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TMHS 556: 5 Nutrition Principles For Healthy Weight And High Performance – With Mike Dolce
When it comes to building a healthier and stronger body, the simple, consistent basics often yield the highest results. My friend Mike Dolce has over 20 years coaching experience, he is a four-time World MMA Trainer of the Year and the expert behind The Dolce Diet. What I love about Mike is that while he works with both professional athletes and everyday folks, he applies the same principles to all his clients.
On this episode of The Model Health Show, Mike Dolce is sharing key principles to weight loss, body recomposition, and overall health and longevity. Mike is sharing his scientifically proven nutrition tips and exercise templates that you can use to build a stronger and healthier body. Best of all, he’s sharing realistic advice for integrating health-promoting habits into your daily life, whether or not you’re an MMA athlete.
Mike’s mission is to educate people to look and feel their best. His message is motivational, but more importantly, his insights are effective. I hope Mike’s tips will resonate with you and that you’ll find this episode empowering. Enjoy!
In this episode you’ll discover:
- What high net nutrient whole foods are.
- Why the Dolce Diet is a longevity-based approach.
- The importance of eating fresh, local, in-season foods.
- Why protein is so important, and how to calculate how much you need.
- The problem with processed sugar.
- Why humans are omnivores.
- What it means to eat to satisfaction, and not fullness.
- The most important nutrition tip.
- How to create digestive efficiency, and why it matters.
- The shocking effects dehydration can have on your cognitive function.
- Simple, real-world tips to help you drink more water.
- The negative implications obesity can have on other aspects of our health.
- Exactly how often you should exercise every week.
- Why humans are built to walk.
- What a unilateral deadlift is and its benefits.
- How to remove your ego from a workout.
Items mentioned in this episode include:
- Organifi.com/Model — Use the coupon code MODEL for 20% off!
- PaleoValley.com/model — Use code MODEL for 15% off!
- Connect with Mike Dolce Website / Podcast / Instagram / Facebook
Thank you so much for checking out this episode of The Model Health Show. If you haven’t done so already, please take a minute and leave a quick rating and review of the show on Apple Podcast by clicking on the link below. It will help us to keep delivering life-changing information for you every week!
Transcript:
Shawn Stevenson: Welcome to The Model Health Show. This is fitness and nutrition expert, Shawn Stevenson, and I'm so grateful for you tuning in with me today. What if we can create an environment where health is the norm? Where ease and access to healthy food is the norm? Where a healthy, nutritious movement is the norm? Conditions where great sleep is the norm? Stress management is the norm, great relationships are the norm? Right now, if these ingredients to a healthy life are part of your life, you're weird, you're Doctor Strange, you don't fit in with what's happening in the world at large right now, because it is anything but that. Our access... Our ease of access to healthy, nutritious food, our ease of access to healthy, nutritious movement and high-quality sleep hygiene and management of stress, not being bombarded with stress, healthy relationships, all of these things in many ways in our culture today have been fractured.
Our evolutionary blueprint as humans and things that have helped us to become who and what we are today, those ingredients have been put into a bit of a tizzy. Alright, it's spinning around like that little top thing on Inception. And in many ways, we are existing in an inception. We're inside of a dream, inside of a dream, dream, alright? We need to wake up and start to shift and to change and to create culture where these things become the norm again, where real food is accessible to all of our communities. Because in reality, so many folks today have been struggling with their health, struggling with their mental health, their physical health, their association with their greatness. Because if you're listening to this right now, if you're hearing my voice, you are in fact a special phenomenon that has never existed before in human history.
No one has ever been born onto this plane, onto this planet like you in the history of our species, and no one like you is going to come after. You are a unique phenomenon with very special, unique gifts, talents, capacities, skills, experience, things that this conglomeration of ingredients that made you makes you so remarkable. You are here at this time to express those things. You have the right and the need to express those things. And so, creating the conditions where we can fully and authentically express ourselves and our health, that's what this is really all about, you know? And so, I know that you are a part of the solution. And so again, if you are hearing my voice right now, you are in that order, and you're also seeing and probably experienced the dissonance has taken place in our world, in recent decades, but also especially right now more than ever.
Because today we often receive these very cookie cutter things, you know? You really should lose some weight. You really should watch your calories, watch your fat, don't do this, don't do that, you need to make sure that you're exercising more, just eat a little less, exercise more, you'll get there. Very superficial things that many people have tried again and again and again, and the reality is, and you've probably heard the statistics, well over 85% of folks who partake in a conventional calorie restricted diet and exercise program fail. It's the F word, it's that dirty F word. They set out to lose weight and they might in the short term, but eventually they gain that weight back and often times with additional weight. And this is because we're doing things that are not actually addressing the root cause of the weight gain in the first place, which is here in our culture, we have a culture that has created such a massive metabolic disruption, our metabolic health.
At its core, we can cut calories all we want, but if we're not giving the human body the raw materials that are needed to actually build the hormones that regulate our metabolism, that actually feed the microbes, our microbiome in a way that our microbes are then able to produce all of the vital things in us for us that we need to thrive, for our immune health, for our mental health, these short-chain fatty acids, you know, these SCFAs that these microbes can be printing out for us and sharing with us, but they've got to get their nutrition supply. So, it's about healing our metabolism at its core. And as you'll hear today, our special guest said, most people are willing to do whatever it takes, but not willing to wait as long as it takes. We can say we're going to do whatever it takes; we get fired up and we jump into something, but not willing to wait as long as it takes. Because here's the thing, it's not what you do every now and then, it's not what you do occasionally, it is the things that you do on a consistent basis.
And doing those things on a consistent basis will literally create the form and functionality of your body, that's the truth. But oftentimes, we don't invest, we don't have that mental shift take place and flip that switch in our minds to know that this is who I am. I'm somebody I walk every day, that's who I am. And we look at it in terms of like, I'm going to walk every day for the next month so that I can go to Miami, and I could drop down and get my eagle on, alright? I'm going to work out, do whatever I got to do for the next three months. I got three months. Alright, they got three quarters, there's three periods in my performance, instead of flipping that switch in our mind and saying, "Hey, this is who I am, I'm somebody, I'm an everyday athlete," and there is nobody better to teach us and to share his insights and experience on being an everyday athlete for everybody than our special guest today. Not only has he trained, we're talking... He is the four-time world MMA trainer of the year.
Highest performing athlete, some of the highest performing athletes on Earth. He's the guy who's helped them to get... We're talking about meeting weight. Weight is a big, big part of the whole UFC, the whole MMA paradigm, but also performance. That's what sets him apart, that's why he's the trainer of the year four times. It's because he's not losing performance, which can happen dramatically based on kind of conventional methods of cutting weight. So, he's been able to really hone this formula and boil things down to these very simple principles that apply to not just high-performing UFC fighters, but everyday folks, and he's done it again and again and again. So, I'm really excited about this episode. And one of the things that we talk about is our now rampant consumption in our society. Here in the United States, over 60%, the average American's diet is ultra-processed food.
We're going to talk a little bit more about what exactly constitutes this ultra-processed food, because there's a distinction here. But the fact that this is the ratio now is, I would say bordering on insanity, but it's well passed insanity. It's actually rated insanity's land. And it's pillaging, alright? Now, here's a little fun fact, yes, of course, making a shift and creating the conditions to where our bodies start to have a defense in the attraction and connection of these hyper-palatable foods, because I'm just going to be real. Not only was I a member of this hyper-palatable food consumption, I, was the President, alright? I'm just going to go ahead and say, I was a card-carrying member and President, where just about every meal that I ate was highly processed foods, I'm talking... I was eating fast food every day, every day when I was in college, and when I was in my worst state of health. I didn't know any... I didn't know, I didn't know that it mattered.
But part of what helped to reset my palate, and transform my health was the inclusion of this very remarkable, but very simple compound. And that compound is chlorophyll. A study publishing the Peer View Journal, Appetite, found that chlorophyll can assist in weight loss and help reduce the urge to eat hyper-palatable ultra-processed foods. Alright? There's something remarkable about this compound. This particular pigment is also a very powerful antioxidant and one of the most dense sources, and it's actually where it gets its name of chlorophyll is Chlorella. Chlorella contains Lutein and Zeaxanthin. And these are two carotenoids that are proven to protect your eyes and lower the risk of macular degeneration. Staring at these phones and computers is not good. You need some added insurance for those lookers, for your eyes, and Chlorella is one of the most remarkable things, again, clinically proven to protect your eyesight.
Now, one other little cool thing about Chlorella, a double-blind placebo control study, published in Clinical and Experimental Hypertension, found that Chlorella was able to normalize blood pressure of test subjects with hypertension. I get my Chlorella combined with Ashwagandha, combined with Spirulina, another powerful source of Chlorella and are formulated, taste amazing in their Organifi green juice formula. Head over to organifi.com/model. You're going to get 20% off their green juice blend, that's O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/model. Again, you get 20% of their world class... The green juice formula has just taken off. It's absolutely skyrocketed. People all over are utilizing Organifi every day, and for a good reason. All organic, low temperature processed, loaded with nutrition. Go to organifi.com/model. Now let's get to the Apple Podcast review of the week.
Itunes Review: Another five-star review titled, “changed my life” by Tash. "Shawn, I can't thank you enough for your insights in these podcasts. I've always been a nutrition and fitness fanatic since high school, and now as a 23-year-old registered nurse, devastated and stuck in the middle of the faulty healthcare system, seeing the huge lack of food and nutrition and the dependence of drugs, I am on the road to changing my career to focus on my passion for the human body and the power of food. Thanks to your inspiration in your podcast and your book, Eat Smarter, I wouldn't have the courage to follow my dreams, keep doing what you're doing."
Shawn Stevenson: Let's go, thank you so much for sharing that. That means everything. And I'm so grateful to be a part of your amazing story. And you know, the world needs you, the world needs all of us right now to step up, to get educated and to serve others. And our special guest is no exception. He's all about service. He has a huge heart, and his background is remarkable. Our guest today is four-time world MMA trainer of the year and best-selling author, Mike Dolce. Mike is widely regarded as one of the most sought-after coaches in all of professional sports. He was actually inducted into the martial arts hall of fame, and he's earned the respect of his peers, as well as his clients. Mike has been featured in several major media outlets, including Sports Illustrated. He also hosts his own popular fitness and lifestyle podcast, The Mike Dolce Show. He's an in-demand speaker, trainer, and just all-around amazing human being. Let's jump into this conversation with the remarkable Mike Dolce. Alright, my guy, Mike Dolce, living legend. I can't believe that it's been like five years since you've been on this show, man.
Mike Dolce: Well, it's good that we back channel, we talk behind the scenes, so I still get my model health... And of course, I'm a fan and subscriber to the channel, everything you do, so I'm walking the journey with your brother. Thank you for shedding the light on all the dark times we're going through.
Shawn Stevenson: Oh, man, it's my honor, and like I said, man, you're a real one and somebody that I really admire, and I look to. And you are a four-time world MMA trainer of the year, specializing in nutrition for meeting weight loss goals and performance. Well, here's the thing, your principles for high performing athletes, and for everyday folks, just wanting to look and feel healthier are the same. That's what I love about you. Now, let's dive in and talk about some of your most important nutrition principles to kick things off.
Mike Dolce: Absolutely. So, the most important thing from our perspective is high net nutrient helpful Whole Foods, right? Why is that? Well, we talk about calories in, calories out, we talk about macros, that matters, but what about the micros? Now, you and I Shawn, as we stand here and all of your viewers and supporters, every single one of us, well, we are not what we seem to be. We are simply cellular organisms, right? At our most base level, we are simply trillions of cells living and dying literally as we speak, but each one of these cells has a very specific job, and to do that job, they have a very specific need. Just like when you see a house being built, you see high level craftsmen and women on site. Well, those crafts people, they need the proper tools of the trade, and it is our job as sentient beings who are intentional, accountable, and mindful, we have to deliver the highest quality materials to that job site, and that's where high net nutrient foods come in.
Because the highest the nutrient capacity of these foods that we discuss, and I'm sure you and I will talk about it, well, the lower total calories you have to consume. So, the calories take care of itself, the more nutrition per calorie I can consume, the less total calories I need to eat. And quick example, an apple, medium apple is about 100 calories. A medium donut, plain donut is about 100 calories. How many people will sit down eat two, three, four donuts and still be hungry? How many people will sit down and eat two, three, four apples and be hungry? Most people don't eat two apples, let alone three or four. Great. Just as a simple easy takeaway for people at home to kind of start understanding where we store our thought process, the foundation of The Dolce diet is a longevity-based approach to immediate short-term athletic and aesthetic performance.
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, that's perfect, man. You know, this should be a Captain Obvious principle, but it still isn't. I love that analogy with the donut and the apple, because there's also... If you're powering through an apple, and we're talking about getting into a second or third apple, there's a taste change that takes place, there's a shift in your desire for that apple that is not apparent when you're eating those donuts. Because the artificial chemical nature of that donut is able to bypass our natural evolutionary responses to like, I've had enough of a thing. And so, just making that one jump to eating real food being that foundational tenet, you're already winning.
Mike Dolce: Absolutely. And it's those... We say there's co-factors. In organic material, there is an array of co-factors that make that organic material... On this point, we're talking about nutrition, right? So, when we talk about what we say is Earth-Grown nutrients, we used to say whole foods, but people, they took that as they could go to Whole Foods and buy cereal. We had to say no. Earth Grown nutrients, Earth grown nutrients that are procured as locally to the point of ingesting as possible. Meaning, if I want to eat a banana, well, hopefully, I can walk out into my backyard and grab a banana instead of getting one shipped in a few thousand miles from Costa Rica, not that that's bad, but good, better, best. I want to get it as close to the point of consumption as possible in the same soil that I step in every day. And in that same soil that my family has hopefully stepped in and was reared in and lived and died and was buried in, over time, because genetically, we have certain enzymatic propensities to consume, digest, absorb and partition certain foods, right?
We understand. Now in time, humans are very adaptable, we can live in any sort of terrain, in any sort of environment and survive, but you and I, Shawn, we don't want to just survive, we want to thrive. We want to optimize. And that's my job, I work with the world's greatest athletes. Right? There is no room, 0.00... Is what we say. Our athlete must weigh 170.00 at 4:04 PM. On Friday, January 29th at this point, in this location, that is... There's no room for error in that equation, so that's the mentality that we use when we approach this. And it might sound like I'm overly analytical, but that's not a bad thing when you're first getting your research and in time it gets diluted out, but as we go back to the banana analogy, we want to get our food that is local, it's organic, it's fresh. It's in season. Again, why is that? Because I know you and I, at base level, we are cellular organisms.
Our job, our main job is to provide the highest net nutrient per calorie to allow ourselves to do their job, which is they all have a specific job to keep us alive and then to move forward to thrive based upon the stimuli that you and I apply to it. Run a marathon, do a power lifting competition, fight in the cage, or just live your best life long, you know? All of that is good, but it always starts at that base level earth grown nutrient.
Shawn Stevenson: Yes, and also another one of your principles is, we're talking about the base level nutrient makeup of humans.
Mike Dolce: Yes.
Shawn Stevenson: You know, if somebody was to munch on us, we are largely structurally made of proteins, right?
Mike Dolce: Yes.
Shawn Stevenson: And so this is another one of your principles that just seems to be left out of the equation when we have all this infighting in the nutrition world and really religiosity taking place with high fat versus low fat, high carb versus low carb, and this protein is like, sitting over on the sideline, like, "I'll wait till you guys finish and then jump in here into the conversation." When in reality, protein has been... The power of protein is something that has been a big thrust in our evolutionary adaptation as a species, it's critical for our cognitive performance, but also... You know, structurally, but also for our metabolism, for our metabolic health. So, eating more protein is one of your principles. Talk about that a little bit.
Mike Dolce: It is... Well, we have to eat protein. Protein is the building block of life. Now, one gram of protein equals approximately four calories, that's basic nutrition information. And that's where most nutrition conversations stop. Well, a single gram of protein is broken down into 20 specific amino acids. Those individual amino acids also have very special jobs to do, that could be a screw, it could be a nail, it could be copper wiring. So, when we're building again, earlier the analogy of building that house or building that mansion, we look at the individual amino acids themself. Well, what if I have a big box of screws, but I have no nails and no copper wiring, how is this end structure going to be built? It's not. It will fall apart regardless of deciding and the color of paint we slap on to it, the infrastructure will decay from the inside. So, we want a robust ingestion of again, high net nutrient helpful Whole Foods, organic, local, in season, minimally processed, processed only to the point of safe ingestion, right?
'Cause oatmeal is processed. One could say, rice is processed, even wild caught venison. Well, you have to process that. You can field dress it, take it back, cut it into... There's certain cuts and stuff like that, that's processing, so minimally processed. But again, when we talk about protein, we know there's more than enough data now. Dr. Brad Schoenfeld is probably one of the leaders with regards, in my opinion, in my little neck of the woods, with regards to adequate protein ingestion and we always lean towards for healthy athletic expression. Now, what is athletic expression? Every single person here is an athlete. We say you are an everyday athlete. I am not fighting in the UFC, I have no competitions waiting for me, there is no trophy at the end of this month or a year, but I still treat myself like an athlete, I still try and crawl and run and jump and skip, and grapple and squeeze and explode and do all the stuff, express myself athletically, as every single person listening to this should be doing as humans.
Now, what Schoenfeld and many others, of course, before him and after him, have found that consuming somewhere between 0.8 grams and 1.2 grams of protein per pound of... And they break it into kilos. We're here in the United States, we don't talk about kilos, we talk about pounds. Around the world, they talk kilos, but we're going to keep it to the American audience here, we say pounds, so we'll say, relatively lean. You take in 0.8... Let's say start one gram of protein per pound of relatively lean body mass. You weigh 200 pounds, you're 15% body fat, 20% body fat. Fine, that put you 160, 170 or so, you should be taking in about 170 grams of protein per day, give or take 20%, 25% up or down. Now it's that 0.7 to 1.3, low and high. And the higher you go is based upon your expenditure. I'm getting up, I'm going for a run, I'm doing a little bit of cross-fit later on, and I just started doing jiu-jitsu. I'm a white belt in jiu-jitsu.
I'm training with resistance two, three days a week. Well, maybe now you're 1.0. I've been training for six months, two years, I'm consistent in my training program, I'm adding a little progressive overload. I'm trying to build some muscle. Well, now maybe you're 1.1, 1.2, you're relatively sedentary. You like to go for a little swim, play a little basketball once or twice a week, go for a walk around the lake. You know, you're probably down at that 0.7, just trying to throw some numbers out there for everyone listening. Right around 1.0 per pound of relatively lean mass, most people are less lean than in their mind they think they are, as you know, Shawn by the way. And here's just a fun one.
Well, everyone says you need to lose 20 pounds, whatever you think you need to lose, double it, because... And that's from my experience working with thousands of people, double... Whatever you think you need to lose, double that, to look the way you think you look when you lose half that. You think you need to lose 20 pounds; you need to lose 40 pounds to look the way you think you look 20 pounds down. So that's an aside off the protein. But around one gram per day, Shawn, you know that, but we need to pay attention to that and prioritize protein per meal. Prioritize it, start with your protein, and then just look at carbs and fat as just energy... Tasty energy, right? And there should be a little bit more, a little bit less, a little bit more fat for a couple of weeks, a little bit more carbs for the next couple of weeks, or by meal, I don't care about that. High net nutrient health for Whole Foods from Earth grown sources. And everything takes care of itself. Sorry, I went a little long there.
Shawn Stevenson: No, I love it, man, this is great because even with this, I just realize something, pro is in the word, pro-tein.
Mike Dolce: I like that. I like that.
Shawn Stevenson: You need to really focus on this as a top tier element from our nutrition, if we base things around that, and part of that metabolic side obviously, you know this is the thermogenic effect that we're getting from the protein intake, but what is really happening is, is it makes our metabolism more efficient by its interaction in support of our mitochondria and this uncoupling process and just able to burn fuel or to eliminate fuel more efficiently. So, if we can focus... Again, just taking on your tenets, you've utilized these same principles with the highest performing athletes in the world and everyday folks, and if we can flip the switch in our mind... Because I think a part of this too, and I talked about this recently with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who's really the protein doc, who's out leading the charge in this conversation, and in recent decades, protein began to become more villainized, it's a corporate... It's a bad... The crazy thing is we keep going through these different iterations, fat is the problem, no it's carbs are the problem, no protein, and it's so ignorant because it's missing the foundational principle that you started with, real food, these are foods that our ancestors evolved eating, and the next one of your principles, which you touched on this a tiny bit, is to eat less processed sugar, so let's talk about that a little bit more.
Mike Dolce: So, processed sugar should really push towards all processed foods, and we understand through marketing that highly palatable, low net nutrient foods are in abundance in the current industrialized food supply. Most of the food most people eat is highly palatable synthetic foods. Food-like substances, even those... That's the term I'd like to use, because I don't consider them food, they are synthetic food-like substances that is not food, they may yield some sort of nutrition, we can argue if it is a benefit or not, I will argue that it is a some loss, regardless of what you consume, and then I'll take it further, and maybe we'll touch on this, this also is the systemic inflammation caused from the synthetic toxic food-like substances, and that's something I never hear brought up by even the PhDs who will push that artificial sweeteners and artificial sugars are good things, they have a positive benefit, usually they're hiding behind some sort of company that is selling Sucralose in a health supplement, all of the artificials, but anyway, that is an aside. So, what we say is, stay away from processed sugar, sugar is not bad, this is why I go after the carnivores.
Now I eat meat every single day. I eat meat every day. I eat animal products every day, I am certainly not a vegan, although I eat plant-based products every single day, what does that make me? Well, that makes me an omnivore, just like all of my ancestors, and actually Shawn just like yours and everyone listening, every single human here, your ancestors were omnivores. 100% since the dawn of time. I know, shocking and I'm going to take it further. The longest living humans on the planet are omnivores and the highest performing athletes, are omnivores, all of the data clearly shows that an omnivorous lifestyle is the ideal lifestyle for humans, there is no data that refutes that yet fitness marketers will come up with their own spin in order to create tribal mentality, to trick people, to follow them for a short period of time and separate them with their cash, that is... That is what I see happening most often, where I sit here as I... But I'm an omnivore, I speak openly about it, and I try not to call people out by name because I'm not a drama guy, I don't like that energy, I don't put that energy into the world, but I will specifically discuss the false idea, especially when it's taking advantage of the population.
Now, your audience, my audience, are highly passionate humans who are looking for answers to solve certain problems that they are dealing with, their family is dealing with in their day, in their life. It is our job to give them the right answers regardless of our ability to monetize. What I say is not sexy, it is not fancy, there is no #keyword, SEO, Facebook pixel that I can come up with that will monetize the stuff that I say. The only way I can monetize is because I tell the truth, and what we do works. That is a much, much smaller audience than any of the keto, the carnivore, the fasting, the fit tees, the waste trainers, the carb blockers, the thermogenics... That's the audience to be in. I'm the most successful weight management coach in the history of Combat Sports, and I do not sell a fat burner. Why is that? How much... Shawn you know. How much would I have made?
Shawn Stevenson: Millions.
Mike Dolce: Millions literally, and I've been pitched six and seven figure... Six and seven figures, and you're probably aware of some of those, I always said no because it was disingenuous and it was untrue, and it was not serving the community, it was not helping people, people need to understand what really works and then apply it, and that's why I bang my head on my microphone and the small little pocket that I have and hear through the beauty of yourself and your massive audience here to spread this information. Now we're talking about, again, I'm slightly off of processed sugar, processed sugar is the problem, not blueberries, not Quinoa. I don't maybe want to say names, maybe we get in the names, but there's certain individuals out there pushing the carnivore stuff, carnivore, carnivore, carnivore but they are eating plant-based products as a part of their daily routine, but they are "carnivore". They talk about how bad fruit is because of "sugar," but they're eating it at the very same time, they're an omnivore. That is omnivore leading an omnivorous lifestyle with an omnivorous meal plan but promoting and selling the carnivore failed philosophy.
Now vegans do this also. Many vegans out there, they're moral vegans, but they each Sour Patch Kids, let's say, pixie sticks and all these little kiddy crappy foods. They're just as wrong as the carnivore, let's say, but again, sugar is not bad. We actually need sugar. The human body, glucose is the primary fuel source of the human body, and Dr. Eddy Galpin did a great job on Joe Rogan's show years ago, refuting what Dr. Dom D'agostino had said a few episodes before. Dom D'agostino was like the Keto guy, when Keto was kind of like in the big cresting wave, talking about how exotic ketones are the ideal optimal fuel source. We know that's not true. We know it's not true and then Galpin came in with all of his credentials and refuted that very easily and very simply, which is actually true, so glucose is a primary fuel source, we need glucose... Where do we get that from?
Well, we can get it in a bunch of different ways for protein, you can actually... The body has a survival mechanism that we can actually convert amino acids into glucose through a process called gluconeogenesis, we can do that so we can survive, so we can f*cking sprint and run from the tiger if God forbid, we have to during times of famine, let's say but it's not optimal, for sure. If we're able to eat healthy high net nutrients from earth grown food sources in a wide variety, then we can have all the nutrients we need and the proper portions of the proper times that allow us to thrive as humans and not to just simply survive and make do so, I went off topic, I apologize for that, but it's a rather robust conversation, there's a lot of nuance to this.
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, thank you so much for sharing your perspective because again, you've helped so many folks with the simplicity of this, and you're bringing up again, this infighting that we have, that's missing the point, which is... And again, where is the lie... Our ancestors evolved as omnivores, and this is just... Whether we like it or not, that's really the case. And the ratio of plant-based to animal-based within that context is going to vary from the location that people were living, the time of year. All those things are going to be factors. And this is also a time when our ancestors were... There was a connection with food and respect, and all of this was... There was a synergy, there was an existing synergy, whereas today, for the average person that is completely like, it's been snipped, it's just literally been... The cord has been cut, and so folks are so disconnected from where their food is coming from, and I know this... I grew up in an environment like that, I just had no idea. And I love the fact that you... There's this new term that's been added because processed food... Because to make a Marinara sauce, you're processing tomatoes. That's a processed food.
That's not what we're talking about. It's been added this part of the label ultra-processed food, that's what we're talking about, and the average American eats about 60% of their diet is ultra-processed food, and we know what that is, and so us being able to say, you know what, that's not... That's not normal, that's not even close to normal, we're not talking 5%, 10%, 20, not even half our diet, 60%. And that number is growing. That's the crazy part. So, conversations like this are so important to get us back to simplicity, another one of your principles is eat until satisfied, not full. What's the distinction here?
Mike Dolce: This is probably the most important aspect of nutrition, of health, of performance, it's not what you consume that matters, it's what you actually absorb. Now we teach a instructors course, a nutrition coach certification course inside our system, my favorite chapter to teach is digestion. Digestion is... 'Cause without digestion, none of it matters. It's like, Shawn, you make a million dollars a week, woo-hoo! Hell yeah! But guess what? The ACH, wire transfer isn't working, and if it doesn't go through, it gets cancelled out and you have to wait till next week now to get the next million. So that process is inefficient, so if I eat the highest net nutrient foods, but I have a faulty digestive system, I'm not getting those nutrients, so therefore, what happens? I do not yield the benefit of the high-quality food. The issue is, many people don't even consume the high net nutrient foods, they consume low net nutrient foods, that creates a systemic dysfunction of the digestive system. So now, when we say, eat until satisfied, not until full, this does two things, Number one, it makes us more mindful of our relationship with food and how our body reacts to the food we're consuming.
Mindfulness is everything, I need to be mindful of my actions, I need to be intentional with the decisions I'm making, I need to be accountable for those actions, I made the choice to initiate. That's a big part of what we do here. We teach the mindfulness of it, but as you consume whatever the meal might be, we say you should be able to push yourself away from the table and go for a light jog, not a sprint, not hit a PR, but at any given time, you should feel light enough, that you can go and be very active, express yourself athletically, 'cause then people say, "Well, how do I know if I'm satisfied, not full?" That's a good... Real world example. Real world takeaway. But now let me tell you why this matters, what we're trying to do is we're trying to create digestive efficiency, we're trying to cultivate an environment that we can ingest food, and then we can begin the digestion process, mechanical digestion as we chew it, and then propulsion where that food actually moves down our esophagus and hits our stomach where an enzymatic reaction occurs, which is chemical digestion begins, and that food then moves down into the small intestine where absorption of those nutrients takes place.
Now, what I say is this phone right here, this is a piece of food, this is a piece of steak chicken that I start to eat, this piece of... This food right here that looks like this is hard and is real as this, I actually have to digest this in a manner that it breaks down to the atomic level, to the point that this phone, this piece of chicken, steak, fish, whatever is not perceptible to the human eye. Only at that point is that able to be absorbed and then partitioned to the trillions of cells around our body and utilized. If we have an inefficient digestive system, guess what? This is not being adequately digested; therefore, this important half will be just passed through, I am not netting behind that nutrients that I am ingesting. Digestion is everything, protecting your digestive environment, which is why we speak about sleep, sleeping seven and a half to nine hours per night, going to bed nine hours before you're supposed to wake up, hopefully waking up within 30 minutes of sunrise, chronobiology, we can talk about that later. Minimizing stress, external stress in your life.
What does that mean? You're on a date with your wife for the first time, my God, like most beautiful woman in front of me, I can't eat anything. You're going to put on a talk in front of your boss or you're going to go in the school play... You can't eat anything. Athletes about to fight, they can't eat anything. Did their nutrient requirement suddenly drop that day, no external factors are having direct impact on their digestive system, we need to be aware of this, right? So we need to protect the digestive system and allow the digestive system to do its job efficiently, the last little analogy I'll use is, we spoke in the beginning about building a house, have all the craftsmen on the lot and we bring the materials, but it takes six months to build a house in my town, we take six months of materials, we dump it on the front lawn on day one, and we drive away.
Guess what? Those craftsmen, they can't do anything. So, the most pristine nails and screws and copper wire, it sits outside in spring, in summer, in fall, and then the winter, and what happens, they start to corrode, they decay, they break down. It creates such a backlog that it creates massive inefficiencies. Now, the plumber can't get through all the nails to get the copper to do their job, systemic dysfunction is the term that I use, systemic dysfunction begins. And the last piece here is, when we eat low net nutrient foods, highly palatable, synthetic, toxic food-like substances that are foreign, recently entered into the food supply, foreign to biological organisms like you and I, it creates systemic inflammation. Systemic dysfunction, yes? Systemic inflammation, which begins in the microbiome, and then it makes its way through all tissues, all functions, all organs in the body. Maybe you, it affects one way and me it affects another based upon genetics and other lifestyle factors that contribute. So, everything I say here and anyone listening should nod their head... I didn't say anything wrong.
And maybe I say it in a matter that's hopefully is simple and easy for everyone to understand and not getting overly complex, we could certainly drill down that hole deeper and then get in brighter minds that study this more specifically to go down into each little minutia of the digestive process and the enzymatic reactions let's say, but we know this to be true, and it always goes back to number one, let's eat helpful high-net nutrient Whole Foods, devoid of synthetic toxic chemicals, devoid of processing. Let's eat in regularity, let's eat food that our body understands from the soil that we grew up on and our grandparents and hopefully their grandparents grew up on that our digestive systems have grown accustomed to such foods.
Look at lactose intolerance. Pale-skinned Eastern European cultures typically have much higher instance of lactose intolerance than maybe the Italians, let's say, and if I'm saying Eastern European maybe I'm getting the parts of the world messed up. My wife, very pale. Pale, white, blonde hair. She can't sniff ice cream without feeling sick. I come from Native American and Sicilian background, I grew up on pasta and milk products, so did my dad and his dad and his dad, we can hit that a little bit more, a lot of science supports that. That's based upon the enzymes that we have cultivated over generations, so when we think like that, then we pull back to now, the over-consumption, like you said, 60-plus percent of ultra-processed foods in the food supply, well, what is that doing to humans today? But then our children tomorrow, and then their children, the next generation that comes through, this is where things get scary, and this is where we can start turning it around through awareness.
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, man, this is remarkable. Thank you so much for sharing this and I'm so grateful. Even when I pose this principle to you, one of your principles, I'm so glad that you drove this into the digestion sphere and talking about even this phenomenon with inflammation, and this is something that folks are going to continue to hear more and more and more about because this is really the crux of the situation, is this internal fire that's taking place in the human body, inflammation is not a bad thing, inherently inflammation is required for form and functionality of the human body, but excessive inflammation can literally start to burn your body down from the inside-out. And this was published in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, and the researchers were looking at this connection between the brain and the gut and brain inflammation, specifically hypothalamic inflammation leading to dysfunction in the performance of the gut, which can literally... Your gut and your brain, your brain can tell your gut to increase the absorption of calories from your food, or it can tell your gut based on the nutrient supply that your gut's telling your brain like, "Hey, we need some of this, we need some of that."
If that communication starts to get lit on fire, essentially all hell can start to break loose, and instead of us addressing these underlying issues, we're looking for a "fat burner," we're looking for some kind of these superficial treatments, and to bring it all home with these diet frameworks, which again, we know the guys, these are our friends and colleagues, and the point being that all of this has value, but we don't want to miss the forest for the trees, and understanding that each and every one of these frameworks, if we even talk about a carnivore framework, it might be a situation where this person's autoimmune condition is so severe, they're so reactive to so many different plant foods at this current point because of the damage that's taken place, because of some other types of plant foods or processed foods or whatever the case might be, and maybe this carnivore framework can be helpful for them to reduce those symptoms and their body start to heal.
But living and promoting this one framework as if it is gospel, and the only thing humans should be doing, is that what we evolved with? And just like being able to keep our cognitive awareness about us and understand all of these things have value, but if you're not getting these principles that someone like the legendary Mike Dolce is sharing with us, we're really... Again, we're really missing the point, and this brings us to the final principal here, which you have, again, you have multiple principles, depending on the framework, and they all have legs to them, but these five fundamental things, eat real food, eat more protein, eat less processed sugar, eat until satisfied, not full and number five is, drink mostly water. Let's talk about this one.
Mike Dolce: Drink mostly water. Let's be hydrated. Hydrate, and most humans that we come in contact with here who hire us for consultations, and we do full intakes and health histories and lifestyle, we understand the average person... Dare, I say every single person we come in contact with at first is chronically dehydrated, living a dehydrated lifestyle. Now, we know when we wake up, we wake up dehydrated, we haven't drunk anything typically for six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11 hours or more while sleeping, and when we sleep, what do we do? We sleep with our mouths open and we respirate, we lose moisture every breath that we take, we're also losing fat through respiration while we sleep, we're losing fat, which is really cool, kind of gross all over my pillow, but anyway.
So, when we're breathing out, we're respirating. We're also perspirating. We are sweating while we sleep, we wake up then we urinate, maybe we use the restroom once in the middle of night, again in the morning, we are chronically dehydrated when we wake up first thing in the morning, and then many people will do what? They'll have a cup of coffee, which will dehydrate you further, caffeine is great, thermogenic properties, there's other good things, antioxidants in the coffee, fine, but now you are even further dehydrated and then you continue on through your day, most humans, the average... The average American here will talk about chronically dehydrated as we go, so that last principle is a reminder, is to remind people to drink more water and in fact, drink almost entirely water. Drink more water.
My wife, again, great example, 125 pounds, don't tell her I said this, she drinks a gallon of water a day, that's four liters a day, she's a mom, she exercises downstairs, Peloton or pre-core some yoga, she does her own little thing, doesn't do anything that I do here, she has her own little routine. She's not grinding, trying to make gains to get the booty popping, she's just trying to be healthy for her, she's drinking four liters a day. I get 220-pound fighters who are complaining about drinking 216-ounce bottles, but they're crushing Monster Energy drinks and cold brew Nitros, and then they're having proper 12 whiskey or a rack of beer or whatever else is at night, and all of those, so drink more water and we could go deeper into the hydration level and that's...
We are experts with hydration, dehydration, rehydration, because of our athletes who compete in weight class-oriented sports, and we do have to... And I will say we don't have to dehydrate them, but we do have to dry them out prior to stepping on the scale. We do that through... If we had more time, maybe we could break that down slightly, but we find a way to do it that they are not dehydrated. In fact, we look to super hydrate them going into the dry out phase, and then we pre-hydrate them into the scale. So again, the point being is water is necessary, everybody knows that, but most people overlook it. And in that, we must drink more water. Now, water has less... 2% dehydration... I'll leave you guys with this; 2% dehydration has a dramatic negative impact on cognitive function. Visio-spatial awareness, my ability to see distance, track distance and movement, at just 2% dehydration.
If I'm 200 pounds, if I lose about four pounds of water weight, my ability to track distance and perception and react to that dramatically drops. We know this of course because we work with combat athletes. We need to know this. Cognitive function, my decision-making skills go down dramatically. Cardiac function is dramatically reduced, putting more stress on the heart itself. Digestion, the ability to digest food goes down, because we need water, we need fluid as a part of the digestive process. So again, the body starts to crumble at just 2%, and we've tracked 2% but... Not we, there's more than enough studies that kind of use 2% as that first threshold, that first level. Most people are dramatically dehydrated as they walk through their life, and it's so easy to drink water. Empty bottles all over where I am right now. I don't go anywhere without water being like a hand, an arm's length away. That is the easiest thing for every person to do. It costs absolutely nothing.
And we say, start your day with water. First thing, water, room temperature water, because it's easiest to get that. Get water in. You're dehydrated, let's get the water in, six to eight... 16, 32 ounces. And then I'll drip in a little bit of caffeine from black coffee, a little espresso and a little tea maybe and slowly start to increase the day. But what can I say? It's like oxygen. Alright, let me wrap it up with this. In order, the tenets of survival, number one, is oxygen. Two minutes. Rule of two. Two minutes without oxygen, most humans die. Two days without water, most humans die. Two weeks without food, well, most people are still going to be alive two weeks after not eating. Not going to feel great.
Two days without water, most humans will die. Well, what's most important? Most people are walking around chronically dehydrated, on the brink of death simply because they, "Don't like drinking water. I don't like the way water tastes." Sprinkle a little fresh lime into it, slice some cucumber into it. The water in our house, you'd pay like $8 for a glass of water in my house. We put some fruit in there... Whatever we do, we just dance it up seasonally, so it looks good. The kids are all day long just filling up their little cups with water, in their little glass crafts sitting on our counter every day. It's so easy to do. Sorry, I ranted a little bit on that one.
Shawn Stevenson: No, no.
Mike Dolce: Just drink water. It's free, it's easy, it's there for everybody.
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, man, listen, do not apologize for this. This is another principle of being human, and you just said it, it's a cultural phenomenon. And of course, me working with so many folks, I've heard the things, I know folks... There are some folks listening just like, "I don't like water. I can't drink water; I don't like the way it tastes." And we've got to understand, one of the things was when my youngest son... Now being so online myself cognitively and seeing these patterns like, "Oh, he's not really drinking that water." When he was like, sippy cup, I put a couple of drops of some English toffee stevia, like two drops in there. Now, he's like guzzling it down and over time, maybe we put three drops over time, we move it to two drops then one drop. Now, this kid, and I've seen him like 95% of what he drinks is water, and that's just normal.
We might go to a restaurant every now and then, and he might... And we leave it up to him. He often doesn't order like a juice or anything like that, and if we do on a rare occasion, like maybe a little juice box or organic apple juice comes along with the meal or something, but even that, he's just not that interested in those things because his cultural kind of programming has set a template for his taste that just like even too much of that sweetness, too much of that stuff can be repelling. Which sounds crazy, is very counterculture, but it's finding creative ways with water, for example, so that we do... And you don't have to like, love it, love it, but just get to a place where it's just like, "Yeah, there's a resonance there." So, finding a place with resonance.
You just mentioned a couple of things. They've got these little cool infuser bottles. You're going to pay $8 for a Dolce water at his house with a little zest of some cucumber and some Himalayan salt or whatever the case might be but find ways to dress it up. All of this conversation today leads us to this place where we're living at a time right now, and you hear it, I hear it. People have these tag lines or even they're sort of becoming like an axiom to "Follow the science", "Trust the science." And you actually have some insight into why what people unknowingly refer to as science. You said this, why science doesn't work? Can you please explain that because that sounds very counterculture to say something like that?
Mike Dolce: Well, the point of that statement, science doesn't work because science is not an end result. Science is not a conclusion. Science is the application of the scientific method, which is questioning. Questioning, constantly questioning. So, when I hear someone talk about keto, I listen and say, "That's very interesting." But what about glucose? What about glycogen storage site specific ending muscle that's available for rapid utilization as an energy substrate, instead of waiting for a ketone to make its way through the body, the bloodstream, to get to the point then I can actually utilize the muscle, let's say. Well, that's an interesting question, but if you listen to a "PhD" who's selling the keto narrative, and I'm just using that 'cause you can do it with anyone, well then wow, back sounds damn compelling. And guess what, all of a sudden, keto becomes the number one searched hashtag on Google for months. 18 months typically, and then it kind of peaks, gets a second life into modified keto, keto for athletes, which is simply...
Nobody's ever been in keto anyway, by the way, because they never actually attain ketosis because they break their low carb thing every five to seven days, but I digress. So, the point of... Science is flawed in that following the science is flawed, in that we should always be asking questions. We could look at what's happening in the world today, and I don't want to get on to that, but we should be asking questions. And I've spoken and I've been attacked and supported by PhDs. Well, you look at their resume, wow, they got a lot of letters after their name, but what they say is b*llsh*t. What they say is b*llsh*t simply because they studied the bullet points from one journal that supports their bias, their narrative, and they can argue the hell out of that. They can do a really good job, but then I can go see another PhD with the exact same credentials who will study a contrary journal and argue those bullet points, and both will technically be correct. Both will be correct.
This happens in fitness and nutrition more than anything that I... Well, that's where my world is, so that maybe it's outside of this world, but I see it constantly. Now, what I say is, "Well, okay, I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying, but in the real world, what works? In the real world what works?" I try to be a pretty intelligent person as everybody here, we're all pretty intelligent people, we listen. We can tell when we're kind of being taken advantage of from the used car salesmen, we can tell when the waiter keeps saying, "Hey, can I fill up that drink? Can I fill up that drink?" Well, they're just running up the clock, right? When the taxi drivers taking you the long way to get where you have to go, you can tell where you're being taken for a ride. Well, I kind of apply that mentality to when I'm being told something is scientific, and what I tell my audience is, "Please, every single thing I say, prove me wrong. Don't take anything I say at face value, please. Everything I say comes evidence and validated, comes also from experience. I've seen it."
So, I've seen a lot of science out there that fails miserably and then I see a lot of maybe not yet supported scientific theory that is anecdotally accurate, and we might not exactly know why, per se, and bodybuilders are great examples of this. Bodybuilders' far ahead of the curve for decades between where science finally caught up with them. So, the point is not to bash science, I am a man of science as you. I work in a scientific industry. I have licensed registered dietitians on staff and exercise physiologist as a part of our team. We are deep in science, and we go through the science every single day, but what they're teaching in most colleges doesn't work. What they're teaching in most colleges is based upon what was thought maybe 10 or so years ago, so when... You probably see this, maybe I'm going to get myself into trouble here, but when most students come out of school with a BS or an MS or a PhD or advanced degrees where they have no applicable experience to understand if what they learned in school actually works, and many times it doesn't.
And then they have to figure out why it doesn't and throw most of what they learned in school out the window because they studied the science, but at the same time, that does not often work very well. So, you and I, we're kind of riding the cresting wave, and that's what I like to say, we are riding the cresting wave, and most people are sitting on the beach right now just kind of staring like, "Oh, he's not going to catch that. They're not going to catch that wave, he's going to wipe out on that wave," but we're actually in the water, on the wave and we can feel and see the contour, the curve, the power, the shape, where it's going, and we can ride that all the way to the shore very successfully. In many ways, that's what science is. We are riding the cresting wave of what actually works, listening to all opinion, looking at all the research out there, but for me, it always goes back to our base foundation, which is why what we talk about is so simple.
And most... The biggest complaint criticism of me is, "Man, Dolce just says the same stuff. Dolce's been saying the same stuff for years now. Dolce doesn't say anything new. I've never seen anything new come out of what Dolce says." Why is that not a compliment, by the way? That's how they try and knock me down. I don't see any revisions to Newton's law of gravity that are really substantial, right? Let's say... There's maybe small little insights that could be made, and of course our system has evolved in time, but baseline, I'm saying exactly now, and Shawn we've known each other for a decade plus, I'm not saying anything. Now, I'm probably saying the same stuff even more simply than I had previously because this is the base, this is how we work. Biological organism. This is what we are. Rule number one, do no harm, so I can't hurt you, I can't poison you, I can't risk long-term health, by my little short-term little techniques which many of those in the field do. So, to kind of back it up, science doesn't work. Science doesn't work when you take it at face value without asking questions, but then also using your own informed consent to apply it as it suits you in your life in the real world.
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah, and everything that you're saying is right on the money. This is part of the issue. The current circumstances that we're existing in right now, and you and I are both big fans of paying attention to results. And if we look at the results of the way that our society has been educated, the way that our society has been fed, the way that our society has been conditioned to move or not move, has led to the place where we are now the most chronically diseased nation in the history of humanity. We have the highest... We're knocking on the door almost 50% of our population, not just overweight, clinically obese. We're about to reach that number. Right now, it's around 45%. How is that even a thing? Not to mention our multi-epidemics of chronic diseases that, according to our most prestigious medical journals, who, if they're not getting funded by a pharmaceutical company, for example, a study, for example. It's very rare that a study is going to be published talking about diet nutrition, but in the Journal of the American Medical Association it's now been affirmed. Of course, smoking is a big issue, but poor diet is the number one risk factor for the chronic diseases that take most of us out, and it doesn't have to be this way.
And so, I love this because this, this mantra of trust the science is so ignorant because trusting science, science says different sh*t. We can't just say, "Trust the science," that's trusting that person, Science, or that principle of science and what's being taught in our university settings, I'm a product of that, but simultaneously because my health was so poor in the beginning of my college experience. I went from a full credit load, 15 hours down to three. I was barely hanging on because I was in so much pain just to even go to class with this arthritic condition that is supposed to be relegated to people who are senior citizens. But by transforming my own health and still having about a year...
Once my entire physiology in my mind and everything changed, I still had about a year left in my collegiate experience, and now my professors are my clients. Fellow students, the basketball team, these folks... I'm getting a first-hand experience to see what actually works, and I'm coming into it, of course, I've got my perspective that what I did is going to work for everybody, not true. Not true, especially when you don't have sound principles that are largely unchanging like you're disclosing here, which took you years to figure those things out. And I love that analogy with gravity being pretty consistent, we can pretty much bank on that. If I jump off of this building, I'm not going to float. I might think I'm Neo or Trinity, but chances are...
And by the way, if you haven't seen the latest Matrix, don't see it, alright? Keep it pure in your mind. Keep The Matrix pure in your mind. I'm sorry, I love Keanu Reeves, love those guys but nah. Anyways, so the point being, if we get into quantum mechanics and we start to look at theories which have some credibility to them, that we have multiple universes existing simultaneously, the gravity might be a little bit different there. We can get into... We can start tickling around, but we still... The key here is we have to be open to it, however, what does the majority of data say, then we can start to have some trust in science when we are looking at multiple perspectives, keeping a rational open mind, bringing about healthy skepticism to the principles we believe then we can really start.
The thing is, if you're willing to be wrong, you end up being right a whole lot more, and that's the muscle that I'm wanting people to work even in these conversations because here... And I'm so grateful for this and everybody, thank you so much. This is an inclusive place where we've got folks who are using a vegan protocol and lifestyle, and we got folks who are using a carnivore protocol and lifestyle, paleo, whatever the case might be, and abiding by a certain framework, but people are coming together here and learning and exchanging ideas and even rubbing up against some discomfort and ideas and concepts that might not agree with our current paradigm way of thinking. And so, allowing a place where we bring on folks with different perspectives, but also highly vetted because their principles across the board tend to work for people. And so, I love this so much and I want to pivot to this next thing, which is... Listen, I just went for a hike with my family the other day, which is... Hiking is new for me.
Mike Dolce: Oh, alright, alright.
Shawn Stevenson: I'm not from a place where we hike. I'm from a concrete jungle, you feel me. And so, this whole concept of hiking and seeing people on the trail and this whole thing in LA, man, it's very different, but we coming out of the hike and in people's yards, they've got the sign up with some principles of inclusiveness and wonderful tenets, but it also says, "Science is real." Science is real. They got to f*ck*ng say this. Science is real, and that reminded me instantaneously of Michael Jackson receiving this award and saying in his award for whatever random reason, "David Blaine, your magic is real. Your magic is real, David Blaine." No, it's not. It's magic, Michael. Science is real. We don't have to say that because what that is alluding to is that there are people out here "science deniers" who are just like, "Shove your science. I don't... " Just like this mentality that people are not...
Everything is science. That's the thing. It's not a matter of if it's real or not, everything is science. We might use different language because science is a language in and of itself, like it's a unifying language, but there are different dialects, there are different accents. It's a beautiful unifying thing but to say that science isn't real, like these people don't believe science is real because they don't "trust the science", it's dismissive, and it's one of the things that's creating more conflict between us. And so, I want to kick this back to you because you've also been stating some of the most important things, which you were doing this very early on as was I, and now the things that you have shared have come to pass, and you were even suppressed.
Your voice, your message was being suppressed when you were saying. "Hey, listen, the data is indicating that our biggest risk factor as a society for our current pandemic experience with this virus, it's on everybody's mind, is obesity. It's right here in the literature." And you were saying that not from a, again, pointing the finger, "These guys are wrong. We're right," but just like, "This is an issue. We got to discuss this. We got to do something about it." So can you talk about why you brought that forward and what your experience has been since.
Mike Dolce: Absolutely, and I appreciate that. In the very beginning, back in spring 2020, we saw very specifically a direct correlation between high body mass and the lifestyle associated with high body mass as being a direct co-morbidity, to use the common term of, we'll call it all-cause mortality. When you look at the science, you know, high BMI individuals suffer from more chronic disease, more chronic illness, and do not live as long as their lower BMI counterparts, even irrespective of body composition. We can drill down deeper if we want to use that as a subset, but not for the purpose of this conversation. So, we know the higher the BMI, the higher the risk of early death. We also know high BMI individuals do not respond well to immunize... I don't want to say the v-word, to getting shots. They do not have the same immune response that low BMI people do.
This is not controversial, by the way. Pharma knows this. So, when they're developing the new protocols, the tentative, the FDA-approved protocols, those are typically not tested in high BMI individuals on purpose because that would weigh down, that would drag down the success rate. Also, the majority of those individuals who are being hospitalized and suffering are high BMI individuals, we know that in the very beginning. We know that the flu, we know that pneumonia, we know that cardiovascular disease, we know that Type 1, Type 2 Diabetes, we know PCOS, we know stroke, we know all of these chronic conditions and illnesses directly and devastatingly affect the higher BMI individuals. Thank God we can control that to a very large degree, unfortunately, most people don't, and that is what we spoke about. We said, "Hey listen, do everything you're being told." And this is... We have been... All the tech companies have shadow-banned us, have repressed us, those have squashed us from thousands of followers per week to, we lose the same amount we gain now.
We've been frozen on certain outlets and just the whole thing, but we still speak the message. And in that we said, "Wear the face covering, do the social distancing, do everything you're supposed to because we're trying not to get banned, but if you "believe the science" then you will immediately... " I actually publicly went after Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil deGrasse Tyson recently was telling everyone that if they don't get the...
Shawn Stevenson: Inoculation.
Mike Dolce: The inoculation. Thank you, the inoculation then, I don't know, like a Republican or something like that. And I said, "Hey, Neil... " Who is in my opinion, a high BMI individual, likely over a 30 BMI rating. I said, "Neil, if you are a man of science, will you commit now to your millions of followers to bring your BMI down to the medically determined healthy standard of 25 or less?" I was attacked, bro. Attacked. This is a high BMI individual. Neil... Like if you make that statement fine, okay, that's your opinion, but you're a man of science. Why am I speaking to science and you're actually making ad hominem attacks on just regular folks who might disagree as we have. Now, I'm not a Republican nor Democrat, I think they're all corrupt. To be honest with you, I'm not a political person at all. I'm a man of science. Now, I understand the higher the BMI, the higher the rate of death and all sorts of negative outcomes, why... And Jen Psaki, who's the spokesperson for the current presidential administration was asked recently about why the administration does not speak about health and body weight. And she basically pivoted, diverted the question essentially saying, "Well, we listen to medical advisors and if they suggest that we say that, then we'll say that."
Well, the CDC has already come out and said that many times, and that's been on their site for decades, the direct relationship between all-cause mortality and high BMI, and here in our system, we have a threshold of 15%. We use the threshold of 15 for men, 25 for women. If we can get your BMI below 25, we can see... Or above 25, let's say, I'll use it this way, BMI of 15% or above in adult males, your instance of all-cause mortality, you risk hockey sticks. Below 15%, dramatically drops like life extension longevity, and also utility is much increased if you are below 15% body fat. Ladies, a little more subjective with the way they hold their weight and curves and things. So, we say 25, mid-20s, we know that to be true. And it frustrates the heck out of me that obesity is a habit, chronic disease and illness in many way...
It's a habit, it's a lifestyle habit, it's because humans are sedentary, they sit around. Humans are creatures of comfort and convenience, they eat the highly parable low net nutrient foods that causes systemic inflammation, disrupt their digestive system, and creates new health problems over a long enough period of time. There's no refuting of that, these are facts. But to your point about people saying, "Science is real," what about that science, 'cause that science is more real than the constantly changing current narratives that keep changing. The UK, did they not believe in science? They just wiped away all restrictions. Austria imposed a tax on people who are not getting... Who won't get the inoculation? Who's agreeing with science or not? I don't understand.
What's happening? Up in Canada, we have friends and clients in Canada, its insanity, what's going up on up in Canada right now. So, my sister works and she's a nurse, she works in the healthcare industry, she's at risk for her job while being a front-line worker in the hazmat suit working on people every day, being forced into medical decisions that she shouldn't have to be forced into by a narrative instead of a conversation with her and her doctor. That's where the conversation should be. But anyone who walks in their doctor's office at a BMI over 30 the first conversation... In my opinion, the doctor should say, "Alright, we have to address this high BMI issue because the medical literature clearly shows that you are at risk of hypertension, of heart disease, of Alzheimer's, of stroke, of type 2 diet... Pre-diabetes, if you don't already have it, you probably do. Type 2 diabetes. You probably already have that too, you're marching your way towards all these negative outcomes, and then God forbid, you get infected with what's floating around right now."
What's going to happen there? Well, we know what's going to happen, because what was it? 75% of those who pass all have been high BMI individuals, that was the old... The last data that I saw. So, when we keep that in mind, it's, "Man, what is this?" Again, and that's the point earlier, what is the science? What is the real science? What is the real science? I know what it is, but if I say it out loud... Well, I did say it out loud and I got banned for saying personal accountability, personal responsibility, let's start moving our bodies more, let's be more intentional about the foods we eat, let's stop eating the process foods, let's eat more high net nutrient foods, let's stop eating until we're full and let's just satisfy, let's eat enough food but not overblow it, let's get our BMI down to proper levels, let's go get our blood work done, let's look for any sort of little insidious landmine that might be waiting in our genetic code somewhere.
We all have something that's lurking. Most people. They haven't done any of this, but they will wear their little clothing on their face, and they'll point at you as then they go sit in a restaurant, take it off, laugh and cough and sneeze and go to the restroom and do all the other stuff, come sit back down... I saw a guy walking into a shop scramble with his girlfriend... Coffee shop, scramble to get his mask on, puts his mask on, has it below his lip, he was so indoctrinated into this odd behavior, and I stood there watching him... Watching him scramble to get it... Watching him walk, and this is like, I'm not ranting. Maybe I'm ranting on that, this human is so confused, he put it on below his lips, so his nose is exposed, and it was just a traditional surgical mask, it's probably in his pocket for a couple of days. Gross! Pulls it out of his dirty pocket, number one, right? Scrambles, it's not like it's sanitary or hygienic.
Shawn Stevenson: Where his phone has been where all of the particles of feces are... Just let me back up, that's getting into science a little bit more.
Mike Dolce: It's crazy, man.
Shawn Stevenson: Listen...
Mike Dolce: The barista that picks their face, picks their mask, then grab your coffee, hands it to you with their germy little moist fingers off their dirty little cloth mask, they wear the mask, then they pick it, so they could talk to you, then they touch the bar, they touch the door handle, they hand you your cup of coffee, you grab it, now you've got their little germs, so you're transmit... There's so many different things. I'm a germaphobe, by the way. So, I'm much more in tune. Like if I shake someone's hand, I can actually feel it until I go and wash, like something that I deal with in my life. I shower three times a day, like I'm that dude in real life, highly functioning, by the way, so I am much more like aware of transmission points, like I carry gloves with me and sanitize and all that stuff, so I'm pretty in tune in to a lot of it, and I see how ridiculous it is and I'm not like them. I'm a freaking germaphobe, right?
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. Just to go back and this is amazing, to go back to that point of that first conversation piece, when someone is going in to see their physician and their BMI is above a certain point, the first point of conversation should be like, "We've got to address this," but here in lies the real problem, is that our healthcare professionals are largely not trained what to do in that scenario, they tell folks very cookie-cutter things, "You really need to lose some weight, you really need to cut the fat, you really need to start counting your calories," all of this very superficial data, and this is largely a result, again, of going back to our educational institutions and the training that we're getting moving forward, because folks, we want to help people and then understand that the system that they're existing in...
Many friends and colleagues, it doesn't even allow the time to actually get to the root cause of their weight gain, and these seven, five-to-seven-minute visits, you're not going to identify what's going on in their life, maybe this person... Again, they've already tried, chances are, they've already tried to lose weight a ton of times, but we're not understanding... Well, actually the issue here for this individual right now is an entirely different understanding of science regarding their stress and how their metabolism is literally in a place where their insulin sensitivity is decreased because of stress and because of this resulting inflammation, which even in this context of the virus, it's on everybody's mind right now, there's a paper publish and we often put stuff up on the screen for the videos, but we're not even going to do that, if it's got the name in it, which is crazy that we can't...
Mike Dolce: Crazy, right?
Shawn Stevenson: We can't even say the word, and by the way, everybody listening, you know I say the word, but I'm waiting for the video version of this to make sure that folks can still access it. But looking at the psychosomatic effects of this virus and looking at how the psychology, a certain mental state, can exacerbate an immune response that increases inflammation in the body, and inflammation in the body can exacerbate a poor mental response, and they feed into each other, and so we really don't understand yet, especially on the leading edge of science where we should be in our educational institutions, just how much you can over-eat your way into obesity, you can under-move your way into obesity, you can under-sleep your way into obesity, you can also over-stress your way into obesity. And it's understanding the biology of a human being, we were never meant to carry chronic stress and fear and anxiety.
And that report... I've said this many times, it was probably shown July 1st, 2021, the CDC looked at the data from over 800 US hospitals and over 540,000, C19 patients, and the second leading risk factor for death... The number one risk factor for death is obesity. By the way, again, number one. The second was anxiety and fear-related disorders, and we'll put that up for everybody to see this, to see the study. The second leading risk factor for death. How dare they even put... This was published by the CDC. How dare they put up the thing I've been talking about since the beginning? But here's the rub, we're living in a situation right now where the science is real, just like David Blaine, "My science is real." I've been talking about this; the CDC even publish it. But it's not being discussed. It's not being a part of the education for our citizens that your mental state is a tremendous liability if you're unwell mentally and you're in the grips of chronic fear.
Which has been pumped through every single channel left and right, unless you disconnect from it. It is the definition of the matrix right now, and so... But to move this conversation forward and understand again, our training and when folks are saying, "Hey, I've told my patients they needed to lose weight," this isn't new. This is what we've been doing. No, no, no, no, no, you got to acknowledge how much you suck at it first, if you've been telling people and it's not happening, maybe you're not good at it, and that's okay, let's refer these folks to people that are good at it, don't act like you got all the answers. And don't give that... It's an out, it's making... It's patting yourself on the back, making you feel better for your lack of effectiveness, and we got to be able to look right at that.
It doesn't mean that you're not good at what you do, the principles that you're actually good at, it doesn't mean that you're not highly intelligent, but look at the results, and the results come from you being on the ground with that person, figuring out what it is that is creating this situation, this structure in their life where obesity is the outcome, and it's probably not going to be this one simple cookie cutter thing. And so, to move this conversation forward, we've talked about nutrition already, we got to talk about movement, because this is another big part of who you are, it is another big part of who we are as a species that has been pulled away and you shared this, I love this. This is a quote that you shared, and I want to make sure everybody's following you on Instagram as well, it's where I saw this, you said, "If you don't exercise for at least 30 minutes per day, four days per week, you are a science denier."
Mike Dolce: Yes. Boom, right?
Shawn Stevenson: Talk about it, man.
Mike Dolce: Come on! And that is the minimum, the break even, like I'm talking to my mom who's in our mid-70s, if you're not putting in 30 minutes four days a week, like do you even human? What's up? Now, let's think about this, Shawn, what are humans designed to do? Well, as far as land animals go, brother, we are not very fast, we are not very strong, and believe it or not, we're not even that smart. One thing we do really well is we can walk very far distances at very slow paces, we are nomadic by breeding, we are nomadic species, that's what we do, we walk very far, very slow, and this is what we are designed to do, so what we teach everyone listening, you must go for a walk, all the athletes we work with, I look at... We see so many programs, high level elite. We're talking Olympic level world class, world champion level, look in the program and it's so freaking advanced, they say, "Well, Jesus, you don't do any sort of aerobic threshold training? You don't go for a walk at all?"
Like, "Oh yeah, should I do the Airdyne? Should I sprint? Should I battle rope? Should I go and push even harder and harder?" Everything you do is hard, nothing you do pay service to your cardiovascular or cardiorespiratory system, which also though, Shawn, as you know, walking does what? It centers our mind. It centers our emotions. I work through all the problems in my life when I go for a walk. Now, sometimes I go for a walk, and I will pop in The Model Health Show, and I will hang out. You will go for a walk with me. Sometimes though, I will go for a walk alone and I'll watch the birds fly and I'll look at the little blades of grass and I will breathe the beautiful air. That is what I do, that is my pleasure.
A Friday quote right there. But that is human. And don't say you can't, unless you have some sort of mechanical deficiency or maybe the very rare, very rare health issue. Every human, I haven't come across a single human yet that can't go for a walk, even if it's to your driveway back in the house and the next day to the mailbox, the next day to your neighbors, next day to the corner, the next day to the next corner, and pretty soon, one minute at a time, one minute a day in 30 days, you can walk for 30 minutes. That is the start, that is the baseline. But every single one of us, we must express ourselves athletically, starting with the 30-minute walk. Now, you and I were a little bit more advanced, walking is a part of what we do. Also, we can start training more intensely, we can start adding resistance, we can start...
And we break it down, we have LISS, low intensity steady state cardiovascular activity, simple: That's walking. MISS, moderate intensity steady state: Jogging. So, we have walking, we have jogging, then we have HIIT, high-intensity interval training because you can't run at high intensity, that is moderate intensity, high intensity infers a deflection point therefore we must take a work rest ratio in general. But we also have HIRT, high intensity resistance training: Kettlebells and battle ropes and punching bags and all of the other stuff. Well, most people, they do the MISS, they go for jogs and bike rides and rowers, and they do the cardio con classes, they do the HIIT, they do the Assault Bike and the other whatever hard stuff they might do, they do their resistance, the brow lifting weights, but they never do God darn aerobic work, they never go for a walk because "that's too easy".
When that is the first thing they should be doing, because the wider we can make our aerobic base, the higher we can then reach from a glycolytic perspective moving forward, an activator our CP system at the very top, full athletic expression, it's a pyramid, the wider the aerobic base, the higher we can actually make that pyramid to truly perform at the highest levels, well, maybe you don't want to fight in the octagon for 25 minutes, but the science doesn't change, it's relative to... My mom, again, mid-70s, she needs to be going for walks, daily walks. You don't use it, you lose it. Most of us out here past 30, past 40, past 50, can you just drop down into a full squat, ass the grass, stand up, touch your toes, stomach to the floor, roll over on your back and then stand up without putting your hands on the floor? No? My kids do that a thousand times a day when they're playing, they don't even think about it.
Can you jump over a fence, drop your belly and bear crawl back under it again? No, people can't do that. Why? You used to be able to. You don't use it, you lose it. Well, this is what we employ into our training, this is what me at 45 years old, I try and do this daily in some ways, full athletic expression, again... And this is where the problem lies in many people. Now, here's a good thing, and I did want to bring this up, and here's a great option or an opportunity, is Dr. David Sinclair, one of the four most minds with regards to longevity science. Dr. David Sinclair speaks all the time, and he is now... He is held up as an intermittent fasting advocate, but when you hear him speak about his lifestyle, he does not follow an intermittent fasting protocol, he eats breakfast, he has some Greek yogurt and some berries or something on the side to mix it with his resveratrol.
He has a little bit of nutrient ingestion and then later on he has a late lunch, early supper, where he has another moderate mostly plant-based meal. He drinks a diet Coca-Cola, he has a little bit of whiskey, he goes out for dinner with friends, he has a little bit of ice cream on the side. Awesome, I'm not mad at that at all, but his lifestyle is often conflated, but here's the issue, he is not an intermittent faster in the true definition, he is a calorie restrictor, he restricts his calories through small meals, so he's not intermittent fasting. Context matters here, and I'll come back to the exercise with using David as an example.
Me, I'm not that far of age, David is in his what? Early mid-50s, I'm in my mid-approaching late 40s, not that far away from me, I probably consume double or maybe triple the calories, David says he hates exercising and he hardly ever does it, while also admitting that high-intensity exercise is one of the primary switches to increase longevity, but he avoids that because he does not prefer exercise. Instead, he overly restricts his calories to try and make up for his lack of exercise. We, on the other hand, we embrace the exercise as much as I don't want to exercise when it's cold and raining outside and my family's hanging out at the house about to watch a movie and I got to get my work in for the day. I don't want to be all sweaty and gross, and it's cold, and I got to come home, I got to shower.
But I do it. David doesn't, and that's an issue that people need to understand. I love the guy; I love his brain. I agree, and I don't think... He's not putting the false narrative out there, it's conflated and twisted around by those with biases that want to twist it, but everyone listening, you must embrace the exercise while you embrace the resveratrol, let's say, or the whatever the nutrition ideology that you're following, which we think it should be an omnivorous multi-meal plan throughout the day, blah, blah. But the exercise matters. And I think if David ever listens to this, I believe he's doing himself and his audience a slight disservice by not making himself uncomfortable, which we all are, you're like, "Man, I never hike," but you're hiking now, that's not comfortable for you. It's not comfortable for me to grind my way through workouts when I don't want to, but I do it anyway because it's what I have to do to be the best version of myself.
I don't want to pay my taxes, but I freakin’ do on time or early. We do the things. So again, slightly off topic here, but exercise is something daily, and we stress exercise every day. Four days is the minimum, 30 days... But, Shawn, it's got to be every day. It's every day, and it doesn't have to be intense every day, but we must express ourself athletically and intentionally every day, so we maintain the habit because life is long and life is hard, and it's easy to be loathed into complacency and comfort, so we must battle against that, every day, it must be on our mind, every day we must fight the fight, and we cannot be soft, you cannot take it easy, and a lot of fitness influencers say, "Eat the cookie, it's okay, take a day off, don't worry about it." No, f*ck that. You should not do that. You must hold yourself to a higher standard and push yourself, that's where we can level up. But once we middle, "I'm going to do it today because it's easy, but I'm not going to do it tomorrow because it wasn't easy." That's where people fail, and I think that's the problem with society in many ways. Off my soap box. Thank you.
Shawn Stevenson: Let's go. Man, I love this. Listen, so one of the things you've been doing on IG, and by the way, follow you at... What's your handle? @...
Mike Dolce: Thedolcediet, everywhere, thedolcediet, you'll find it.
Shawn Stevenson: Alright, @thedolcediet make sure that you're following Mike. Well, you've been sharing these finishers, which I love. Let's talk about these. One of them was with, I think you're doing a shoulder workout, then you did some gymnastic ring push-ups. So first, can you share what finishers are? Why they're valuable? And then let's talk about a couple of the ones you've been posting.
Mike Dolce: Thank you. So, what I've been following right now is what's called the push whole legs template. Now, think about this, everyone, you can be a rank level novice, never trained before. Upper body push. What do we do? We push horizontally, we push vertically, forward, and up, we pull upper body pull, we pull towards our torso horizontally, or we pull down vertically, and then legs, lower bodies basically bending at the knee, now we're squatting or leaning forward at the hips we're hip hinging. Human body does five basic things, we push, we pull, we hinge, we squat, and then we resist rotation through the trunk, some say we flex, we should not flex its anti-flexion action, is what the core is meant to do, that's the way we program our workouts. Those five basic things. Make it so easy, but then it's easy to do the push-pull legs template, which I do, which allows me to train every day.
And I can recover every day, but I'm still optimizing muscle protein synthesis and I'm hitting each body part every two to three days or so, so I'm getting an extra muscle building work out per week utilizing the benefit of amino acids, leucine, isoleucine, valine, muscle protein synthesis, a whole another show by the way, I'm taking advantage of that as I'm training in the proper rep range, using multi-joint compound movements, I'm getting to the finisher here. We start the workouts with a progressive dynamic athletic warm-up because we express ourselves athletically, lots of great things to just get the body going, get moving, I've walked back and forth like jumping jacks, a little shadow box, some easy TRX body weight squats and slowly I start to scale into more complex athletic movements, bear crawls on the floor, crab walks, twisting knee raises, and all sorts of things, getting everything going, and then we'll work multi-joint compound movement, number one.
Maybe, and that is always a heavy, relative to myself, exercise, I'm trying to tax the most amount of muscles with one single movement. So, what would that be? A standing overhead military press, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, sandbags, elastic bands, tornado bars, it doesn't matter. Have fun with it. And we'll talk about an upper body push because it makes it easy. So, we will do a horizontal push exercise, we will do a vertical push exercise, so let's say a lying floor press with dumb bells, lying on my back, and I got a gymnastics wedge, which is awesome, like that. It's just great, you can see in those videos, horizontal push, vertical push, triceps, of course, that's another pushing exercise, maybe it's like, I'll hit a dip, some sort of dip variation right there or some sort of extension.
I will always pay service to all three heads of the deltoid, mostly for prehab... You know, and the delts just look like awesome manly delts a result of making sure I can actually reach the visor in my car when I'm 70 years old, right? So then, we move on to the finisher. The finisher is always a way for us to express ourselves athletically again while at a point of fatigue. That's the way I looked at it in programming. I'm fatigued from moving 200-somewhat-pound barbels over my head, doing overhead presses, and hundreds-somewhat-pound dumbbells, doing sets of floor presses, and the shoulders are fatigued, the triceps are shot. But now, in this one finisher, I did gymnastic rings push-ups to failure, balancing my body on the gymnastics block, and then in gymnastics rings, so I'm hovering three feet off the floor. Well, now what's happening? All the small stabilizers inside that shoulder capsule have to fire. My core has to be perfectly locked in, more so and much harder and more rigorous than even being in a plank position, because now, this is a very unstable environment, right? So, these finishers are great ways to, one, reinforce the strength that I built to finish off all the small stabilizer muscles that don't often get hit with the larger multi-joint compound movement, but also reinforcing my athleticism, because as humans, that's what we are.
I need to be able to run, skip, crawl, jump, climb, tumble, grapple, right? That will never leave our training, because nobody's going to ask me what I bench press, if, like... You know, I'm in some sort of life... Important situation in my life, right? I always think like that. Drop me off on a mountain top, drop me off in a desert valley, I'm good to go. Leave me there in a loincloth and give me a Leatherman. If I have a f*cking Leatherman and a loincloth, baby, whoo, I'm good! I'm getting... I am getting out! I know that for sure, 'cause I have the tolerance, I have the endurance, I have the strength to get where I need to go. My body will not fail me, because every f*cking day, I make sure, and it takes me 45 minutes. 45 minutes, warm-up to cooldown, I am done in 45 minutes. That's... That's what we do, and I try and teach that to our novice... Entry-level novice, to our exit-level... We go to exit-level intermediate, and then you move into advanced, then you move into pro, then you move into elite, kind of through our staging system.
Shawn Stevenson: I love it, man. Got a quick break coming up, we'll be right back.
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And now, back to the show.
I want to ask you about one more thing with these finishers. So again, this is... At the end of the workout, you've already done the big movers, and now we're doing something to "finish off" these muscles. And one of the ones that I saw you doing, which I love... This is something I've been doing, and I'll literally... Sometimes, I'll even use a 10-pound barbell to do these, but unilateral deadlifts. You were doing that as a finisher, so I'm assuming at the earlier part of the workout, you were maybe deadlifting some heavy dumbbells, maybe a couple hundred pounds each, I mean, 100 pounds each. And then... But once we get to the unilateral deadlifts, could you share what is a unilateral deadlift, and why... What kind of weight are you using on that finisher?
Mike Dolce: Alright. So, unilateral is single limb, right? So, when I'm doing a unilateral deadlift, there's many different ways to do it, one of which you can keep your non-working leg off the ground. Others, and I think in the one you're talking about, I use my non-working leg as a base balance that's posted behind me, but it's only there just for balance; it's not really being engaged outside of my ability to push my hips through at the very top, and that actually matters on certain exercises. I was using maybe... Maybe 30-pound dumbbells. Now, I'm a 600+ pound dead lifter; I've deadlifted over 700 pounds when I was a much heavier man and cared about it. Well, I've deadlifted over 600 pounds, any...
As a 200-somewhat-pound man, I can pretty much always deadlift over 600 pounds. Any more... I haven't touched that weight in maybe three, four years now. I don't know what my 1RM dead is anymore, but I'm in that realm. I could probably pull 500 right now if I cared to. I don't care to do that anymore. But when I move to... I'm trying to... I don't remember what I trained that specific day, but using those, it... The unilateral deadlift in that one, specifically, which I love, it's a very athletic movement, in which I'm performing proper hitch and leaning forward, feet are about 12 inches toe to toe, about 12 inches apart, so it's not that far, but enough to put, unilaterally, all that emphasis, all the tension on to the lead leg. I'm hitting the glute, I'm hitting the hamstring primarily, but also the...
Toe-to-heel; so, you're toe-to-heel.
About... Yeah, just about toe-to-heel. Maybe there's a couple inches in-between, and it's what feels... But it's not... I'm not all the way pitched back. It's... I'm almost perfectly upright... And a slight bend in the rear knee, and all that weight... 'Cause I'm trying to keep my hips in line. I'm not trying to take that pelvis back; I'm trying to keep that hip really much in line, so I keep that toe a lot closer. Now, the farther I go back, this becomes more of... Like a lunge; like a split squat or a Bulgarian squat. That can be changed. I mean, there's so much nuance here.
Shawn Stevenson: Yeah. So, I just want to paint the picture too. So, you've got a staggered stance...
Mike Dolce: Staggered stance, yep.
Shawn Stevenson: Where one foot is back behind the other, maybe... Again, toe-to-heel-ish, or just somewhere in that realm.
Mike Dolce: Somewhere in that... Toe-to-heel, within six inches... Rear toe within six inches of front heel. Depending on height, that matters. Some people have a little instability. Whatever feels comfortable, yes.
Shawn Stevenson: Got it, got it. And so again... So, if I'm deadlifting... You know, maybe my max is somewhere... You know, 400, 450, but then, I'm finishing off doing that, I'm using lighter weight, and I'm just really... When I'm doing the unilateral deadlift, I'm looking at... You know, just the action of the hinge itself, I'm thinking about pulling my shoulders down; I'm just thinking about the activity of it.
Mike Dolce: That's it.
Shawn Stevenson: I'm thinking about the kind of athleticism, as well, that's involved, because it's like... Part of that position of explosiveness... We're working to be efficient in this space, and this is... I love it because, even with deadlifting, we can get into a movement that we don't normally do in real life as much. If we stagger our stance... Like, there's a lot more going on when we're actually uneven in the real world. And just being able to... Again, just... When we're doing stuff in the real world, we're not necessarily handling big weight as well, so it's just so much... Here, so much value, and it's really a cool movement, and to use it intelligently... I love it; you put it at the end as a finisher, and it's just going to... Especially, you're going to feel those hammies tomorrow as well.
Mike Dolce: Crush them, and it actually... It helps remind you what muscles are working, and like you said... Like, I used... I'm using two 30-pound dumbbells, which is approximately 10% of my true max. So, I'm using weight that's like baby rattles comparative to my full-strength ability, right? But that is harder, 'cause I do 10 sets of three with no break typically, right? So... Lead leg, and every three reps, I switch: Left leg forward, right leg forward, for 10 total sets! Man, that's 60 repetitions in total... Hamstrings on fire, glutes on fire... Everything's on fire, but it's never so hard that I can't do one more perfect rep, and that's the thing here. It's technical execution; that's all we care about. When we say we train to failure, we train until technical failure, not total muscular failure. Technical failure: Once that form fails, the lift is over, because now, you're risking injury, and you are downloading improper movement patterns into the central nervous system, becoming a less efficient lifter, prone to more injury, career-ending injury down the road. I've had enough injuries myself to understand this; coached enough clients over the years.
So, these finishers are a great way to remove the ego, and also help the muscles... I bathe the muscles in blood, right? We're pumping so much blood into these muscle groups that have been adequately taxed, that we can then start sending new blood, new oxygen, new nutrients into these areas and pay service to some of the smaller stabilizer muscles that are often overlooked: The glutes, the erectors, the hamstrings, the quads; they will power through most everything. But these small motor units that need to be firing to stabilize, they are often overlooked, and that's where a lot of injuries happen. So, this is... In many ways, for those listening, it's... People are like, "Oh, I'll just go heavier and just do one set. Why am I going to do a four-minute set like that? That's going to hurt, or be annoying, or it's not enough weight." It's like those who want to do the assault bike, but they don't want to go for a 30-minute walk. You are a lesser athlete for going too intense too often instead of slowing things down a little bit and paying service to all energy systems, all muscle types. Inclusive.
Shawn Stevenson: Mike, you've... You've given us... And then you threw that word in there. That's what we are. And that's what our bodies are wanting to do, is to be inclusive. And you've given us so much value today. And I want folks to help to push through the algorithm that is keeping your voice, because the truth is, even if we're like "Forget these platforms that are trying to suppress my voice and my perspective, my expertise," these mediums are not just outperforming conventional media, and even just conventional conversation of people talking person-to-person. Most of our conversation today are... Is happening on these platforms; it's just the nature of the beast. And so, to have that reach and to be a part of the conversation, being involved in these platforms is a thing. And so, I want folks to help to bring some energy and energize your platforms, push through that algorithm, to go and follow Mike today, right now, on Instagram. And it's @thedolcediet on Instagram.
Mike Dolce: The Dolce Diet; if you type in my name, it'll pop up, and fortunately, I do have a blue check on there, so it's easy enough to find me.
Shawn Stevenson: Perfect, man, yeah, and again, you're one of my favorite people. Thank you for just being a real one throughout all of this, and just... It's just in your DNA period, and so I don't expect you to flip-flop, to switch any time soon; it's just not in your DNA. And that's what... Like you said, some people might say it's a knock, because you're not like, "Well, here's this new hot thing," and you know, but you're just staying true. That's what I see from the people that know you and the people that follow your work is that "Listen, Mike is not switching up. He's been on this." What other people are even... Tickling their...? You know, putting their toes into now, you've been on this, because these are things that are... They have the most sound data to affirm them, and the simplicity is where a lot of the beauty exists, and so, if there's anything else that people can do to connect with you, to check out what you're up to, can you let folks know?
Mike Dolce: Yeah, just... You know, you can always find me: The Dolce Diet on all the social platforms, thedolcediet.com is our website; we've got great content on there that people can check out. I'm not here to sell anything, Shawn, I'm just here to help teach and have a conversation with a great mind like you, and hopefully, people can hear us. They could say, "That makes sense," you know, "I don't agree with that," and then they can go home and do their own due diligence and do their own research, and then they can make informed decisions for themself. That is my job as a coach, as a trainer; my job is to teach my clients or community everything I know from my perspective, from my experience. And hopefully, I can give enough context so people understand why we think the way we do, why we work the way we do, and then you can determine whether or not that makes sense.
I know that I have not said a single thing on here that is not true and is not scientifically validated, and it has not been proven through two-plus decades of professional experience working at the very highest level, right? No reason for me to say anything that's untrue. This is what works; this is what we do; people can please take that on their own. But do... When I say do better, I don't mean like do better as... Critical, I see it, like, do better for yourself. Like every day, I wake up to do better. Man, hopefully, I could be a better man today than I was yesterday: A better dad, a better husband, a better neighbor, member of the community, like... Hopefully, I could just do better than yesterday, 'cause otherwise, what's the point? What's the point? If I'm just going along for the ride, well, man, what's the point here? There's too much to do and sh*t. Lord knows there's too much that I need to correct about myself and my life and all of us. So, it's like, "What can I do that's better?"
And I think, hopefully, if we all kind of have that mantra, that helps us get through some of the sticking points. When it is cold and wet outside, and I don't want to work out, but I do it anyway, and the waitress says, "Hey, you want a little cocktail with that nice little meal?" and there's some desserts, and "I'm good right now. It's not my day yet." I'm going to delay that gratification a little longer down the road until I hit that goal that I set for myself a day, a week, a year or whatever ago, 'cause I'm going to stay true to myself. That's the way we operate, and that's the way we kind of push it out there, so, Shawn, again, big fan of you as a consumer of your content, but also as a friend of you, to know you. It's very special, and it is an honor to be in your world, in your life; it is an honor, but also to know that you're out there on this planet as me... At the same time as me, which is... This is... This is awesome, man. So, utterly grateful for our relationship and everything you're doing, brother, and I know you fought the hard fight for all of us out there and keep it up. Just now, we were all behind you cheering for you as much as we can in your corner, my brother.
Shawn Stevenson: Let's go, man. That hit my heart. I appreciate you so much, brother. Four-time world MMA trainer of the year.
Mike Dolce: The only!
Shawn Stevenson: Let's go!
Mike Dolce: The only! Consecutive!
Shawn Stevenson: Living legend...
Mike Dolce: What?
Shawn Stevenson: Mike Dolce. Peace.
Mike Dolce: Later, bro.
Shawn Stevenson: Thank you so much for tuning in to the show today. I hope you got a lot of value out of this. When we're talking about elite performance, you've got to bring Mike Dolce into the conversation. He is behind the UFC FIT program itself. Alright, high-performing athletes, UFC, and MMA in general has just exploded in recent years, and the guy behind the fitness side of so much of it, is this remarkable human being, so... Just to say again, walking the talk, knowing what he's talking about, getting results; these are the folks that we need to point our attention to, like listen a little bit closer, not just with our outer ear, but our inner ear; our inner guidance system directing us towards who are people who are walking the talk, actually getting real-world results for real people? And also, please pop over... You got to check out the video of this episode. Make sure you subscribe to The Model Health Show on YouTube as well. Again, help to break le algorithm! And you get to see, firsthand, Mike's unbelievable traps. Alright, this guy's traps? I'm talking about the trapezius muscles, alright? He beez in the trap, alright? His traps are insane, alright?
Now, of course, there's going to be a little bit of genetics playing a part, but just the way that he lives, the way that he lives his life... And this guy, I'm telling you, he looks like he's got on the original Tim Burton Batman costume, alright? The one where Michael Keaton couldn't turn his neck. Alright, it's just all traps in the costume. That's Mike in real life, and he could turn his head. Alright, so please pop over. Check out the YouTube version. Subscribe to The Model Health Show on YouTube; we've got some exclusive content there that you don't want to miss. I appreciate you so much for tuning into the show today. We've got some epic masterclasses and special guests coming very soon, so make sure to stay tuned. Take care, have an amazing day, and I'll talk with you soon.
And for more after the show, make sure to head over to themodelhealthshow.com. That's where you can find all of the show notes, you can find transcriptions, videos for each episode, and if you've got a comment, you can leave me a comment there as well. And please make sure to head over to iTunes and leave us a rating to let everybody know that this show is awesome, and I appreciate that so much. And take care. I promise to keep giving you more powerful, empowering, great content to help you transform your life. Thanks for tuning in.
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I have to point out that your Guest, Mike Dolce was just plain wrong when he said, “Nobody’s ever been in keto anyway, by the way, because they never actually attain ketosis because they break their low carb thing every five to seven days”.
I know that’s wrong because for about 2 years I followed a ketogenic diet and bought both a blood glucose meter, a acetone breath analyzer to measure ketosis. I also have a blood glucose meter.
There is a measurement called the Glucose-Ketone Index, or GKI and it is used guide people toward the desired effect of their GKI level.
Further, When there are telltale signs of being metabolically adapted:
o One can go extended periods of time without hunger (I’ve, personally gone 6 days without being hungry on my last water fast. Yes, fasting will get you into ketosis (the keto diet is, largely, a fasting mimicking diet. I quit the ketogenic lifestyle because it calls for a level of fat consumption that my body doesn’t like. Also, when you get to a significant level of ketosis, I’d guess at a GKI around 3, you get a very obvious mental clarity and efficiency that is exceedingly noticeable and pleasant.
Also, everyone ever born (probably all mammals ad well) is born in ketosis and stays there for quite a while.
In general, Mike was spot on, in my book, on most of the other stuff he said. I believe he simplified things beautifully with his house/mansion analogy and other VERY plain talk.
I have significant scientific training. I started as a physic major and switched, after 2 years to Electrical Engineering with dual study in Computer Engineering. I graduated with a BSEE. I think “believe the science” is a very unscientific thing to say and do ,just like I think you guys do. Everyone does science and everyone follows science. Formal science is the disciplined unbiased perception of events and reactions in the world around us. You mustn’t become fanatical that there are absolute unarguable unchanging facts that must be followed. Life is fluid, a lot of things,when observed become very predictable and one is best advised to be biased in the direction of the tried, tested, and, up to now apparently, true.
But a very important part of science is suspecting that absolutes don’t exist. On earth gravity seems pretty absolute in space (far from any large bodies like planets, moons, and stars) not so much.
The advice of anyone suggesting that you must do as they say because they are representing infallible truth, or worse, trying to convince you to follow “THE SCIENCE” as infallible truth and they are the chosen representative of that “god” should be very cautiously evaluated. History shows that most kings, tyrants and dictators follow that recipe and blind obedience to them can be a torturously fatal mistake. I believe on that, you, Mike and I agree.