E11H6: Plant vs Animal Based Diets Part Two

Discover the untold truth about protein as we tackle the plant versus animal-based diet conundrum with a hard-hitting focus on muscle health and longevity. As we age, maintaining muscle isn't just about looking good – it's about surviving and thriving. Tune in to hear how protein, particularly from animal sources, plays a critical role in preventing sarcopenia and bolstering our independence. Our discussion digs into the full spectrum of amino acids and their availability in plant versus animal proteins, with co-host Justin and me demystifying the practical hurdles of obtaining the right mix from plant-based diets alone.

Lean muscle isn't a mere byproduct of vanity; it's a cornerstone of physiological health, influencing everything from hormonal balance to immune function. This episode reveals how a diet rich in high-quality, animal-sourced protein can contribute to a leaner physique without the excess calories that often hitch a ride with plant-based proteins. We don't shy away from the broader impacts, examining the indirect correlations between muscle building, cancer survivability, and why the scale isn't the only measure of health – your grip strength might tell a more significant story.

Wrapping up this protein-packed session, the spotlight turns to weight management and the overlooked strategy of aligning protein intake with your ideal body weight. We explore the merits of balanced macronutrient distribution tailored to personal health goals, alongside the intriguing concept of seasonal eating and how it aligns with our body's natural rhythms. Whether you're a fitness buff or just looking to optimize your health, this episode is a goldmine of insights for anyone ready to unlock the full potential of their diet. Join us and elevate your understanding of why an omnivorous approach might just be your ticket to peak health.

Transcript

John Proper: 0:00

Welcome to the Balance Blueprints podcast, where we discuss optimal techniques for health and finances and then break it down to create an Individualized and balanced plan. I'm your host, john propper, here with my co-host, justin gains. This is part two for the episodes of plant versus animal based diets. Thank you so much for listening and we hope you enjoy. And we're really vouching for an omnivorous diet here. We just kind of are going against both sides or for both sides, however you want to view it, but today it's very polarized of animal versus plant and we like to see the benefits of both of them and the downsides of both. So we're just going over a lot of stuff. That last episode hit on many things, so we're going to take a deeper dive this time, really focusing on protein and why protein is so crucial long-term and and this is where I think the animal based advocates do have a leg up here of why animal protein is so important and so much more beneficial than trying to get your protein from solely plans.

Justin Gaines: 1:04

Right, specifically talking protein there.

John Proper: 1:06

Yeah, yeah. So we'll jump into again tons of things last time, so it may seem like it's just out of the blue, but protein is such an important nutrients, especially long-term for health, for so many reasons. I know we touched on one of the biggest things that I think it's important for would be sarcopenia. So if you're losing muscle mass as age goes on and this is very important because long-term we want to make sure that we're staying healthy, that we're able to Do physical activity as we get older, because it's going to be so important that we're not having a caretaker take care of us. We're going to be independent. We're not gonna.

John Proper: 1:46

I know there's a huge mental part there of if we lose our ability to do things.

John Proper: 1:50

We're gonna feel a lot of, you know, loss of purpose and have a lot of mental stress that comes with that.

John Proper: 1:55

So protein and keeping muscle mass as we age is going to be so important, and keeping protein high while we're young and easier time to build Muscle mass is going to be very important for that. And this is, I think, the big thing that I'm trying to get into is you'll hear a lot of advocates for plant-based or vegan diets say I can get all of my protein, all of my you know needs from plant foods, and we saw this before, where we have to really differentiate between the type of Amino acids in protein so protein is broken down into smaller amino acids and the really important ones that you're not going to get abundant in plant foods and plant sources are Lucene, isoleucine and valine, and these three amino acids are so important for muscle protein synthesis, building muscle, and If we're not getting those, we're not getting those signals, because those amino acids are going to signal to our body to build muscle it's going to be much harder to build lean muscle mass, and Lean here is also an important word.

Justin Gaines: 2:58

Okay, so it's not. It's not a case of you can't get the protein. It's a matter of if we look at protein, as all proteins aren't created equal. Breaking it down further the specific amino acid you're getting from the plant-based diet Doesn't hit all the amino acids.

John Proper: 3:14

So it's not so much that you're not getting amino acids.

Justin Gaines: 3:16

It's just that you're not getting the proper balance of all the amino acids that you need to build that lean muscle mass.

John Proper: 3:22

Yeah, and like, if you remember I'm sure you do from the first episode to it's, it's not impossible to do it. You could be very strategic about Combining this plant food with this plant food. Like I know, people combine P protein with rice protein powder and. But in today's fast-paced, moving world where People are just even picking fast food a lot alone, you know they're not cooking and preparing their meals, so they're not going to the step of strategically mixing and matching plant proteins to get my exact, you know, acid ratio. It's just so unlikely that that's going to be done.

John Proper: 4:01

It's so much more difficult and I think that's why animal-based diets and the animal-based movement is becoming so popular, because it's just so much easier to get those bio available nutrients you need in a quick meal that's based around, you know, meat and and, so not alone that. So, because I understand that does Technically defeat the argument of well, if someone really wanted to do that, they could, and I would say, yes, they could, but I've never worked with a client that has done that. But you will see vegans or vegetarians very few. But, and I yeah.

Justin Gaines: 4:37

Because when we've always talked about, I thought it was a matter of it wasn't possible, but it's not so much that it's not possible, it's just the feasibility of it becomes very complex and becomes yes, not a full-time job, but something you have to really focus on and really balance out.

Justin Gaines: 4:51

So if you want to do it, it's very possible to do it. It's just a pain in the butt to try and Try and say like, okay, I have to have these types of proteins together in order to get that right balance. So somebody could feasibly do this. It's just the vast majority of people aren't going to want to go through that step. And again, when we're talking about stuff, we're looking at the most ideal situation, most ideal path, or Blueprint, if you will. So, that being the case, that's going to take that much time.

Justin Gaines: 5:19

That much effort Doesn't really make sense when you could just have burger, cook a steak, you know, cook a lean protein with vegetables and have some fish and boom, you're all sat and you're getting those amino acids. I happen to be specific about what vegetables or what fruits you're putting together.

John Proper: 5:37

Yes, yes exactly, yeah, and I want us. So this is solely through the lens of getting your amino acid, amino acids, from plant foods, because I know someone. You know I'm saying that it is possible, because I know someone is gonna maybe come at this and I can't disagree. It is possible. But that's only one thing.

John Proper: 5:58

Now there's a million negatives to that because, first of all, we're expressing our extreme modern-day privilege, like we are choosing plant foods that aren't grown around us, that are coming from all over the world, and we're shopping at big chain grocery stores to get these plant foods. Because I can't go outside right now and mix rice with beans, because I have three feet of snow on the ground and the only thing around me is, you know, deer running around. So it's extreme privilege. There's environmental downsides, and then what we're gonna really move into too, is there's a huge surplus of calories when trying to do this, because 20 grams of protein from venison is very few calories compared to 20 grams of protein from peanut butter, and you know we usually talk about calories, not a calorie, but in this case, there's gonna be a huge surplus of calories coming into the body when you're trying to get protein from plant foods, because these plant foods aren't Protein forward foods. You know. You usually think of foods as carbs, fats and proteins, and plant foods are not really protein packed foods.

Justin Gaines: 7:04

Also from a like a volume standpoint. I would imagine it's a much larger volume that you would need to consume If you're doing it plant-based versus doing it lean muscle based. I'm just thinking, like the amount of food, how big of a a salad or, you know, a plant-based meal would have to be yeah.

Justin Gaines: 7:24

If we're talking, you know, raw, organic, non-processed products here, how large that would have to be versus the size of the steak that you have to eat, and Just like the feasibility of actually getting all that down also becomes a concern, I would think yeah, and they showed.

John Proper: 7:39

They have like for those picture pictographs or grass with pictures on them. They show like the amount of spinach, because people always say, well, I can get like 20 grams of protein from spinach and it's like it like fills a house of how much spinach you have to eat, compared to like two steaks and that's an exaggeration. But no, you're exactly right and that's a huge problem. I think why so many people feel bloated or gassy? Because when they're eating tons of vegetables, because are the normal amount of vegetables on an omnivorous diet gonna cause those problems? No, probably not. Maybe if you have some gut issues they may, but when you eat them in that much excess, they're gonna cause excess gas, bloating because of the sheer volume your stomachs and be very pushed out.

Justin Gaines: 8:26

And yeah, then that is a problem because a lot of times we talk about you know, we're constantly on the case of calories, on a calorie until you're satiated instead. But it seems like if you were being intentional about trying to get the right amino acid mix here for protein, and again we're looking really it. You know, even only just one of three of the macros are not even looking at the full picture. But if we just isolate the argument to this point, I Would think you'd have to eat past satiation in order to consume that amount of that volume of food. You would be, you'd be full and continuing to eat in order to finish the portion Versus with meat. I mean, there's times that I'll eat a steak and still feel a little hungry, but you know just, it's like you're right at that satiation point or right below it. You're not feeling stuffed and just like you just ate over 80.

John Proper: 9:20

Yeah, there's receptors on the stomach. I'm trying to think of the name of them, but they respond to being pushed against. So when your stomach really fills up, those receptors get pushed against and they go oh, our stomach is filled with food, we are full, you know there's. There's different type of receptors. There's those and, I think, another one that just I Think it comes from the brain. I can't remember, it's been such a long time, but I do know those specific receptors are basically exactly what you'd be talking about.

John Proper: 9:47

Yet you would definitely be pushing past those and ignoring those signals, because your goal is, you know, oh, I'm full, I've eaten enough food in, you know, in terms of calories, but I need more protein. It's like, well, this is what we're trying to hack a system that nature has made for you hundreds of thousands of years. It's like, you know, we were designed to be omnivorous. Nowadays, we have modern technology and things that let us think we can outsmart that. But you know, the plan here and the benefit comes from animals and plants eaten together, and that's kind of how we need to view this. And you, just to kind of wrap up this point Brought up a great thing that we're talking whole foods here, because we're never talking processed food. So you know we're talking. I'm not talking about vegan or plant protein bars, protein drinks, processed foods, you know, because we're never talking about those foods because those are not ideal. So even the meat look alike.

Justin Gaines: 10:46

Like that sort of stuff yeah.

John Proper: 10:47

Yeah.

Justin Gaines: 10:48

I'm trying to say you know we're talking. We're talking whole foods here, we're talking still raw. What highest quality of inputs for those diets?

John Proper: 10:57

Right, if you want to eat, if you don't want to eat meat, don't eat a product that's made to look and replicate, like me there's. There's a big psychological thing there. So, but to move us into when we're going with this is the biggest thing that we touched on is the amount of access calories that you're going to have to eat to hit the same amount of protein. And I say have to, because we need a minimum protein. You know we have such a little small capacity to store amino acids in the body, so that means we're going to have to constantly be restoring and re-eating protein so we're not running low on those amino acids, on those amino acids. With fat we can store body fat in forms of ketones, carbohydrates, stored glycogen. You know protein is a different one. It's an essential nutrient because we can't really store it, and this isn't to say we can't go without it ever. You know there's a four day, three day fast here and there and we do see benefits of amino acids dropping, but that's a very short window because that is a stressor, you know. So if we're doing that long term, if we're going without those amino acids for a long time, that's going to be a very long, chronic stress and the body needs to be replenished. Those because proteins are used for everything in the body. You know they're building everything. So if we go without them, we're going to have problems, and that's basically that thought I was, but I was going somewhere else with it. But the the real problem here that we're talking about is the excess calories are going to pack on excess weight, and one of the biggest problems we have right now is that we're seeing a lot of people who are now overweight, obesity. These are huge predictors of other diseases. You know what we're seeing. There is a study I'm just going to look here. The study showed that the biggest risk factor currently for cancer is being overweight, being obese, and a different study this researcher was looking at as well showed that the survivability of someone that has cancer is directly with the amount of muscle mass they have. So when individuals had an increased amount of muscle mass, their survivability from all types of cancers significantly increased. Now there's probably a lot of variables here that play into it, but you know we need to kind of rethink.

John Proper: 13:13

Muscle is not just this thing on our body that helps us move, even though that's very important. You know. It's an active system that sends signals to the body. So when we have lean muscle mass, we're not having the hormonal disruption that we would have during, you know, very little muscle mass and tons of fat, because white fat also sends out signals to the body, usually inflammatory signals when we have too much of it, causing inflammation throughout the body. So, while it seems like we're getting off topic, the main point here is to have lean muscle mass, which is the most important. We don't want to have tons of muscle mass and tons of fat, but to have good body composition with good muscle mass.

John Proper: 13:56

It's important to get good quality protein, the right amino acids with fewer calories, and that's going to be done through these animal source foods, seafoods, because they're lower in calories, much, much higher in protein, and the right kinds versus again, if people are going to say well, I can get my protein from broccoli, I can get my protein from peanut butter, and we're omnivores here, we're in the middle camp. So I know it sounds like we're really hating on vegetables, but we're hating on vegetables as a source of protein. That's not their place in the diet. Their place in the diet is for other benefits. As they come in and out of season. They communicate with us about the environment. They give us phytonutrients, antioxidants, but they're not a source of protein for longevity.

Justin Gaines: 14:42

Got it. So yeah, the risk factor for cancer, that's very interesting.

Justin Gaines: 14:47

And like you said I, think it's, because I can't imagine it's just a matter of just you have muscle mass, so you have a lower risk of cancer. Naturally, in order to get the muscle mass you have like you're just doing you have a certain lifestyle. That's very different. You're probably eating you're not eating a lot of processed foods. You're eating a good, balanced diet, whether it's plant-based or meat-based, you're still having a balanced diet. You're physically fit, you're active, you're getting out, you're moving around, you're probably out in nature more. You're getting more grounding.

Justin Gaines: 15:16

I mean, there's so many topics that probably play into that study that you can't really isolate to one variable there. But it is very interesting that if we're able to have all those lifestyle things and then optimize the amount of lean muscle that's there, you're right. So when you think about muscle mass, it's just like show muscles and it's what you do to look good. It's an aesthetic thing, it's a visual factor, it's not. You don't think about the fact that it's part of it's a system and it sends responses, it plays into your hormones, it plays into all these things, something that, even when you were talking about it just now, I just, yeah, I think about it as show muscles and functionality. Can I lift this. What I need to do to be functional in a day-to-day setting? Not necessarily. Oh, I put on muscle mass. It's also going to help do all these other things, for my immune system for my general health.

John Proper: 16:12

Well, and that's so. There's two great points there in terms of. Let's even talk about the first one of okay, it's show muscle. I personally have the belief. I don't think this is vain. I just think people either ignore this deep down belief because it's something they think they can't achieve, and I think everyone has it. Everyone wants to look and feel their best. So if we're going to talk about the mental health long-term of this, if you are at a place where you look at yourself I'm not saying you have to be a bodybuilder with 0% body fat, but you're in a position where you're like, oh, I could see my muscles, I'm strong as I want to be, I can lift, I can be functional that's going to have great Just in terms of muscle is a functional thing, just for show. That's going to have great long-term effects on your mental health because you're going to feel good, you're going to know you can play with your children when you're older. Those are huge things.

Justin Gaines: 17:00

That's why I even think about the mental piece of it.

Justin Gaines: 17:03

It's chronic stress, that's going to happen if you have poor body image as a result of having an unfit body, because part of it there is body image. You can have somebody who's very fit and still has poor body image, and that's something that you need to address from a mental health standpoint. What we're talking about here is the person who has a less than ideal body image and it's a result of having a less than ideal body situation. They do have extra weight on and these sorts of things that if they got rid of those, naturally their body image would go up because they would be in a more ideal situation.

John Proper: 17:37

Yeah, no, you already know that there's both sides of the spectrum People that are super fit have it, people that aren't have it. I want to attack both of them because I can see us getting sometimes softer these days. With tough love. I mean that with real love, because if you care about someone, you don't want them to get to a point where they're just accepting being either very overweight and they just think that's how they are and they can't change. And I have to learn to like myself like this.

John Proper: 18:04

I'm not saying you shouldn't love yourself like you should, but love yourself towards changing and becoming better. The other spectrum too, of someone on the other end who's perfectly fit, and they need to learn self-love too. I just don't want people to feel stuck on either end, because or forget about the goals you may have to become the best version of yourself, because that's what long-term health is. We're talking about longevity here and pretty much all of this. You don't want to get to 60, 70, 80 years old, be that overweight and you're putting a burden on a lot of people. I know we're not here to live for other people, but we want to make sure that we're being the best we can, because we don't want the ones that we care about to have to drop everything and take care of us.

Justin Gaines: 18:51

Right? Well, because, on the same point, we aren't here to live for other people, but other people aren't here to live for other people either, exactly.

Justin Gaines: 18:58

You can't put a separate burden on somebody and not think like, oh well, they should help me because they're a family member, they're this, they're that. But if you could put them in a position where, at the time they're spending with you, helping get you up off the floor, helping you be mobile, if you could spend that time walking in the park or going and visiting somewhere, I think you would more enjoy that time spent together than it being out of sheer necessity.

John Proper: 19:21

No doubt. So I think that's the mental aspect that I love that came into play here. But then the other part that we were talking about is the more muscle mass you have, the better insulin response you have, or the better insulin sensitivity you have. And that's going to be a huge thing because we know when people have poor insulin sensitivity, linked with being overweight, diabetes, poor insulin sensitivity or response to an influx of sugar is going to cause inflammation throughout the body. This is probably why there's the link between obesity and cancers. But we know that's a huge link between tons of diseases.

John Proper: 19:58

You are carb overload, sugar addict, overweight. Your risk for all of these diseases Alzheimer's, cancer, autoimmune disease goes through the roof. And that's why, again, I think we're a lot of people are thinking like oh, the answer is animal-based high fat all the time. It's like well, it feels like that because we're living in a world that's pushing us process sugary carb foods all the time. So I think we're doing a 180. Whereas like, no, let's meet in the middle and eat our essential fats, our essential proteins, good source there and have carbs when they're necessary. So again, looking at that picture as a full circle. So what would you say on paper.

Justin Gaines: 20:42

No, this is going to fluctuate based off you know genetic and where you are geographically, but what would you say is like an ideal protein intake, fat intake, carbon intake, Like what's the ratio or the grams that we should be taking in of each of our macros in order to maintain that balanced diet?

John Proper: 21:00

Great question and you're making it practical for everyone listening, so appreciate that.

Justin Gaines: 21:05

Well, yeah, we're saying blanket things here really. Let's make it measurable.

John Proper: 21:10

Yeah. So the biggest thing is I'm going to center everyone's diet around protein and especially and I know we're talking a lot about this in terms of if you're overweight, the easiest, best way to lose weight is. What we're going to want to do is protein in grams. That's usually how it's measured. If you flip over a package you can see. You know, this serving has 20 grams of protein, so in grams.

John Proper: 21:30

Each day you want to eat one gram per ideal body weight. I say ideal because some people might want to gain weight, some people might want to lose weight, so for me we can just say like, my ideal body weight is 210 pounds. That's an arbitrary number I've made up because of sports and stuff, but that's what I would like to go for and that means I should be eating 200 around there each day, 210 grams of protein every day, and however many calories that makes up, as you can see with our whole conversation, if it's coming from animal sources and seafood, it's going to be a lot less calories than my whole day would probably be taken up by eating plant sources to get that.

Justin Gaines: 22:10

But so each gram of protein has how many calories? Carbs and protein are four, fat is nine, it's nine. Ok, so 840 is what I mean. I'm just running like yours.

John Proper: 22:23

Yeah, no, that's a good way of showing it.

Justin Gaines: 22:26

So that's 840. Because I'm going to try and break this down into 10% to say like, ok, this breaks down Because a lot of diets are done that way. Now I realize you're going to base it off of this one gram per ideal body weight, so that's going to store off the ratios. But I think it will be important to show the breakdown. Because, then where would you go with your remaining fats and carbs?

John Proper: 22:47

Well, that's perfect, because here's the thing, and there's a book called the Poor Misunderstood Calorie and they do exactly what we're doing. So it's a great book to pick up if you want. But this will always stay the same, like this protein, and people kind of change this because when you get into the percentages it can change the number and grams of protein. You never want to change the number of grams of protein, so that will always stay the same. And then, for me, I'm going to base it on, ok, let's say, the average individual. I'm going to base it on energy expenditure, so how active they are. If you are very active and you're in a good metabolic state, you're not already overweight. Like, just split the rest in percentages of fats and carbs. That's what I would do, start right in the middle. So always keep your protein at that number.

Justin Gaines: 23:35

And then balance the carbs and the fat. Make that 50-50, basically.

John Proper: 23:39

This is the recommendation for. If someone is an active person, not overweight, kind of the average individual, hit that exact grams of protein per ideal body weight daily and then just split the carbs and the fats and see how you feel, Because those are the two numbers you get to play with. The protein will stay the same, the fats and the carbs you get to play with. Now, if someone is very overweight, sedentary, not moving a lot, and needs to lose weight, I'm going to tell someone to significantly drop the carbs. So this is where we would utilize a diet much higher in fat and lower in carbohydrates if someone is overweight, because you're going to see a much greater response in weight loss, insulin sensitivity and this is kind of a tool. This diet is a tool to use to aid in weight loss. So that's kind of our second category there.

Justin Gaines: 24:33

Interesting Because I just ran the numbers quick on your numbers. So we said you were eating 2,840 calories roughly. We said that was roughly what your target was, which is probably pretty in line with what you're doing as far as workouts and everything that would leave you then 1,000 calories each for carbs and fat, which comes out to 250 grams of carbs and 111 grams of fat, which is a lot. That's still a significant amount of food.

John Proper: 25:03

Yeah, I don't track because that's a whole other episode.

Justin Gaines: 25:08

Right, and because we don't have a calorie, we leave it at that and go.

John Proper: 25:11

But on average we make it reasonable.

John Proper: 25:13

Yeah, average, I'm probably around 3,000 calories, maybe a little more. But right now we gave two options. We gave the average individual who's just starting out, wants baseline, what to do. The overweight individual. And now we can give the third type, that what I do is I eat seasonally. So right now my diet is going to be the same amount of protein. That doesn't change with the seasons. But I live in a northern climate so it's very cold and there's not a lot of produce available. So I eat very high fat, very little carbs.

Justin Gaines: 25:46

And your carbs are probably all coming from root vegetables that are stored.

John Proper: 25:50

Frozen fruit, root vegetables that are stored Like. I'm not perfect, I like to buy dried figs, but that one I kind of think about. Oh, they're dried Like it makes sense, but we're doing things in terms of that. Because it's winter, it works with the body in terms of lower carb, because sunlight plays into carbohydrate metabolism signals to our body. So right now, without strong UV light, you're going to do better in terms of a weight response and again, this is a whole other episode, but that's why wintertime?

Justin Gaines: 26:20

drop the carbs.

John Proper: 26:25

Spring, summertime comes around. Boom, I'm bumping those right back up.

Justin Gaines: 26:30

So you brought something interesting there. You said that you do the seasonality piece because of the hormones. Now to bring us back on track, does the protein element like where you're getting your protein from? Does that affect hormones? Does your protein intake impact hormones or is it mostly just carbs? Sunlight those are the main things driving hormones. Great point.

John Proper: 26:52

Sunlight whole hormone episode later. To stay on track here, protein one of the main things I saw. So protein is used to derive peptide hormones and these peptide hormones are crucial in stress, appetite, energy, reproduction. If anyone has ever gone on a lower protein diet, you could see things like hair loss. These peptides that are used to keep functions going in the body may start to be taken away because they're not seen as the most crucial ones. So hair loss is a great sign that vegans or vegetarians, if they're experiencing it's kind of a sign of I'm losing hair, because hair isn't the most essential thing to the body, but that's still a sign that we're not working at an optimal state.

John Proper: 27:40

So, getting the protein here and, like we talked about before, leucine, isoleucine, valine, those right amino acids are going to be the precursors to these peptides. You can't just make it with any amino acid. So the second part is that I think more people will know is protein is extremely satiating and this again is important if someone is trying to lose weight because, like we talked about, focus on that protein, drop the carbs You're going to lose weight at a much, much greater rate. I've seen this with my own clients. Protein decreases the hormone ghrelin, and that's the hormone that makes us think like, oh, we're hungry, we need to eat a bunch. And that's just going to be a huge benefit because if you're decreasing that hunger hormone, you're not going to feel like you need to snack, constantly increase calories and, that protein being satiating, you're going to be able to go throughout your day.

John Proper: 28:30

This is the biggest reason I see people snack too. You should not snack. You should not snack. In terms of you should not feel you need to snack. It's not a meal. Okay, if you want to have a day where there's like Super Bowl party and there's a bunch of snacks, that's different, but people every day snack in between meals. The only reason you're snacking is because your meal was not big enough, not satiating enough and not good enough, so you have to. You're getting signals from your body hunger signals because you're probably under eight in fats or you're under eight in protein.

Justin Gaines: 29:02

Or you're bored. I know a lot of people are bored. Yeah, yeah and do it. So having the right balance and protein, though, is also going to help stop that overeating, because it's going to make you feel satiated. It's not going to, it's going to release the right hormones. Ghrelin, I think, is the one you said that'll make it. So you know which? I think it's so funny? It's called ghrelin because it sounds like ghrelin. So if your stomach's not ghrelin, you have ghrelin, that's a good point, I do. That's funny, funny how close.

Justin Gaines: 29:31

They are in the name there.

John Proper: 29:34

It's like not a coincidence. Yeah right, and you even touched on this before too those receptors in the stomach that get triggered when your food's pushing against them to tell you you're full, if you're overweight I think you kind of hinted on this before if you're eating so much in excess to get the amount of protein you need from, say, vegetables, your body starts going okay, we're ignoring these signals every time. Let's dampen them. Maybe the body doesn't need these signals. And then, as you get overweight, as you do this continually, these signals get harder to hear, which makes overeating much easier.

Justin Gaines: 30:08

Interesting.

John Proper: 30:09

And then you get a gastric bypass to make it smaller and make the thing flat we're not going there, yeah Right, yeah we won't go there, but I'm just saying like it makes sense to the gastric bypass surgery.

Justin Gaines: 30:22

Not that the gastric bypass surgery makes sense, but it rationalizes what's happening there because you're basically re-amplifying that, because you're completely shrinking down the stomach again and making it so that your body's like, wow, there's a response here we're stretching.

John Proper: 30:37

No, actually I'll hand you that that's actually a new way of viewing the bypass surgery, because it's actually a good way of you're resetting those receptors, in a sense making it smaller. The only problem is obviously, if weight gain was only dependent on those receptors, boom, it worked great. But it's dependent on that.

Justin Gaines: 30:55

There's a lot more going into play.

John Proper: 30:56

but I'm just saying, like it makes sense, it's a good way, yeah.

Justin Gaines: 30:58

And then that's shrinking it down so that those receptors have a higher sensitivity versus where they've been muted down to.

John Proper: 31:06

Yeah, that's a good way to think about it. All right, and I know so, this episode is about omnivorous diets plant-herset, animal-based but these are the things that, even though it doesn't seem like we're talking about them, we are, because of how important protein is and how important animal and seafood sources of protein are A couple of the things. To kind of wrap this up of. What we talked about is another thing grip strength and lean body mass. These are two very good indicators of how healthy you are long-term. It's, for me, one of the weirdest ones grip strength. But how strong someone's grip is, They've always correlated it with like a lot longevity, so I assume it's just playing into the terms of better grip strength, better muscle mass, better strength. Overall, it's like an ideal grip strength.

Justin Gaines: 31:48

Where should I be at? What are those? Grip strength? How many pounds of pressure should I be on this?

John Proper: 31:54

I don't know, we'll have to look into that but I definitely know if you're lifting weights, you're doing resistance training and you're holding heavy weights in your hand, your grip strength's gonna go.

John Proper: 32:03

You know, I think we're talking about people that don't work out, yeah, yeah, but those are two great indicators and in a lot of studies it's been shown that those two factors are much better in people that eat omnivorous diets than people that are eating plant-based or vegan diets. And then the last thing here again, I think I've said this a bunch of times, but the reason we're maybe seeing such a strong push because, again, we are not advocating for carnivore diets, getting rid of plants, but the reason we're seeing that push is because we're seeing a lot of problems come up these days a lot of diseases like sarcopenia, young women and men but mainly young women having anemia, very light-headed when they get up, thyroid problems, all of these things coming up that are kind of going along with eating less of those amino acids and nutrients in seafood and meat that we need, so like for our thyroid avoiding seafood, which even people that eat meat a lot avoid seafood, just because if they don't like it, it's just not something that was really popular in, I think, american diets.

Justin Gaines: 33:08

Yeah, that's always been an issue for me, like I have to be very intentional in including it in my diet, because it's not something I particularly prefer, but the more we talk about it, the more I'm like. I'm gonna find a way that I like this and really figure out what I like. Which is great because and where it would include it.

John Proper: 33:23

Yeah, I think that's great of you for doing that, because the benefits for me is that is the food to eat, and I think that's not even a one of like plant-based animals. That's just a lot of people didn't grow up I think even myself, like you, didn't just eat seafood growing up that much, so you didn't have a palate for it, so it's harder to like, right. But seafood is just. The nutrients in it are so key for health, especially we talk about for thyroid problems, so that people are missing we're talking selenium iodine these nutrients that are crucial for a proper working thyroid. People are missing those, so you'll see a lot of thyroid problems. We talked about sarcopenia, anemia, like girls that are menstruating, especially that are lightheaded there, because if they're not eating red meat, you're not getting iron, you're not getting B12, folate, all of these essential nutrients, and I think that's why this meat-centric, animal-based diet is becoming so popular because of all these issues coming up.

Justin Gaines: 34:21

Right. And another thing too is I mean, it's just societal to wanna be on the extremes, so common to wanna be on the extremes, and it's just something that constantly gets pushed.

John Proper: 34:31

It probably sounds like we're advocating for the inclusion of meat so much and I think I am doing that because we don't have to do a content podcast or an episode on the benefits of plants. That's out there, but right now the narrative is also out there of their studies coming from prestigious universities, saying how bad animal products are, how meat causes obesity, and we have to go against some of those things because they're ridiculous claims. Like I said, we don't need to do an episode on the benefits of plants because those have been done. People know those. We are pro-plant but we're also pro-animal and seafood products.

Justin Gaines: 35:12

Right, balance out that diet.

John Proper: 35:15

Thanks for listening to our podcast.

Justin Gaines: 35:16

We hope this helps you on your balance freedom journey.

John Proper: 35:19

Please share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Justin Gaines: 35:21

Until next time, stay balanced.