Thomas Delauer on his 110lb Weight Loss, Insulin Resistance, Protein vs Carb Intake, Keto, Intermittent Fasting, Exercise Addiction, Male Mental Health, OCD & more.
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Welcome to the pursuit of wellness.

Today on the show, we have Thomas DeLauer. He is an author, health expert, YouTube star, and performance coach best known for his work on personal health transformations. I am a huge fan of Thomas. I've been following him for years, and he is so, so knowledgeable. Like me, he went through a radical transformation. He lost 110 pounds. He went from being a 280-pound corporate executive to shedding almost 100 pounds.

Now he's on the covers of some of the most famous health and fitness magazines in the world. And in today's episode, we discuss many interesting topics such as eating disorders in children and how as parents we can avoid giving our kids shame around food, self-harm and exercise and the similarities between them, male body dysmorphia and shame around food plus male mental health and why we don't talk about it enough.

intermittent fasting with men and women, the keto diet, protein and carb intake, misconceptions about diet and fitness, prioritizing muscle gain while being diet conscious, glucose spikes and insulin resistance, plus the effects of gluten and dairy on autoimmune conditions. And we hear from Thomas about his daily eating and exercise routines. So I learned a ton from Thomas in this episode. I really hope you guys enjoy it. Let's hop in.

Thomas, thank you so much for being here. Thanks for having me. Of course. So I want to go all the way back to the beginning, your childhood. Were you raised in a health conscious household? Like where did everything start?

I would say I was raised in a health conscious household. I was raised in quite an obsessive household. I've done some interviews talking recently about kind of my childhood, which is something that I kind of swore I would never talk about because it was just so, but then I realized like people need to understand like the man behind the mask, so to speak. And so I was raised in like a very aggressive environment.

fitness environment as far as like the pressures that were on me and they weren't from any particular sport perspective i just had a mother that was like a hardcore runner and she was like no you're gonna run you're gonna run you're gonna run and i didn't not like it like i enjoyed it

But I've talked about before, like I ran my first 10K when I was like five or six years old. And then I ran my first marathon when I was 11. And it was all like, it wasn't like I had a gun to my head and said I had to do it, right? It was just, I still wanted to do it. But if I wanted to be around my mom, if I wanted to spend time with my mom, that's what she was doing. So I was doing it. So by default, there was a lot of pressure to sort of perform. But as far as nutrition was concerned, no.

No, there were certain things. Like I remember my mom and dad just like not letting us get specific kinds of sugar cereals, but not all of them were out of the question. Right. So it was just, I remember very specific things. I also remember going out and, you know, being eight or nine years old and running eight or 10 miles with my mom and then going to McDonald's and getting McFlurries. So I wasn't like...

Totally obsessed with health but food there was a weird relationship with food where it really had to be earned Which to a certain degree I think understanding energy balance at a young age was a really good thing like understanding like okay You moved a lot you can earn this but it started to create a little bit of an unhealthy relationship because then it was like okay, you go out and run 10 miles then you can earn that McFlurry and

In retrospect, having kids now, like I don't, although I sprinkle little things like that, like, hey, yeah, you did really good on this hike. Let's celebrate. Let's have something fun. Let's enjoy some food. But I don't try to make it like you can't have this unless. Right. Has having your own kids changed your perspective on your childhood? Yes. And I think that's why I've been talking about it more is because now it's like I'm looking at it from the peanut gallery where before I was just immersed in it. Yeah. You know, having kids, I'm like, wait a minute. No,

No, I need to be really careful, especially in the industry that I'm in.

And I watch what I eat and I'm very careful about that and I'm very particular. Like, am I going to craft, you know, an eating disorder? I got to be really careful with how I approach this with my kids. So I think a lot about it. It seems like you are a very all or nothing person now. I mean, tell me if I'm wrong, but in your like content and the way you live your life, do you think that began in your childhood? Yes. Yeah. And I would agree. I'm definitely that way. And that definitely has been something that

Since I was a small, small kid. I mean, it was like, I, it had to be, I don't want to say it had to be my way, but I was very, very stubborn. Like it had to, like I had a certain way of doing things all the way down to literally being OCD. And like I had to do things a certain way, otherwise the sky was falling. And now as an adult, the sky isn't falling, but I still have to do things my way. And I still like, you know, I'm very oriented that way.

I've grown to be able to relax a little bit and understand that, you know, I don't need to inflict stress upon myself, but I'm all in. You know, if I'm going to do something, I don't want to be this person that's just like dabbling here and never finishes anything. I'd rather say, no, I'm not going to even touch that altogether. Not even worry about that. I'm going to go 100% in on this.

I don't know. I guess that's just worked for me for now. And I feel like there's a lot to say in that that's probably helped you get to where you are. I mean, I think a lot of people who are so successful, like have something in them that's driving them to get to that level now. Yeah. No, just a level of persistence. I mean, I would almost say I'm annoying to most people.

Yeah, I mentioned when Thomas walked in, I watched your YouTube channel and he immediately apologized. And I said, well, no, it's impressive. You post on a daily basis and on YouTube. I mean, that's incredible. Yeah, definitely. I mean, it's just with that, when you find something that you truly are excited to talk about, passion is a good word. Like I'm passionate about it, but I thoroughly get excited about it.

You know, I have so much to share and so much to talk about that that is almost problematic in some ways. Like I would almost argue that we probably produce too much content. But at the same time, it's like this is it's an outlet for me. People don't realize that, that like this is not it's a labor of love and I enjoy it and I don't necessarily look at the result of it. I look at like, what am I creating? Like what? And that's that's the most fun of it.

You mentioned that you struggled with OCD as a child. And I think I heard you mentioned you struggled with trichotomania. I think that's how you say it. Right. And I had a family member that struggled with that as well. Where did that come from, do you think? And how has that evolved into your adulthood? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. Just last week, I was filming with Dr. Daniel Amen. And he mentioned something about OCD that just clicked. And it literally just last week changed how I looked at it.

Because he always talks about thoughts and being able to just, it's not the thoughts you have, it's the thoughts you attach to. And the issue with OCD is you become attached to those thoughts. You don't have the ability to dismiss them. And I'm like, whoa, okay. I never thought of it like that, right? I was just treated, but never really thought about it. And when I say treated, I just mean like I wasn't put on medications at a young age, but I was treated for OCD.

I realized, wow, that's exactly the kind of thing. For example, I would have a thought that my mom was going to die unless I would hop 26 times on one foot across my hardwood floor a certain way. And little things like that, light switch flipping, because I had the inability to detach from those thoughts. It's like those thoughts were real unless, right? Whereas now...

I still have those kinds of thoughts. I still worry about like my wife or, you know, things like, oh my God, what's going to happen if she gets in a car? Detached from that thought, just because I have a thought doesn't mean it's real. But how has that kind of shaped me with who I am today? I think there's a difference between obsession and driving yourself. And my therapist once told me, he said, Thomas, you need to stop

being driven and drive yourself. And I was like, whoa, that's powerful too. Like, you know, being driven is one thing, but that means that you're being driven in a direction that is possibly influenced by the perception of other people or how people see you or what you think is right. And I'm like, wait a minute, that is so true. Like drive yourself. It's the same concept as being driven, except you are in the driver's seat.

So somewhere as I got older into my adult life, I realized like, okay, all this people pleasing, all this anxiety, all this OCD, all this stuff, all this like pulling my hair out. That is just an element of like lack of control, a coping mechanism for something. This is simple. All I got to do is find the things that I like and that's my coping mechanism and make sure that I don't develop an unhealthy relationship with what I love instead of pulling my hair out.

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Was Dr. Daniel Amen scanning your brain by any chance? No, he wasn't, but I'm going to go back and do that. I'm doing it too. Yeah. With him. Yeah. He's amazing. He's so awesome. But he has like, he's honestly terrified me a little bit because now every time my head collides with something, I'm like, I'm screwed. Yeah. But he says that you can undo the damage if you do have any internal brain damage or

on a mild level, it's possible to reverse it, apparently. Yeah, I would imagine so. I mean, there's some pretty cool evidence, even with exogenous ketones and TBIs and stuff like that. I work a lot with special forces, and that's a huge element of what they work on there. It's just obviously there's micro-concussions all the time. Every time there's a blast, every time there's a big blast, a small blast. So it makes you really start to wonder about those things.

When did you first, so you said you were a runner, but when did you first discover fitness, like weightlifting? I would say like 12 or 13, so still a young age. Yeah, so even concurrently with running, but it wasn't something that I was really obsessed with until later. So I was running, I would run to the gym. I remember being 13, my parents going through a divorce and just being like,

Getting up super early, getting up at 4:30 a.m. and running three miles to the gym, training, doing what I thought was training. I mean, I didn't really know what I was doing. And then running back home and then getting ready for school, riding my bike to school. I was like obsessively active. But I kind of, sounds so cliche to say,

but I really did fall in love with the pain that I could get from resistance training. Whereas with running, there was like a necessary evil I would have to get through before I would start getting fatigued. Like I was so conditioned as a runner, it would take me four, five, six, seven miles before I'd start to get to that pain point. Whereas with the resistance training, I was like, oh my gosh, this is cool. I can bring pain to myself in like 15 seconds. And

It's so weird because I thought I was just a badass as a kid. I was like, oh, this is cool. I wasn't a badass at all. But internally, it was like, this is cool. I'm masochistic. I want pain. I want pain. No pain, no gain. But now as an adult, I look back and

And I'm like, man, that was just a coping mechanism. It's like, I don't want to get too dark here, but it's like people cut, people do those kinds of things to bring pain upon themselves, to feel control, to do those things. And I'm like, I just found, thank God, an outlet that worked. And that's how I found some pain that was like, I feel alive. I feel alive. I feel this. And quite honestly, it probably saved my life. I don't think that that's weird to say at all. I personally...

self-harmed in college and finding weightlifting for me had the same effect. It was that like grounding feeling of I'm real, I'm on earth. Like it kind of does pull you back down. And yeah, I think the pain you get from weightlifting can be really therapeutic and it can get you through a lot. And for me, it was kind of like the replacement of self-harm. So I think that's actually a great conclusion to make. So I want to talk about the weight gain.

Because I also, kind of similar story to you, but I rapidly gained weight around the time I was self-harming during that rough period of my life. I got up to 245 pounds. What led to your weight gain initially? So on the surface, it was...

Getting out of doing cross country and rugby in high school and you know, okay, I need to put on some muscle. I need to do that. Turned, started out like pretty benign like that. And then flash forward, really it was okay, I put on like 20, 30, 40 pounds, like good healthy weight and that was great. But then kind of that all or nothing sort of mentality. I'm like, okay, I would need to get bigger. I need to get bigger. And then I get launched into like a corporate world where I'm also sedentary at the same time.

And before I know it, really like months go by and I'm like, okay, I'm not going to the gym nearly as much. I'm stressed out. I'm just trying, you know, I lost kind of my motivation for the gym, but I was still eating such a way. And then I just started feeling like crap and it just turned into this like cycle. So on the surface, it's like, okay, well, here's what happened. It was pretty basic. It was a bulk gone wrong. People have all these different things for it. But now, again, as an adult, I look back at this and I'm like, was this some weird thing

extension of that, like self-sabotage. Like was I trying to, because my mother was so hard on me about like, well, you know, you're going to look fat if you do that. Things like things that she shouldn't have said. And my mom was a really good mom, but she would say things that would sometimes just like to my sister and I that now, especially as a dad, I'm like, holy moly, like that's rough. Right. And so

So sometimes I think, okay, did I do this out of rebellion? Like, was it, because I knew what I was doing was unhealthy. Like going to Jack in the Box and, you know, getting six or eight tacos, like you don't do that consciously knowing that like, oh, well this could be healthy. Like, come on, get real. So I'm like, is this an element of self-sabotage? Like, was it a different form of coping mechanism or rebellion against my mom? Because I went through so much of my life being OCD and, you know, literally anorexic. It was like, who knows? It was such a, just a

Completely opposite end of the spectrum, but the same condition. Yeah. Do you feel like there's a lack of men on social media or in the public space speaking about eating disorders? Totally. Well, and a lot of it is because, to be fully frank here, they don't feel like they have a license to.

They feel like if they do, and I've seen it, and I'm gonna be real here, and it might piss some people off, but I've seen it when men talk about it, a lot of women flood in the comments and say, "You don't know what it feels like. You don't know what it feels like."

bullshit. Like we do, we have pressures in different ways. And like, that's not discounting the female side of it. But men, a lot of times the people that I've talked to is I talked to a few in the fitness industry specifically that battle with this body dysmorphia and Orlando Bloom, the actor, he's a really good friend of mine. And he's literally filming a video right now. It's called the

the cut and it's about this and I'm so stoked that Hollywood is even recognizing this and so I was helping him with his like his transition to he had to get really skinny for this he's playing a boxer that is has to get super super lean and drop a bunch of weight and it's talking about like the ends that people will go to to look a certain way or to do it and to bring awareness on the male side of this and

And I feel like we have our egos, you know, it makes it difficult. Like if we talk about an eating disorder, that's a huge weakness for us, right? That's like, okay, we're supposed to be the strong ones. We're not supposed to, but in reality, it takes a lot more strength to just be real and accept that, like, hey, we have standards that we're supposed to live up to. And a lot of times the women that have gone through eating disorders are the ones that understand the men that go through eating disorders.

The ones that tell men that they don't understand what it's like are ones that have never actually experienced it. All the women that I've met that have gone through eating disorders or been overweight have been extremely empathetic and understanding of my situation. It's a lot of men and women that have never experienced that that invalidate your feelings with that. It's kind of funny how that works. I also think with a dramatic weight loss like I've experienced as well.

you kind of teeter on the edge a lot because you, I don't know about you, but I had this fear of going backwards when I began losing weight and I got to the end of it and I was like, okay, well, if I have one cheat meal or if I go off the rails a little bit here, then am I the same person that I was before? And it starts to mentally confuse you and you start to kind of become obsessed with

with the actual weight loss. And I think I've been pretty lucky in that I haven't fully gone there. I appreciate you speaking about it because I will say, I don't think I've seen a lot of men speak about eating disorders. And I personally know men in the fitness industry who have struggled with it because I think even in 2017, when I got into the fitness industry and there was like the, if it fits your macros culture and the physique and the competition, like that was a

a rough time to be on social media in the fitness industry. I totally agree. And I feel like if it fits your macros, I think it works for some people, but for the wrong person, it can be very dangerous because it teaches an obsession with

just that number and not wholesome food. And although I understand and I believe in thermodynamics, I think sometimes this like over fixation on the number that can be just as detrimental as a fixation on carbohydrates or fixation on the scale still fixation on something. I would find myself

still like tracking calories as a means of coping even during my weight loss occasionally and I would stop myself. I don't need to do this. Like I intuitively know how to kind of, you know, reel this in. But I think people like you and I, like sometimes we just want that little bit of control. It just gives us, pacifies us just a little bit to feel like we're not totally aimless and, you know, it stops us from doing something the other direction, right? Doing drugs or whatever might get you that satisfaction otherwise.

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How do you now, I mean, obviously with your career, you have to be relatively careful about the way you eat, the way you look. How do you avoid eating?

going over the line of thinking in a disordered way. Yeah, that's a really tough one. My kids have helped a lot with that because I just prioritize my kids so much that I can't let them see that, right? And I'm with them all the time, so I'm not going to hide it. And there's occasional periods where my son will be like, well, you know, he said something to my wife where he was like,

"Oh, don't tell dad I ate that." And my wife told me about it. I was like, "Shoot, like, okay, I need to check myself." Because clearly, like, I'm having some language around him that's making him feel like he shouldn't eat that. So I have a constant checks and balances externally. We all are human as parents. We all, like, try to refine and get better. But, you know, for me,

Focusing on performance, although it's another metric that you have to be careful with, has helped me a lot because I realized that, okay, rather than looking at some like arbitrary body fat number or how I look in the mirror, if I focus on how I feel throughout my performance based on like a rating of perceived exertion,

I feel like that helps me a lot because I'm just like, okay, I may be 1% higher body fat than I was a month ago, but my running's improving, my lifting's improving, my mental well-being's improving. So I try to look at everything on like, what is my rating of perceived exertion just in life?

Like am I struggle busing through this in an effort to look good? Well that's not a win. So I really try to go based on feel now and how my performance is and it's helped me a lot. You know then while just keeping an honest healthy checks and balances once again of sure okay yeah I'm supposed to look a certain way for my brand it kind of is who I'm expected to be but it's also who I am. It's not like I'm doing it for other people. So I think that's the operative thing here is like am I doing it for other people? My wife tells me all the time she says

you would be doing what you're doing whether you were making money doing it or not. So it's like even though it's your career let's be real here like you would be doing this either way. I'm like you're totally right. Like it's 100%. She sounds like a good voice of reason. Yeah.

I don't know about you, but I think when you're associated with a transformation, like I lost weight 2017. I don't know. When did you lose your weight? It was like 2009 to 2011. So I don't know about you, but people always like to them, I am the transformation girl. And they're like, what was the exact moment you decided to lose weight? And I'm like, well, it wasn't really a moment. It was more just like,

a reality check and me taking a second to be still and look around and be like oh I really have put myself in a bad position here did you have a moment or was there like a rock bottom place you were in with the weight game where you were like enough is enough yeah you probably heard me talk about maybe my jack-in-the-box story I mean that was the big one which it wasn't like a huge

It was the big pivotal moment for me, but coming out of the Jack in the Box drive-thru, which was like my normal thing, except that was in another area of town where I normally wouldn't get seen going to Jack in the Box. So the point in all this is I was going to fast food

assuming that people never expected me to go to fast food. And that was probably hiding from like mom, right? It was kind of like mom saw me getting, you know, fast food right now. Like what would she say to me? Really like it's such a part of society. Like nobody probably would have given two craps at all if I went there, right? But anyway, I was afraid of it. I didn't want to get discovered.

And I pulled into a spot just outside the drive-thru and I was chowing down on tacos and a buddy of mine, kind of just an acquaintance that I wasn't really close with drove by and he saw me just chowing down on tacos and just waved at me. And it was like that moment when I'm like, he just recognized me. He saw me, I'm caught, I'm busted, but he didn't look like a deer in the headlights. He just looked like this is what I expect Thomas to do on a Thursday afternoon. So with that, it was like this really interesting moment of shame where I'm just like, this is how people see me.

And there's that people-pleasing sort of repeat mentality that's been recurring throughout my life. But I'm just like, this is how people see me? Like, they see me as the Jack in the Box guy? Like, he didn't, like, stop. He didn't call me and be like, what are you doing at Jack in the Box? He's just like, that's expected for Thomas.

So it was at that moment where I'm like, okay. So I finished my tacos and then I actually went back to Jack in the Box one more time and then that was it. Grand finale. Yeah, I did. I don't remember how many tacos I got, but it was a good one. Did your mom ever have a reaction to that time in your life? No, strangely enough. She was...

I remember my grandma. This is actually funny. I remember my grandma saying, it was like when I was probably like maybe 250, 260 pounds, like on my way up. My grandma's being like, well, you know, you won't be able to sit at that table because you're fat. And I'm just like, I remember saying to her, well, I'm not fat, I'm buff. Like Eric Cartman. And she was like, well, she's like, you may not be front fat like this. She's like, but you're just fat. And I was just like...

shoot. And then after that, my mom made a few comments, you know, just about grandma saying that, you know, grandma was just blunt. Like grandmas are right. Like they just will say it. And she was just like, you're not front fat. You're just overall fat. I've never heard that phrase. I didn't have a huge belly. I was just like, I looked like, I mean, I did. I was like a

47 inch waist, but it was like I looked like a like a middle lineman, you know? Yeah. And it was so I was just big all over and like so but now my mom didn't really say anything. But I mean at that point I

I didn't have a super close relationship with my mom. It was after high school and I wasn't super, super close with my mom after that anyway. So no, not a whole lot. What was your initial step for the weight loss? I want to hear about the initial step, but I'd also love to know the end vision. Did you have an end goal or was it kind of day by day? Yeah. I'd say the good news is that my goal really was to feel better. I was diagnosed type 2 diabetic about, I don't know, six months prior. So

But I didn't really care. Like I was young, you know, like Chris Williamson would say, like you're made of rubber and magic at that age. And you're like, this isn't going to affect me. This isn't going to do much. So that wasn't a huge deal for me. So the first thing I did, I mean, I really did start just by, okay, I'm going to try counting some calories. I'm going to try doing like six meals per day kind of thing. It didn't work. It really just didn't. And the biggest reason it didn't work for me was because I could not have food in front of me that frequently. Like I could probably come up with some biochemical reason as to why it wasn't working and make a video out of it. But

That's really just getting too granular. I think the bottom line is that it was very difficult for me to have, you know, six repeat occurrences each day where I would have to face food. Like food was an addiction for me at that point. Like I was eating pure junk. I mean, I really was. So to have like, even if it was chicken, broccoli and rice in front of me,

it was just frustrating. So that was six times per day I'd be like infinitely frustrated, you know? So I'm like, there's gotta be something different. So I ended up finding intermittent fasting first because it was just a way for me to abstain from food. And it was really like, you know, some friends that I had in the physician community with the industry that I was in kind of turned me on to it.

And they were just, yeah, we've had success with patients. And their words to me were like, your kind of mindset. We just think this would work well for you because you're such an all or nothing person. I'm like, hey, I actually found something that actually would jive with my personality because this just makes sense. And again, kind of like marching to the beat of a different drum. I'm like,

if I'm supposed to eat like X number of calories per day, like who cares if I'm having that in like two meals instead of six, like isn't it all the same? So I kind of intermittent fasted my way through the first few months. I'm like, wait a minute. Okay, cool. Like lost 50 pounds in like three and a half months. Like this actually works. And then as the road went on, then I added keto into the mix just because I got interested in it. I just got interested in why fasting was working. And at the time there was

really preliminary research on like understanding like the relationship between ketones and fasting for things other than epilepsy and I became interested in that and then kicks in the obsession obsessed with fasting obsessed with keto probably a little too much but it changed my life so I don't regret it yeah yeah I feel the same way with my journey you got to reach a level of obsession at some point and then know when to reel it in can anyone

benefit from intermittent fasting, specifically women? Like would you recommend it to your wife, for example? I have, my wife has done it from time to time. You know, I think that there are benefits. I think it's really a lot more nuanced than what people give it credit for. I think that, yes, there's obviously a calorie piece, but I think for people like especially women,

I think being able to have some level of insulin modulation is quite powerful. Because insulin dances such a nice dance with progesterone and with estrogen and

It's like if you can stabilize insulin, a lot of times you see stabilization there. Knowing what I know now about the relationship with PCOS and insulin resistance and all of this, it's like, wow, okay, it does make sense. So my wife toyed around with it. She has a hard time fasting, so it's not something that she wants to stick to all the time, but she saw results when she was messing around with it a little bit. But the same kind of dynamic with keto for her worked really, really well.

She just doesn't like to go periods without eating. And that's totally fine. If that doesn't jive for you, that doesn't jive. But keto worked phenomenally well for her. And the same kind of thing. There's a lot of women out there that just don't like to eat throughout the course of the day. I talk to them all the time, whether it's digestive issues, they feel bloated throughout the day, and they just feel better. So I think, heck yeah. I mean, there's no real downside to it as long as you're, again, keeping things in check and not going to an extreme.

How does it benefit blood sugar? That might sound like a dumb question, but I'm just curious if you wake up and you're fasted, do you then have a spike right when you eat and how do you control that? Yeah, I think it all comes down to what you eat, of course. But yeah, I think the more that you fast, you develop a level of what's called peripheral insulin resistance, which is where you're essentially your body has become so accustomed to using alternative fuels that

that when you do give it glucose, it might spike a little bit, but it's just because the body's adjusted to reallocating glucose to the brain. So in other words, your periphery, like all your tissues, are really good at utilizing free fatty acids. So your baseline glucose could actually go up

But it's simply because it's not getting used by the periphery and getting allocated to the brain, which needs the glucose. So it's like a preservation mechanism to make sure the brain has glucose. But on paper, it looks bad. It looks like, okay, this is insulin resistance. But there's a very, very strong difference between pathological insulin resistance and peripheral insulin resistance. And as far as when you eat something having your blood sugar spike, yeah, if you were to be fasted,

it's kind of like, you know, I always say like the white noise effect. It's like if you are fasting, you've essentially turned off the white noise of insulin and blood sugar for a while. Like you kind of come back to stabilization. But then all of a sudden, like if you were turning on a fan right now and you had it going for two days,

you wouldn't really hear the fan anymore, right? That's kind of how I like an insulin resistance. It's like the fan's just on, so you just can't really hear it. But if someone turns that fan off, then all of a sudden it's like, whoa, it's super quiet. It's like eerily quiet. And then when someone turns that fan on again, you're like, whoa, that's loud. And then, you know, a day or two goes by and you don't even hear the fan. So it's kind of that way with insulin resistance and glucose when you're fasting. It's like everything clears out and then all of a sudden you add carbohydrates back into the mix. It's like, whoa, big shock. And then everything kind of stabilizes.

That's why when you break a fast, you know, start with protein, start with something like that and slowly add the carbohydrates in after you've broken your fast already. I would never suggest someone go 16, 18, 20 hours and then you just eat a bunch of rice or something without at least some protein to blunt it. Why did you initially start keto?

For me, it was a lot of curiosity. You know, I was getting benefits out of fasting. I was never someone that felt particularly good eating carbs. I was somewhat brainwashed into thinking that if I wanted to be a good runner, I needed to do what all the other runners were doing, which was like carb load before races and things like that. So it wasn't that I thought any way was like good, bad or ugly. It was just like, this is what I was supposed to do. I'm a runner. I'm an athlete. Like I eat carbs. Uh,

not knowing until I was fasting that when I wasn't eating, I was feeling really good. And I'm like, is something wrong with me? How come I feel so good when I don't eat? Like, is something seriously wrong? And then when I tried keto, I'm like, well, I feel kind of the same as I do when I'm fasting. So the common denominator here seems to be the carbohydrates make me feel not too good.

That being said, I know lots of people that feel tremendous on carbs. I also know lots of people that thought they felt tremendous on carbs until they removed them. But, I mean, that being said, like, I am not anti-carb. I still have carbs in my diet. I mess around with it. I cycle in and out of keto. The point is, I felt so good. It was easy for me to adhere to it. So that's why I stuck with it. I could say the exact same thing. I felt like dieting or cutting on keto was so much easier for me because I felt satiated and I didn't feel like I had...

the same ups and downs of my energy level and hunger cues, I guess. And also cognitively, I feel like it's a great diet. One thing that I found, I was keto, I think probably for too long. You said you cycle in and out of it now. Do you think it's better done that way? Because I found when I was keto for two, three years, I would then tested my gut and found that I was missing a lot of the essential bacteria that I needed.

How does that add up? Yeah, I think there's some merit there. I think that, you know, what I've learned, I wouldn't say I would do it all over again because I had a period of time for, it was like two or three years straight where I didn't like having any carbs, you know, and I felt really, really good. However, yeah, knowing what I know now about the gut microbiome and the diversity there, I don't know if I would say that it's important that everyone cycles keto from the get-go, but it is definitely important that you prioritize your gut microbiome, which I was not doing with keto.

Like I was not paying attention to robust amounts of leafy greens. I was not paying attention to polyphenols. I was not eating any fruit because at the time it was like, no, you don't do fruit at all. And like since then we've seen a fair bit of literature that suggests that especially if you're active, you can tolerate some fruit on keto. You know, so I really wasn't taking care of my microbiome. So I think that I noticed that pattern, like people go on keto and then next thing you know,

they're starting to have like the keto junk foods and then it's like, okay, if that's happening, you're kind of telling yourself that maybe you need to take a little break.

But people think like the keto police are going to come get you if you ever come out of keto. And I realized like once I sort of dropped that veil for a little bit, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to worry about that. If my body is craving carbohydrates, as long as I eat close to the earth, like I'm going to have those carbohydrates because I really look at it from an athlete perspective. If my body and my brain is telling me I need them, but cycling in and out I think is quite important, not just for the microbiome, but more so even just for glucose tolerance. Right.

There's rodent model studies that suggest that when you go keto for a long period of time, you start losing glucose tolerance where it's essentially the cells kind of lose the machinery to metabolize carbohydrates properly because they're so conditioned for using fats, which is totally cool. But the good literature also suggests that that's reversed again within one to two weeks. So what that tells us is that, okay, occasionally dipping your toe in the water

and reestablishing a relationship with carbs to allow glucose metabolism is a perfectly healthy thing. And we have a lot of people on the internet now saying that metabolic flexibility doesn't exist and that it's really just... Which irritates me because in the same breath, we can talk about glucose tolerance where the data is quite strong. Like if you eliminate carbs for a long period of time and then you all of a sudden add a bolus of carbs back in, you're going to spike like crazy because your body doesn't know how to facilitate the utilization of those at that time. It's not permanent, and then it settles back down.

The same could be said for fat adaptation, for utilizing fats. It's like you don't develop the mitochondrial machinery, the carnitine palmitoyl transferase 1, all the ability to utilize those fats. So being able to have the best of both worlds from a positive perspective, for me, I'm like, I need to have periods of time where I'm leaning into fats and protein more, particularly with my endurance training. And then there's periods of time when I go more anaerobic, where I might add more carbs in. And I want to be good at metabolizing both.

Let's say someone wants to gain muscle. I mean, you're pretty muscular. You obviously lift weights. How do you prioritize muscle gain or maintenance while intermittent fasting or eating keto? Yeah. Well, I think the first important thing to note is with intermittent fasting, I don't fast every day. For fasting, I will fast two or three days per week. I still do. 18-ish hours, three days per week, two to three days per week. So it's an anomaly for me. It's the stressor. It's not the norm. So with that...

It's not like I am not eating any food and magically gaining muscle. That's a common misconception. I go, "Well, how can you gain muscle? You're never eating." Well, no, I'm never eating for two days, 18 hours at a time.

And I'm making sure that I'm still getting enough calories to maintain muscle throughout the course of the week. But the main thing is prioritizing the stimulus of the muscle. That's the biggest thing. I mean, Dr. Don Lehman, he's one of the leading protein, if not the godfather of protein research. He has suggested that up to 75% of really being able to have good protein synthesis comes down to the work you put in the gym. It really is. It's that stimulus. So for me, if I'm not eating, if I'm fasting, I'm still lifting.

I'm still keeping a constant reminder on the muscle that, hey, this is relevant. Keep this muscle. Don't burn it. Because if I was sitting on the couch while I was fasting, then the body might say, okay, well, we're in survival mode. Do we really need this muscle? Let's start breaking it down. So I keep a constant reminder by, you know, even like microdosing exercise, I always say, like, if you can't get to the gym for an hour or an hour and a half in the morning, like,

Have some dumbbells at your house and do a random two or three sets every hour throughout the course of the day. Do something like that. And the point is I keep that constant stimulus. The other thing is kind of cliche but prioritize protein like above all else. And that means that sometimes I don't get enough fiber. That means sometimes I don't get enough fat. Sometimes I don't get enough carbohydrates. I don't get enough XYZ. But the most important thing is for me getting that protein in. That's for a multitude of different reasons. So for me it hasn't been hard to maintain and even build muscle

And I think it's a common misconception once again that carbs are required to build muscle. Like that is sure, that could be an additional anabolic signal, you know, from an insulin perspective. But protein itself, leucine, whey protein, anything is going to stimulate that same effect of mTOR that's going to trigger muscle growth. As long as you're in a potential surplus or your protein, you're in a net protein balance, you know, or positive nitrogen balance where you have more protein.

You're gonna gain muscle. You arguably could even gain muscle without being in a caloric surplus as long as protein needs are met and above and beyond and there's proper stimulus. For someone listening who is a woman, which is a majority of my audience, and they want to get enough protein in, what do you recommend? Yeah, I think again people get really, really overly concerned with or getting fixated on one kind of protein.

I don't think people should throw the baby out with the bathwater and they should still continue to look at all sources of protein, right? So don't be afraid of some of the plant-based sources of protein, how those adds up as well. I know a lot of times with a lot of the females that I talk to, they're just like, I don't want to eat a ton of meat. Like it feels weird eating a ton of

mean. I think that is starting to be broken down. Those walls are getting broken down. We're seeing more and more women just being like, you know what? This is good. Protein's good. So I usually focus on eggs in the morning. Obviously, that's an easy one. Don't be afraid of having a protein shake here and there. I think there's, again, this big ordeal where it's like protein shakes are like junk food and they're for men. I don't think either of that's true. I think a properly implemented protein shake is very important and it should be treated as such. It's a supplement. It's

It's not a food. It's not a meal replacement. It literally even says that on the label. Like, this is not intended to be a food. It is a supplement. And if you shift your mindset to treat it as such and you get something wholesome, there's nothing wrong with having a 30-gram protein shake. It's not about getting the calories in. It's about if that 30 grams is what you need, if that 30 grams is the difference between you being in a net negative position

protein balance and a net positive protein balance, it's a no-brainer because you may not have the ability to sit down and eat a chicken breast right then and there. So don't be afraid of the protein shake. And I just know this because

the protein shakes have the stigma of, I don't want to get bulky. I don't want to do this. It doesn't work like that. And just find one that you like. As far as like dinner time goes, like try to go with something that's a little bit more fun. I mean, like for my wife and I, like we do a lot of stir fry. We do a lot of things like that where you're adding a bunch of veggies in, but you're adding the meat in. It doesn't feel like you're adding tons of protein in.

You know, little things like that. In terms of intermittent fasting, I believe there was a viral clip from Peter Attia the other day that I saw where he was arguing that there's no difference between eating a certain amount of calories all day versus within a certain time window. What do you say to that? So it's kind of interesting because I think from a basic thermodynamic perspective, I

That is true, right? Like it's, if one works for you and one doesn't, but you're netting out the same, then sure. But I think that we are missing a lot of the evidence that suggests like circadian cues and the balance there. We also have to look at like for metabolically unhealthy people. This is where you've seen the research and there's some, even the abstracts will say like for metabolically unhealthy people or people that have serious metabolic dysfunction, intermittent fasting shows extreme promise above and beyond for those that are healthy.

So I think, you know, Peter and I had him on my channel and we kind of talked about this a little bit. He really balanced it out by talking about his almost obsession with fasting where he was doing these prolonged fasts all the time. So he made a pretty big rebound from doing like multi-day fasts monthly.

And I think he's just trying to rebound and say, "Hey, wait a minute, like intermittent fasting is okay, but don't think that it's anything above regular caloric restriction." Which I think is a fair argument for a clinician to make. I feel like it would be hard for him to go out and make a bold claim given his clinician status. So I understand his need to make both parties happy there. Because is it a glass half full or glass half empty discussion?

I'm perfectly happy to say, "Hey, intermittent fasting works just as well as caloric restriction," because I personally know how hard it is to just calorically restrict.

I think it's actually beneficial that he tells people that because it's not for years we had to combat people saying like it doesn't work. Intermittent fasting doesn't work. You're going to lose muscle. You're not going to lose fat the same way. Just count calories and eat six meals per day. So I'm actually happy to see people saying, hey, it's just as good, but it's totally a glass half full, glass half empty. You know, is it just as good or just as bad? Yeah. And I feel like there's a big mental aspect to fasting.

intermittent fasting. Like I think there is something to be said about number one, if it's someone like you who kind of has this issue with around food, then removing eating as a variable can be really helpful. But in the same way, if you're training yourself to be more disciplined or wherever someone's at in their journey, it could also be helpful to just like

remove yourself from that indulgence, right? Like I think it can really build that discipline that a lot of people want in a fitness journey. Yeah, absolutely. And when you're looking at like metabolic

dysfunction altogether, stabilizing insulin levels and improving insulin resistance. The evidence is quite strong with intermittent fasting and time-restricted feeding in general on insulin resistance in unhealthy people. Seems to be marginally better than just caloric restriction, probably because in those situations you have mitochondrial dysfunction that

flat out just needs to learn how to use alternative energy. Or you need that AMPK switch flipped, which is essentially teaching your body to be able to tap into your stored fuel better.

which sounds so like over-marketed and over-hyped, like, oh, tap into your stored fuel. But that's the pure purpose behind AMPK phosphorylation. Like when you get into a deficit, whether it be induced through caloric restriction, whether it be induced through fasting, whether it be induced through exercise, you're still phosphorylating AMPK and you're triggering your body to start tapping into what's available on you. So what you have on tap, like if I were to go out and run 10 miles right now,

my body's going to start tapping into my glycogen, it's going to start tapping into my fat. There's nothing market-y or overhyped about that. That's just the way life is. But unfortunately things get twisted so much. So anytime you say tap into your stored fuel or anything, it sounds like you're a total pseudoscientist and like some zealot. But that's not. It's just the way the body works. So whether it's caloric restriction, exercise, fasting, you're still phosphorylating AMPK.

And it's a dimmer switch, not a light switch. So in other words, if I go into a 10 calorie deficit, I'm not flipping this switch to start pulling stored body fat the same as if I had been fasting for 24 hours. It's a dimmer switch. So how much you are actually tapping into your body's stored fuel is attenuated or accelerated based upon how deep the fast is, how intense the exercise is, etc., etc.,

What is your ideal eating window? So recently I started doing a lot more like time-restricted feeding. So I know it's not always realistic for people. And when I say early time-restricted feeding, that's like cutting off food maybe at like 3 p.m. a couple days per week or 2 p.m. and just skipping dinner a couple days per week. It can be a little hard with the family, but doing it a couple days per week is totally reasonable. And I fell in love with that just because of how it regulated my sleep.

And that's like most of the research that's coming out now on early time restricted feeding, which is very, very strong. And Huberman talks about this all the time. So it's, yeah, it's things like that where I don't understand how we could completely say that fasting is the same as caloric restriction, like maybe for basic weight loss, but there's other things that trickle that cascade further. Like if I'm going to sleep better,

then my weight loss is probably going to be better. We've seen with Matthew Walker, all this stuff, we're prioritizing sleep now. So shouldn't we be doing things to prioritize sleep? Why are we still bashing fasting in an early time restricted feeding fashion? So what I'll do is I'll typically, you know, on those days, I'll wake up, I'll work out, and then I'll, you know, I'll eat a small breakfast like right after I work out and then maybe an hour later or so, I'll eat something larger. I'll eat like a larger breakfast. So that first one's kind of a mini breakfast.

And then a few hours later, I'll eat a high protein lunch. It varies, right? It could be salmon, it could be chicken, it could be whatever. And then I'll usually do one more kind of small meal. So it's a pretty low calorie day. And that'll be like maybe 3 p.m. And then I'll just cut it off then and then not fast the next day. So it's really not like this aggressive, crazy pattern. It's just, okay, two or three days out of the week, I stop eating at 2 or 3 p.m. It's that simple.

I used to do more of the traditional kind of 18 or 20 hour just fast throughout the course of the day. But what I was realizing, and it still worked really well, obviously, for body composition. What I was realizing is I was like backloading so much of my day with calories that I was like stuffing so much in the evening time that it was disrupting my sleep. Yeah. So even though it worked really well for body composition, it kept me lean because I'd like go throughout the day pretty much starving, not literally starving. But, you know, by the time I would get so hungry and I'd want to eat at the end of the day,

the tendency to overindulge was a lot higher, but more importantly, it just disrupted my sleep. Yeah. I've always felt better when I eat. My rule right now is I try to stop eating by seven just to give myself a couple hours to digest. Then we always do an evening walk. But my husband has recently been cutting dinner, so I'm eating alone right now. But he's like you. He's very all or nothing. So he's really into fasting at the moment. I want to do a quick rapid fire Q&A, some questions from the community.

Most harmful ingredient to look for on nutrition labels? Ooh, I think titanium dioxide.

Titanium dioxide. What's that in? It's pretty gnarly stuff. This is stuff that's in like Mentos. It's like what gives like a shiny consistency or like those little Debbie's cakes that have the shininess on the like the white frosting. Yeah. You know, working on getting them banned in the EU and they might already be there. I think Canada's banned them. Like it's just not good stuff. Like it's just a bad ingredient all around for a multitude of different reasons. Like there's toxicology reports that are starting to suggest it's, yeah, it's not good stuff. Okay. Good to know. This is...

inspired by Greg, my husband. You're on a road trip. You have to choose between McDonald's, Chick-fil-A or Chipotle. Where are you going? Good question. Okay. If I'm keto, it's going to be Chipotle because their chicken is just good quality chicken, but it is higher fat. So it is a fattier cut. If I'm trying to watch my fat intake and my calories, it's going to be Chick-fil-A and just get a chicken breast.

McDonald's is not even an option. Unless it's like for an iced tea or something. Okay, great. Three non-negotiables in your morning routine. Spend time with my kids. Absolutely non-negotiable. Some kind of activity, whether even if it's like recovery, if it ends up being foam rolling or something like that. It's like some, I don't feel right. My brain does not feel right if I am not active. And then usually green tea is almost a non-negotiable. Like I just love my green tea. Used to be coffee, but green tea is my jam. Love it.

What kind of fat or oil are you cooking with right now? Usually lard or tallow. That's like my favorite to cook with just because it's so stable. And then if it's going to be a lower temperature, it's macadamia nut oil. Nice. I've been doing tallow recently. I love it. Dairy or no dairy? Dairy.

Ooh, raw? Yeah, oh yeah. But we're in California. So I started creating content on raw dairy and then I realized that we're one of the few states that's legal to get raw dairy in. So I'm like, people were like, well, this isn't cool. Like, I can't get this. I'm like, okay, I won't do content on it. But yeah, raw dairy is awesome. Where do you get it from? Sprouts. Thoughts on gluten? I avoid it. Yeah, I, you know, could I pull some speculative research?

Yeah, I can. There's like stuff on prolamins and how, you know, the gluten gliadin, how that like prolamin effect. But my wife had Hashimoto's, right? So TPO antibodies, there is some correlation between gluten and TPO antibodies. So my wife cut out gluten and was able to go off all her thyroid meds. And by default, I just did it with her and I felt so much better. And now maybe I've created an intolerance, but if I ever get gluten, I don't feel normal. I don't feel right. So I'm not saying that everyone needs to avoid it.

But the bottom line is there's an overconsumption of it. So it wouldn't surprise me if something has started in our ecosystems. Do you drink alcohol? No. Not at all? No. Wow. Do you smoke weed? I don't smoke weed. Occasionally I'll have a THC gummy. But honestly, if I do it too much, I start feeling kind of weird. Like I feel like I would get in the habit of taking THC gummies before bed. It was just kind of disruptive. So I prefer like more CBD, CBN. Dr. Amen will be happy with you then. Favorite healthy dessert?

Heavy cream mixed with, like, sweetened with monk fruit over some berries. That's, like, awesome. That's very English of you. We eat that a lot in the UK. Yeah? Yeah. Do you sweeten it or do you just use unsweetened cream? Unsweetened. Yeah, it tastes good. I mean, you don't need to sweeten it. I just, I like sweet things. I love heavy cream. It's the best thing ever. In the UK, we pour it on anything. Not anything. Have you ever poured it on frozen berries? Oh, no. Yeah, where it kind of, like, ices over? Yeah. Oh, that's a good idea.

Okay. Last question. One piece of advice you'd have for someone listening who wants to lose weight or transform their life. Yeah, I would say the kind of ironic thing is it's a little bit the opposite of fasting. Let's say go back to eating a larger breakfast, a moderate lunch and a small dinner. Breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, dinner like a popper. It sounds so counterintuitive. Why would I eat a big breakfast? Front loading your day with calories seems to be pretty effective at keeping you satiated throughout the course of the day.

But the other benefits of just having like a small breakfast or a small dinner end up being really strong for sleep. So just to get you feeling good and getting things started, I think that's a great first step for people. Yeah. And it's kind of backwards to the way we traditionally do it here. I feel like dinner is the biggest meal. We absolutely do it backwards. Yeah. Now it's time for the question we ask every guest. I started this podcast because I believe everyone's pursuit of wellness looks different. What does wellness mean to you? Wellness means just being damn happy.

And it's just like people might get themselves confused on what happiness truly is. And I always say that if you can't be happy in a room with no windows and no doors and just blank walls, then you've got work to do. And that doesn't mean that everyone goes out and tries to lock themselves in a room, but it means that if you can't be, if you're antsy over everything, if you can't sit there and just be and love yourself in a room with no windows, no doors, nothing else but you, then you've got work to do.

Love that. Where can people find you online? Where can they go watch your content? More so, where can they hide from me? In that room with no windows. Nowhere is safe. Windows, no doors. YouTube, just Thomas DeLauer. Instagram, Thomas DeLauer, thomastelauer.com. Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to today's episode. Go comment on my last Instagram, at Mari Llewellyn, with the guest you want to see next.

I'll be picking one person from the comments to send our Bloom Greens to. Make sure you hit follow so you never miss my weekly episodes. If you enjoyed the conversation, be sure to share and leave a review. See you next week.