, and he was asking about intermittent fasting, and I was like, man, that gets baked into it, honestly, after a while.

And the last month and a half, he's been like, man, you know, I'm eating two two meals a day.

I've fallen into this groove.

That's me.

Most days I eat two meals a day, you know, and it's it's really convenient.

Like this morning, I woke up, had my coffee, I trained for my breakfast.

I had a pound of brisket.

That was my breakfast.

And then I won't eat until dinner, which I think, what do we say?

Oh, yeah.

We're gonna do chicken with spaghetti squash.

And my wife got this really good uh Alfredo.

So this but you know, spaghetti squash, you kind of like get the fork and you pull it out, and it's it's got it's like spaghetti and it's lower carb.

And so we just mix that all up.

We got a friend who's staying with us, so she's getting in, so so we're gonna cook that for her.

And and it's so simple.

And then, like, I like to eat something every day.

I'm gonna plug my friend's company.

I don't have a discount code or anything, but it's my buddy, and it's an amazing product.

It's called Keto Brick.

And this is literally a thousand calorie brick, like it literally imagine seeing like a brick that it's it's um it's in a little package, you know, and there's several flavors.

The newest flavor that he just sent me is called macadamia madness.

And these things, when you bite into them, they're kind of like soft, they're not they're not quite crumbly.

Some of them are kind of crumbly, but most of the time you bite into it and it's like this dense, soft thing.

You know, most people aren't animals like me that eat the whole thing, but I I most of the time eat the whole thing.

But like, you know, it's a very ketogenic snack that you can take it on hikes, you can take it when you go fishing, you can take it when you're traveling, and you're not, you're not, you don't trust where what your food options are gonna be.

And and for me, it it like scratches that itch because it it has all the flavors come from their proteins that they use.

So this it always has like cacao butter, which is like chocolate butter.

And then like it has this one, it has like a like a sweet, like they all have like a like a sweet flavor that comes from the protein powder that they use in it, but you don't taste like a gritty protein.

It's it's amazing, man.

It's it's he's been doing it for like four years, he's crushing it.

They got like seven employees now, probably more.

And that for me, you know, when you find those things that that you can kind of rely on all the time, I think it's good because you want to keep your menu pretty simple.

Like overall, regardless of the diet you eat, I'll just say this why is it that animals are not obese?

They're never overweight.

It's because you're a lion, you got about five options.

It's gonna be a zebra, a gazelle, and unfortunately, us humans, our brains are too big for our own good.

We have food science.

You know, we have like chocolate, waterberry, strawberry, you know, it's like it's like the crazy flavors, and and that's scientifically proven.

Sensory-specific satiety is a thing that that it's basically the monotony effect.

The more simple you keep your menu, the less of a risk you have of overeating.

That's why when we're obsessed with the calories and stuff and we're really trying to track everything to the gram, it doesn't work that way because our brains perceive foods different ways, and sudden some things may be like, like for me, like if you tell me two tablespoons of peanut butter, that means a jar of peanut butter.

So it's like, you know, I don't care what you put on my plan, you know, and and certain foods trigger me.

Like I I love my cheese, and you know, like as long as I don't make my cheese the main act and I keep it like a supportive one of the supportive roles, then, but you know, certain things trigger your so you want to know what works for you, and you want to feel satisfied, and you know, from a mental standpoint, from a from a mindful eating standpoint, you want to just the goal is to get to a point where you're like, you know what, on a on a scale of one to 10, I'm at about a five or a six.

I could eat a little bit more, but if I eat a little bit more, I know I'm probably gonna feel bad.

So, you know, obviously eat eat until you're satisfied.

But for me, it was years of trying to get as big as possible with football.

And I had to unlearn that because I'd blow right by satiety.

Like I'd be, I'd eat so fast because I wanted to put on weight, and I had to learn to slow down.

And you couple that with my mom always making me finish everything on my plate.

It was like, I'm telling you, Kevin, it was literally like three years ago now when I first I was sitting down next to my wife at dinner, and I had about a few ounces of meat left on my plate, and I was like so proud of myself because I was like, you know what?

I'm gonna stop.

Yeah, no, but exactly.

Like, I don't have to eat this.

Like, I'm full, I feel good.

But you know, it's it only comes with just you gotta be mindful, you know.

And and if you're sitting down and watching TV or watching your phone and you're just shoveling it down and you're not paying attention, your mind is not good.

Number one, you you need to be relaxed when you're eating because you'll you'll you'll actually assimilate the food better.

Yes.

And number two, you'll be able to pay attention to how you feel.

So there's like a lot to it, but overall, if you're eating the right foods, you make your life a lot easier because you you're less hungry, you get less cravings, and and better, more stable energy levels.

SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, absolutely.

Well, well, man, you so awesome to talk to, so motivating, so just um really you know making this complicated stuff seem so simple.

And you've left so many amazing resources.

I'm gonna be sure that all of that is linked in the show notes so that for you listening, please, you know, realize that it's gonna be all easily, you know, accessible to you right in the show description.

And Danny, man, any last words before I let you go?

SPEAKER_01: I guess I'll just I'll just say again, man, you know, like just be mindful of your the things that you're worrying about.

Just ask yourself, is it so is it really something to worry about?

You know, because it could be holding you back from from something better, you know.

So like for me, it's it's all about like just don't don't really have fear.

There's there's healthy fear, like, oh crap, if I step over this ledge, I'm gonna fall down, you know, 500 feet.

And then there's fear that's that's like unwarranted, and most of us live in that other section, and most of it never comes true, and yet we we don't do what we want to do in life.

So, so that's I guess what I'll say.

SPEAKER_02: Well, awesome.

Well, well, Mr.

Danny Vega, you were an absolute pleasure to have on the podcast.

So thank you so much, man.

It was my pleasure, brother.

Awesome, awesome.

For you listening today.

I really hope you enjoyed today's interview with Danny, a super awesome guy, super just motivating, inspiring story, and and what he's doing today, talking about his family.

It's just really awesome.

I if you got the same thing that I did, it just kind of makes you want to be a better person, be a better role model to your kids, to your spouse, to your family, and to your community.

So, anyways, I hope that you can take away something said in today's interview that you know you can put into action in your own life with the goal to always make tomorrow a little bit better than today.

And that's the lowdown with Heaven Low.

I hope today's episode inspired you, motivated you, and excited you to get out and enjoy life, no matter what obstacles may be standing in the way.